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The Best Marketing Books

Here are our Best Marketing Books – useful whether you want to market yourself or your business.

This Is Marketing by Seth Godin

More a set of ideas than a how-to, Godin’s book provides a new way of looking at marketing. His big idea is to use marketing to solve other people’s problems.

Use marketing to make the world better – be insightful or funny or educational or be ignored.

Practical approaches include:

  • how to identify the smallest viable audience
  • building trust and permission with your market
  • adopting narratives your fans already use
  • finding the guts to create and release tension
  • giving people tools and stories they can use to achieve their goals. 

This book is a good primer on how to connect with your customers.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini

This is a marketing classic, explaining persuasion and why people say “yes”.

The premise of the book is that due to an information surplus, people rely on generalizations to make decisions in order to save time and mental energy. Developing strategies to take advantage of and defend from this tendency is at the heart of the book.

You’ll learn the 6 principles of persuasion and how to apply them to your marketing. Well worth a read.

Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

These INSEAD business school professors outline the benefits of creating your own ‘blue ocean’ space rather than competing in the existing ‘red ocean’, where the waters are bloody due to intense competition.

Key examples include the Nintendo Wii – rather than compete on technological capability, Nintendo deliberately made a cheaper, more interactive and inclusive console that went after untapped areas of the market. It was a huge success.

The book provides several examples and is similar in philosophy to Peter Thiel’s belief in creating a monopoly.

The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

A fundamental book that collects over 40 years of marketing expertise into 22 rules tools and techniques for marketing.

The authors examine both successful and failed marketing campaigns and suggest reasons for both.

They then take this analysis to create their widely applicable laws which offer a great starting point for thinknig about your brand positioning.

dot: Rory Sutherland: Thinking like a marketing genius

Sutherland is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy where he’s co-founded a behavioral science practice within an advertising agency.

This is a short collection of his highlights, short and actionable marketing insights, based on the psychology of consumers.

Pre-Suasion : A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert B. Cialdini

Pre-Suasion is a good companion to Influence, offering revelatory insights into winning people over.

Pre-Suasion highlights how what we do before we ask – subtle turns of phrase, seemingly insignificant visual cues, and apparently unimportant details of location – can prime people to say ‘yes’ before you’ve even started.

If you master this, you’re ready to convince anyone of anything, even yourself.

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller

Using the seven universal elements of powerful stories, Donald Miller walks us through how to really connect you with your customers, simplify your brand message and create the most effective material for their consumption.

Miller doesn’t bother with jargon and explains things clearly, as well as providing clear processes for bringing each story element into your copy.

This is useful for anyone telling a story, about themselves, their company or their brand.

Our Other Favorite Podcasts List

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