The Top 5 Marketing Books of All Time You Need For Your Business

For managers and owners of small businesses, the knowledge and skill of marketing cannot be overemphasized no matter the stage at which the business is – whether it is at the existence, survival, or take-off stage. The business space is a competitive world, and to thrive in it, you need to have a deep understanding of business marketing.

The marketing field is ever-changing, that a business owner has to stay updated on the latest marketing trends to be able to create a robust strategy and marketing plan.

Whether you’re thinking of dipping into outbound or inbound marketing, social media marketing, digital marketing, or content marketing, these 5 books are guaranteed to help you learn from the best marketing industry experts through their experiences in marketing practices.

Let’s get started:

This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See by Seth Godin

Set Godin is a brilliant marketer who over the years has taught and inspired lots of entrepreneurs, businessmen and women, and people from all walks of life through his teachings. In his book, This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See, Godin goes further to offer the core of his marketing wisdom in one accessible, timeless package. The book offers innovative thinking and it teaches that “truly powerful marketing is grounded in empathy, generosity, and emotional labour.”

In this book you will realise the importance of telling honest stories, making connections, and creating experiences and tension to change the status quo as the best marketing practices. You will be guided on the importance of branding, the use of semiotics and language, affiliations to create your tribe.

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace by Al Reis and Jack Trout

Reis and Trout have been in the business of teaching marketing in its simplest form for a very long time. The term positioning was coined by Jack Trout in 1961 and introduced into the advertising and marketing world as a concept in communication. If you are creating a product or brand, this is a must-read for you. The book talks about how to stand out in an overcrowded field, and it isn’t by just being good at what you do as there are many others who are good at what they do as well. In the book, you will learn the importance of establishing your products in the mind of your prospects, and “finding the hole” where others are not (e.g. the masculine-style perfume for women, Charlie), or deliberately playing off of the brand position of another (e.g. Jamaica as the Hawaii of the Caribbean).

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal

This book aims to teach you how successful companies create products people can’t put down. Hooked is an excellent book on the use of psychology in product design. In it, Nir Eyal weaves his insights of technology, business, and psychology into his four-fold model, which explains how to create habit-forming products. The Hooked Model consists of four parts: Trigger, Action, Variable Reward, and Investment. Trigger is what makes a user turn to your product; action is when the user engages your product; variable reward is what the user gets from using your product; and investment is what makes the user return to your product, which makes repeat usage more likely. Whether you’re an entrepreneur just getting started or a business owner wanting to know more about marketing, you’ll love this book.

Email Marketing Rules: Checklists, Frameworks, and 150 Best Practices for Business Success by Chad S. White

If you’ve never done email marketing before, this is just the right book for you as it touches every corner of email marketing. The book provides a solid, safe place for setting up shop and building a successful, sustainable email business. In it, you will find thought-provoking tips on marketing and best practices for email marketing. The book contains gives the readers rules that separate good marketers from great marketers: Metrics, Goals, and Analytics, Letting Go of Benchmarking, Managing Inactives; and Subscriber Acquisition. This is a must-read for anyone interested in email marketing.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath

Chip and Dan Heath in this book, use captivating stories woven around the word SUCCES to shape the thought of its audience towards making ideas stick. Whenever you are thinking of a business idea, consider SUCCES:
S: Is your idea simple?
U: is your idea unexpected?
C: is your idea concrete?
C: is your idea credible?
E: is your idea emotional
S: is your idea a story?

Chip and Dan Heath dissect everything from urban legends to ad campaigns to explain what makes a message resonate in the audience’s mind. This book elaborates on these principles while at the same time adhering to them.

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