9 Marketing Books To Help You Up Your Game

Marketing is one of the best skills to have if you’re a business owner or working for a business where you’d like to grow. It is directly correlated to the growth trajectory of any business and is responsible for the bottom line. If you’re in marketing then you know you’re making an impact, and more importantly, you know how important it is that you make one. 

With the rise of digital marketing, data allows you to know how good you’re doing, and every percent increase in skill level can have a huge influence on revenue generated. There are two ways to get skills, by doing, and by reading. One of the other is good, but both are better. Let’s dive into ten marketing books that can help you take your skills to the next level.

The Art of SEO

(By: Eric Enge,Stephan Spencer )

I included this as number one because SEO is one of the most underestimated, and yet most powerful marketing channels out there. By far, it provides the best ROI on those of all available marketing efforts, when done right. If you’re looking to learn about SEO or to take your game to the next level, this is one of the best books you can read. It offers research, case studies, and the opinions of multiple experts in the field who have a proven track record of success. It talks about what to do, what not to do, and some of the myths surrounding SEO, like whether or not social media plays a role.

Influence

(By: Robert B. Cialdini PhD )

This is a time tested book and one that is recommended by many marketers out there. This book will help you with exactly what the title says. It is a deep dive into what drives us to make decisions and the psychology of everything behind that. It has been made popular by the likes of salespeople, who, with their understanding of human behavior, can often make great marketers. If you want to know what goes behind the art of persuasion, this is your guide

Contagious

(By: Jonah Berger )

This is one of my favorite books that I have read in a long time. It’s a perfect read for any marketer to read but more importantly, those that want to dive into social medial with the hopes of creating viral content. Contagious discusses the why of things catching on and being spread like a virus, hence the name. It talked about the strategies of companies that have done it successfully and will be sure to cause an explosion of ideas for your business as you’re reading it. If I was a marketing professor, this would be a mandatory read.

Brainfluence

(By: Roger Dooley )

Most scientists agree that over 90% of the decisions that we make are usually made by our subconscious mind. There are inner workings of our thoughts and feelings that dictate our actions and drive us toward certain things every day. Imagine the power of having the knowledge of what those things are as a marketing person. Well, this book gives you a small glimpse. It talks about using neuromarketing as a way to find out how to drive your customers to your products. It talks about what made some campaigns, like Coca-Cola’s, be a happy campaign, successful and why we naturally avoid shark objects, hence the poor purchase rates of products on endcaps. This is an impactful marketing book and is as entertaining as it is educational.

Invisible Influence

(By: Jonah Berger )

You won’t learn the subconscious just by reading one book. Which is why this book makes the list. It’s another book that dives into the invisible influences that shape our behavior. It starts off by discussing what influence the decision of our peers have on our purchasing habits and the lack of awareness that we have when it comes to it. While we may feel every decision is our own, the data shows this is far from the truth.

The Conversion Code

(By: Chris Smith )

Once your marketing starts paying off and people are coming your way, especially digitally, you will miss out on a ton of that businesses if you’re not optimized for conversions. The Conversion Code provides case studies that show what converts people and what drives them away. Chief among these being an eye-friendly design of a website, which is something most marketers tend to think doesn’t matter as they tend to be “function over aesthetics.” An eye-opening book on anyone wanting to learn about converting your traffic.

Landing Page Optimization

(By: Tim Ash,Maura Ginty )

Speaking of converting traffic, this book is the holy grail. With many editions of updated content, this book continues to serve as the digital marketers guide to optimizing landing pages so that they are successful. A truly deep dive into the topic and the guide by which many marketers have learned to craft the perfect website and landing page design. This book will save you a ton of time and thousands of dollars on experimentation.

Traction

(By: Gabriel Weinberg )

Marketers have a tough job, one where they must keep to all the trends and have a great overview of everything, while still being able to dive into detail and learn it all. Traction is a book that will help you with the former. It gives examples of how companies can use certain channels to scale and gives ideas on how you can do the same in your company.

Hacking Growth

(By: Sean Ellis,Morgan Brown )

This book is a must-read for anyone looking for unconventional ways to grow the business. While digital marketing is all the rage with SEO, Social, and SEM taking the lead, Hacking Growth gives you a different perspective on how different companies used unique ideas to grow. It combines the cleverness of the old school with the technology of the new school and gives insight into things you can due to hacking the growth of your company.

Read, Test, Repeat

Learning is all about absorbing the knowledge and putting it into practice. Use these books as a guide and try out the different lessons that teach for yourself. You may find some work better than others and may even stumble upon a brand new way of marketing due to it. You won’t know until you give it a go, add these to your reading list today and get to work!