The 10 Best Books to Read on Marketing

The best titles to help you do your best marketing.

Learn from the experts: check out these books on marketing to refine and perfect your own efforts.

Marketers can do a lot of their best learning from two things: experience and data. Sometimes the only way to know what works for your business or product is to try some things and go through a trial and error phase. This might be especially true for a new business, small businesses, or an untested market. Many marketers are willing to go with their gut on certain campaigns and then look at the data after launch to see how successful they were reaching or converting their audience, and make tweaks and adjustments from that.

While there is much to be gleaned from the process of examining data of launched campaigns and learning from past launches, there is another method of learning about marketing that is a helpful instructor: expert advice.

Here are the top ten marketing books we recommend to help improve your marketing efforts, written by experts on the subject and people who have worked in the field.

1. Purple Cow, by Seth Godin

   Seth Godin is one of the most trusted authorities in marketing and branding. He’s written several books, but much of his advice is centered on the idea that businesses need to think big and “be remarkable”, rather just relying on tried and true methods and metrics.

2. Ogilvy on Advertising, by David Ogilvy

   David Ogilvy is sometimes referred to as the godfather of modern advertising. His name bears a lot of clout and influence in the marketing sphere because of his huge ad agency success.

3. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

   How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World, by Gary Vaynerchuck: This book is good for modern marketers who know they have a lot of competition in a very connected world with a 24-hour news cycle. The advice on making sure you write stories in your marketing that connect with consumers is very helpful.

4. Influence

   The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini: Successful marketing has always had a psychological component and this book helps break down what that looks like and why it’s effective.

5. Youtility

   Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype, by Jay Baer: This book develops the idea that most modern marketers already know – that no matter how cool, new, or innovative your product is, if it doesn’t help to solve a problem that consumers have, they won’t buy it.

6. The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell

   Gladwell’s research isn’t necessarily specific to marketers, but his observations are very helpful when thinking about what people respond to.

7. Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon

   There is certainly a creative aspect to marketing, and this book helps creatives think about how to develop ideas and improve on things that have already been done.

8. The Content Code, by Mark Schaefer

   : This book highlights the importance of all kinds of content in marketing – blogs, advertorials, web pages, white papers, and more – and shares the secrets for how to create the best marketing content.

9. The Idea Writers

   Copywriting in a New Media and Marketing Era, by Teressa Iezzi: Is it different writing for new media – like social media, blogs, and banner ads – than the traditional marketing methods of the past? This book helps copywriters find out.

10. Growth Hacker Marketing

    A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising, by Ryan Holiday: This book helps marketers think not only about the content they’re creating now, but how their campaigns will have to look in the future.

Of course, there are many more books on marketing available through Amazon and other booksellers but these 10 books will help you to make good marketing decisions for your business.