The Nigerian writer, Ben Okri once said: “Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.”
If you are an entrepreneur who want to build your castle of possibilities, you must raise your game when it comes to reading. This is not a case of whether you like to read or not (as some people claim that they don’t like to write). This is a case of recognizing that your long-term success as an entrepreneur, depend on you reading. Yes, deep and insightful reading. If you don’t like to read (or you don’t have the time), then listen to the audio books!
Spending time reading every day, will open your mind to the wisdom and insight of great leaders, entrepreneurs, and thinkers.
Indeed, I believe that you cannot take your business to the next level if you don’t read.
In a recent article published in Blinkist Magazine, Sandra Wu wrote that “the world’s highest achievers have one thing in common: an appreciation for reading. Books were their most profitable investment.”
Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, is famously known to spend about 80% of his day reading. He reads about 600 – 1,000 pages a day. Obviously, you don’t need any more proof that reading pays handsomely.
So, the question is: what do you read? I’d say you should be reading everything – from fiction to non-fiction, including poetry. But given that you are a marketer, I would suggest that you read the following marketing books this year to help you learn about marketing and develop the right business success mindset.
Book #1: It’s Not About You, It’s About Bacon: Relationship Marketing in a Social Media World by Brian Basilico
Relationship marketing is the type of marketing that really builds a brand. If you want to be known as the “go-to” person for your niche, you need to learn as much as you can about relationship marketing. Basilico’s book is fun to read and will make you laugh out loud, but it’s also a serious marketing book with tips and advice that will help you learn enough about relationship marketing to get you started on the right track.
Relationships are the currency of business. More often than not, relationships begin with a smile and a handshake. Networking is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools in your business arsenal. These simple, quick, and easy to implement tips will help you make the most of your networking opportunities.
The book is available in paperback, kindle and in audiobook, and even has an accompanying workbook.
Book #2: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
This is not really a “marketing” book in the traditional sense. But learning how habits can change your life will make you a more effective marketer. When you learn to identify the actions in your life that will help you reach your goals, you can use those to work towards making them a habit. This in turn will help you succeed in everything you do in both business and life.
The genius of this book is that you may have all the big entrepreneurial dreams and goals, but if you don’t have the habit of consistent productivity, you might as well be rolling a dice and hoping for some magic. Duhigg argues that by harnessing the science of habit formation, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.
Book #3: Internet Marketing for Small Business by Carl Willis
Every business that exists should be marketing online, especially small businesses. Online marketing is not expensive, but it is very effective. However, while many small business owners have spent considerable effort building sites and creating social media profiles, only to find that their internet marketing yield little to no results.
What many do not appreciate is that successful online marketing is more than just a beautiful website and social media.
Internet marketing expert Carl Willis shows you in this book how to identify your most profitable customer prospect and then deploy a marketing strategy that will turn your prospects into raving customers.
For any small business, even those with a minimum advertising budget, the marketing plan set out in this book is effective.
Once you grasp this marketing plan, you can use these concepts with any product, company, or service over and over again.
Book #4: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
In this thought-provoking book, Seth Godin insists that for your marketing to be successful in this day and age, it has to be different and remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about… worth noticing. Your marketing has to be exceptional, refreshing, and interesting. You can’t be like everybody else, doing the same thing every competition is doing, or you’d be boring. You must be different.
Picture a “purple cow” in the midst of a herd of black and white cows. Yes, that’s how you should make your marketing to stand out for you to be successful. “Remarkable marketing,” according to Godin, “is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last-minute add-on, but understanding that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.”
Now, go read the Purple Cow by Seth Godin and learn how to make your marketing remarkable. While you’re at it, order the rest of his books too.
Book #5: Digital Influencer: A Guide to Achieving Influencer Status Online by John Lincoln
Forbes magazine described this book as, "a marketing book you have to read before your competition." That’s one heck of an endorsement! You’ll want this book, not only for the advice, but for the list of tools too. Becoming an influencer can make all the difference in your business. If you have a large hungry crowd who wants what you are offering, you’ll be set for life.
Everything you create will be gobbled up like it’s going out of style. When you become the name behind your niche and a real mover and shaker online you can write your own paychecks. The author’s step-by-step instructions will help you achieve your dreams if you implement. Remember, though, that when it comes to any type of digital marketing the tools change fast, but it doesn’t dilute the importance of this book for smart marketers.
Book #6: Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonathan Berger
Why do some ideas seemingly spread overnight, while others disappear? Why do some products become ubiquitous, while others never gain traction? These are the questions this Wharton Business School professor tried to answer.
As one reviewer wrote about the book: “If you are seeking a bigger impact, especially with a smaller budget, you need this book.”
If you want to figure out how to make your business, product, or service explode with popularity (or as we say in modern lingo, “go viral”), you should read this book. You will learn how social influence and word of mouth can skyrocket your marketing. Indeed, social influence has a huge impact on whether products, ideas and behaviors catch on. And while traditional advertising is still useful, word of mouth from everyday Joes and Janes is at least 10X more effective.
Book #7: Digital Marketing for Dummies, 2nd Edition by Ryan Deiss and Russ Henneberry
It doesn’t get any more friendly and approachable than this guide. With proven tactics and strategies to help expand your brand’s reach, increase engagement, and generate more sales (from SEM and SEO best practices to effective content marketing techniques and influencer marketing), Digital Marketing for Dummies is a great place to start.
I have followed both Deiss and Henneberry for years, and I can tell you that they walk the talk. Deiss built one of the most influential digital marketing businesses in the world, and they wrote this book out of the wealth of experience building and running multiple highly-successful and hugely-profitable digital marketing businesses.
For me, the two most important chapters in that book are Chapters 1 and 2: “Understanding the Customer Journey,” and “Choosing the Right Marketing Campaign,” respectively. If you know your customer and know where and how to reach her, you have a winning game. You can take that to the bank. Of course, the rest of the chapters are all very useful.
Book #8: The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferris
When this book first came out, some critics charged that Ferris was promoting some lazy get-rick quick philosophy. Some people tend to believe that you have to work yourself to death to justify your success.
Indeed, the pandemic has shown that you don’t need the long commute and crazy 9-5 grind to be productive. Many people were highly productive from their homes or wherever they were staying during the lock-down, using the tools of automation and productivity and time management.
I have always believed that anyone starting out a business must read this book, if you haven’t done so already. Even if you have read the book, you should read it again. There is a reason the book has been translated into over 35 languages, and has remained a New York Times best-seller for several years.
This book is a blueprint on how to live more and work less, whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management.
Book #9: Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customer Will Listen by Donald Miller
This book is NOT about telling your company’s story. It might surprise you to know that customers don’t really care about your story. I know this is counter to what “marketing gurus” advise you to do. They encourage you to tell your story. But Donald Miller found in his research that customers actually care more about their own story and less about yours.
You see, “your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand. This is the secret every phenomenally successful business understands.”
Miller gives you in this book a seven-part framework (what he calls, SB7 Framework) with which to clarify your message and sharpen your marketing. This framework works, regardless of your industry.
Bottom line is: marketing has changed. Businesses that invite their customers into a heroic story grow. Businesses that don’t are forgotten. Go read Building a StoryBrand today if you want to grow your business in 2021 and beyond.
Book #10: Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products by Nir Eyal
This book is about understanding the science of habit formation and how companies used that science to develop products that get their customers “hooked.” The author Nir Eyal wrote: “Through consecutive Hook cycles, successful products reach their ultimate goal of unprompted user engagement, bringing users back repeatedly, without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.”
Eyal gives you a four-step process used to encourage customer behavior subtly which can ultimately drive conversion.
This book is ideal for marketers working with habit-forming products but can also be applied across the larger continuum of marketing.
Book #11: Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
This book has sold over 4 million copies! And it’s for a reason. When competition becomes intense and market share shrinks and cost is skyrocketing, what do you do? When the ocean turns red with blood, do you continue to swim in it, or do you get out and look for a blue ocean? Authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, professors at INSEAD, share strategies for identifying and tapping new markets successfully.
The book shows you how to get out of a red ocean of bloody competition and into a blue ocean of uncontested market space characterized by new demand and strong profitable growth. The book argues that competition should not occupy the center of strategic thinking.
Instead of drowning yourself in that ego-driven, cut-throat competition, why not apply your strategic creativity to carve out a new market space that you can dominate? The authors show you how to do that.
Book #12: The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, and Stand Out from the Crowd by Allan Dib
In this highly practical book, serial entrepreneur, Allan Dib maintains that to build a successful business, you need to stop doing random acts of marketing and start following a reliable plan for rapid business growth. To create a marketing plan, however, is often difficult and time-consuming. Hence, many entrepreneurs just don’t do it.
In The 1-Page Marketing Plan, Dib shows you a strategy that makes creating a marketing plan simple and fast.
As the title of the book says, it's literally a single page, divided up into nine squares. With it, you'll be able to create your marketing plan and build your successful business.
Whether you are just starting out or are an experienced entrepreneur, this book should be a must-read as it is the easiest and fastest way to create a marketing plan that will propel your business growth.
Bonus: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
This highly acclaimed national bestseller is in my opinion, the bible of marketing. Originally published in 1984 (and have been revised and updated multiple times), renowned professor of behavioral science and marketing, Robert Cialdini, shows you how to apply the psychology of persuasion to attract and hold an army of loyal customers to your business.
Based on over 35 years of rigorous, evidence-based research, Prof. Cialdini breaks down why people say yes, and how you can apply that understanding in building your marketing campaign.
You will learn the science behind such proven marketing strategies like reciprocity, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity, and how to practice them in your marketing.
So, now you got it… go ahead and start reading without ceasing. Tell us in the chart, what marketing books you read recently.
