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11 Best Books for Online Marketing

How many books did you read during the last two weeks? And what about a month or a year? A high level professional cannot learn only from their own experience. At least, this will be a too long and, in case of mistakes, costly path. So reading is a great way to acquaint yourself with the experience of other professionals, who are in most cases globally renowned experts.
And you don’t necessarily have to buy paper-based books, as reading their electronic versions is also convenient. In addition, electronic versions are more reasonably priced.
Every industry has its thought leaders. In their books, they share their own experience and warn their readers about possible mistakes. In fact, now you can easily find writings that will both give you a basic knowledge and allow to learn about best practices in different spheres of online marketing.
Regardless of who you are, a marketer or a business owner, we want to offer you a selection of books, which is a must-read for anyone interested or working in this field.

1. Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

By Martin Lindstrom

Have you ever wondered why you buy one product or another? What factors do really influence our decisions in the modern world which is greatly oversaturated with information and advertising? Or maybe our buying decisions are regulated with something on a subconscious level?
This book is the result of the research carried out by the author and his team that lasted for almost three years with the cost over 7 million dollars. Lindstrom’s team used brand new technology to understand what is going on in a human brain when we see an advertisement, hear a motto, think about a certain brand, buy something and so on.
The findings of the researchers present a good food for thought to everyone who wants to stimulate sales. They are particularly useful to online marketers.

2. Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

By Simon Sinek

No matter how smart a general is, one can’t win a battle without good soldiers. This is the key idea traced in this book if to speak briefly. To create an organization that can achieve large-scale and long-term objectives, managers should learn to grow leaders in their teams and not just tell everybody what to do.
A loner can easily deal with several small projects, but promoting a large business online or managing dozens of projects within one agency you need a team. And an important skill for a leader of such team is to motivate each of its members to work towards a single goal. The ways to achieve this are described in the aforementioned book by Simon Sinek.

3. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

By Charles Duhigg

Your success in online marketing heavily depends not on what you are doing but on how well you are doing this. Perfection is a result of repetition of certain actions that soon turn into a habit and are controlled subconsciously.
Analysing your habits and understanding their essence and effect, you can get rid of obstacles preventing you from a professional and personal growth. In addition, when you develop certain related to analysis and typical tasks skills into habits, this will allow you to work faster and gain an advantage in your field.

4. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

By Robert Cialdini

This book was for the first time published as far back as 1984 and became one of the most well-known marketing bestsellers. Republished in 2006 it offers readers a secret wisdom of persuasion and helps to boost their confidence. Well, everyone will agree that they dream of learning how to make all people say ‘yes’ to their offers.
Therefore, here the author defines 6 universal principles that can turn any shy person into a god of persuasion and ensure real success. Moreover, a detailed analysis of human behavior and reactions can help you to better understand yourself and develop protection against too pushy persuaders that manipulate you. “The psychology of persuasion” will come in handy for all online marketers and people interested in effective sales. Reading it you will get a great chance to peep into the minds of your potential buyers, which is extremely important for digital marketing.

5. Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict The Future

By Rohit Bhargava

During the last two decades, the largest amounts of money were earned by companies working in niches that basically haven’t existed before. The best way to ensure yourself the lowest level of competition is to define a trend (which is crucial for your business or field) and become one of the first to start working in this direction.
But how can you learn to see such trends instead of spreading yourself too thin dealing will all stuff possible? Of course, no one can provide you with a ready-made answer. It’s all about the way of thinking. To be more precise, about “non-obvious thinking” as the author calls it. In his book, he tells how to develop it and benefit from it.

6. The New Rules of Marketing and PR

By David Meerman Scott

The full title of this book is “The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases & viral marketing to reach buyers directly.” This hints a reader about the vast diversity of tools discussed in this book. The work primarily tells about why it is necessary to understand the key difference between online and offline marketing. The point is that on the web, people can fully control access of brands to their infosphere.
Now to reach out to a potential audience, it’s necessary to have rather a journalist-like way of thinking. You need to attract the interest of users and create conditions in which they will notice you first. If you attempt to breach users’ space with direct advertising, they will just block you. And believe us, modern users have an abundance of opportunities to avoid seeing your ads for the rest of their lives. In his book, David Scott explains how a marketer should behave in this new reality.

7. Managing content marketing

By Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi

This book isn’t about the theory of content marketing. It’s rather about the tactics and strategy of its usage in business. Writing more articles isn’t a strategy but an attempt to substitute quality for quantity. Hence, content creation should be a part of a client-oriented marketing strategy developed to achieve certain business goals.
From the book by Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi, you will learn to:

  • Evaluate complexities and prospects of content marketing for each particular case;
  • Develop a strategy and define the necessary tactical steps;
  • Choose right content distribution channels;
  • Organize work with your full-time employees and freelancers;
  • Choose metrics to measure your results.

In fact, this book can be used as a practice-oriented handbook on content marketing.

8. Email persuasion

By Ian Brodie

This book is a real guide teaching how to grow a client base for email newsletters and generate sales with an effectively used email. This particular online marketing channel suits perfectly for generating repeat sales. And in his book, Ian Brodie tells what methods should be used right then and there to get the maximum benefit from emails.
This book will teach you to build a loyal client base, create effective emails, increase their open rate, and turn your subscribers into solvent customers.

9. Blue Ocean Strategy

 

By W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

We have already recommended this book before in our selection for entrepreneurs, but actually, it can be added to any business-related reading list. There is a good reason for it being repeatedly included into tops of world bestsellers. Currently around 40 translations of “Blue Ocean Strategy Reader” are published.
Competition is a global phenomenon, and it exists in any niche which has money. In fact, it is a competitive environment that makes some companies prosper and forces the others to leave the market. The bright red ocean is a niche with high competition. The blue ocean is an uncontested zone. In other words, this is a niche where you can become a leader.
How to find or create a market free from other players? The authors of “Blue Ocean Strategy” are sure that you just need to step aside and come up with something brand new. This book is an absolute must-read for everyone!

10. SPIN selling

By Neil Rackham

A B2B market is one of the most complex directions for all marketers regardless of a niche they work in. B2B means that sales are made between two or more businesses. The main peculiarity of such sales is the length of a transaction cycle, which can take up to several months. Compare this to placing an order in an online store, and you will understand the magnitude of the difference.
The book by Neil Rackham is the best guide for those who need to get an understanding of long-cycle sales. Despite the lack of practical tips, this book will effectively teach you to sell under the conditions when decisions are taken by business owners or boards of directors.

11. Building a story brand

By Donald Miller

We all acknowledge the importance of digital marketing and claim it takes a noticeable place in our business strategies. We use different advertising channels, submerge ourselves into various inspirational readings but forget to ask one crucial question…What message is all this marketing noise is sending to our potential customers?
After you try to find an answer to this question, it well may appear that all your efforts aren’t united with the same idea, which has greatly diminished their efficiency. If this sounds like something familiar to you, just read this book! Donald Miller teaches to communicate with customers and make your message simple and easy to get. He insists that any successful brand has a solid story behind and tells how to create such stories. The book is full of exciting examples, analogies, and useful tips that you can adapt and use for your case. We recommend it to everyone interested in online marketing and business in general.

And a few words more…

Under the current market conditions, professional growth is just a must for any specialist. This is the primary factor that improves your qualification, increases income, and influences the success of ongoing projects. Books include the experience of other people in a concentrated and systematic way. It’s enough to read at least half an hour a day to learn a lot.
We hope that the knowledge derived from reading these books will be extremely beneficial to you. Just use it practically as soon as possible. The theory without practice is of little worth.

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