“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” — Milan Kundera
This is a list of my favorite and noteworthy marketing books.
I put the bulk of the list in A-Z so that you can easily compare with your own library of marketing books.
10 Great Books on Marketing
- Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
, by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
, by Robert B. Cialdini
- Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends
, by Tim Sanders
- Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
, by Seth Godin
- Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
, by Al Ries
- Small Is the New Big and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
, by Seth Godin
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
, by Al Ries
- The First Hundred Million (Popular Culture in America Series)
, by E. Haldeman-Julius
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
, by Seth Godin
- Unleashing the Ideavirus
, by Seth Godin
Best Books on Marketing by Category
Advertising, Campaigns, PR (Public Relations)
- Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising (Adweek Series)
, by Luke Sullivan
- Ogilvy on Advertising
, by David Ogilvy
- The Book of Gossage
, by Howard Luck Gossage
- The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR
, by Al Ries
- Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
, by Marty Asher
Authenticity
- All Marketers are Liars (with a New Preface): The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works–and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All
, by Seth Godin
- Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want
, by James H. Gilmore
- Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
, by Seth Godin
Best Practices
- 2,239 Tested Secrets For Direct Marketing Success : The Pros Tell You Their Time-Proven Secrets
, by Denison Hatch
- Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars
, by Mitch Meyerson
- Tested Advertising Methods (Prentice Hall Business Classics)
, by John Caples
Brands, Branding, Reputation
- A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the Twenty-First Century
, by Scott Bedbury
- Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
, by Brian Solis
- Harvard Business Review on Brand Management (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)
, by Harvard Business School Press
- Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life
- Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki
, by Rohit Bhargava
- Stand Out from the Crowd: Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity
, by Jay B. Lipe
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
, by Al Ries
- The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It
, by The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It
, by John Gerzema
- The Global Brand: How to Create and Develop Lasting Brand Value in the World Market
, by Nigel Hollis
- The Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World
, by Kelly Mooney
- The Origin of Brands: How Product Evolution Creates Endless Possibilities for New Brands
, by Al Ries
- Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
, by Chris Brogan
Buzz, Evangelism, Promotion
- Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff
, by Mark Hughes
- Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force
, by Ben McConnell
- The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited: Real-life lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing
, by Emanuel Rosen
- Unleashing the Ideavirus
, by Seth Godin
- Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Revised Edition
, by Andy Sernovitz
- World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories
, by David Meerman Scott
Competition, Differentiation
- How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit
, by Guy Kawasaki
- Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
, by Seth Godin
- Marketing Warfare: 20th Anniversary Edition: Authors’ Annotated Edition
, by Al Ries
- Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable–Includes new bonus chapter
, by Seth Godin
- Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
, by Guy Kawasaki
- REPOSITIONING: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis
, by Jack Trout
Copywriting
- Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs
, by Joseph Sugarman
- Magic Words That Bring You Riches
, by Ted Nicholas
- The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells
, by Robert W. Bly
- The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost Your Sales
, by Dan S. Kennedy
- Words that Sell, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Thesaurus to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
, by Richard Bayan
- WORDS THAT WORK: IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT’S WHAT PEOPLE HEAR
, by Frank I. Luntz
Customer Focus
- A Little Less Conversation: Connecting with Customers in a Noisy World
, by Tom Asacker
- Chief Customer Officer : Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action
, by Jeanne Bliss
- Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends
, by Tim Sanders
- The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules for Winning in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy
, by Adrian C. Ott
Growth, Lead Generation
- Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling
, by Michael Port
- Energize Growth NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company
, by Lisa Nirell
- Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones
, by Joseph Jaffe
- Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
, by Seth Godin
- The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself , by John Jantsch
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
, by Malcolm Gladwell
How It Works
- The MacIntosh Way
, by Guy Kawasaki
- Think Like a Marketer: What It Really Takes to Stand Out from the Crowd, the Clutter, and the Competition
, by Lauron Sonnier
How To
- How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order-and You Can Too!
, by E. Joseph Cossman
Influence, Persuasion, Rapport
- Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions
, by Guy Kawasaki
- Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation
, by John Jantsch
- Framing Public Live PR
- Triggers: 30 Sales Tools you can use to Control the Mind of your Prospect to Motivate, Influence and Persuade.
, by Joseph Sugarman
Innovation
- Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
- Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Products to Mainstream Customers
, by Geoffrey A. Moore
- In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
, by Matthew E. May
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
, by Chip Heath
- Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services
, by Guy Kawasaki
Market Sizing, Segmentation, Positioning
- Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
, by Al Ries
- Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters
, by Tim Manners
- Small Is the New Big and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
, by Seth Godin
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
, by Chris Anderson
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
, by Seth Godin
Marketing
- Bottom-up Marketing (Plume)
, by Al Ries
- Harvard Business Review on Marketing
, by Harvard Business School Press
- The First Hundred Million (Popular Culture in America Series)
, by E. Haldeman-Julius
- The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook
, by Seth Godin
Measuring Success
- Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business
, by Laura L. Brooks
Psychology, Motivation
- Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
, by Martin Lindstrom
- How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market
, by Gerald Zaltman
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
, by Robert B. Cialdini
- “I Love You More Than My Dog”: Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad
, by Jeanne Bliss
- Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers
, by Gerald Zaltman
- Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
, by Dan Ariely
- War in the Boardroom: Why Left-Brain Management and Right-Brain Marketing Don’t See Eye-to-Eye–and What to Do About It
, by Al Ries
Small Business Marketing
Social Media Marketing
- Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
, by Charlene Li
- Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing: Online Strategies to Identify Influencers, Craft Stories, and Draw Customers
, by Idil M. Cakim
- Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (New Rules Social Media Series)
, by Dharmesh Shah
- Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing
, by Shel Israel
- Scientific Advertising
, by Claude C Hopkins
- Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone.
, by Mitch Joel
- Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business
, by Erik Qualman
- The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web
, by Tamar Weinberg
- The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
, by David Meerman Scott
- The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success
, by Lon Safko
- The Social Media Marketing Book
, by Dan Zarrella
- The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business
, by Tara Hunt
- The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue
, by Shama Kabani
- Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods
, by Shel Israel
Strategy, Planning
- Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
, by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing
, by Chris Anderson
- Free Prize Inside: How to Make a Purple Cow
, by Seth Godin
- Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? , by Seth Godin
- Selling to Big Companies
, by Jill Konrath
- The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable
, by Seth Godin
- The Ultimate Marketing Plan: Find Your Hook. Communicate Your Message. Make Your Mark.
, by Dan S. Kennedy