This Is Marketing
This Is Marketing is the latest book by Seth Godin and might be the most valuable thing I’ve ever read on the subject of marketing. Seth is a marketing genius who practices the art in the most ethical and conscientious way possible. He is not a guru and his wisdom puts to shame anyone who peddles “top secret marketing hacks.”
For anyone running a business or in the marketing field, this book deserves a place on your bookshelf and perhaps perpetually sitting on your desk. Seth’s to-the-point writing style makes each page relevant and poignant. You can literally flip to any page in the book and get something out of it that you can immediately apply.
Seth is a great storyteller and so this book is entertaining and memorable through and through.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
Jab Jab Jab Right Hook by Gary Vee is a great book on building and representing your brand on social media. This book gives rock solid advice on being creative and generous with your social media content instead of always trying to sell and have a call to action with everything you do.
While a little outdated now as far as discussing the algorithms and features of the different social media sites presented in the book, the core essence of each of the platforms Gary talks about remains the same and so this book still remains valuable for both the rules to follows and the excellent case studies each chapter provides on what to not and what not to do.
This book is well-worth reading if you do any social media marketing.
Permission Marketing
Seth Godin is one of the most prominent online marketers today and has held that position since the early days of the internet when he saw the potential of the start up companies and this medium as it was taking off.
Permission Marketing is all about doing right by your customers through offering incentives and information in exchange for their permission to share more and market directly to them.
Written almost two decades ago, Permission Marketing was spot on when it was written and has become even more appropriate in today’s world of overpriced and highly competitive world of marketing. By creating a unique value proposition for your potential customers and then educating them on your products while keeping their attention, you cut through the distractions and other marketing attempts and win the hearts of your followers.
There is plenty of great advertising and marketing advice packed into this book and it is well worth reading if you are involved in any marketing efforts and want to stand out from the rest of the crowd.
22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing
If you listen in to Tim Ferriss at all, you’ll here him go on and on about the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout - but make sure you get the original and not the copy updated for the modern age!
This book deserves the crown and a place on the stack of marketing books for any serioius marketer or entrepreneur. 22 Immutable Laws is short and to the point but drills home all of the considerations that you need to make as a marketer if you want to be successful. With great examples and simple explanations, following the advice in this book will set you apart from all those who violate the rules of this little handbook.
Start With Why
Start With Why - Simon Sinek
Life Value 4/5
Entertainment Value 4/5
“There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influences. Those who lead inspire us.”
Start With Why by Simon Sinek is a book for leaders who are taking over or starting up a company. The thesis of the book is that a company and its leaders must start with why - the belief and cause of the company in order to become successful. The WHY lies at the centre of WHAT your company does and HOW it does it.
To fully embody the why of a company means to hire around others who also believe the same thing that you do. By having the company culture embody the core belief, others will come to understand your WHY and follow you as well.
This book is pretty interesting and Sinek has a few good case studies that he develops his thesis around but he does stick to the same companies as examples throughout the entire book - he is clearly an Apple fan - and could have benefitted from branching out to a wider range of industries.
I’ve listened to Sinek speak in podcasts and on videos before and I believe that he is better suited to delivering his message through audio. I think that this book is more of a dictation of him talking than a great written work.
Influence
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Life value 5/5
Entertainment value 4/5
Influence is a great distillation of the science of persuasion and teaches you both what to look for or use as a marketer or salesperson and how to better avoid the pitfalls of savvy marketers. Cialdini simplifies the science behind the psychology and is a great writer and storyteller.
The book is broken down into the main categories that influential psychology falls under and gives plenty of great research and real-world examples to solidify each point.
If you need help avoiding influence in your own decisions or you are looking to attain more success in selling something, (whether you believe in it or not), this book will be highly valuable to you if you have never taken a social psychology class before and come across many of these concepts.
This book covers all the biggies including:
The contrast principle
Reciprocation
Social proof
Commitment and consistency
Authority
Liking
Scarcity
One of the best parts about the book is the author's relentless curiosity about persuasion and his down to earth approach as he includes many examples of how he himself is not foolproof to persuasion but becomes even more curious when he gets caught in a trap and why it happened.
Crushing It!
Crushing It! - Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary is the king of boisterous social media gurus but he backs up everything that his larger than life voice spews from his lips with proof that he and the people he advises are in fact crushing it. This book is a short, easy read but full of tons of valuable information (and as my friend Drew points out, it’s great to get the information without hearing Gary’s voice if you can’t stand him). If you need actionable steps to grow your following on any of the big social media platforms of today, this book has the nuggets that have got you covered. Take them, apply them to your own pages daily for a long time, and watch your followers grow.
This is your social media playbook if you're trying to grow your business or own personal brand. You could listen to hundreds of hours of Gary's YouTube videos or podcasts to gather most if not all of this information but the case studies of people crushing it on each platform and all of the things you can implement being compiled all in one book is worth the cost of entry.
Growth Hacker Marketing
GHM is a cool little handbook for anyone who is involved in marketing, whether as an entrepreneur or simply out of interest for a critical component of how the top companies in the world got to be so big.
Growth hacking is what Ryan calls the new age of marketing, as the old-school tactics don't allow for the same analytical approach to determining what works and what doesn't with your customer base.
The three keys to growth hacks versus the old marketing playbook are using things that are testable, trackable, and scalable. While all three factors are important for modern growth hacks, being scalable really matters when the best way to stand out is to bake virality into the thing you are making.
The book is very short but worth its weight in gold. Understanding the principles behind what makes something go viral and which companies become successful today is the foundation that needs to be fully comprehended in order to stand out.
Trust Me, I'm Lying
TMIL is a tell-all story of Ryan's life as a "media manipulator" and director of marketing at American Apparel where he regularly spearheaded campaigns that would gain him national news coverage for AA or any of his other clients without directly having to pay for it.
While Ryan used his unique skill for benevolent purposes with his clients, he saw many others who were manipulating media for all kinds of purposes which is why he wrote this book and revised and updated it for today's world of fake news.
It's an awesome book and I would give it a perfect score if it weren't for the fact that since writing this book, Ryan has gone on to hone his writing even more and so in comparison, the writing is just a little less captivating to me in TMIL.