TransFunnel Recommends: 9 Marketing Books You Must Read in 2023
What are your reading habits like? Do you spend some hours a day reading? No, not the messages you receive on your WhatsApp or your Facebook Messenger, but stuff that really adds to your knowledge base or improves your skill sets?
Not much? Well, you need to sort that out, because there is no beating the benefits of books when it comes to empowering your existing knowledge arsenal with more information about a specific subject. Let’s just focus on one specific domain, and in this case, ‘marketing’.
Marketing has evolved dramatically over the years and it continues to evolve at the rate of knots. A marketing tactic popular today, and extremely effective, might not be the in thing a few months from now.
The domain is in a constant state of flux, and while you will continue to learn on the job, you must also get some expert perspective on these changing scenarios, and the tactics that are delivering rich dividends. This will allow you to add to your proficiency. This is why we at TransFunnel give a lot of importance to learning and development so that our marketers are in step with the latest marketing thinking.
One of the ways that we focus on is by asking our marketers to read books by the top experts in this field. We also believe knowledge shared is knowledge gained and therefore want to give you a low down on some of the books that we feel you must read in 2020.
Bear in mind, that many of these books have been around for a long time, but are evergreen.
1. Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online - Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
2. The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization - Eric Enge, Stephen Spencer, Jessica Stricchiola
3. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers - Seth Godin
4. Everybody Writes - Ann Hadley
5. Talk Triggers - Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin
6. Inbound Marketing and SEO: Insights from the Moz Blog - Rand Fishkin and Thomas Høgenhaven
7. 10x Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating 'Competition-Free Content' That Stands Out and Gets Results - Garett Moon
8. Content Marketing: Proven Strategies to Attract an Engaged Audience Online with Great Content and Social Media to Win More Customers, Build your Brand and Boost your Business (Marketing and Branding) - Gavin Turner
9. Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy
1. Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online- Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
If you have spent even some time in the digital marketing industry, there is no way you haven’t heard about Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, the guys behind HubSpot.
If you want to learn the ins and outs of driving online visibility and engagement, this should be your go-to book. It covers everything you need to build an inbound strategy and succeed at it.
From customer behavior, digital experiences to the insights on lead nurturing and visual marketing, this book has all it takes to take your marketing from zero to one. We highly recommend this book for the greenhorns in the industry.
2. The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization- Eric Enge, Stephen Spencer, Jessie C. Stricchiola
This is the book of all books for SEO professionals and digital marketers who want to learn everything about SEO.
If someone wants to start a career in SEO, and asks people in the know about the one book that they should read, this is the book that will be recommended 9 times out of 10. As the name suggests, it aims to offer a thorough understanding of SEO right from the ground up. Even experienced SEOs will get an expert’s angle on how to improve their existing strategy.
3. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers- Seth Godin
Seth Godin is a digital marketing guru and has been one of the most prolific thought leaders in the domain for many years now. Permission marketing has been around for a long time and for us at TransFunnel Consulting Pvt. Ltd., this is the kind of marketing we swear by. And this is also the reason why we are asking you to read this book, by a person who made permission marketing and its strategic value, mainstream.
The foundation of an inbound strategy rests on permission marketing; you need to know how you can reach out to customers who are actually interested in knowing more about your products or services. Read this book now.
Note: You will equally like his book the Purple Cow.
4. Everybody Writes- Ann Hadley
Ann Handley packs a punch in this Everybody Writes by showing us the nitty gritty of content creation, production and publishing. This book must be on the top of your must-read marketing books list.
Think of it this way - content marketing is an important subset of digital marketing, and content creation is a core subset of content marketing. If you want to know what good content essentially means, this book serves as a comprehensive guide.
5. Talk Triggers- Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin
Jay Baer is the brains behind Convince & Convert, while Daniel Lemin is an entrepreneur and a digital marketing expert. Their book -Talk Triggers help you engage customers better by driving winning customer conversations. It takes you through the strategies that can craft the perfect conversations around your brand, the kind that will result in improved sales.
6. Inbound Marketing and SEO: Insights from the Moz Blog- Rand Fishkin and Thomas Høgenhaven
Every marketer has heard of Rand Fishkin and all of them have heard of the MOZ blog as well. He teams up with Thomas Høgenhaven, a highly respected thought leader in the field to offer insights into hand-picked articles from MOZ blogs that cover inbound marketing in this book.
They also update those stories and offer some brand-new perspectives on different aspects of inbound. If you want to know how leading experts think about inbound marketing, this is the book you must read.
7. 10x Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating 'Competition-Free Content' That Stands Out and Gets Results- Garett Moon
Garett Moon, the CoSchedule CEO discusses how you can create some great content, and that too without investing a lot of money. At, TransFunnel we always wonder if there is a method to the madness, and a series of steps we can perform to create content that works. Well, this book told us there is a way to create highly engaging content that impresses our target audience every single time. We are quite proud to say that this method has enabled us to achieve some sterling results for our clients.
8. Content Marketing: Proven Strategies to Attract an Engaged Audience Online with Great Content and Social Media to Win More Customers, Build your Brand and Boost your Business (Marketing and Branding)- GavinTurner
Yes, the title is a long read, isn’t it? It tells you everything you need to, about what the book is all about. This book covers gaining quick wins from content. As we all know the process is everything, and this book takes us through the content marketing strategies that the big boys are deploying, what you can learn from them, and how you can create a winning strategy of your own.
This is a truly great book to get a thorough understanding of how content and social media marketing can be used to win customers over.
9. Ogilvy on Advertising- David Ogilvy
The legend of legends, David Ogilvy’s take on advertising, selling and marketing still gives us the push we need. His take on advertising in this book is still relevant today not just for the advertising professionals, but for those who want to cut through noise and get things done. Suffice to say, it is the handibook for marketers who want to effectively communicate with their consumers. What we love about this book is that your marketing and sales and content team can all get takeaways from it.
Make it part of your bookshelf and mind space. Don’t miss out.
Conclusion
At TransFunnel, we understand the power of reading books that inspire and guide us to achieve our marketing objectives. Books give us an opportunity to get into the minds of the authors, who are essentially doyens of marketing. Which of these books are going to be part of your bookshelf?
