best marketing books

25 Best Marketing Books you Should Read as a Marketer in 2024

Marketing tactics are constantly evolving. Therefore, being a marketer, you have to learn and make yourself better to stand apart. But how to do that? 

How can you begin learning about your trade? The best way to do that is to read more and more about it. You can follow trending blogs and media outlets for it, not only this, following marketing books can offer you some terrific lessons, guidance, and food for thought. Therefore, to help you out, we have listed the 25 best marketing books that will help you learn a lot about marketing.

25 Best Marketing Books You Should Read

1. Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith

Selling the Invisible

Selling the invisible illustrates a fantastic explanation of marketing significance in a service-oriented economy. But, of course, selling (and marketing) something you can’t notice is a different game entirely but is a skill that must be in every marketer’s arsenal. Therefore, reading this book will help you learn more about marketing.

2. Good to Great by Jim Collins

Is there any possibility to level up a company from good to great, if yes then how? This book unveils this question in this amazing management book-slash-novel.

Collins breaks down the pillars of companies that are successful and cites situations where companies made decisions that lead them from thriving to another stratosphere.

It’s not a marketing book, but the lessons it offers literally  helps you, particularly at the beginning of your career.

3. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen

This bestseller is written by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard professor who breaks down that age-old question: how can a business do everything right and still fail to beat its contender?

This book shows why’s and the how’s critical to success in our hyper-competitive world.

4. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point

Have you ever owned an idea that took off? Malcolm Gladwell talks about  the ‘perfect storm’ in his book – when ideas, trends, and social behavior tip to spread like wildfire and lead to rapid change. This book primarily talks about sociology rather than marketing, as it’s necessary to understand the mindsets and trends that bring in consumers.

5. Master Content Marketing by Pamela Wilson

Master Content Marketing

Master Content Marketing acts as a bible for marketing beginners and a fantastic place to get started if you’re getting your feet wet in the world of marketing. This book presents step-by-step content marketing techniques that you can imitate and implement in your first job.

6. CASA Marketing: Intro to Google Analytics by Todd Kelsey

Every marketer understands the importance of analytics. As data and analytics demonstrate that campaigns are working or not, it isn’t easy to contend with numbers!

This book takes your fear out about graphs and lines and lets Google Analytics accessible for new marketers.

7. SEO Like I’m 5: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization by Matthew Capala, Steve Baldwin, and Kevin Lee

SEO Like I'm 5

If you consider SEO as a major part of marketing rather than just a marketing tactic, this is the book for you. Capala, Baldwin, and Lee break down the basics of what you should do to get your website to rank well on search engines (and obtain more customers) – which is a must for numerous brands and organizations today.

8. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

One of the best marketing books that is important to read if you want to learn about our viral world, Berger’s book covers the six principles that make things catch on, from work rumors and customer products to social media sensations. It’s a must-read for aspiring marketers and veteran professionals.

9. Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Ogilvy on Advertising

David Ogilvy founded one of the world’s most successful advertising agencies. He is usually considered ‘The Father of Advertising.  This book talks about everything you should know at every point of your career, from the basics (how to strategize for advertising that works and draft creative copy) and things you will learn as your career progresses, for instance, how to handle an agency and what the future of the industry holds.

10. Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini

This book reveals about the psychology of why we say yes – and how we can convince others to say yes, too. Comprehending these concepts should be your first priority if you’re curious about influencer marketing.

11. Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook that Drives Sales by Samantha Stone

Samantha Stone’s book is all about revenue, and it talks about the fast growth and actual outcomes. This book is all about high growth in competitive markets, and she shows you all the tools you require to get there.

12. Everybody Writes: Your Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

Everybody Writes

It’s one of the best marketing books as it showcases the importance of writing in a world where we’re all online. It walks you through the art of writing in this wonderful book and will guide you on how to write content that draws (and retains) new clients.

13. Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion By Robert Cialdini

Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion

The business psychology specialist Robert Cialdini offloads the psychological underpinnings of why people state “yes” to specific brands, products, and services without much forethought about their decisions. Instead, he delves you in-depth into concepts like social proof, authority, and scarcity to make his point.

14.  Courage by Ryan Berman

It’s not particularly about marketing, but Berman has given some fantastic advice in this book.

Courage by Ryan Berman

After helping out some of the most prosperous individuals and leaders in the business world, Berman knew that success is all about encountering your fears and pushing your boundaries – and later, about leading the people on your team to push their boundaries, too.

It’s a wonderful lesson for any industry or role, most certainly marketing.

15. Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind By Al Ries And Jack Trout

Positioning

While the brand positioning principles that are summarized in this book are well known and adopted by marketers today, that wasn’t the case at the time of its 1980 publication. The authors’ central idea is that brands that aim to be distinct from leading competitors and not superior to them will get success bringing products to market.

16. Crossing The Chasm: Marketing And Selling Disruptive Products To Mainstream Customers By Geoffrey Moore

Crossing The Chasm

While Crossing the Chasm was first issued in 1991 and it has been modified twice since. The dot-com boom had yet to form. Even so, it was a massive hit and remains a perennial classic among tech entrepreneurs and strategists who like to know how to bring their ingenious products to market. It introduces the technology adoption lifecycle, a sociological model explaining how psychographic groups embrace new tech products.

17. Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success By Sean Ellis And Morgan Brown

Hacking Growth

Buzziest startups in the world depend on “growth hacking,” a term co-author Sean Ellis coined that represents the data-driven tactics employed by marketers to push growth across the entire funnel. In this book, Ellis and co-author Morgan Brown (VP of growth at Shopify) teach readers through the AARRR framework that growth marketers use, peppering in examples from their experiences with quickly collecting and scaling huge customer bases.

18. The Content Code: Six Essential Strategies To Ignite Your Content, Your Marketing, And Your Business By Mark Schaefer 

The Content Code

If you’re in marketing, chances are you depend on content to boost your search engine traffic and lead generation. The problem is, everybody does the same thing. Mark Schaefer claims that the way to break through the loud, oversaturated web truly is to concentrate on shareability and content distribution. This book describes how to do it.

19. Product Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy By Eli  Schwartz

Product Led SEO

The most recent published book on this list, Product-Led SEO, is not a field manual for people looking for short-term hacks or tricks to trick Google’s algorithm to get a higher ranking. Rather, it discusses building and communicating a sustainable SEO strategy that works and triumphs over the long haul.

20. The Anatomy Of Buzz: How To Create Word Of Mouth Marketing By Emmanuel Rosen

The Anatomy Of Buzz

Some think Emmanuel Rosen to be the godfather of word-of-mouth marketing. He worked in Silicon Valley for several years as VP of marketing at Niles Software. His book, which evolved as a bestseller after its publication in 2000, apparently explains how marketers can get people speaking about their products with other people, effectively shifting them into brand evangelists.

21. Obviously Awesome: How To Nail Product Positioning, So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It By April Dunford

Obviously Awesome

Author April Dunford holds two decades of marketing experience at tech companies, which includes an executive role at IBM, and her forte is in brand positioning. This book conveys how brands can win at positioning and successfully connect with audiences by selecting the right market category for their products.

22. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable By Seth Godin

Purple Cow

Seth Godin is a prolific writer on marketing, and Purple Cow is widely deemed one of his best books. Godin summarizes and describes an essential marketing principle in his signature conversational style: that brands that aren’t great are doomed to be invisible. So they better be remarkable.

23. When Coffee And Kale Compete: Become Great At Making Products People Will  Buy By Alan Klemen

Selling and marketing rely on how someone’s desire will be satisfied after having it. That’s the Jobs to Be Done framework in action. When Coffee and Kale Compete utilizes many examples and illustrations to reveal this concept, it’s strived at marketing and product professionals who like to clarify their messaging better and position their products.

24. Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide For The Whole Branding Team By Alina Wheeler

Designing Brand Identity

This book is approachable and provides an overview of brand identity and a lovely coffee table book to boot. It embarks on how brands are created and defined, goes beyond considering logos, color, and names (although those are crucial). It’s also about how to define a brand’s purpose and essence.

25. Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead In Advertising By Thomas Kemeny

Author Thomas Kemeny is a freelance creative director and a copywriter at Goodby Silverstein and Partners. Junior shares everything he knows in the agency trenches about copywriting, storytelling, developing creative ideas, and holding people’s attention. It’s breezy, voices read, and quite practical, particularly for marketers and early career copywriters.

Conclusion

After reading this post, you may get an idea of the best marketing books that you should consider reading in 2022. These books will help you strategize and give you a different perspective. We hope you like our list, stay tuned for more such posts.

Shivani

Shivani is a content writer at InviteReferrals. She writes SEO articles, blogs, and guest posts for businesses to improve website ranking on SERP. She follows a balanced approach for the quality of content and its marketing. She loves to do creativity, although she had an English major in her graduation.