Marketing yourself well takes a lot more than just using some advertisement services. The best marketers and successful businesses know how to get inside the heads of people and turn them into customers. From catchy slogans to attractive logos to persuasive arguments, the ways of accomplishing this are many and are best used in conjuction.
Marketing books are sort of going out of style with all the blogs and Wikipedia articles readily available that often offer more condensed and relevant information. But since business marketing takes a lot of knowledge and savvy, you’ll want to learn from the very best, which means you’ll have to curl up with a good book (or eBook reader) even if it’s against your wishes. Here are 3 top business marketing books that can help any business make a bigger name for itself and create something that can last for a long time.
Review of 3 Top Business Marketing Books
Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom: It’s always best to start with the basics, and you can’t get more basic than how human minds work(paradoxically so, since they are also incredibly complex). In his bold and somewhat-abstract book, Lindstrom tries to explore the different mental processes that urge someone to buy something, including something they might not need. Lindstrom also explores how you can not only convince people they need your product but also get them to keep buying it over and over regardless of its usefulness (Coca Cola and cigarette brands are some notorious examples of this). If you’re concerned with the abstract parts of marketing and would like some insight into them before delving into the specifics, don’t skip on Buyology.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Rober Cialdini: In some ways, Influence is as basic and abstract as Buyology, but is also a bit grittier – it helps explain how you can improve your results by altering your approach in ways that are often small. Cialdini tries to answer a good question: why do some people always seem to get their way? He also dissects why some salesmen are much more successful than others (it’s not just about their passion). This book might help you shape your interactions with would-be customers in a way that will all-but-guarantee their conversion.
Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson: This book is incredibly impressive for one reason alone: it actually becomes more useful and relevant with each passing year rather than the other way around. When it was written 30-some years ago, business was a lot more about being big than being small and marketing wasn’t really seen as a thing by smaller businesses. Levinson was a pioneer in the field as he attempted to empower these small businesses by describing how they can market themselves using an important and scarce tool: creativity. Nowadays, anyone can gain a lot of popularity with minimal means, making Levinson’s book all the more useful – you have a lot more competitors to deal with, and none of them need a lot of means to surpass you. If you’re the owner of a small business wanting to become a recognizable brand, Levinson will explain how you can use your creativity to get better results than big advertising bucks would net you.