Moving into the future, businesses need expertise in an ever-increasing array of marketing tools: email marketing, social media marketing, Google Ads, blogging, growth hacking, lead generation, SEO, SEM, etc. Understanding which tools and strategies to use to achieve your business objectives can be difficult. That’s where this book list fits in. This list contains nine books that cover almost every aspect of digital marketing, so you can prepare for your marketing future today.
Digital Marketing Books for Your Small Business
By Ryan Deiss and Russ Henneberry
With all of the constant changes in digital marketing, it can be hard even for experienced business professionals, to keep up.
Digital Marketing for Dummies highlights the importance of digital marketing and how it can be adapted to get the best return on investment for your time and money.
Digital Marketing for Dummies provides a non-technical, strategy-oriented approach for this.
Written by the CEO and Editorial Director (Ryan Deiss and Russ Henneberry) of DigitalMarketer.com, the book helps readers develop or refine their digital marketing strategies to align with their business goals in the areas of content marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), and online advertising.
If you have wondered why your business needs to Tweet, create YouTube videos, or blog when you have more important things to do, this book will provide the answer with a lot more.
by Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Iwan Setiawan
Moving forward in the sharing and on-demand global economy, the world of marketing is changing.
Your business can’t rely on the traditional marketing techniques of the past. Customers demand a two-way conversation and with that transparency and accountability. They have more options and less patience with pop-ups and commercials.
They seek diversity in the workplace and in their entertainment,
Marketing 4.0, written by three pioneering marketing gurus, helps business owners understand what the transition for digital marketing means to business owners.
In particular, the book shares how businesses can adapt their marketing to be more inclusive, more social and more flexible in the face of an unpredictable future.
If you are looking for a book to help you wrap your head around the bigger picture going in and how it affects your business, this book might be for you.
by Travis Wright and Chris J. Snook
The first two books on this list talked about the “big picture” when it comes to digital marketing.
Digital Sense helps business owners tie everything together on a ground-floor level.
Specifically, it helps business owners learn how to create an “omnichannel presence”
An omnichannel presence is the marketing term for a business that maintains a consistent marketing presence across various channels and devices.
It represents the future of marketing.
“Digital Sense” helps business owners develop this omnichannel presence using two frameworks designed to help businesses align their marketing efforts with their customers in a globally competitive world.
by Shlomo Benartzi with contributions by Jonah Lehrer
This is already a world filled with screens (TV, smartphones, laptops, tablets, even smart appliances) and the world is going to have a lot more in the next few years.
Mobile technology has affected the culture, economy and global society in a variety of ways.
The cultural and economic changes brought about by mobile technology are more obvious. But understanding the psychological impact of mobile technology, both good and bad is a bit trickier.
That’s where The Smarter Screen comes in.
Written by a behavioral economist, the book helps readers understand the complicated world of brains using mobile technology. For example, the book explores why people value shopping on mobile devices more than in the store or why humans remember things when it’s displayed on a screen.
Using the information in the book, the author of The Smarter Screen hopes to help businesses design mobile technology to help them better realize their objectives — and those of their customers.
by Daniel Rowles
Mobile Marketing is also concerned with designing mobile technology for the best customer experience.
The difference is how.
In Mobile Marketing, digital marketing expert Daniel Rowles wants readers to upgrade their definition of mobile technology.
Mobile technology isn’t all about cell phones and apps. It’s a spectrum of devices and services including wearables, mobile payment systems, location-based advertising, virtual reality and more.
Rowles contends that businesses are just starting to tap into the vast potential of the mobile economy and provides strategies (along with case studies) showing how businesses can tap into this expanded concept of marketing technology and use it to drive profits now and in the future.
Businesses that take the lead in marketing will have a competitive advantage over the status quo still stuck in the “traditional marketing” mindset.
by Anindya Ghose
This list has looked at the psychology and technology behind the mobile economy.
Tap looks at the data breadcrumbs we leave while using mobile technology.
The amount and type of data has been a source of controversy with some consumers believing they are giving away too much of their personal information. On the other hand, businesses benefit when consumers share information, such as web clicks, page views and other data helping businesses offer more personalized services.
It also saves businesses money, time and effort that would have been wasted on ill-suited marketing campaigns.
Tap argues that there is a happy medium between offering privacy and participation in the mobile economy. Using research conducted around the world, professor and author Anindya Ghose shares why he believes businesses can achieve this healthy balance of privacy plus utility for consumers.
Ghose also shares the nine primary forces that impact a customer’s decision to buy. He then provides strategies and recommendations to help businesses adapt their mobile technology to address these forces.
by Heather LeFevre
Heather LeFevre worked hard as an advertising and marketing strategist and it paid off. She grew an impressive resume completing behind-the-scenes work for some of the largest brands, including Burger King, Emirate Airlines, Phillips and Pampers.
LeFevre wanted more, though. She wanted more insight into the ultimate question every marketer, advertiser, communications professional or public relations professional has about marketing: How do I get into my customer’s brain?
Brain Surfing was the answer.
LeFevre literally went around the world to find the answer to the ultimate marketing question. Before you think this is a book about another marketing guru spouting a few marketing tips, think again.
The author did more than go around the world to pick up a few insights. She tracked down the top marketing strategists and lived in their homes as she learned from them.
Her book is a travel log, marketing advice guide and invitation to take your marketing to a deeper level so you can reach more people than you ever imagined.
by Tim Cigelske
What is one big gripe about marketing on social media? They don’t see a return on investment.
Many business owners still aren’t able to connect the dots between their Tweets, pins, posts and updates and their business objectives. As a result, many businesses undermine their own efforts at social media.
Analytics to Action was written to help with this problem.
In the book, author Tim Cigelske helps business owners better understand the numbers that appear on their social media accounts.
Cigelske, the current director of social media for Marquette University, shares the principles, strategies and resources he used throughout his career and his current role as manager of a social media team with 30 people and 50 social media accounts.
Throughout Analytics to Action, Cigelske helps readers figure out how social media goals can help them reach business goals, which statistics to look out for, and how to combine all of this data into a consistent and reliable process that leads to success.
by Chris Smith
As businesses are learning, traditional sales methods are no longer working like they once did.
Cold calling, getting your name in the Yellow Pages, disruptive advertising and billboards are becoming a thing of the past as smart consumers are learning how to dodge and weave communication they aren’t interested in.
Consumers are using ad blockers, online reviews, social media and more to skip past these old sales methods and find the products and services that fit them.
If your organization is looking to adapt its sales strategies to the modern world of Twitter, Facebook, blogs and YouTube, The Conversion Code may be the thing that helps you do it.
Written by Chris Smith, a sales coach who raised two million dollars in revenue for the company he founded, The Conversion Code shares the tips, strategies and techniques Smith along the way.
The book covers lead generation starting where your customers are (online) and guides readers through the steps to convert their ”maybe“ or ”no“ into a ”yes“.
As the books on this list prove, the world of marketing will face a complex and unpredictable future. Social media channels will rise and decline in popularity. Marketing strategies will come in and out of vogue. Trends will come and go. As a business owner, it is your job to steer your business through these marketing decisions. At the end of the day, these decisions pale in comparison to the marketing principles which never change:
- Create something you are proud to offer your customers.
- Use feedback to make your product or service the best it can be.
- Keep innovating.
Stick to these basic marketing principles and your business will build a marketing foundation, no matter how unpredictable the future turns out to be.
Book Photo via Shutterstock