Top Marketing Books: Experts Recommend the Best!

Dave Kerpen – Author of Likeable Social Media

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin. No author has influenced me more as a marketer, business person and writer than Seth.

Jeff Korhan – Founder of Landscape Digital Institute. Author of Built-In Social.

	Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi – An inspirational and instructional guide to building an audience with content. This is a must-read for entrepreneurs and content marketers, especially those without a media background.
	X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, Brian Solis. There are many great insights, but my favorite is that only inferior and exceptional customer experiences matter because average never gets talked about. Another: Empathy is a fountain of innovation.
	Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing, Robert Rose and Carla Johnson. A well-researched and written book about why the entire marketing industry is moving to an experience-based economy. It makes the case for customer experiences as the final frontier of sustainable market differentiation.

Hannah Kovacs – Move East Studios. Created 11 Steps to Enterprise Social Media Advocacy

	X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, Brian Solis – Now more than ever, businesses have an opportunity to cultivate experiences and connections with customers in more holistic ways. Solis urges the reader to think critically about where we ‘meet’ our audience – and not thinking just about where they are now, but where they WILL be.
	*Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind*, Al Ries and Jack Trout – Although written in the early eighties, this book is packed full of timeless marketing wisdom. This book illustrates the power of constructing a strategy that plays off the competition’s weaknesses and positions your brand as a strong contender in the marketplace.
	*Everybody Writes*, Ann Handley – I loved this book. Handley offers actionable advice for writing in the digital age. It’s not enough to just have “decent” writing skills. I came from an academic background and my writing has completely evolved (in a good way) since my entry into the digital space – and much of my progress I owe to Handley’s thoughtful instruction!

Arnie Keunn – Author of Accelerate & Content Marketing Works

Youtility by Jay Baer. The book is an excellent, fast read and allowed me to come away with one term: useful content. At Vertical Measures, we no longer say engaging, amazing, viral or anything else when it comes to content. We judge it based on if it is truly useful.

Amy Landino – Author of Vlog Like a Boss

	*Crush It* by Gary Vaynerchuk taught me the importance of taking my life into my own hands and making my life goals happen with hard work.
	*Never Eat Alone* by Keith Ferrazzi inspired me with more ways to connect with and bring value to my network so I always have people to help who will lift me and my business higher.

Joe Lazauskas – Co-author of The Storytelling Edge.

The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall – This book got me really interested in the neuroscience of storytelling. It’s a fantastic book.

Ian Lurie – Ian Lurie Consulting. Creator of several training Lynda courses. Author of One Trick Ponies Get Shot: How To Succeed In The Business Of Consulting.

	*Ogilvy on Advertising*, David Ogilvy – His lessons still hold true today. That’s damned impressive! Every marketer should read this book.
	*Content Inc.*, Joe Pulizzi – I go back to it now and then. Joe Pulizzi articulates content marketing really well.
	We Are All Weird, Seth Godin – This book has influenced a lot of my marketing thinking. Plus, you gotta love the cover.

Mark Masters, author of The Content Revolution.

	Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I know it’s probably been said many times here before, but the areas covered in 1938 are still true today. For instance, there was a small group of us at Content Marketing World 2016, that decided to create a Mastermind group (it’s foundations are within this book)
	The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. Where my journey into content marketing started. This book was published in 2008 and I took on the principal of education marketing.