Leaders are readers – a saying that has been around for the longest time. Successful marketers and entrepreneurs consume more information than their competitors. They learn from the successes and mistakes of others while applying that knowledge to the situations to help themselves and their brand.

While online guides, blogs, and articles are an excellent resource to brush up on your knowledge there is nothing quite like a book – a lengthy and exploratory dissection on one of the several topics that you might want to read about, painstakingly researched, meticulously crafted and edited.

In the area of digital information, it’s easy to fall into the habit of only reading social posts and sound bytes but there are dozens of life-changing books being written every year to give your business an edge. Marketing pros seeking to broaden their knowledge and skillsets should make a point of staying informed via reputable blog portals and social media. They should also take time out of their busy schedules to focus on a long-form work that might just realign their thinking.

Therefore, before you launch your next product of business take a step back and look at your current brand. If you feel like you and your brand could use some polishing, then pick from one of these five books on the list and start reading! Each one of these books delivers actionable strategies and eye-opening ideas that will help you build a better brand and improve your marketing strategy.

1. Blue Ocean Shift by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

A follow-up to the global bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy, this book draws on more than a decade’s worth of experience and work from its authors. It is packed with brand-new research to guide you through taking your organization “from a red ocean crowded with competition to a blue ocean of uncontested market space”.

While the first book was groundbreaking in its ideologies on marketing strategy, readers were left wondering as to how they could apply the strategies in their real-life businesses. A step-by-step guide outlining a process that can be more readily implemented in your business is what this book is all about.

The book includes processes, tools, and new research to show you how to move beyond competing and start inspiring confidence to generate unparalleled growth.

2. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

New York writer Malcolm Gladwell writes a perfect starting timepiece for the novice marketer. The tipping point is a phrase that he popularized in this book which is now commonly used in the world of marketing – it describes the point at which a product idea or group reaches critical mass and suddenly explodes in popularity. And so taking your company, service or product to “the tipping point” is the goal of every marketer.

Gladwell lays out 3 rules of academics that make ideas spread like viruses which are the factors needed to push something to the tipping point. These rules are:
a. The Law of the Few
b. Stickiness Factor and
c. The Power of Context.

These three rules makeup of all the knowledge and market your needs to help create their own tipping point. You can read more about this book and others that are part of this Cool Things Chicago guide.

3. Influence the psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

This book explains the psychology of why and how people say “yes”. Dr. Robert Cialdini and his 35+ years of research on influence, persuasion, and looking into the psychology of what makes people say yes, has led him to write about six principles of persuasion.

The principles are as follows – reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity.

Understanding these will not only help you become a better persuader but will also help you be better prepared to defend yourself when these tactics are used on you. It is perfect for people in all fields and these principles of influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a motivational force for your success.

4. The Content Formula: Calculate the ROI of Content Marketing and Never Waste Money Again by Michael Brenner and Liz Bedor.

Content marketing requires consistently producing engaging informative posts which can pose a tremendous challenge for any business. Tracking the return on investment of contact marketing can be even more challenging and so the authors of this book have simplified the process of breaking down the numbers to measure success and fine-tune your approach in the process of establishing an effective content marketing strategy.

The content formula Break this down into a step-by-step guide for marketers and is divided into three parts –

a. Building a case for content marketing in your business to finding the budget.
b. Establish a successful content marketing program.
c. Navigating the numbers to calculate your content marketing strategies return on investment in concrete terms.

This book will help to take your business from pointlessly contributing to internet noise because you vaguely understand the importance of content production, to producing content that generates change.

5. Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

This is another classical book in marketing and is one of the first books to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical and media blitzed public. In this book, the authors describe a revolutionary approach to creating a position in a prospective customer’s mind – a position that reflects a company’s own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.

In this book, you will learn how to use leading ad agency techniques to capture the biggest market share possible and become a household name. Some other things you will learn are as follows:

a. How to build your strategy around your competition’s weaknesses.
b. Repositioning a strong competitor and creating a weak spot.
c. Using your present position to its best advantage.
d. Choosing the best name for your product.
e. Determining when, and why, less is more.
f. Analyzing recent trends that affect your positioning.

Branding, positioning, creating viral content, and using data – these marketing books promise to provide plenty of inspiration and insight, so that you may learn your lesson and then implement your plan of action.

Now you know a few marketing books which will help you further your business, as inside each book is a treasure trove of information that is guaranteed to give you the tools to build a successful marketing strategy. Whether you are involved in content marketing, social media marketing, or digital marketing there is something in here for everybody.

Marina Turea works as content manager at Digital Authority Partners