The digital savvy audiences of today want to be entertained and educated regularly. Without mastering your content, your audience will soon lose interest and slip away.
That’s why we’ve put together this list of 5 awesome books (in no particular order of preference) to help you conquer your Content Marketing. You'll build a better brand reputation, create solid customer connections and grow your business by creating great content.
Must-Read Books for Every Content Marketer
1. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
We begin the list with a bit of an outlier. The late Dale Carnegie was a famed American writer and thought leader on interpersonal skills, who wrote several self-improvement books that gained wide popularity in his time.
How to Win Friends and Influence People was Carnegie’s most popular and bestselling work, and it’s clear why. His insights in this book into interpersonal relations and skills are extraordinarily simple and practical, and speak into the necessity for a strong and personable voice in your content marketing.
Just look at his ‘Fundamental Techniques in Handling People':
- Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
- Give honest and sincere appreciation.
- Arouse in the other person an eager want.
He might as well be talking about your content strategy. The book delves into these rules and much more. An outlier, perhaps, but one that certainly deserves its place in this list.
2. Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insights into Your Customer’s Expectations, Align Your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business by Adele Revella
Adele Revella is a marketer with more than 25 years of experience behind her, focused on “developing marketers who are the trusted source of competitive strategies and rapid revenue growth”. If you’re an inbound marketer, that’s what you’re after.
Her book Buyer Personas is an in-depth look into that very subject; buyer personas. It talks about how understanding what people want is about getting to know them, and then delves into just how we can do this. Although some surveys claim that around 80% of marketers will be using buyer personas to direct their business in a few years, many people already using them are just not seeing the promised results. That’s why Revella’s Buyer Personas cuts through all the fluff and delivers an easy how-to-guide for creating and implementing effective buyer personas.
3. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
Seth Godin is an internationally bestselling author of multiple books, many of which have been world-changing in marketing ideology and principles.
His book Tribes is about understanding how the current digital work is missing leaders. Godin discusses how to lead in this modern, digitally-connected world, and explains how this relates to funnelling your customers. As a content marketer, that’s what your job is about, leading the correct people down the correct path. You might think that you’re not a leader, but Godin explains that if that’s your attitude you risk becoming a “sheepwalker” – someone who follows the herd, never questioning or attempting to innovate. Tribes is really about learning to stay ahead of the game, to keep fresh and move forward strongly.
4. Content Marketing Playbook: Master the Art of Content Marketing by Rob Wormley and Sujan Patel
Rob Wormley is a content marketer who has spent the past 7 years successfully launching strategies for bestselling authors, speakers and big brands, across the USA. Sujan Patel is a content marketer and entrepreneur with 12 years’ history in the digital world, having helped companies like Sony, TurboTax and Mint grow their businesses.
The Content Marketing Playbook is a necessary tool in mastering your content. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that this is the most important practical guide to content marketing that you’ll come across. Wormley and Patel discuss in detail the various parts of your content (from emails to blogging to websites), how it all fits together and which are the best strategies to grow into and make use of. For practical steps to increase web traffic, brand awareness and conversions, look no further than this book.
5. The Visual Marketing Revolution: 26 Rules to Help Social Media Marketers Connect the Dots by Stephanie Diamond
Stephanie Diamond is a bestselling author, an international thought leader for content mastering and a veteran of the marketing and creative industry with over 20 years behind her.
It’s all going visual. We’ve known it for a while – a picture is worth a thousand words, and you can’t risk being left behind this philosophy. Diamond dives into the real core of social media marketing and how best to visually design a seductive online presence. Her 26 Rules will take you through a process of learning how to think visually for the modern consumer, create a purposeful visual persona and tell visual stories masterfully that capture your audience on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and more.
We look forward to hearing how you enjoy these books and applying the skills taught to your own digital strategies. What we know for sure is that when you’re done with this list, you’ll be ready to conquer your content.
