10 Books for Beginner Marketers

10 Books for Beginner Marketers

You can learn not only in practice. We share a selection of books on product and internet marketing that will help you form basic knowledge about the profession.

  1. “Positioning: The Battle for Minds” by Al Ries, Jack Trout
  2. “Fundamentals of Marketing” by Philip Kotler
  3. “Contagious: The Psychology of Word of Mouth” by Jonah Berger
  4. “The Psychology of Influence” by Robert Cialdini
  5. “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith
  6. “Developing Value Propositions” by Yves Pigneur, Alexander Osterwalder
  7. “Clear, Understandable” by Maxim Ilyakhov
  8. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  9. “Marketing 100%”, Igor Mann
  10. Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne
  11. “Positioning: The Battle for Minds” by Al Ries, Jack Trout

Trout and Ries are the creators of the concept of positioning, which is now considered the basis of marketing and branding. The book was published in 1980, and all subsequent works on positioning are based on it. Therefore, it is better to read the original source – how the authors of the concept spoke about it.

Trout and Rice wrote that before you can get into the wallet, you need to get into the consumer’s head. All competition between goods and services begins there, not on the store shelves. And indeed, you can only remember a few brands, a maximum of 7-10 for each category. Positioning is the answer to the question of which shelf in the consumer’s head the brand will occupy.

Who is it for:

  • for beginning brand managers , marketers, product managers;

  • startups.

Why read:

to understand positioning and promotion in highly competitive markets.

Buy in Labyrinth

  1. “Fundamentals of Marketing” by Philip Kotler

It is largely thanks to this book that marketing has become a self-sufficient discipline and systemic work on organizing a business instead of scattered articles about discounts and sales. Kotler’s book is sometimes criticized as outdated, but it was he who united all the knowledge about marketing and systematized it.

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Who is it for:

  • for beginning marketers, to understand what to study and what to develop in;

  • managers who want to understand marketing processes.

Why read:

to gain basic and systematic knowledge of marketing.

Buy in Labyrinth

  1. “Contagious: The Psychology of Word of Mouth” by Jonah Berger

A book about viral marketing, storytelling, and how products and ideas become popular. For example, about word of mouth — one of the most effective and hard-to-reach promotion channels. It is formed on the basis of consumer feelings and user experience, and they are subjective.

The book on marketing and advertising examines the factors that influence how a product or service becomes popular. The author shares methods that help customers recommend the brand to all their friends and relatives. Lots of examples and little theory.

10 Books for Beginner Marketers

Who is it for:

  • product managers ;

  • brand managers;

  • strategists.

Why read:

to understand how to influence the popularity of goods or services.

Buy in Labyrinth

  1. “The Psychology of Influence” by Robert Cialdini

Robert Cialdini is a psychologist who wrote a book to teach people how to recognize manipulation and resist it. However, in the marketing world, his book has become a textbook on persuasion.

Marketing is the art of influencing behavior and managing consumer choice. Therefore, a marketer cannot help but know one of the main books on this topic. After reading it, the specialist will have a choice: to use manipulation or not, and what effect they want to achieve.

The book talks about marketing without deception, respect for customers and the ability to tell the truth about a product. Eight chapters talk about the main methods of manipulators, for example, about the principle of “service for service” – the desire to repay if a person has done something for another.

Why read:

to learn about the basic methods of manipulation, learn to avoid them or use them consciously.

Buy in Labyrinth

  1. “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith

When marketing is taught in books or seminars, they mostly give examples about products, because it is easy to show packaging, positioning, promotion. It is more difficult to talk about services.

This book on marketing focuses on what is less reflected in professional literature and courses. Short chapters and many examples of promotion and positioning of services.

Why read:

to understand services marketing and learn how to do it.

Buy on Litres

  1. “Developing Value Propositions” by Yves Pigneur, Alexander Osterwalder

It is necessary to know the value proposition development template in order to be a minimally cultured marketer. The template itself has been replicated because it is a recognized tool, but not everyone knows how to use it. This book on marketing provides a clear and understandable algorithm for how to connect a product and a consumer.

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Who is it for:

  • product managers;

  • strategists;

  • entrepreneurs.

Why read:

to qualitatively and quickly improve marketing, to form key messages for communications.

Buy in Alpina

  1. “Clear, Understandable” by Maxim Ilyakhov

In the book “Write, Cut” Maxim Ilyakhov and Lyudmila Sarycheva taught how to write clear and understandable texts. In “Clear, Understandable” Ilyakhov suggests thinking about marketing communications in a comprehensive manner.

Marketing is the connection between the product and the consumer. But only at the level of definitions. In reality, it is the connection between the people who make the product and those who choose it. And here the ability to communicate, to hear others, to convey your ideas are the most important skills for a marketer.

This is a book about text and context. It is easy to read – like riding an escalator to a new level of communication mastery. The book works as an example of how to write clearly and understandably.

10 Books for Beginner Marketers

Who is it for:

  • everyone who communicates with the audience using texts;

  • brand managers.

Why read:

to develop empathy and improve communication skills.

  1. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Kahneman’s book is about behavior and the psychology of consumption. Mistakes in decisions and seemingly impulsive actions are the result of how human thinking works. Kahneman divides it into two systems:

Make decisions quickly and effortlessly.

Allocate resources for processing information, approach the decision slowly and thoughtfully.

In the book, the author gives examples of both systems in action, explains what cognitive distortions the first one leads to, and explains how to work with each of them. With “Thinking Fast and Slow” you can begin to dive into an important discipline for a marketer — behavioral economics.

Why read:

to understand how the thinking “autopilot” works and learn to influence decision-making mechanisms.

Buy in Labyrinth

  1. “Marketing 100%”, Igor Mann

Igor Mann is the co-founder of the publishing house “Mann, Ivanov and Ferber” and an experienced marketer. If Kotler’s “Marketing Fundamentals” is a classic textbook, then Mann’s book is practice. The author tells what tasks a specialist faces when he comes to the marketing department. To understand the specifics of the marketing profession in Russia, you can start with Mann’s book.

Why read:

to begin immersing yourself in the profession.

Buy the book in MIF

  1. Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

Almost all markets are now highly competitive. The cost of attracting new customers is growing. Customers’ attention is scattered. Marketing approaches are needed that will help bypass this system.

The book “Blue Ocean Strategy” is about visionary thinking. The author does not just reason, but gives working tools on how to create something that did not exist and what will be bought. The book is primarily about the flexibility of thinking and the ability to adapt to a changing reality, so it is very useful for a marketer.

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Who is it for:

product managers;

  • CEO of companies.

Why read:

to learn about tools that help create new products and breakthrough strategies.