As a marketing student, you need to be thinking like a marketer long before you even graduate. Studying marketing is a challenge for your creativity, resourcefulness, and innovation skills. This means that simply following your curriculum isn’t going to take you very far, and you should do some extra work to improve your professional skills.
Reading some of the must-read marketing literature is a great place to start. That’s why we’ve created a list of 10 books that you simply have to read, and that will change the way you perceive marketing. Let’s take a closer look.
source: Pexels
1. Permission MarketingPermission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers by Seth Godin
Seth Godin is one of the most influential marketing authors and experts today, having published 19 books in this domain.
In his best-selling marketing book Permission Marketing, he talks about the importance of building trusting relationships with customers and getting their permission to advertise a product or service. He opposes interruption marketing, which is when we try to impose advertising even to those not interested.
It’s a classic marketing book that will appeal to your inner marketer.
2. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger
Jonah Berger is an esteemed professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a published author and social psychologist.
The book we’ve selected teaches you about what he sees as the secret principles deciding why certain products or ideas become extremely popular while others simply fail into oblivion. Those six principles of contagiousness are Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories.
3. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Marketing students have to learn about the importance of positioning- that is, establishing a particular place in the mind of the consumers. The two authors share specific strategies and principles for successful positioning and help the readers understand how each one works.
The book’s a great resource for writing marketing essays as well. In case you need academic writing help, a good essay writing service can assist. Use it to remove the stress from essay writing.
4. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
This next book can help young marketing students understand how to create products that keep consumers engaged in the long run. It breaks down Eyal’s key principles for:
- creating consumer habits
- keeping consumers engaged
- creating triggers for taking action
- personalization
It’s educational, encouraging, and written for those who are just discovering the magic of successful marketing.
5. This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See by Seth Godin
There are more than 50.000 marketing graduates a year in the USA. This is some serious competition. This marketing book is made for students who are just beginning to learn but want to stand out. It covers the basics of marketing.
In this book, Godin shares specific tips, tricks, examples, and his personal experience.
6. Shoe Dog by Bill Knight
Learning from the best is what this book is all about. It’s a memoir written by Bill Knight, the co-founder and former CEO of Nike.
While the book is written from a personal perspective, it reveals the secrets behind building Nike, one of the most successful brands of all time. It teaches about entrepreneurship as well and is motivational for anyone with goals and dreams.
7. Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time by Howard Schultz
The title of the book is self-explanatory, and it’s another great example from a world-recognized brand that is Starbucks. Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, writes about building their empire from 11 stores in Seattle to more than 30.000 ones globally.
He wrote about building your brand, the importance of customer experience, employee empowerment, and other interesting principles.
8. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
Another great book about the art of persuasion was written by Cialdini, a social psychologist. The book is considered a great resource for learning about human behavior and how to use it for better marketing success.
His principles can be applied to different marketing environments, including the modern-day digital marketing context.
9. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley
Learning about content writing is another must for marketing students. Written by a marketing expert, the book can be seen as a guide for improving your content writing skills and learning about different key principles behind successful content. It will inspire you to learn more about the tools available to you, like PickWriters, Grammarly, or Readable.
10. Digital Marketing for Dummies by Ryan Deiss and Russ Henneberry
Finally, no student of marketing can walk around without at least a basic knowledge of digital marketing. From website optimization and content marketing to social media marketing and paid advertising- this book covers it all.
Final Thoughts
Learning about marketing never stops. Improving your skills and adopting new strategies constantly is a must. And reading the literature that changed the face of marketing or offered some completely new perspectives can be life-changing for all you marketing students.
Hopefully, we’ve managed to grab your attention and have you planning which of the books from the list to read first. Whichever you choose, you won’t regret it!
About the author of this article
Alice Barrios is a marketing expert and a blogger. She covers marketing news, tools, innovation, and trends to help rising and experienced marketers improve their results and develop professionally.
Comment Policy
Your words are your own, so be nice and helpful if you can. Please, only use your REAL NAME, not your business name or keywords. Using business name or keywords instead of your real name will lead to the comment being deleted. Anonymous commenting is not allowed either. Limit the amount of links submitted in your comment. We accept clean XHTML in comments, but don't overdo it please. You can wrap code in [lang-name][/lang-name] tags.