Digital marketing requires a lot of skills (to pay the bills) and so my top 20 best digital marketing books don’t just come down to digital marketing focus alone.
Sure, there’s straight-up incredible digital marketing books in here. But then there are some that have served me like no others in building the fundamental skills of taking marketing strategy and turning it in to serious coin for myself, my businesses and many, many client businesses.
If you follow my @neilshoneymac Instagram account, you’ll have seen me talk about the books I’m reading all the time. Usually digital marketing books on Audible. But here are 20 must-read digital marketing books that together will impact you, your business and your income in an incredible way…
1. Oversubscribed (Daniel Priestley)
Best digital marketing books of all time? Well, Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley is quite possibly my favourite book of all time that has MASSIVELY effected me being in a position to manage digital marketing for businesses across the planet. What’s digital marketing tech know-how if you don’t know the simple behaviour psychology of supply and demand… and how to create it within your business and, indeed, your digital marketing strategy.
2. Purple Cow (Seth Godin)
The Godfather of marketing Seth Godwin is like the brother I never had. So many of my digital marketing methodologies arose from early interest in marketing, absorbing everything he’d ever put in to print and audio form. Purple Cow by Seth Godin is an epic marketing book packed full of examples of how to transform your business through being remarkable. As Seth puts it in chapter one: a business worth making a remark about. Like a Purple Cow.
3. The Advertising Effect (Adam Ferrier)
The Advertising Effect by Adam Ferrier discusses the simple steps that we can take to influence online and offline, producing simple yet hard hitting questions such as… how easy is it for my customer to take this action. Increasing conversions by simplifying the process. I loved this book.
4. #AskGaryVee (Gary Vaynerchuk)
Every heard of a chap called Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee)? He features more than once here in the best digital marketing books of all time. The #AskGaryVee Show is a regular call-in show on Facebook by business and martketing guru, Gary Vaynerchuk. This audiobook curates the best questions and answers, from digital marketing strategies to intricate tactics – with expansion on BIG ideas. I highly recommend.
5. Key Person of Influence (Daniel Priestley)
Daniel Priestely’s Key Person of Influence made me realise that whether you’re in an ‘expert business’ or simply you’re a business owner, you’re a personal brand. The value of this personal brand hugely effects your business’s liklihood of success. Something that I assess when take on a client and how we’ll grow their business. This is a step by step formula by the excellent Daniel Priestley.
6. Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
You may have noticed that this list of the best digital marketing books of all time is not limited to books you’d find in the digital marketing section. If you want to be a great marketer all the tech know-how will leave you struggling if you don’t know how humans tick. This book is one of the most epic books on human psychology you’ll ever read. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is un-missible for marketers that are going to defy the odds and make huge things happen.
7. 80/20 Sales and Marketing (Perry Marshall)
Ever heard about the 80/20 rule? 80% of the results come from 20% of the work? 80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall will have you assess your digital marketing efforts in the most efficient way possible.
8. Selling The Invisible (Harry Beckwith)
I loved this book not only because of it’s epic strategies for selling online but in paper version every page has a lesson summarised by a couple of sentences. Once you’ve read the book, looking back at the notes at the bottom of each page is like having a sticky-note summarising each page. Selling The Invisible by Harry Beckwith is a great book, easy to pick up for five minutes and get a ton of digital marketing value.
9. Contagious (Jonah Berger)
Similar to the value noted in Thinking Fast and Slow, Contagious by Jonah Berger is a behaviour psychology book that will drill down for you why things ‘catch on’ – and take off. There’s great evidence and you’ll be writing notes on how to use all these strategies in your own business (I did anyway…)
10. Sell or Be Sold (Grant Cardone)
What’s a digital marketing strategy if you don’t know how to sell? I believe this is the most actionable and practical sales book of all time. Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone will help you sell online and offline.
11. The Thank You Economy (Gary Vaynerchunk)
Feature #2 for Gary Vaynerchuk – The Thank You Economy deserves to be in the best digital marketing books of all time even more now than when released. In an age where BOTs and automation are taking over many aspects of what we do as marketers, The Thank You Economy delivers BIG in understanding the incredible ways community management can effect your business today, tomorrow and in 20 years time.
12. Permission Marketing (Seth Godin)
With so many marketers still trying to ‘interrupt’ the marketplace, Seth Godin dives deep on how and why we should opt for permission marketing. Permission Marketing by Seth Godin looks at how we serve up the content our market wants – with their permission. The KEY ‘know-like-and-trust’ section of your customer journey will never be more merited.
13. Jab-Jab-Jab-Right-Hook (Gary Vaynerchuk)
Value, value, value, pitch. Jab-Jab-Jab-Right-Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk follows on nicely from Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing, where we discuss the content that delivers in the middle of funnel. This is also a great book for marketers who struggle to show their boss the value of great content at scale rather than bottom of the funnel call-to-actions.
14. Growth Hacker Marketing (Ryan Holiday)
Pioneer of digital marketing in the past 15 years, Ryan Holiday, discusses one of the KEY areas of marketing that you need to know and use – virality. How do products and services go viral? How can you influence this to occur in your products or services? Over to you, Ryan Holiday in Growth Hacker Marketing…
15. How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie)
The oldest book in the best digital marketing books of all time – and also the most timeless. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie speaks to every part of your business journey. This will help you with every interaction you ever have with a prospect, a member of staff and even people outside of your business. Use it in your online interactions, positive to sell and negative to defuse volatile situations. This book is incredible.
16. Crushing It (Gary Vaynerchuk)
Like real-life stories of everyday people who are crushing it with their online marketing and turning it in to real, big businesses? Say no more. Wrapped up nicely at the end of each chapter by Gary Vee, Crushing it merges stories and tactical how-to’s. Epic read.
17. On Writing Well (William Zinsser)
Copywriting is the most underrated skill of online marketing. Fact. Love video? The title of that video gets the view. The title gets searched and discovered. The supporting text influences what the viewer does next. And that’s before we look at blogs, emails, sales pages and your website home page. On Writing Well by Willian Zinsser is in the best digital marketing books of all time with huge merit – because it effects almost every part of your online marketing strategy.
18. Hooked (Nir Eyal)
We don’t create our habits. Our habits create us. And if you can create a habit-forming product or service, you’ll have demand on auto-pilot. Our digital marketing starts with a product or service that has long lifetime value of every customer. Use Hooked by Nir Eyal to create the long lifetime value and use the 16 Week Digital Marketing Programme to create the systems to follow-up and get the second, third, forth, fifth sale…
19. Made to Stick (Dan Heath)
How we communicate our ideas is just as important as the idea itself. Great ideas get forgotten all the time – or never take off at all. Use Made to Stick by Dan Heath to help you communicate your product or service in a way that’s… sticky.
20. Positioning (Jack Trout)
A huge book about how to position yourself in a crowded market. We’re probably not the only one in our market, so how to we define ourselves. Dominos doesn’t position themselves as great pizza (it is great pizza…) they position themselves as FAST – delivered in 30 minutes or less, or your pizza is free. Positioning is everything.