If you look around you, everything is telling you a story – brands, movies, objects and of course those movies and shows that you binge-watch on whenever you can. Clearly, content is king but it cannot sell by itself and needs promotion, which is why content marketing comes into the picture.
Content marketing can be defined as the technique of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content which can resonate with the targeted audience so as to drive profitable action. If you are into the content business or a similar industry, the knowledge of content marketing will surely take you places.
Here are 11 must-read content marketing books of all time:
1) Blue Ocean Shift
Written by W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne, this book is ideal for people who want to bring about big changes in their marketing game.
It consists of a road map laid down by the author, posts a staggering experience of 30 years in consulting and researching, who carves the path for you for smoother and more successful reinventions in his book.
This book answers the questions on how and why every baby step towards reinvention is carried out, will help people from different reinvention teams.
Also, it emphasizes on aspects like respecting your team’s feelings and going into the details of everything where little is left to chance for achieving absolute success.
2) Pre-Suasion
Written by Robert Cialdini, this book is a must for any marketing campaign for attracting leads and converting them and is definitely one of the best content marketing books out there.
The author is one of the leading experts in persuasion and negotiation who explains the book how to persuade someone by altering their attitude and beliefs.
To sell a product to someone, you must make them look at it from your eyes.
In the book, he emphasises on unity; categorically familial unity, ethnicity, geography and shared interests among others. He adds that invocation of the same helps people come closer and the more an individual relates to being a member of a particular group, the more powerful the unity effect will be.
Secondly, surveys help increase demand as it helps people focus and talk about if the product will add value to their life and makes their satisfaction levels go up.
Thirdly, a small tip would be to sit across the person you intend to influence. You will have more visual prominence and would know exactly when to speak – before or after him/her and the outcome would be better.
3) Talk Triggers
Word-of-mouth always has and will always predominantly be one of the most powerful marketing hacks, which Jay and Daniel have attempted to revive through this book. They discuss a systematic approach via Talk Triggers; viz;
Simple organization: Simply organising the given information in chronological order helps break down the most complex topics and makes it appear relatively shorter and easier to grasp.
Detailed advice: The authors, in the book, highlight how a ‘Talk Trigger’ campaign can help trigger talks among people within the organisation. Word-of-mouth advertising has been emphasised in this book like never before.
Enthusiasm: The authors describe a strategic campaign about triggering talks and amplifying it. This model would not only help people employ this age-old technique in newer models but will also be able to inspire other authors working/writing on a similar dimension of content marketing.
4) Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing
Robert, an ace educator, who has built a career on sharing the power of stories in Hollywood and corporate world alike, along with his partner Tom, head of top content marketing agency Skyword.
They have jotted down this book together and break down powerful storytelling for us in a practical yet simplified manner, making this one of the best content marketing books worldwide.
With chapters like ‘The Marketing Crisis,’ and ‘Advertising: A Story of Addiction.’ you would find this book hitting home because like all top-notch books, they give you a step-by-step process through 8 stages of storytelling.
It goes from various stages like the target audience and subject matter, to the crucial inciting incident and objective of desired which is then followed by the typical action, reaction, and the crises choice and closure. The concluding section, ‘Putting Story to Work,’ has chapters each addressing a single process for each stage.
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5) Content That Converts
This book can serve as a gospel for B2B companies which helps them skip the process of direct selling and chasing leads. It rather helps them learn persuasive selling of copy which converts fairly directly on its own.
It will also help you distribute your content via digital marketing methods like Email-marketing and SEO marketing to help you expand your reach.
Talking about Laura Hanly, she is a writer who specialises in content marketing for online businesses. She has worked with major Australian publishing houses and when she moved to e-commerce and B2B companies, she realised that their approach towards content marketing is rather incomplete which is a clear obstacle to driving growth.
So, the clear message that she sends out via her book and work is understanding your target audience, know the person you are communicating with, understanding the potential offer and figuring out the message you are conveying. Do read this book as it is one of the top content marketing books in the new age.
6) Content Strategy For The Web
This book is touted to be the industry’s go-to handbook for developing and executing successful content strategies, thus making it the best brand marketing books of all time.
By following this book, you will know how and when you to create and deliver useful content for your audiences. Kristina, CEO of BrainTraffic, has poured all her expertise into this one book.
The key objectives of this book are:
1) Teaching you about how and why an understanding of content strategy and it’s business value is important
2) Identify people and processes behind driving a successful content strategy
3) Learning to make smarter and achievable decisions about what content to create and how
4) Creating a governance plan about keeping your content updated and compelling for key audiences
5) Building a solid business case for content strategy
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7) Content: The Atomic Particle of Marketing
It goes without saying that there is no marketing without content.
Yet, it is the right kind of high-quality content that will fetch you results and produce fruitful results when paired with a marketing strategy.
This bestseller by Rebecca Lieb is one of the best content marketing books and serves as a research-based guide to content marketing” wherein you learn how to create good content and its importance in today’s digital world.
It will make you realise the power of content marketing as it explores how content functions cohesively in all frameworks of marketing, in organisational concerns and IT decision-making as well.
8) The Lead Machine
Generating leads is not only a sales job, but any entrepreneur who is looking to drive his/her business through content marketing must know how to generate leads, as it is key to growing the business and converting website visitors into customers.
This book by Rich Brooks, however, covers it all from the creation of fine SEO-friendly posts and ranking high on Google to growing your Email List and charting out that perfect digital marketing plan for yourself.
The best part of this book is that it is not dry like many business books due to its humorous vein and pop culture references thrown here and there which makes you chuckle and keeps you hooked to the book.
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9) Break The Wheel
The phrase ‘Break the Wheel’ clearly comes from popular fiction series, ‘Game of Thrones,’ where the Queen Daenerys Targaryen wants to rule her world Westeros and all the families there, who are seemingly the ‘spokes on the wheel.’
Jay Acunzo is a podcaster and a star public orator at various conferences around the world. His take on the world is fresh and he doesn’t stick to theories on formulaic marketing or copy-and-paste quick solutions, tips or any shortcuts.
Jay has, in the past 4 years, interviewed several entrepreneurs who prospered not by going with the herd but rather by relying on his own intuition. ‘Break the Wheel’ consists of transcripts of his podcast interviews with entrepreneurs or ‘mavericks’ who gained massive success by defying conventional wisdom.
This book is one of the best content marketing books and is a landmine of terrific ideas paired with Jay’s amazing wordplay and eclectic humour which makes content marketing sound both challenging and fun at the same time.
10) Clout
Most books are fairly direct and present to you a miraculous cure for attracting clients and creating amazing content.
This book is exactly the opposite; wherein Jones emphasises on the fact that one size does not fit all. There is a reason why people call it one of the best content marketing books ever written.
Colleen Jones also highlights that nothing solo would solve your problems – not good SEO, not great client, not a great marketing strategy etc; yet, when all these are thrown together into a single basket, one strong and successful strategy or campaign can be built.
Clout is pull or influence. On the web, clout will help you attract the right people at the right time and make changes to their functioning. Jones is strict when it comes to processes and oversight yet a little flexible at the same time and has solid advice for people at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.
“Content + Context + Clout.’
11) Ideas, Influence, and Income
Writing a book is a dream for most people but selling it is as big an obstacle as the dream. Tanya, this book teaches us how to manage this in an objective manner with real and simplified solutions.
She herself has worked with highly-respected literary agents at a leading agency and has jotted down this book for content marketers who want to gain an enriching perspective on publishing options and resources.
The book feels like a conversation with a publishing expert who wants to guide the new authors to demand their rights with dignity. It neither gives you a one-stop solution to churn our money nor does it equip you with a painless formula to start and finish writing your book over the weekend.
Rather, it teaches you that book marketing is as important as writing it and should be approached with equal enthusiasm and gusto. This book is a great choice for anyone thinking of writing their own book, struggling to finish it or looking for a plan to sell it.
Content Marketing Books: Conclusion
Since you have managed to scroll down to the bottom of this article, you sure are a content person looking to add extra skills to your resume and rightly so. The aforementioned list is an essential guide to the entire landscape of content marketing and definitely worth your while.
So, it is time to replenish your reading shelf with these top content marketing books and become an ace marketer who can take the world by a storm!
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