The Best Marketing Books of All Time (2024)

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout is a must-read classic in the marketing world. It reveals that branding success comes from being first and unique in the market, not from having the best product. A practical guide loaded with examples from Coca-Cola, Apple, Toyota, etc.

$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi teaches business owners how to create irresistible offers that sell better and at higher prices. He explains how to increase revenue by raising the perceived value of your product or service, using strategies like premium pricing, risk-free guarantees, stacking, bonuses, scarcity, and exclusivity.

Influence is about six principles of persuasion useful for sales, marketing, and negotiation. Professor Robert Cialdini backs his ideas with a lot of science research. The six principles are: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity.

Scientific Advertising is a classic book often recommended for learning copywriting—or how to write ads that really sell. The author, Claude Hopkins, shares effective strategies like always testing your ads, thinking of ads like salespeople, how to offer free samples, and key insights into human psychology.

Contagious by Jonah Berger is a great read for anyone into marketing, influence, or the psychology of consumer behavior. It explores what makes people share. In other words: why do certain products, ideas, or content 'go viral'? A lot of research is simplified into 6 key principles: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value, and stories.

DotCom Secrets is a guide to building a successful online business using marketing funnels. Russel Brunson teaches how to grow an online audience with email marketing, multiply profits with "value ladders," and even provides exact scripts to create our own sales videos.

"Blue Ocean Strategy" by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne introduces a groundbreaking approach to strategic business planning, focusing on creating uncontested market spaces (Blue Oceans) rather than competing in overcrowded markets (Red Oceans).

"Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath teaches how to explain your ideas and thoughts so they capture attention, persuade others, and stick in people's minds. Learn why some ideas become popular and others fail using their research-based SUCCESs framework, which outlines six key principles: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotions, and Stories.

Hooked is a guide for product designers, marketers, and entrepreneurs, showing them how to create digital products that are engaging, compelling, and habit-forming. Nir Eyal reveals how big tech companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook keep us coming back to their apps daily. His "Hooked Model" has 4 stages: trigger, action, variable reward, and investment.

$100M Leads by Alex Hormozi is a book about how to increase sales by getting more engaged leads. It teaches us how to create a valuable lead magnet, cold contact people you don't know, build a large audience of followers, scale advertising profitably, build an affiliate program, and much more.

"Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely explores the hidden forces that shape our decisions, demonstrating through a series of experiments and insights that humans do not always act rationally. Ariely delves into behavioral economics to explain why people often make irrational choices in their daily lives and how these choices affect consumer behavior.

"Traffic Secrets" by Russell Brunson is a guide to generating consistent traffic for your website and online business. It covers fundamental marketing strategies, including sales funnels, email marketing, and competitive research. The book also explains how to drive free traffic and run paid ads on platforms like YouTube, Google, Instagram, and Facebook.

YouTube Secrets is a must-read if you want to start a YouTube channel to make money. Sean and Benji—the creators of multiple popular channels—help you unlock the YouTube algorithm, explain how to grow a channel from zero, and share many methods for making income. (Hint: Expect hard work!)

Pre-Suasion shows a new side of influence. It's about everything that happens BEFORE you ask someone to say yes to your proposal. Professor Robert Cialdini has distilled hundreds of scientific studies to prove that how you FRAME a message from the beginning is crucial to its success.