Last year, I published a list of the some of the favorite books by marketing leaders. This year, I decided to share some of the more recently published books that are focused on marketers and/or marketing. Below are some of this summer’s must-reads for marketing leaders.
1. Marketing in the #FakeNews Era: New Rules for a New Reality of Tribalism, Activism, and Loss,
by Peter Horst
What’s the book about? The challenges facing brands have gotten far more complex, and the stakes have grown higher when marketing in the #FakeNews Era. Leaders must now address a highly polarized marketplace,in which consumers are energized by their tribal affiliations to take action for or against brands based on their perceived values, beliefs, and biases. Here you’ll find strategic and tactical guidance on how to prepare yourself for what may lie ahead, because you won’t have time to puzzle it out when you get that dreaded late-night call from PR.
Who might benefit from this book? Anyone with a stake in an organization’s brand and reputation—marketers, PR managers, general managers.
2. Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future — and What to Do About It,
by Tien Tzuo, CEO and founder of Zuora
What’s the book about? Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce said, “Tien Tzuo, who I was lucky enough to hire as my eleventh employee at Salesforce, has written the definitive playbook for anyone navigating the most important business model shift of our time. The subscription model is exploding everywhere, and nobody knows how to steer through this shift better than Tien.” But how do you turn customers into subscribers? As the CEO of the world’s largest subscription management platform, Tzuo has helped countless companies transition from relying on individual sales to building customer-centric, recurring-revenue businesses. His core message in SUBSCRIBED is simple: Ready or not, excited or terrified, you need to adapt to the Subscription Economy — or risk being left behind.
Who might benefit from reading this book? Any marketer interested in employing subscriptions to build lucrative, ongoing relationships with customers.
3. Optimizing Growth: Predictive and Profitable Strategies to Understand Demand and Outsmart Your Competitors,
by Jason Green (managing director at Alvarez & Marsal), Mark Henneman (senior partner with The Cambridge Group, a principal with Booz Allen Hamilton and executive with Motorola, Inc.) and Dimitar Antov (director and former principal at The Cambridge Group)
What’s the book about? Optimizing Growth is a handbook for marketers and businesses on how to succeed in the age of big data. This book provides insightful guidance, real-world success stories and practical tools to achieve growth in today’s business environment which looks dramatically different than it did a decade ago, utilizing big data to achieve a deeper understanding of demand, customers, competitors, and opportunity. Growth now demands innovative new approaches and an improved capacity to meet customer needs.
Who might benefit from reading this book? Executives seeking to gain competitive advantage and the new mindset required to leverage precision analytics.
4. The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader,
by Thomas Barta, CMO leadership thinker, and Patrick Barwise, emeritus professor at London Business School
What’s the book about? Seth Godin calls it “A must-read for every present and future CMO who cares about making a difference.” The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader is the first leadership book for marketers—based on the largest ever global study, involving over 68,000 executive assessments—on what makes for a successful marketer. Learn how to mobilize your boss, your colleagues, your team, and yourself. The prize? More impact, more career success, and, quite simply, more fun.
Who might benefit from reading the book? CMOs, marketing managers, brand managers, junior marketers, marketing students, headhunters, HR executives.
5. Superconsumers: A Simple, Speedy, and Sustainable Path to Superior Growth,
by Eddie Yoon, founder of EddieWouldGrow
What’s the book about? Pork dorks. Craftsters. American Girl fans. Despite their different tastes, eclectic diehards have a lot in common: they’re obsessed about a specific brand, product, or category. They pursue their passions with fervor, and they’re extremely knowledgeable about the things they love. They aren’t average consumers–they’re superconsumers. While small in number, superconsumers can have an outsized impact on a company’s bottom line. Representing 10% of total consumers, they can drive between 30% to 70% of sales, and offer invaluable advice to managers looking to improve their products, change their business models, energize their cultures, and attract new customers. Rich with data and case studies of companies that have implemented superconsumer strategies with great success, Superconsumers is a fun, practical, and inspiring guide for anyone interested in making their best customers even better.
Who might benefit from reading this book? Marketers interested in engaging with a brand’s most passionate and profitable consumers.
6. Analytics: The Agile Way,
by Phil Simon, speaker and ASU professor
What’s the book about? Many if not most organizations fail to understand one of their key assets: their data. For every Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix, hundreds of organizations struggle to make sense of digital information. In Analytics: The Agile Way, award-winning author and ASU professor Phil Simon shows how progress companies are eschewing the Waterfall method in favor of agile methods such as Scrum. In so doing, they are garnering valuable insights into their data far faster than their counterparts.
Who might benefit from reading the book? Executives and practitioners who want to make sense of their organization’s data and external data sources.
7. Marketing Strategy: Based on First Principles and Data Analytics,
by Robert W. Palmatier, University of Washington professor, and Shrihari Sridhar, Texas A&M associate professor
What’s the book about? A research-based guidebook that takes a different approach by, 1) organizing the processes and tools around First Principles to give managers a structured framework for developing effective strategies; 2) integrating state-of-the-art data analytic techniques into all aspects of the strategic planning process; and 3) introducing the latest marketing research throughout.
Who might benefit from reading the book? Practicing managers and managers-in-training interested in marketing strategy.
8. Capturing Loyalty,
by John Larson, senior partner at John Larson & Company, and Bennett McClellan, managing consultant and chief literary officer at John Larson & Company
What’s the book about? In Capturing Loyalty, John Larson and Bennett McClellan, two pioneers in the field of customer loyalty, teach marketers and sellers how to turn satisfied customers into highly satisfied customers—and explain how this shift affects loyalty behaviors and dramatically impacts a company’s bottom line. Through research and success stories, Capturing Loyalty offers a new approach to a very old problem, and advances the field significantly for the first time in a decade.
Who might benefit from reading this book? The authors target marketers, sellers and organizational leadership to explain why you can’t increase profits efficiently or sustainably solely by chasing after new customers. Instead, they found that you make more money by selling more to your most satisfied customers than by going after new ones, and by identifying satisfied customers and turning them into highly satisfied customers.
9. Microsoft Secrets – An Insider’s View of the Rocket Ride from Worst to First and Lessons Learned on the Journey,
by Dave Jaworski, CEO of Meta Media Partners LLC
What’s the book about? Want to grow your business even in the face of intense competition? Where do you put your focus? What questions should you ask? What principles drive the best outcomes? Lessons from Microsoft’s meteoric rise from start-up to global influencer can positively impact your business (and even your personal life.) Learn from Bill Gates and the team he assembled. Dave Jaworski brings you a personal inside view of the thinking and decisions that shaped Microsoft.
Who might benefit from reading the book? Business and technology leaders and influencers with a growth mindset. Business Leaders looking for ideas and strategies to take their businesses to new heights. People passionate about personal development, looking to learn how to better themselves personally and professionally.
10. Answers for Modern Communicators: A Guide to Effective Business Communication,
by Deirdre Breakenridge, CEO of Pure Performance Communications
What’s the book about? Modern communicators need answers to pressing questions about reputation, building relationships, advocacy, storytelling and social media, and how to navigate an evolving media landscape. Answers for Modern Communicators responds to FAQs with advice and “in the trenches” perspectives grounded in decades of PR and marketing experience.
Who might benefit from reading the book? PR and marketing professionals and students, entrepreneurs and business owners ready to enhance their business communication skills to meet the challenges of quickly evolving media and changing consumer behavior.
11. The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise,
by David White, Mehrdad Baghai and Stephen Coley
What’s the book about? From Sameer Dholakia, CEO, SendGrid: “Don’t get me wrong — there are countless newer leadership and management books that are worth reading. But I often recommend leaders go back and re-read the “oldies but goodies.” What I like about The Alchemy of Growth is that it reminds us all that growth can only be sustained over long periods of time if leaders are thoughtful and intentional about the investments they are making now and how those pay off (and at what scale) over multiple time horizons. The authors provide useful frameworks for formulating and driving growth strategies, and, overall, the book can provide leadership teams a common vocabulary and toolkit.”
Who might benefit from reading the book? Leaders looking to prepare their high-growth companies not just for the business they have today, but for the business they want to have in the future.
12. Do Good: Embracing Brand Citizenship to Fuel Both Purpose and Profit,
by Anne Bahr Thompson, founder of Onesixtyfourth and pioneer of the Brand Citizenship Movement
What’s the book about? Doing good is no longer a cost of doing business but an investment into brand loyalty, employee retention, and growth. Based on three years of research, Do Good presents a five-step model of Brand Citizenship that delivers value to individuals, investors, and society as a whole. Using widespread case studies to go beyond the theoretical, Bahr Thompson systematically guides large corporations and social enterprises alike to effectively align purpose and profit.
Who might benefit from reading the book? Do Good’s appeal is broad: from CEOs, CMOs, social responsibility and sustainability experts to entrepreneurs and those just starting out in business.
