Best 5 Books on Marketing for the Digital Creative
Here are my best 5 books on marketing for the digital creative, which should hopefully inspire you to better ‘sell’ your digital talents whether as a freelance creative or growing online business. I like reading about marketing because I love learning about the psychology and successful techniques behind the art of selling great products and services that make people happy, whilst making loads of cash in the process. Everybody wins.
Velocity – Ajaz Ahmed & Stefan Olander
Velocity – The Seven New Laws For A World Gone Digital is a conversation between the founder and director of AKQA, one of the world’s most successful digital ad agencies and the Vice President of Digital Sport for Nike, so a pretty good pedigree! Its a book about how to make the most of the unrelenting pace of change in the digital realm by learning how to act with speed, direction, discipline and constant acceleration. To that end it’s full of pithy quotes, anecdotes and smart one liners.
“Velocity is about seizing the momentum of a beta world in perpetual motion.“
Buy on Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
Creating Customer Evangelists – Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba
Creating Customer Evangelists is a great book and far more meaty in content than Velocity, but it is much more ‘instructional’ than inspirational (although it is that too). Providing a tonne of great insights into how companies large and small have used simple ideas like building buzz, creating community and offering bite size tasters to really make the most of their customers loyalty, its an enjoyable and educational read. Each chapter ends with a handy case-study summary of how companies as diverse as Krispy Kreme, The Dallas Mavericks and O’Reilly & Associates are demonstrating the power of delivering a great product people love to share.
Buy on Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
Baked In – Alex Bogusky & John Winsor
Baked In is a fantastic little book that races through 28 rules for baking your marketing right into the design of the product so that your products essentially market themselves. A really nice touch is the assortment of doodles in the margin to illustrate points along the way.
Baked In is an excitingly inspiring book that will get you thinking in a fresh way about everything. Each rule is exemplified with some brilliant success stories (and could-have-been-success-stories) from a range of companies from eco-start ups to the mighty Apple. A really enjoyable read you’ll want to dip into time and again.
Buy on Amazon.com | Buy on Amazon.co.uk
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
I probably told more people about this insanely good book than any other book I’ve read lately. I really really enjoyed reading it and trying to absorb as much of the incredibly simple, but powerfully resonant ideas in this ‘dealing with people’ classic.
The reason I’ve included it in a post about the best marketing books for a digital creative is because everything in life really boils down to people. Dealing with people well can make all the difference in the world to the future of your career, company and social life. Dale Carnegie’s writing is informal and direct – like having a decent conversation with a good friend. I can’t recommend it more highly!
Buy on Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
Being Direct – Lester Wunderman
I first heard about Lester Wunderman while reading the ever excellent Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point in which he tells the story of how Lester added a little gold treasure chest to a magazine page and increased response rates to an ad by 80%.
Lester is basically the godfather of direct marketing and Being Direct is both an education in how to create marketing that actually works and an entertaining autobiography of someone who was inventing an industry on the fly.
This is a great book if you’re at all interested in the history of marketing (which is actually fascinating), but also a great place to pick up some insider secrets and develop a deeper understanding of the psychology behind producing advertising that really works.
