The winter season is a great time to step back and recharge your intellect. For me, that means getting my hands on a good digital marketing or inbound sales book!
What are the best digital marketing books to read for 2017?
These 8 digital marketing books will change your strategy and your perspective. Written by experts in content marketing, inbound marketing, social media, search engine optimization, social prospecting and relationship building, and digital strategy, they offer revolutionary ideas to improve your online marketing.
I’ve also noted other resources, which are well worth your time to remain current on digital marketing’s ever-changing trends.
1) The Big Data-Driven Business - Authors: Russell Glass & Sean Callahan
This book demonstrates how to emulate leading marketers, who are embracing marketing automation systems and using customer behavior data to make sound marketing decisions. It challenges you to cultivate new skills to observe and understand the digital buyer’s journey, as well as rise to accountability for ROI. The book also suggests you make demonstrable marketing decisions driven by results, metrics and data. If data isn’t your strength and you’re seeking an understanding of what data to analyze and how to make recommendations as a result of data, this provides practical advice. It shows exactly what a sound strategic digital marketing program can do!
2) Optimize-Author: Lee Odden
If you’re struggling to integrate SEO with social media and content to elevate your visibility online, this is a great book for you. Odden provides a practical, holistic approach to implementing a customer-centric digital marketing strategy that incorporates the multiple tactics of digital marketing. My favorite phrase in the book is “Those who strive to be everything to everyone will be nothing to anyone.” The book’s ultimate takeaway: Focus on digital marketing strategies that yield the best results and optimize them.
3) Inbound Marketing Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs-Authors: Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
Is your digital marketing strategy remarkable? Or are you interrupting potential new leads and customers with pushy, outdated marketing tactics? The founders of inbound marketing challenge you to rethink what you know about spreading the word about your products and services to encourage sales. This oldie-but-goodie book is a relevant how-to resource that provides easy-to-understand-and-apply basic inbound marketing principles that yield results for any business. Discover an Amazing Inbound Marketing Resource.
4) The Digital Handshake-Author: Paul Chaney
The advent of the Internet and, more specifically, the rise of Web-based tools and technologies have given your customers a new voice. Will your digital footprint deliver the answer to their questions when they begin to search online? How will you use blogs and social media to foster new relationships with potential new customers? This book is in my library because Chaney provides real case studies that exemplify how to integrate a digital marketing strategy with a traditional marketing campaign. He delivers practical solutions for real-world digital marketing challenges. It’s a great resource for non-technical business leaders who want to understand how to use digital marketing to positively affect their bottom line.
| Improve your digital marketing results in the new year with this free Digital Marketing Checklist! |
5) The New Relationship Marketing-Author: Mari Smith
“In the end, the reality is that you get out of social media what you invest in it.”-Brian SolisMari is one of my all-time favorite authors and social media experts. She is consistently on the cutting edge of social channel utilization, with an emphasis on profitability for businesses. People always do business with people they know, like and trust; that’s the essence of relationship marketing as many of us know it. Mari transcends the traditional approach to building relationships online through social media by presenting new skills required by every marketer and business leader alike. Her Social Scope blog is a must-follow!
6) The Invisible Sale-Author: Tom Martin
Welcome to your new customer. They are savvy and smart and have spent a great deal of time researching online for answers. Will your online brand push them away because all you did was talk about you? Is your approach to sales selling or helping? I appreciate this book because, time and again, I engage with companies that still haven’t accepted their buyers have changed. These same companies haven’t changed their approach to sales either, and they can’t figure out why they’re losing revenue. Traditional sales approaches are still necessary. However, today, digital marketing and inbound sales approaches, when done correctly, enhance your sales process and team. Inbound and digital marketing allow them to spend more time on closing the sale and less time on nurturing leads. This book is loaded with proven case studies and tips to elevate your sales to a new level.
7) The New Rules of Marketing & PR-Author: David Meerman Scott
Scott does an outstanding job of showing you how to leverage the power of digital marketing to transform your business. The Internet is your new word-of-mouth marketing channel. Publishing interesting content your buyers want is essential if you want to attract and convert leads into customers. Follow the action plan orientation of this book to develop a comprehensive digital marketing plan that includes press releases, blogs, podcasts, social media and more to position your company in a thought leadership position to drive leads and sales. Follow Scott’s Blog.
8) Epic Content Marketing-Author: Joe Pulizzi
Your customers are exposed to over 5,000 marketing messages per day. Are your messages cutting through the clutter and making an impact? According to Google’s Zero Moment of Truth research, the average consumer engages with 10+ pieces of content before making a buying decision. Today, online customers are highly selective, and your content has to be unique and different to stand out. Pulizzi takes readers through a step-by-step approach to developing content that can be used in different channels and that informs, entertains and compels potential customers to make a decision. No digital marketer’s library should be without this content marketing book by industry expert Pulizzi. Check out the Content Marketing Institute, a great online resource.
Yes, I still appreciate a good old-fashioned book that I can highlight, write notes on the page, fold over the pages and stick a bookmark in. Each of the books I shared can elevate your strategic approach to digital marketing. Each can help your business attract more visitors to your website, convert those visitors to leads and nurture them to a sales qualified lead.
Don’t have time to read?
The better question is “Can you afford not to read because of the change in your buyers’ buying habits?” Take your digital marketing tactics to the next level with a free digital marketing consultation. Connect with one of our digital marketing experts today.
