2021 brought us a lot of quarantine time and it’s a great opportunity to create new habits, start a new hobby or learn something valuable to improve. reading is such a natural act of social distancing and also a great way to become smarter and more informed in the field you’re working in.
If you’re interested in reading, you may have already searched for “what to read in quarantine” and see the variety of fiction or non-fiction books in the recommendation. If you’re looking for more than just reading and being entertained, we can help you with today’s topic: The Best Content Marketing Books: A Specific Taste for Content Marketing Beginners and Veterans alike.
You are reading: Best books on content marketing
Let’s dive into our list of the 32 best content marketing books to fill your bookshelf with your favorites.
our choices:
- 1. epic content marketing – joe pulizzi
- 2. content marketing management – robert rose & joe pulizzi
- 3. everyone writes – ann handley
- 4. how to write short – roy peter clark
- 5. how brands become icons – douglas b. forest
- 6. book launch – chandler bolt
- 7. born to blog – mark schaefer & standford smith
- 8. building a history brand – donald miller
- 9. content inc – joe pulizzi
- 10. content rules – ann handley & cc chapman
- 11. they ask you for an answer – marcus sheridan
- 12. #askgaryvee – gary vaynerchuk
- 13. authorized marketing – seth godin
- 14. influence: the psychology of persuasion – robert cialdini
- 15. optimize: how to attract and engage more customers – lee odden
- 16. the new marketing rules & pr – avid meerman scott
- 17. jab, jab, jab, right hook – gary vaynerchuk
- 18. the power of visual storytelling – ekaterina walter & jessica gioglio
- 19. blah blah blah: what to do when words don’t work – dan roam
- 20. master content strategy – pamela wilson
- 21. advancement of brand identity – gregory v. diehl & Alex Miranda
- 22. practical content strategy & Marketing – Julia McCoy & w mark schafer
- 23. f#ck content marketing – randy frisch
- 24. the adweek – joseph sugarman copywriting handbook
- 25. content machine – dan norris
- 26. content that converts – laura hanly
- 27. the content code – mark w. schafer
- 28. conversational marketing – kevin lund
- 29. incoming content: justin champion
- 30. stories that stick – kindra hall
- 31. The Art of SEO – Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Jessie C. estricchiola
- 32. how to shoot video that doesn’t suck – steve stockman
1. epic content marketing – joe pulizzi
Goodreads: 4.01/5
Written by one of the world’s leading content marketing experts, Epic Content Marketing gives readers a step-by-step guide through the process of creating content and stories that customers want to engage with. epic content marketing is developing and delivering stories that inform, entertain and compel customers to take action without actually telling them.
This innovative and thought-provoking guide will be a great start for you on the epic journey of content marketing.
2. content marketing management – robert rose & joe pulizzi
Goodreads: 3.78/5
If you want to grow your brand audience and skyrocket conversions in an ever-changing marketing world, you can’t ignore content marketing management. In this book, Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi will show you how to make your content marketing work and manage the entire flow within your organization.
Whether you’re a small business content marketer or a multi-million dollar brand, this book will give you practical ideas for developing compelling, strategic stories that drive passionate subscribers to your brand.
3. everyone writes – ann handley
Goodreads: 4.05/5
all write by ann handley will help you unlock the power of your words online and create the kind of content that can make your business prosper. You are not just writing a boring list or texts in documents; you are creating value for your audience and communicating with them through your words. Ann Handley walks you through the process of creating and publishing content that works across any online channel, including web pages, home pages, landing pages, blogs, emails, and social media platforms.
4. how to write short – roy peter clark
Goodreads: 3.75/5
roy peter clark, on writing abbreviations, provides an engaging and practical guide to mastering abbreviation writing, an essential skill in the ever-changing internet age.
The book covers how to write compelling and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, letters, tweets, product and service descriptions, and more. you’ll quickly learn practical techniques for crafting brilliant prose and getting your point across in a few words.
5. how brands become icons – douglas b. forest
Goodreads: 3.82/5
in how brands become icons, douglas b. Holt takes us on a cultural branding journey through real-world case studies of America’s most iconic brands.
holt explains how those brands become icons not through conventional brand strategies that focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. instead, it is built on targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty in traditional marketing.
The author provides a set of cultural brand principles that companies can leverage to create a brand that resonates with customers and establishes itself as icons.
6. book launch – chandler bolt
Goodreads: 3.98/5
If you are too tired of seeing your projects fail and want a breakthrough to secure the future of your business, this book is for you.
The book launch does not cover the secret or magic behind successful businesses. It tells you the proven approach and new model that experts and millionaires use to build their brands and thrive in the marketplace. From there, you’ll learn how to write and launch your first book with a proven book launch formula. Regardless of your writing level, you can start writing your first draft, present it to the public, and grow your business with desktop publishing.
7. born to blog – mark schaefer & standford blacksmith
Goodreads: 3.82/5
If you’re starting a blog at the beginner level, this book might be for you. or you’re sticking to your plan to start a blog but are too lazy to write, this book can also boost your blogging spirit to seriously commit to writing. born to blog gives you useful tips to start your own blog, enter the market and earn money. Even if you’re not doing business with blogs alone, your business can benefit from blogs more than you ever imagined. This book covers tips and techniques to help you leverage blogging to grow your business.
8. building a history brand – donald miller
Goodreads: 4.34/5
Through seven universal elements of powerful stories, New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller tells readers how to connect with customers on a deeper level and grow their businesses.
Building a storybrand focuses on helping readers understand the critical points in the story that engage customers and capitalize on them to create a simple and effective brand message across different materials. this book will transform the way you talk about your brand, what you do, and the value you deliver to customers.
9. content inc – joe pulizzi
Goodreads: 3.98/5
content inc. introduces a systematic process whereby any entrepreneur with limited resources can build massive audiences online and gain a competitive advantage without initially selling anything. Through this book, you’ll learn how to build an audience of future buyers, maximize the efficiency of social sharing, and search engine optimization to scale your content plan and start monetizing.
10. content rules – ann handley & cc chapman
See Also: Jane Thornley – Book Series In Order
Goodreads: 3.92/5
Through content rules, you can build practical, tried-and-tested skills and techniques for creating any type of social media content that works for your business. You will learn how to create an effective content marketing strategy and engage your audience with interesting information. if you’re delving into social media, you’ll find this book incredibly useful.
11. they ask you for an answer – marcus sheridan
Goodreads: 4.30/5
they ask you your answer is a concrete and simple guide to adjust your content marketing strategy by leveraging your internal resources, discovering and investing more in the potential power of the internet. No matter what your budget is, you can create great content marketing strategies with marcus’ revolutionary ideas.
12. #askgaryvee – gary vaynerchuk
Goodreads: 4.16/5
#askgaryvee is a useful book to read in this age of social media marketing. Originating from his popular show of the same name, the book contains his genuine, direct, and helpful answers to questioning across multiple fields and issues. From marketing, social media, content marketing, storytelling, to company culture or family businesses, you’ll get the answer you’re dying to know but afraid to ask.
#askgaryvee is your guide to making things happen in a fantastic way.
13. marketing permission – seth godin
Goodreads: 3.93/5
permission marketing helps marketers shape their brand messages to make it easier to create and deliver content that doesn’t interrupt customers or annoy them with interruption marketing. instead, brands can offer customers incentives to voluntarily accept advertising, build trust, and build long-term relationships with customers.
follow the permission marketing concept; you are guided to develop content that is tailored to your audience, fits their needs, and provides value to them, not just a ton of ads.
14. influence: the psychology of persuasion – robert cialdini
Goodreads: 4.79/5
Whether you’re running a video marketing campaign or a Facebook ad, your ultimate goal is to attract customers and persuade them to act the way you want them to. That’s why it’s important to understand the psychology of persuasion and apply it to your content marketing.
robert cialdini influencing doctorate will teach you how to become a successful persuader with six universal principles of influence, including:
- social proof
- scarcity
- likeability
- reciprocity
- commitment and consistency
- authority
15. optimize: how to attract and engage more customers – lee odden
Goodreads: 3.76/5
optimize helps you seamlessly integrate search engine and social media optimization into content marketing to increase relevancy, visibility, and customer engagement. It doesn’t matter if you are from a small and medium-sized business or a large-scale company, you can take advantage of imminently useful and creative content marketing tactics in this book to acquire and engage your customers online.
16. the new marketing rules & pr – avid meerman scott
Goodreads: 3.88/5
new marketing and public relations rules give readers a practical approach to communicating with customers and creating online visibility to increase recognition and sales through modern marketing and public relations. The book is a step-by-step guide to planning your effective marketing plan with the latest marketing and social media trends that address the right customer needs at the right time.
17. jab, jab, jab, right hook – gary vaynerchuk
Goodreads: 4.04/5
Once again, this jab, jab, jab, right hook bestselling author tells you how to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace by mastering social media marketing. With the leap of social media changes and innovation, quality content alone is not strong enough to help you beat the competition. instead, creating quality content that suits the right social media platform and target audience is much more critical to succeeding in a noisy social world.
18. the power of visual storytelling – ekaterina walter & jessica gioglio
Goodreads: 3.71/5
The Power of Visual Storytelling is a valuable guide to understanding how to develop an effective marketing plan and grow your business by harnessing the power of visual storytelling. Through full-color images and thought-provoking examples of successful businesses, the book gives you a concrete roadmap for using visuals and social media to enrich your content and stories.
There will be more important takeaways from this book besides how to include visuals in your social media or content marketing campaigns.
19. blah blah blah: what to do when words don’t work – dan roam
Goodreads: 3.99/5
en blah blah blah dan roam brings up a problem: we talk so much that we don’t think very well. frankly, we rely too much on our words, which are believed to be able to detect, describe and defuse any problem. but the fact is that they cannot. therefore, the author proposes a solution: a vivid thought that can make any complicated subject very clear.
dan roam explains the concept and provides dozens of examples so that anyone can understand and apply this creative approach to clarify everything. For content marketers, this book is a helpful guide to getting your content out of the blah blah blah and simulating more creativity in a content marketing program.
20. master content strategy – pamela wilson
Goodreads: 4.33/5
core content strategy is an all-inclusive, step-by-step guide to creating a content marketing strategy that engages your audience’s interest in your business and converts them into your satisfied customers.
In this book, you’ll discover how to make your content marketing effort count from capturing and using the best content ideas to writing the most effective titles, subtitles, and first sentences. b2b and b2c content marketers can take advantage of all the techniques and tactics in this book to take advantage of content marketing and build their online presence with it.
21. advancement of brand identity – gregory v. diehl & alex miranda
Goodreads: 3.90/5
See Also: 3 Ways to Read The Selection Series in Order by Kiera Cass
brand identity breakthrough teaches you how to make your products and brands stand out from others by exploiting and creating a unique story. you will need to develop a strong business identity combining your personality, value and functionality of your products. it will effectively consolidate the position of your business in the heart of your audience and will make it much easier for you to sell products to your customers.
22. practical content strategy & Marketing – Julia McCoy & w mark schafer
Goodreads: 4.00/5
practical content strategy & marketing gives you the most important foundations and skills you need to take advantage and profit from the content marketing industry. it is a simple and practical approach to the complicated field of marketing. You will learn the principles and physical aspects behind six key cores of effective content marketing to build a content marketing strategy from scratch.
23. f#ck content marketing – randy frisch
Goodreads: 3.68/5
f#ck content marketing emphasizes that the content experience is just as important as the content itself. focuses on the introduction of the content experience framework that enables and enhances the personalization of content experiences. there are five parts to this framework that will be covered in each chapter.
- centralize content
- organize content
- personalize experiences
- distribute content
- generate results
24. the adweek copywriting handbook – joseph sugarman
Goodreads: 4.10/5
If you’re starting a copywriting career or want to write copy that works for your ad campaign, the adweek copywriting handbook by joseph sugarman, a legendary copywriter, will be a helpful guide.
In this book, the author provides you with proven insights and principles on how copywriters can create compelling copy that attracts and motivates customers to buy a product or service. sugarman indicates that if you want to sell a product with your copywriting piece, you need to understand that product first.
This book is written explicitly so that even beginners can easily understand and grasp the message that the author wants to convey.
25. content machine – dan norris
Goodreads: 3.98/5
If you are struggling with content creation, this book will help you meet all the challenges and simplify the content creation process.
content machine covers the basics of content marketing and teaches you how to develop great content that makes your business stand out from the crowd. There are also downloads and frameworks that guide you to master all aspects of content marketing, from generating ideas, writing guidelines, to hiring and training a content team.
26. content that converts – laura hanly
Goodreads: 3.93/5
Converting Content provides a step-by-step process for executing content marketing on any b2b business to generate and acquire qualified leads and conversations. Included in this book is a simple, detailed framework that you can use like a pen to start drawing your content marketing right. converting content is definitely an ultra-efficient combination theory and practical steps to take.
27. the content code – mark w. schafer
Goodreads: 3.86/5
If you have recently ventured into content marketing, or have been working in this industry but have been unsuccessful or want new ideas, this book may be of use to you. in this book, check w. schaefer addresses his content marketing challenges and shares creative ideas on how to power his content to win at marketing in this digital age.
keep a note as you read this book because you’ll want to jot down your highlights of the content code’s six digital secrets.
28. conversational marketing – kevin lund
Goodreads: 3.27/5
conversational marketing will help you win the hearts of your customers and build a strong relationship with them by leveraging conversational marketing. The author gives you powerful tools and practical strategies to build meaningful conversations that connect your brand with your customers on a deeper level. you’ll win customers’ attention and have the opportunity to deliver value at every touch point.
29. incoming content – justin champion
Goodreads: 4.56/5
inbound content helps you create content that engages customers. it is valuable, relevant, coherent content that reaches the right audience at the right time. justin champion tells you how to create and use that content to its fullest potential to develop a unified, long-term content strategy and build your brand.
30. stories that stay – kindra hall
Goodreads: 4.42/5
stories that stick allows readers to explore, discover and illustrate the hidden or untold stories that can be a great weapon to captivate, influence and improve your business. You’ll learn how to tell your story and ignite the power of storytelling through four unique stories in this book: The Value Story, The Founder Story, The Purpose Story, and The Customer Story.
31. The Art of SEO – Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Jessie C. stricciola
Goodreads: 4.09/5
If you’re implementing a content marketing strategy without SEO, you’re missing out on a powerful weapon to take success to the next level. Search engine optimization extends the reach of your content and maximizes the effectiveness of your campaign.
Written by the leading experts in the industry, this book allows you to harness the art of SEO in every aspect of your business that needs it. reveals a variety of practical tactics, from basic to advanced, including new methods in seo rankings. you will know how to combine content and seo to obtain the best result in each marketing program.
32. how to shoot video that doesn’t suck – steve stockman
Goodreads: 4.19/5
Today, video is a powerful tool in modern marketing. With the leap of the internet, leveraging videos in your marketing is much easier than ever. how to shoot a video that doesn’t suck is a helpful guide to making videos that effectively tell the story your customers want to see, convey the message you want to convey, and move the audience to other actions.
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