My morning routine is pretty simple: I make a coffee, I walk the dog, and I listen to an audiobook—phone in hand as I make notes of important points. This simple exercise of listening to the best content marketing books for coworking spaces has helped me learn a ton.
So, I thought I’d share the 9 best content marketing books I’ve found the most interesting, insightful, and helpful in creating better content, in case anyone’s interested in learning a little more.
In this fundamental content marketing book, Jay Baer explains why, in order to win the attention of your customers these days, you have to change your stance on marketing and ask a different question: “How can we help?”
His philosophy is simple: if you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life.
For anyone who doesn’t know this about me, the reason I left the world of public relations and started my own content marketing agency was that I felt PR was moving from organic storytelling into the world of advertising.
And I love this book because it acknowledges how vital storytelling is these days—especially in contrast to people’s rebellion against ads.
Drawing from dozens of story-driven strategies and case studies taken from leading B2B and B2C brands, Storynomics demonstrates how original storytelling delivers results that surpass traditional advertising.
I was recently put onto this book by my friend Cat Johnson and it’s a fascinating read (well, listen).
In this book, Robert Cialdini, an expert in the fields of influence and persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings.
He delivers his theories using his Universal Principles of Influence.
This book focuses on how we’re all taught to lead the conversation but are losing our abilities to truly listen. Not only does Kate Murphy explain how this is affecting us personally, she also explores the ways in which brands can use proactive listening to become more in tune with their customers and use what they learn to market to them more effectively.
As a leader, developing and implementing a strategy is critical to success in business. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, in this book Rumelt shows that there has been a growing tendency to create strategies that don’t really have quantifiable goals.
The material is broadly applicable in business, but also for content marketing.
To keep it simple, this book outlines how Marcus Sheridan, whose pool company struggled after the housing collapse, created an innovative approach to marketing his business that supercharged his business to a multi-million dollar success.
His approach was relatively simple: when people have questions, they ask a search engine. If you have answers, the right content strategy will get them to the top of the search results and seen by millions of eyes every day. Drop the marketing speak, stop “selling”, and start answering. Be seen as an authority, not just another advertisement.
From the folks who created The Content Marketing Institute comes Content Inc. This book provides a smart approach to business based on a simple concept: developing valuable content, building an audience around that content, and then creating a product for that audience.
This is one of the first books I really got into, from a professional perspective, and it really impacted the way that I look at the content marketing process: putting your “why” before your “what” when communicating with your target members.
The premise is simple: why you do what you do connects with people more impactfully than what you do, in many instances. The book explores why people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the why behind it.
Every business making sales online is engaged in a battle to get customers to click. Book a tour. Get in touch. Learn more. Open an email. Read a blog post.
More clicks equal more sales equals a more successful business.
But how do you write copy that will encourage more people to become members? How do you persuade them to make that final buying decision?
This book is incredibly effective at delivering techniques, tactics, and industry secrets that will help you write better copy and get more clicks as a result.
If you’re looking to brush up on your content marketing knowledge and skills, these are a great place to start!