In a Hat’s Off to David Letterman,
Here is a Half Top Ten List of Great Marketing Books

It seems everyone on the Internet has a “top 10” list of marketing books. As a professor at Michigan State University, I’m often asked for my recommendations too.

There is so much information available (I got 503 million hits when I Googled “marketing books) that it is hard for anyone to know what is worth their time and what isn’t. While my list may differ from yours, here are my nominations for five “go-to” resources for anyone in business. All are written in plain, entertaining language, too.

• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout. To many, this is the most influential marketing book ever written. To many, it is considered to be the bible on marketing strategy.
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, by Al Ries and Laura Ries. This book is a collection of marketing principles that have proven effective over time. For me, the three most important are the Laws of Expansion, Contraction, and Publicity.
• Aaker on Branding: 20 Principles that Drive Success, by David Aaker. This, too, is a compact presentation of the core principles from everything Aaker has written in his many other books and articles that recognizes a brand as an asset with measurable value.
• Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. Written as a parable golf story, the book shows why any business must practice three core tenets to build an effective marketing strategy: 1) Decide what it is that it does better than anyone else; 2) Discover what it is that the customer wants and will buy; and, 3) Deliver +1 by giving the customer what your brand promises plus 1%.
• The final resource is actually a set of websites that will help you keep ahead of the consumer trend curve with their free newsletters and white papers: 1) Trendwatching.com; 2) Brandchannel.com; 3) Adage.com; 4) Prophet.com; and, 5) Factfinder/census.gov
  

Happy Reading…Your bottom line will thank you!