Marketing is an ever-evolving field. Certainly, in the past, there was a certain level of predictability to how marketing worked. However, as technology has continued to advance, it has increased the cadence of change. As a result, our collective need for marketing strategy books has never been more pronounced.
This can make it challenging for marketers to keep up with the trends. Likewise, in a data-driven world, that ability (or lack thereof) can spell success or failure for a marketing campaign.
The struggle is true for newbie college grads and marketing veterans alike. If you can’t keep up with the rate of change, you. will. be. left. behind.
With that said, here are three marketing reads that can help orient your inner marketer as we dive into a competitive, tech-driven (but still exciting) 2022 selling season.
1. The Hawke Method
The first recommendation is a brand new entry into marketing strategy books. Erik Huberman’s The Hawke Method is fresh off the press. As a result, it provides new insights into leading successful marketing campaigns.
Huberman’s book sports a trio of tried and true marketing principles that the author and his team have used to generate success for over 3,000 different brands in the last eight years. Huberman is an entrepreneur who created the full-service marketing company Hawke Media.
Over the course of nearly a decade, Hawke Media has generated successful marketing strategies for countless clients, and over that time they’ve learned some very valuable lessons. Critically, Huberman’s team has settled on three principles of marketing — awareness, nurturing, and trust — as key pillars to success.
In the book, the marketing master and his team break down why these marketing tactics matter, how they’ve seen them succeed, and how others can emulate their past and present success. If you’re looking for a way to learn cutting-edge marketing techniques that are rooted in past success, Huberman’s book has to be at the top of the list.
2. Platform
This next recommendation takes us back in time about ten years. Admittedly, that’s half a century in marketing years. Michael Hyatt published his classic modern marketing book Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World ten years ago.
That’s hard to believe. And, just to be clear, there are many specific elements and recommendations in the book that will sound dated at this point.
Nevertheless, the book is an iconic gem filled with ageless marketing wisdom. Hyatt was one of the first best-selling authors to really hit it out of the park when it comes to building a 21st-century audience to sell a product. His book focuses on bringing two essential marketing elements together: a product and a platform to sell it.
Hyatt’s book provides insight regarding things like utilizing social media and blogging to build a following. While his specific influencing recommendations may be ten years old, the basic tenets of his approach to digital promotion (as well as the platforms to do it on) remain more relevant than ever today.
If a marketer wants to find some clarity in an overcrowded space, this book allows them to take a step back and remember the basic elements that make the modern marketing world tick.
3. The 1-Page Marketing Plan
It’s no secret that we live in a complex world. Things like digitization, automation, and communication are always developing and changing. This overwhelming reality puts simplicity at a premium — which is why the third recommendation has ease-of-use right in the title.
Allan Dib’s very popular marketing book The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customer, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd should be on your marketing list. The goal of Dib’s book is to avoid falling victim to a buffet-style approach to marketing.
Rather than trying a little bit of everything (which equates to failure everywhere), Dibs helps readers create a simple, consistent, and reliable plan that is easy to follow. It forces the complexities of marketing into a single-page document.
This may sound overly simplistic, but for all its relative ease, Dib’s approach isn’t reductionist.
The “1 page” reference consists of a formulaic approach to building marketing strategies. He breaks down that single page into nine squares. Those squares provide a roadmap to an executable and effective marketing strategy.
Modern marketing suffers from a case of analysis paralysis. There are so many options and considerations, that many marketing strategies never really get off the ground — if they’re ever created in the first place. Dibs offers a fast and attainable way for businesses of all sizes to get their marketing plans into a single, usable format that can genuinely guide future decision-making.
Picking Your Expert Resources Intentionally
There’s no end to the amount of marketing content out there. And, at this point, the airwaves are only becoming more flooded each and every year.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed as a marketer, you aren’t alone. That’s why you have to be purposeful about which marketing books you read. The above recommendations offer a short-list approach to refresh and update your marketing strategy for the upcoming year.
The Hawke Method helps reduce marketing complexities into three proven focal points. Platform helps marketers remember the importance of bringing products and platforms together in sustainable promotional mediums. The 1-Page Marketing Plan offers an attainable way to reduce the complexities of marketing strategy into a single-page document.
Steep yourself in this short-but-sweet trio of marketing strategy books. By doing so, you will recalibrate your inner marketer. You’ll regain your focus on success. Move ahead in 2022 with a fresh, exciting, and optimistic approach.
