As a leading design and marketing firm, at Sunan Designs we’ve got a diverse team of experts. Our designers have different backgrounds and perceptions that help shape our designs into the best you can get. However, there is one thing that’s common amongst all our team – we’re all avid readers!
Not just this, a common opinion amongst all our team is that a good reader makes a really good marketer. Not only does reading keep you updated and informed on a wide variety of subjects, it boosts creativity and perceptivity.
In order to perform well in the marketing world, a professional needs to understand the world around themselves. Reading a variety of books gives you this unique insight into how humans behave, and have been behaving since a long, long time. This is why you will find that most great marketers are readers.
At Sunan Designs, while we’re not designing amazing graphics, or helping our customers with their marketing strategies, the conversation around the company revolves around books, articles, and blogs.
Here you will find the top 3 books recommended by our experts for marketers for all levels. Whether you’re an expert yourself, just starting out, or even a business owner who’d like to learn the ropes – these books will definitely help you. Trust us, we’re the experts!
1. Confessions of An Advertising Man
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44895.Confessions_of_an_Advertising_Man)
No list of top marketing books can ever be complete without David Ogilvy’s “Confessions of an advertising man”. The “Father of advertising”, Ogilvy wrote this book in order to inspire people and attract new clients. It highlights his philosophies about advertising campaigns, creativity, copywriting, ethics, management and more!
Despite the fact that the book was written back in 1963, it still remains relevant today. Ogilvy was more than successful in interpreting and appealing to basic human nature, something marketers try to do every day (and will be doing every day in the future).
An advertising pioneer, Ogilvy specially highlights “Branding” in Confessions, which is very notable considering that advertising in his era was limited to making short term sales happen. The book is incredibly insightful and a must-read for all kinds of marketers.
2. How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9128288-how-brands-grow)
Byron Sharp’s bestseller will challenge and shatter everything you think you know about marketing right from the first paragraph.
This book isn’t just incredibly well-researched and well-written. Instead, it seeks to break all stereotypes that marketers tend to have about their audience, and to push them towards trying to achieve much more than they currently are.
Byron argues that instead of targeting specific and focused groups (as is very common in marketing today), brands need a much broader and general reach. He proves this by taking Harley Davidson as an example. While the brand is a marketer’s favorite example when it comes to customer loyalty and brand support, less than 10% of it’s sales come from these buyers.
Instead, the book says that brands need to forget about their target audiences and try a much broader approach in order to boost recognition and sales.
3. Make Time
(https://www.amazon.com/Make-Time-Focus-Matters-Every/dp/0525572422)
As a marketer, the phrase “so much to do, so little time” is probably an accurate description of your workday. You’ve probably taken many self-help courses on increasing productivity, attended many time management workshops – all to no avail.
It’s not your fault. As marketers, we’ve all been there and to be honest, these exercises make us feel even more rushed and frantic! Well, no more. Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky change your entire perspective about saving time and being productive with their book “Make time”!
Instead of getting you to do more things faster, or fitting things in neat slots on a timetable, “Make time” is all about focusing on the things really important to you and making time for them.
The authors are design experts themselves (Knapp is the creator of the Google design sprint, and Zeratsky has designed for YouTube), and outline how they employ the principles highlighted in the book themselves.
So these were the top 3 picks for books every marketer should read from our experts. If you’ve read one of these, or would like to recommend a marketing (or any book, honestly) to our team, feel free to reach out! We’d love to hear what inspired you!
