The Best Books For Learning About Startup Marketing

Startup marketing can be an exciting task. Often with limited budgets and ideas to test, it’s a job that comes with creative problem-solving and resourceful thinking.

But a good marketer isn’t just resourceful. They think carefully and strategically about who their audience is, where they can find them and what they might want to hear.

 

What Are The Different Ways Startups Can Market Themselves?

 

Marketing is an incredibly creative endeavour, with plenty of ways that startups can market themselves.

Whilst they might not have the big budgets that other companies do, there are still plenty of ways to get customers’ attention.

Some of these include:

Press: The press is an amazing marketing tool. Think about it, if you’re a beauty brand with a new lipstick, you’d prefer a beauty journalist to tell their readers how good it is, rather than harp on about it yourself. Think about what publications your audience might read and how best to draw them into your offering.

Content: Content, especially in the modern world, is an incredibly valuable marketing tool. This can include writing blogs on your own website and offering to write for other websites. Through this, you can explain what your company is and what it’s trying to do, in order to educate people on how you can help.

Social media: Social media isn’t only free, but it allows you to tap into an engaged audience. Think about setting up content channels that allow you to give your customers a look into the company, build community and even giveaway elements to boost engagement.

Community groups: When it comes to engaged audiences, community groups are a great place to tap into. Online forums and in person events can be an easy way to capture an engaged audience, in order to build yours.

Word of mouth: You’d be surprised just how powerful word of mouth can be, especially in the early stages of your business. Think about incentivising people to spread the word through tools like affiliates, loyalty programmes and discount codes. You’d be surprised just how fast word spreads.

If you need some more ideas to help, look no further! Here, we give you some of the best books to help you nail your business marketing plan from day 1.

 

 

Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age

 

 

Why do certain ideas go viral and others don’t? That’s the question Jonah Berger sets out to answer.

Word-of-mouth marketing can be one of the most powerful tools for a start up. It is far more influential than advertising and a great way to draw in new customers. But can you create word of mouth? According to Berger you can, and his book explains how.

Read the book here.

 

Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products

 

 

Marketing isn’t just about growing your customers, it’s about keeping them.

This book looks at how to create products that are embedded with processes that are designed to change customer behaviour. By using what he calls ‘hook cycles’ – these products keep bringing people back.

Nir Eyal explains exactly how to do that.

Read the book here.

 

This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See

 

 

Seth Godin, one of the most respected marketing thinkers, tells businesses how they should communicate their products to the world.

This book is all about the importance of building trust, mastering the art of positioning and how to adapt your marketing to the modern consumer.

Read the book here.

 

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

 

 

A classic book when it comes to mastering marketing strategy, this book focuses on how to make your startup stand out in a crowded market.

It talks about the importance of creating a unique space in customers’ minds, built on reflecting your company’s strengths against your competitor’s weaknesses.

Read the book here.

 

Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

 

 

This book is important for understanding how to get your first customers and scale up from there. It’s built on the premise that any company can build a good product, but gaining traction is incredibly important.

The book teaches marketers 19 channels they can use to build a customer base, offering them advice on how best to use them.

Read the book here.

 

Building A StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

 

 

If your marketing message isn’t clear, your potential customers will ignore you. In a world of constant distractions, getting people’s attention is harder than ever.

Donald Miller teaches you how to use storytelling to make your brand messaging simple and compelling, drawing people into your message.

Read the book here.

 

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