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General Marketing Books

Below are books that I’ve reviewed at Amazon.co.uk in what I think of as a general marketing category.

I try to be a tough reviewer and five star books a highly recommended and four star books are also well worth reading. Since I generally avoid books identified as ordinary or disappointing by other people, my reviews are more focused on the better books.

FIVE STARS

FIVE STARS Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got: Twenty-One Ways You Can out-Think, out-Perform and out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham – essential reading for every business owner who wants to make more money. (This link takes you straight to my detailed review.)

Jay Abraham Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Money-Making Secrets of Marketing Genius Jay Abraham and Other Marketing Wizards: A No-Nonsense Guide to Great Wealth and Personal Fortune by Jay Abraham – A legendary book about marketing. It’s old but much of it is still extremely relevant.

It may be available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

FIVE STARS Jump Start Your Business Brain: Scientific Ideas and Advice That Will Immediately Double Your Business Success Rate by Doug Hall – I wish I had read this book many years ago.

Jump Start Your Business Brain: Scientific Ideas and Advice That Will Immediately Double Your Business Success Rate by Doug Hall

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The Business Owners Guide To Making Out Like A Bandit: How To Get Even The Most Greedy… Penny Pinching… Money Hoarding Customers Spending Money Like They Used To! by Charlie Hutton – Excellent summary of Jay Abraham style profit improvement techniques.

It is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

FIVE STARS Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch – Particularly recommended to business owners who have just started and need to get customers. This has been updated and I recommend you go for the latest version which gives more attention to the Marketing Hourglass.

Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

FIVE STARS Guerrilla Marketing: Cutting-edge strategies for the 21st century by Jay Conrad Levinson – A marketing classic from the late Jay Conrad Levinson.

Guerrilla Marketing: Cutting-edge strategies for the 21st century by Jay Conrad Levinson

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

FIVE STARS Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port – A book about marketing professional services that’s so good, I wish I’d written it myself.

Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

FOUR STARS

Summary: Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham – this is very good but my advice is to get the complete book.

Summary: Money-Making Secrets of Marketing Genius Jay Abraham and Other Marketing Wizards: Review and Analysis of Abraham’s Book – A 4 Star Summary of a 5 Star Hugely Expensive Marketing Book. Amazon.co.uk

Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing by Drayton Bird – British direct response marketing at its best but the book looks intimidating.

51 Helpful Marketing Ideas by Drayton Bird – Interesting book badly let down by Kindle formatting.

The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book by Dee Blick – A good summary of marketing ideas for getting new customers. Amazon.co.uk

21 Quick Ways to Get More Clients by Kevin Donlin – a very practical, easy to read book about marketing. There’s nothing cutting edge in here but it’s good reading for anyone who can’t face a detailed marketing book.

7 Biggest Marketing Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make, And How To Avoid Making Them by Craig Garber – looks and feels sleazy but the content is sound. These mistakes are important to avoid.

More Clients… More Often… More Money: 70 Strategies That Will Dramatically Change The Way You Do Business by Jim Gehrke – a very useful summary of ideas to grow a business but derivative of Jay Abraham.

Summary: The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference – A nice summary of the main concepts of how ideas can be encouraged to spread virally. Amazon.co.uk

Breakthrough Business Growth Barriers: The 5 simple elements for getting more customers buying more, again and again, and increase profits in 90 days by Darran Hughes – a useful but general introductory guide to sales funnels that’s good value at 99p.

The Orgasm Effect: The Business Owners Guide to Get Customers Screaming…Yes, Yes, YES! by Charlie Hutton & Emma Hutchinson – A good book with Dan Kennedy / Frank Kern style ideas of direct response marketing. Amazon.co.uk

The Marketing Secrets of a Multimillionaire Entrepreneur by Jonathan Jay – A short book with plenty of tips, originally a freebie for a business launch.

Twenty-Five Ways to Improve Sales and Profits without Spending an Extra Dime on Advertising by Richard Johnson – A practical guide to implementing Jay Abraham style marketing.

No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent: The No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Guide to Getting Really Rich by Dan S Kennedy – a good reminder that it’s much easier to sell high profit products and services to people who have plenty of money.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan S. Kennedy – A good introduction to Dan Kennedy style marketing but not so good if you want to prepare a marketing plan.

Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff – A fascinating approach to making a pitch about your business to investors or customers. Amazon.co.uk

Putting Customers First by Ken Langdon – It gives an integrated approach to customer management which combines marketing with customer service.

Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing: A Simple Battle Plan for First-Time Marketers by Jay Conrad Levinson – A good place to start building your knowledge of Guerrilla Marketing.

The Guerrilla Marketing Revolution: Precision Persuasion of the Unconscious Mind by Jay Conrad Levinson – An interesting start to a new way of marketing to the unconscious brain.

Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times by Jay Conrad Levinson – Well worth reading when times are tough.

Guerrilla Retailing Unconventional Ways to Make Big Profits From Your Retail Business by Jay Conrad Levinson – Interesting look at unconventional ideas to help increase retail sales. Amazon.co.uk

Guerrilla Marketing Attack: New Strategies, Tactics and Weapons for Winning Big Profits from Your Small Business by Jay Conrad Levinson – Old but interesting in a good way Amazon.co.uk

Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby -a look at different ways to reach customers with direct response style marketing.

Postcard Marketing Success: How to Use Postcard Marketing To Promote Your Business by Joan Mullally and Evelyn Trimborn – Plenty of good practical advice about postcards. Amazon.co.uk

Customer Chemistry: How to Keep the Customers You Want and Say Goodbye to the Ones You Don’t by Mary Naylor – You can manage your customer base. Amazon.co.uk

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy – Fascinating look at advertising history which still offers practitioners plenty of lessons. Amazon.co.uk

Creating Demand: Move the Masses to Buy Your Product, Service, or Idea by Rick Ott – A book to make you think about your marketing but it was written before the Internet. Amazon.co.uk

The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding by Al Ries & Laura Ries – Branding in terms of what the brand stands for.

The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide by James Stephenson – A great reference book on marketing, even if it is dull. Amazon.co.uk

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guerrilla Marketing by Colleen Wells and Susan Drake – A book of unconventional marketing tactics but it’s not connected to Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing ideas.

Cunningly Clever Marketing by Andrew Wood – Packed with tips about direct response marketing.

THREE STARS

Marketing Judo: Building Your Business Using Brains Not Budget by John Barnes – An interesting concept but I’m not sure the ideas transfer to most small businesses.

The 7 Reasons Why Customers Don’t Choose You!: And How You Can Change That by Sammy Blindell and Miles Fryer – This is a book about branding and that surprised me given its title. Amazon.co,uk

Marketing In Less Than 1000 Words by Rob Burns – It’s hard to disagree with what’s written here in 999 words but there is so much missing from what needs to be said.

The Right Keys: Secret Marketing Strategies That Will Help You Sell Anything by John C – I don’t understand why I didn’t like this more. It doesn’t excite me, which is ironic for a book about appealing to the emotions.

The Incredible Profit Pulling Power of Client Reactivation by Everte Farnell – It also includes a chapter by Dan Kennedy which is licensed to authors to use. Amazon.co.uk

The Single Easiest Way to Grow – Winning Back Lost Customers by Forte Consultancy Group – Some good ideas but little real detail. Amazon.co.uk

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell – An extremely padded version of how ideas can build slowly and suddenly take-off.

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin – A good idea that has dated as our needs change.

It’s Not Luck by Eliyahu M. Goldratt – A story using the Theory of Constraints in the market where lack of demand is the constraint.

Why Your Marketing Isn’t Working in 2015 and what you can do about it by Fraser J Hay – this isn’t as good or as well structured as I expected.

The 90 Minute Marketing Plan: How to write a marketing plan in 90 minutes or less by Fraser Hay – The book has embedded videos which I found frustrating and irritating.

The Great Formula: For Creating Maximum Profit with Minimal Effort by Mark Joyner – A business philosophy for success in 14 words.

Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Conrad Levinson – I was disappointed and it suffers from a poor writing style.

The Guerilla Marketing Handbook by Jay Conrad Levinson – A very good book on marketing tactics but badly out of date since it was written in 1994.

80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More by Perry Marshall – I had high expectations for this book as I like the 80/20 thinking approach but I was left disappointed.

Marketing: The Top 100 Best Things That You Can Do In Order To Make Money & Be Successful With Marketing by Ace McCloud – It has some useful tips but it’s over-hyped. Amazon.co.uk

Postcard Marketing Update: What You Need to Know Now by Pat McCord – Practical advice on using postcard in your marketing. Amazon.co.uk

121 Marketing Ideas: To Grow Your Small Business by Rod Sloane – A list of ideas that lack structure Amazon.co.uk

Creating Competitive Advantage: Give Customers a Reason to Choose You Over Your Competitors by Jaynie Smith – More about benefit statements that competitive advantages.

Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain Into Market Gain by Chris Stiehl – Potentially an interesting topic but the book was too broad in its scope.

Instant Referrals: How to Turn Existing Customers into Your #1 Promoters by Bradley J Sugars – A simplistic look at referrals but not as bad as some in this series

Cut Costs and Increase Profits Using Customer Reactivation Campaigns by Richard Tunnah – Good for explaining why customer loyalty is important but the title doesn’t describe the book.

Fire, Aim…Ready: Management: The Start at the End Approach to Crushing Competition, Crafting Culture, and Cementing Relationships by Elliot Wagonheim – What stories do you want your customers and employees to tell about your business?

TWO STARS

Adding Value To Marketing by David P. Doyle – More of a book for academics than for practitioners or business owners. Amazon.co.uk

Marketing for Your Small Business: What an Advisor Would Tell You How to Attract Customers to Scale Up Your Business for Growth by V.F. Joseph – A very short book about marketing. Amazon.co.uk

ONE STAR

Would You Prefer To Watch Videos And Listen To Audio Recordings Instead Of Reading?

Is Your Business In Trouble, Struggling, Stuck Or Simply Not Growing As Fast As You Would Like?

This is a link to an exceptional business growth training system. When I saw this, I gave up all ideas of developing my own information product because I can’t develop anything as comprehensive or as well presented. I am an affiliate so, if you decide to try it, I will receive a commission.

Is Your Business In Trouble, Struggling, Stuck Or Simply Not Growing As Fast As You Would Like?

See My Review Of The Training

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