When searching for the list of best books on marketing to read, I came across many articles, but none of them showcased the latest books combined with my favourite classics.

So I decided to create my own, the most recommended part of this article being the cult marketing books list that I honestly think every marketer should read.

This article mentions more than 80 digital marketing and branding books from the 1960s through to 2019, each having something special to teach you – from creating advertising strategies to building the products that get people hooked.

Here’s a quick list of the 10 books I highly recommend, with a link to their Amazon pages, in case you prefer to quickly browse through.

My favourite 10 marketing books of all time:

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
2. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
3. Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
4. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
5. Start with Why by Simon Sinek
6. The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Scott
7. Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
8. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger
9. Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday
10. The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry

And now, an in-depth list of all the best marketing books covering everything from digital to branding to growth hacking.

The best marketing books published in 2019/2020

1. InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z by Sarah Weise

This book is definitely going to my reading list as a promising way to learn the latest Instagram advertising hacks.

Learn what gets people hooked on Instagram, how the audiences make their purchasing decisions, and how to tailor your marketing strategy to attract young audiences.

Learn more about Instagram ads by checking out this list of the best Instagram ads from leading brands.

The key thing you will learn: How to succeed in Instagram marketing and create content that the millennial audiences want to engage with.

2. Digital Marketing Strategy: An Integrated Approach to Online Marketing by Simon Kingsnorth

This second edition of the bestselling digital marketing guide, published in 2019, provides a step-by-step framework for planning, using, and measuring of all popular digital platforms and marketing tactics.

Ranging from social media marketing, SEO, content creation and UX to customer loyalty, automation and personalized advertising, this book features cutting-edge best practices on marketing automation, messaging and email, online and offline integration, the power of technologies such as AI, and even covers the new data protection and privacy strategies.

The key thing you will learn: A quick overview of various digital marketing channels.

3. Becoming A Digital Marketer: Gaining the Hard & Soft Skills for a Tech-Driven Marketing Career by Gil Gildner

Want to get started as a digital marketer but have no idea where to start? This book is a good road guide for both fresh university graduates as well as traditional marketers.

The book touches upon topics from online advertising campaigns to building websites, understanding SEO strategy, and succeeding with email marketing.

A good overall guide that points you towards a wide range of digital marketing topics to dig deeper.

The key thing you will learn: A quick overview of various digital marketing channels.

4. Conversational Marketing: How the World’s Fastest Growing Companies Use Chatbots to Generate Leads 24/7/365 by David Cancel

Here’s the full title of this book: Conversational Marketing: How the World’s Fastest Growing Companies Use Chatbots to Generate Leads 24/7/365 (and How You Can Too). Qiute self-explanatory, right?

Modern messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have transformed the way we interact with each other. Everyone is used to the instant messaging and getting an answer fast. Conversational chatbot marketing is focused on real-time, one-on-one conversations with customers.

The key thing you will learn: How the chatbot marketing works and how to use technology to automatically convert more leads to clients.

5. Email Marketing Demystified by Matthew Paulson

Full name of the book: : Email Marketing Demystified: Build a Massive Mailing List, Write Copy that Converts and Generate More Sales

Email marketing can be an amazingly effective (and free!) marketing channel. In this marketing book, the author Matthew Paulson presents an impressive list of little-known email marketing tactics – to build big mailing lists, write copy that converts, and to turn the readers into customers.

The book will teach you how to:

• Build a massive mailing list
• Write engaging email copy that drivers the readers to take action.
• Optimize every step of your email marketing funnel
• Keep your emails out of the spam folders

Released in 2019, the new second edition of Email Marketing Demystified includes new strategies, including how to comply with GDPR regulations and how to benefit from web push notifications.

The key thing you will learn: Howw to get started with email marketing and build a big email list fast.

6. This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See by Seth Godin

All Seth Godin books are instant marketing bestsellers.

His latest book explains how marketing is essentially offering a solution to your customers’ problems. Instead of spammy emails and irrelevant online ads, Godin teched you how to really tap into the conversation and engage your audiences with marketing that matters to them.

Among other things, you will learn how to:

• Build trust with your target audience
• Smartly position your brand
• Build a product and brand that people deeply care about
• Use powerful storytelling as a marketing strategy

The key thing you will learn: How to build a brand nad marketing strategy that creates real value for your audience.

7. SEO 2019: Learn Search Engine Optimization With Smart Internet Marketing Strategies by Adam Clarke

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) best practices change every year, with Google’s algorithms getting more and more complex.

Based on a 2014 bestseller, here’s an up-to-date version to SEO in 2019 by Google-certified exert Adam Clarke – a must-read for anyone serious about gaining organic website traffic.

Read more: How to grow your organic blog traffic from 1.6k to 32k in six months

The key thing you will learn: The latest SEO best practices from page speed optimization to mobile-responsive landing pages.

8. 3 Months to No.1: The 2019 “No-Nonsense” SEO Playbook for Getting Your Website Found on Google9

by Will Coombe

Running a successful SEO agency in London, Will Coombe’s in a great position to teach you how to reach the top of Google search results.

You will learn how to:

• Do SEO on your own or build an in-house team
• Do keyword research to unveil the low-hanging fruits
• Boost your organic search rankings with the help of social media

The key thing you will learn: How to get started with SEO and increase the organic traffic to your website.

The best cult marketing books

9. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

I can’t praise this book enough and will always give it the credit for teaching me about behavioral economics and psychological triggers that get people’s attention.

Explaining the cognitive biases we all have – from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation – Kahneman opens up a completely new world of behavioral sciences that every marketer should be aware of. Knowing about the psychological system shaping our judgments and decisions will help you create a stronger marketing strategy and come up with branding campaigns that get people truly engaged.

The book is an international bestseller and was selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011. I’d also say it’s one of the best marketing books for students.

The key thing you will learn: How irrational the human brain can be and how to use this knowledge to your advantage in business.

10. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

The New York Times bestseller that explains why some specific products and brands become popular. If you’re looking to build a product that people want to share with their family and friends, this book will give you some nice ideas.

You will learn how six basic principles can help almost anything to become contagious, from consumer products and policy initiatives to Instagram posts.

The key thing you will learn: How to build virality into your product and brand and creates messages, ads, and content that people will want to share.

11. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal

In this marketing book, Nir Eyal combines many years of research, consulting, and practical experience to explain a four-step process to creating “sticky” products (think Facebook and Instagram for example).

The author will share:

• Practical tips and hacks to create user habits that stick

• Actionable steps for building products people can’t get enough of

• Impressive examples from the iPhone to social media platforms

The key thing you will learn: How to create and market products that keep the users hooked over a long period of time.

12. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

This book is also available in Amazon Audible for listening.

Influence is one of the cult marketing books that keep getting reprinted over and over again. It never gets old as the human brain will always be working the same way. Writing this article, I realized I’d like to give it a third round of reading.

Teaching about the art of persuasion, the book explains how to get people to say “yes” to you.

The key thing you will learn: How to use the six universal principles (reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, liking, consensus) to convince people about anything.

13. Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

This quote from the book by advertising legend David Ogilvy, first published in 1985, is still relevant today. One of the key things I learned from the book is that your brand needs to have a strong USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that you keep communicating throughout your marketing activities and ads.

The key thing you will learn: How to find your product’s USP and gradually build a strong brand that people relate to a unique benefit.

Read my long review of the book here: 18 Golden Advertising Rules by Marketing Legends

14. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

“The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” is a classic marketing book that covers topics from leadership to product marketing. You’ll be surprised by how many marketing tactics that were working 20 years ago are still relevant today.

The key thing you will learn: The basics of how to acquire a successful marketer’s mindset.

15. Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini

This is the follow-up marketing psychology book that Cialdini wrote years after his initial bestseller Influence. I must admit that I was gravely disappointed with the book, the first one having been one of my favourite marketing books of all time.

According to the author, in order to change “minds,” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.” Cialdini draws on a list of studies and stories to outline the specific techniques you can use in both online and offline marketing campaigns.

These insights will help you in two primary areas, making it one of the best books to learn marketing:

• Persuading your in-house team and managers to support your marketing strategy
• persuading your target audiences to take appropriate action

The key thing you will learn: How prime your target audience before delivering an important message, so that they’re more receptive to it.

16. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant

Grant’s #1 New York Times bestseller examines how people (like me and you) can champion new ideas, and how to avoid falling into groupthink.

How can we come up with new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all? This business book uses a wide array of stories and case studies spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, and teaches the reader to think outside of the box and notice good ideas.

I highly recommend the book, both for its impact on your way of thinking and for interesting stories, e.g. the one about a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor.

The key thing you will learn: How to originate and recognize great ideas and think outside of the box.

17. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

More than 28 million have watched Sinek’s TED Talk based on START WITH WHY, the third most popular TED video of all time.

Sinek starts his book with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more powerful, and more profitable than others? He goes on to explain that the great minds from politicians to billion dollar business founders all started with WHY – people won’t truly be interested in your product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind the concept.

The key thing you will learn: That your product/brand needs a reason to exist – the WHY – and how to find it.

18. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly by David Scott

This marketing book has arguably been the most influential for me, as after reading it, I made a switch from the PR industry to online marketing in less than a month.

Scott’s book is a true eye-opener to anyone still playing by the old offline marketing rules. In today’s highly digital world, the rules have changed, and you need to focus on virality, SEO, content marketing, online advertising, and other digital strategies to get your product noticed.

The key thing you will learn: You’ll get a great overview of the modern marketing and PR tactics – the perfect starting point for any marketing career.

Read more: How to Learn Marketing

19. The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin

Seth Godin could be given the title of a “cult marketer.” In this book, he challenges the reader to find the courage to treat their work as a form of art, constantly looking for ways to improve.

Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a set of specific talents. It’s an attitude you too can adopt. It’s a hunger to keep learning, make connections, and think outside of the box. If you manage to do those things a little more often you’re an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.

The key thing you will learn: The best marketers are constantly learning and testing new ideas. This book will guide you to go the extra mile and do excellent, not average job.

20. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

In his landmark marketing bestseller, Malcolm Gladwell unveils how we see the world, how we think without thinking, and how to become a better decision-maker.

Gladwell asks some interesting questions:

• Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up making bad decisions?
• How do our brains really work – in the office, in the classroom, at a party?
• Why are the best decisions often impossible to explain to others?

The key thing you will learn: How our decision-making process works and how to make better, non-biased decisions.

21. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

This is by far the best marketing copywriting book I’ve read this far, teaching both the macro- and micro-level nuances of good writing.

Everybody Writes is a go-to guide for marketers looking to attract and retain customers via stellar wriiten communication.

The sections in the books include:

• How to write better
• Easy grammar and usage rules tailored for business
• Winning your audience’s heart with masterful storytelling
• Best practices for creating credible, trustworthy content
• Content Tools: The best tools you need to get the job done

The key thing you will learn: How to write better marketing copy.

22. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard Thaler

Nobel laureate Richard H. Thaler spent his career studying how humans are predictable, error-prone individuals. Traditional economics assumes rational actors – yet in real life, people are far from rational when it comes to making decisions.

Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behavior, Thaler enlightens you about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world (or how to apply the knowledge about irrational decision-making into marketing).

The key thing you will learn: The irrational logic of the human brain and how to use this knowledge to your advantage.

Best growth marketing books

23. Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success By Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown

This growth marketing book dives into building a rapid growth strategy for your company. Exploring the fascinating case studies of the likes of Airbnb and Uber, the authors explore the growth engines behind these companies’ extraordinary rise.

You will learn about leading cross-functional teams and fast A/B testing and iteration that helps you acquire more customers: attain them, retain them, engage them, and motivate them to come back and buy more.

The key thing you will learn: The common tactics and ways of thinking of growth hacking.

24. Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday’s book tells a fascinating story of how combining smart public relations, marketing and advertising, you can achieve almost any marketing results. The book is guaranteed to get you excited about growth hacking, yet you’ll have to do plenty of additional research and put in a lot of work if you want to replicate Holiday’s success.

The growth hacking theory relies on testing, tracking and scaling everything you do, which is ideal for marketing in the digital world.

The key thing you will learn: How small, well-planned efforts can lead to fast business growth.

25. Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan

The founders of a well-known Silicon Valley advisory firm looked into legendary category-creating companies and reveal how to notice and buiöd new product categories.

Presenting case studies around the inner workings of “category kings”— companies such as Amazon, Salesforce, Uber, and IKEA – this marketing book introduces the notion of “category design.” By applying category design, businesses can create new demand where none existed, changing customers’ minds so they change their expectations and buying habits.

The key thing you will learn: How to create and promote a completely new product category, gradually building a huge demand for it.

26. Top of Mind: Use Content to Unleash Your Influence and Engage Those Who Matter To You by John Hall

Building trust with your audience doesn’t happen overnight. It takes months (or even years) of calculated effort to reach and stay on top of mind with people. John Hall’s book will teach you how to use content marketing to build a meaningful relationship with your audience.

You will learn about the approach that was used to build Influence & Co. into one of “America’s Most Promising Companies,” according to Forbes, including:

• How to build a helpful, authentic, and consistent brand
• How to create digital content that enriches your target audience’s lives

The key thing you will learn: How to build a content-driven brand and create content that your audience sincerely wants to engage with.

Best branding books for marketers

27. The Advertising Concept Book: Think Now, Design Later by Pete Barry

I found this advertising book while visiting a bookstore in London and it took me a few months to work through it, with ups and downs. I came away with a fresh knowledgeable outlook to building marketing and branding campaigns. I highly recommend it.

From creative ideation to writing ad copy to building a consistent message, this book is a great guide for anyone looking to learn about branding campaigns, including different strategies used for all types of media.

The key thing you will learn: The framework for thinking like an advertising agency.

28. Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits by Debbie Millman

What is a brand? – If you don’t know the answer, here’s a book that will help you understand the concept in a more broad and meaningful way.

By asking questions around “What is a brand?”, Millman presents eye.opening answers from twenty-two interview subjects, among them Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, and godfather of modern branding Wally Olins.

You will find a fascinating road guide to modern branding and how companies and buyers can best understand the behavior behind why we build brands and why we buy them.

The key thing you will learn: How to define the word “brand” and build a strong brand of your own.

29. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Positioning describes a proven approach to creating a “position” in a prospective customer’s mind by taking into consideration your company’s own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of your competition.

The advertising gurus Ries and Trout explain how to:

• Position your brand as the industry leader
• Maintain the industry leader position as competition gets harder
• Use ad agency techniques to capture a wide market share and become a household name
• Build your branding strategy around your competition’s weaknesses
• Choose the best name for your product

The key thing you will learn: How to position your brand in a crowded market and become the leading business in your industry.

30. Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team by Alina Wheeler

This branding book will present you with a toolkit for creating, building, and maintaining a strong brand. From research and analysis through to implementing a brand strategy and design development, you will come away from this book with plenty of inspiration for building (or redefining) your own brand.

Wheeler’s book features more than 30 all-new case studies showing branding best practices and offers a proven, universal five-phase process for creating and implementing effective brand identity.

The key thing you will learn: How to design and implement a brand that will result in high business ROI.

31. How Brands Become Icons by Douglas B. Holt

In his bestseller marketing book, the former Harvard Business School professor Douglas B. Holt lays down what marketers need to know if they want to build an authentic brand that truly resonates with customers over a long period of time, not just temporarily because of a low price or hype.

Exploring the case studies from iconic brands including ESPN, Budweiser, Mountain Dew, and Volkswagen, Holt shows how to establish a meaningful brand connection with potential customers.

The key thing you will learn: How to build a strong brand that people will care about over a long period of time.

32. Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Digital Distraction by Derek Thomson

Nothing goes viral out of the blue. If you think that a popular movie, song, or app came out of nowhere to become a worldwide viral success in today’s crowded media environment, you’re wrong.

Each blockbuster has a secret history of power, influence, and passionate followers that turn some new products into cultural phenomena.

In his groundbreaking investigation, the Atlantic’s senior editor Derek Thompson uncovers the hidden psychology of why we like what we like and how cultural economics shape our taste. People love a familiar surprise: a product that is bold, yet conveniently recognizable.

The key thing you will learn: How to build viral products by following the simple tactics of simplicity, familiarity, frequency, influential supporters, close-knit supportive groups, memorable copy, cross-channel support, gradual innovation, and ad hoc random influences.

More marketing books to check out

If the above list of 30 bestsellers wasn’t enough for you and you’d like to explore even more marketing books, check out the titles below. 💁

33. 10x Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating ‘Competition-Free Content’ That Stands Out and Gets Results by Garrett Moon

34. Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller

35. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug

36. What Customers Crave: How to Create Relevant and Memorable Experiences at Every Touchpoint by Nicholas J. Webb

37. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis

38. Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses by Joe Pulizzi

39. All Marketers Are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works–And Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All by Seth Godin

40. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler

41. The Art of the Click: How to Harness the Power of Direct-Response Copywriting and Make More Sales by Glenn Fisher

42. Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less by Joe Pulizzi

43. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull

44. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters by Joseph Sugarman

45. The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioural Biases That Influence What We Buy by Richard Shotton

46. Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing by Mark Shaw

47. Creative Advertising: Ideas and Techniques from the World’s Best Campaigns by Mario Pricken

48. Book of Ideas: a Journal of Creative Direction and Graphic Design – Volume 1 by Radim Malinic

49. How to Do Better Creative Work by Steve Harrison

50. Made to Stick : Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath

51. Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior by Jonah Berger

52. Integrated Marketing Communications: Putting It Together & Making It Work by Don E. Schultz, Stanley I. Tannenbaum,‎ and Robert F. Lauterborn

53. The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business by Rita Gunther McGrath

54. AdCult USA by James Twitchell

55. Brand New Name: A Proven, Step-by-Step Process to Create an Unforgettable Brand Name by Jeremy Miller

56. Content Marketing For Traffic And Sales: How To Use Direct Response Copywriting, For More Effective Content Marketing by Daniel Daines-Hutt

57. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and‎ Renee Mauborgne

58. Tap: Unlocking the Mobile Economy by Anindya Ghose

59. The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing by Rich Brooks

60. The Business of Social Media: Clients and Customers Not Just Likes & Followers by Angela K. Denton

61. Location is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One by David Bell

62. The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period! 2.0 by Stoney DeGeyter

63. 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for Business by Andrew Macarthy

64. Content Marketing for PR: How to Build Brand Visibility, Influence and Trust in Today’s Social Age by Trevor Young

65. Ultimate Guide to Link Building by Eric Ward & Garrett French

66. Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future – and What to Do About It by Gabe Weisert

67. Overdeliver: Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing by Brian Kurtz

68. The Unexpected: Breakthrough Strategies to Supercharge Your Business and Earn Loyal Customers for Life by Howard Brodsky

69. Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention by John Rulin

70. Powering Content: Building a Nonstop Content Marketing Machine by Laura Busche

71. Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World by Melissa Agnes

72. Getting Everything You Can out of All You’ve Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform and Out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham

73. When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become Great at Making Products People Will Buy by Alan Klement

74. Get Online: 6 Simple Steps to Launching a Digital Marketing Strategy for the Non-tech Savvy by Stacey Kehoe

75. Crossing The Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products To Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore

76. Points: A Blue Print for Digital Marketing Strategy by Sergio Restrepo

77. Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words for Influence and Impact by Phil M. Jones

78. Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter by Scott Adams

79. The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Work or Just Making Noise? by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

80. The One Sentence Persuasion Course – 27 Words to Make the World Do your Bidding by Blair Warren

81. Magnetic Marketing: How To Attract A Flood Of New Customers That Pay, Stay, and Refer by Dan S. Kennedy

82. Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite by Paul Arden

83. Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith

84. You, Inc.: The Art Of Selling Yourself by Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford Beckwith

The post 80+ BEST Marketing Books – 2021 [Updated] appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Those are the words of advertising legend David Ogilvy, right out of his book Ogilvy on Advertising first published in 1985.

Lately, I’ve been spending some time on reading the advertising classics and discovered that what the agency gurus told 40 or 50 years ago is still relevant today. Even more so, it seems like many modern marketers have forgotten some of the core principles of great advertising.

According to R. Reeves, out of 78 biggest package-goods advertisers in the US, some ads were recalled by 78% of people while others by a mere 2%.

If your advertising fails to get the message to the heads of people, your money’s wasted. And this is happening to millions of advertisers every day.

Having worked through two cult marketing books – Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy and Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves, I feel like I’ve been to the best marketing conference of my life – there are so many applicable takeaways.

All the best practices, research findings, and recommendations by the two advertising legends are still relevant today. Even more so, many marketers seem to have forgotten the core principles of marketing.

Just take a look at these 18 golden rules of advertising and remind yourself how to create ads that do not fail.

1. You need to know your USP

USP, a term coined by Rosser Reeves, signifies the Unique Selling Proposition. Both Ogilvy and Reeves believed that having a strong USP is the key to successful advertising.

According to Ogilvy, writing a good advertisement starts by studying the product – you need to know what makes it beneficial to its users and different from the competition.

Reeves explained that your USP has three parts:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer.
   Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer.
   It must be unique – either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass of millions.
   Your advertisements should pull over a large number of new customers to your product.

For example, the ad above proposes a clear value offer: Save money by shopping at Sears.

So how can you find the best USP?

2. Research your product and users

The way Ogilvy came up with the advertising copy for Sears was by researching what people thought about the company.

When research reported that the average shopper thought Sears Roebuck made a profit of 37 per cent on sales, Ogilvy headlined an advertisement Sears makes a profit of 5 per cent.

This specific number was more persuasive than saying that Sears’ profit was “less than you might suppose” or something equally vague. Sometimes, it’s worth mentioning specifics.

With all the modern surveying tools, asking for your users’ feedback is easier than ever before. Use that opportunity to learn what makes people buy your product.

3. If you don’t have a strong USP, do this

Most advertisements have interchangeable parts – you could just as well insert a competitor’s name in your ads.

This means that you don’t have a USP that’s limited to only your product.

If that’s the case, Reeves suggested two solutions:

1. The product could be changed/improved to have a USP.
2. If the product can’t be changed, it’s possible to tell the public something about that product that has never been revealed before.

Here’s one of the advertisements that Ogilvy created for the Campbell’s – it’s showing the product from a completely new side.

Do not forget that your Unique Selling Proposition has to be relevant to the audience.

Sometimes, a cool product feature that seems amazing to you does not appeal to your customers.

You could argue that Ogilvy’s ad is focused on an irrelevant USP. However, if you give it some more thought, the USP is not that the soup can be served cold. The core USP of the advertisement is that the product’s easy to consume – and that’s relevant to millions of consumers.

4. Your advertisement needs one big idea

I recommend that you read the following quote at least twice.

“Be cautious, in the course of adding secondary claims, that a distraction claim does not suddenly crystallize, i.e. a second claim which sucks power away from your USP.”

– R. Reeves

A consumer tends to remember just one thing from an advertisement – one strong claim, or one strong concept.

If you’re advertising more than one benefit, chances are that people don’t either remember any of them or develop their own reaction.

As Reeves put it:

“The advertisement may have said five, ten, or fifteen things, but the consumer will tend to pick out just one, or else, in a fumbling, confused way, he tries to fuse them together into a concept of his own.”

So instead of listing three or more product benefits, find the one that truly matters to people and advertise the hell out of it.

5. How to recognize a strong USP?

How to tell a strong USP from a week one?

For one, a strong USP will sell your product times more than any irrelevant message.

Ogilvy also suggested that your advertisement has to contain a big idea. Ask yourself:

• Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
• Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
• Is it unique?
• Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
• Could it be used for 30 years?

For example, the legendary Lucky Strike ads used USP “It’s toasted” – and used it in consecutive campaigns for many years.

However, don’t focus on minuscule differences. Reever called this “The Deceptive Differential.”

Another interesting fact about “It’s toasted” message is that back then, Lucky Strike wasn’t nearly the only cigarette company selling toasted tobacco.

Which leads us to the next point…

6. You can “acquire” any general USP

According to R. Reeves, the advertiser to first use a Unique Selling Proposition will own that USP.

“Can those USPs be stolen by competitors? – No. Studies of great numbers of brand histories show that the first big advertiser can pre-empt the USP. He is the pioneer, and, protected by his penetration bulwark. Thus, the USP becomes his property.”

R. Reeves

Lucky Strike owned a general USP. And so did Colgate with their ads saying “Cleans your breath while it cleans your teeth.”

Some time later, one of Colgate’s competitors ran an advertising with the message “Freshens your breath while it cleans your teeth – because it has a special mouthwash built in!”

Here’s what happened:

Now may also be a good time to reflect on your advertising messages and think whether they truly belong to your brand or you’re just repeating your competitors’ USP.

7. If you find a USP that works, keep repeating it

If you’re lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling.

According to Reeves, research shows that the readership of an advertisement does not decline when it is run several times in the same magazine.

Readership remains at the same level throughout at least four repetitions. “You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.”

In fact, changing your USP too often can have a damaging effect on your brand recognition and sales.

Take a look at the case study below.

Look at this way: You shouldn’t change your USP while it’s working, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t change your advertisements.

You can create different ads, both in design and copy, until they all reinforce your core USP.

8. Your competitors using a consistent USP will outgrow you

According to Reeves, three great basic principles of advertising reality emerged from their research:

1. Changing a story has the same effect as stopping the money, as far as penetration is concerned.
2. Thus, if you ran a brilliant campaign every year, but change it every year, your competitor can pass you with a campaign that is less brilliant – providing he does not change his copy.
3. Unless a product becomes outmoded, a great campaign will not wear itself off.

“Recently, we watched the drama of an advertiser who had 65% penetration on a powerful, sales-winning theme. Then he changed campaigns. In eighteen months his hard-won 65% penetration had dropped to 2.2% – in other words, had almost vanished entirely.”
R. Reeves

If the campaign has really worn itself out, one of two things will happen:

• People’s awareness of your USP will drop.
• The public would cease to respond to the message, and your sales volumes will fall.

Often, when a new brand with a strong USP enters the market, leading competitors panic and start changing their own campaigns. That’s the worst idea.

9. There’s only so much room in people’s heads

Or, if you wish, there’s only so much love in people’s hearts for brands in the same vertical.

Reeves’ research team found that as your branded message becomes increasingly known, the USPs of your competitors fade from people’s minds.

“There is a finite limit to what a consumer can remember about 30,000 advertised brands,” Reeves said. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of brands advertising.

“It’s as if he [the consumer] carries a small box in his head for a given product category. This box is limited either by his inability to remember or his lack of interest.”
– R. Reeves

10. Ogilvy on creating great advertisements

According to Ogilvy, the easiest way to get new clients is to do good advertising.

Easier said than done.

Here are some key takeaways from Ogilvy’s research into what makes some advertisements succeed while others fail.

• Images of finished dishes consistently attracted more readers than photographs of the raw ingredients. In a study of 70 campaigns whose sales results were known, Gallup did not find a single before-and-after campaign that didn’t increase sales.
• Images with an element of “story appeal” were far above average in attracting attention.
• The kind of photographs that work hardest are those which arouse the reader’s curiosity.

• Create ads that people can relate to. When you show a photograph of a woman, men will ignore your ad.
• Most copywriters believe that markdowns and special offers are boring, but customers don’t think so. They are above average in recall.

READ MORE: 12 Hidden Facebook Features 95% of Marketers Don’t Know

11. Make your ads effortlessly readable

One of the golden rules of advertisement design is: Don’t capitalize your headlines.

If you look at the ads in the magazine next to you, you’ll be surprised how many marketers mistake against this rule.

A professor at Stanford established that capitals retard reading – capitalized words tend to be read letter by letter.

Here’s another important rule: Don’t put a period at the end of headlines – they’ll stop the reader from reading more.

Don’t set your copy in reverse type – with white letters on a black background. It’s more difficult to read.

Black type on a white background is easier to read than copy set in reverse type. So think twice before you set your ad copy on a colourful background.

12. Make your product the hero of your advertising

Often, advertisers make the mistake of creating a vampire video – a video that takes away attention from your USP.

According to Reeves, “One wrong picture can steal a hundred words.”

Here’s a best practice that applies to all types of advertisements: Make sure your message and visuals match.

If the message says: “This tablet dissolves into 10,000 tiny bubbles,” show the tablet dissolving into 10,000 tiny bubbles. Make sure your videos interpret your USP.

Do not create ads that steal the attention from your USP.

Here’s another interesting takeaway from Ogilvy: Advertisements with testimonials by celebrities tend to underperform.

Viewers will know the celebrity has been bought and they will remember the celebrity instead of the product advertised.

Here’s another important thing to keep in mind: Do not advertise your competitor’s USP, not to spean of their brand names.

If there’s a comparison with the competitor, they do not mention their name, but say “another leading detergent,” etc.

13. Headline is the most important part of your ad

A Harvard professor used to begin his series of lectures with a sentence that took his students by the throat: “Cesare Borgia murdered his brother-in-law for the love of his sister, who was the mistress of their father – the Pope.”

– A passage from Ogilvy’s book

On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.

Unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90% of your money. The headlines that work best are the ones that promise the reader a benefit.

If you have any news to tell, don’t hide it in the body copy. Say it in the headline.

Include your brand name in the headline – otherwise, 80 per cent of people who won’t read your body copy will never know what product you’re advertising.

According to Ogilvy, some copywriters write “tricky” headlines – double meanings, puns, etc. This is counter-productive. Your headline should telegraph what you want to say.

Moreover, your ad copy should be written in the language people use in everyday conversation. Avoid analogies as they are often misunderstood.

14. Use the right advertisement layout

Ogilvy’s research showed that readers first look at the illustration, then at the headline, then at the copy.

So put these elements in that order – illustration at the top, followed by bu the headline.

On average, headlines below the illustration are read by 10 per cent more people than headlines above the illustration.

Here’s another interesting takeaway from Reeves:

Two-spread magazine ads cost twice as much as single pages, but seldom get twice the readership, or pull twice as many coupons.

You could double the reach or frequency of your campaigns by using single-page ads. So think twice before creating two-spread magazine ads.

15. How to create video ads that sell

In his book, Ogilvy has devoted an entire chapter to video advertisements.

Here are the key takeaways from his years of practice and research:

• When doing video ads, mention your product multiple times to make people remember it.
• Show the packaging and the product. Commercials which end by showing the package are more effective in changing brand preference than commercials which don’t.
• Try to grab the viewer’s attention during the first seconds of your ad.
• Research shows that it’s more difficult to hold your audience if you use voiceover. It is better to have the actors talk on camera.

16. How to succeed in B2B advertising

If you’re in the B2B marketing space, you’ll love the following guidelines:

• Promise what is important to the customer – a supplier of computer software was proud of the size of his company and wanted to make it the feature of his advertising, but research found that his customers were not interested in size. They were looking for responsiveness, support, service – and a good product.
• Make your promise specific. Instead of generalities, use percentages, time elapsed, dollars saved.

• Testimonials work well, as long as they come from experts in reputable companies.
• Even if you think your product boring, it’s not boring to your potential buyers – there’s no need to advertise irrelevant images.
• Don’t be afraid of long copy – if that’s what it takes to explain your product.

Fun fact: Ogilvy was running content marketing ads to get new customers. 60 years ago!!

17. How to advertise like TOP consumer brands

Here are Ogilvy’s key takeaways from analyzing big advertisers’ campaigns, e.g. Procter & Gamble.

There’s a lot you can learn from them.

• They always promise the consumer one important benefit.
• They believe that the first duty of advertising is to communicate effectively, not to be original or entertaining.
• They measure communication in three stages: before the copy is written, after the commercials are produced, and in test markets.
• All their commercials include a “moment of confirmation.” E.g. a demonstration how a cleaning product absorbs more liquid.

• Their commercials talk straight to the consumer, using language and situations that are familiar to them.
• Often, they also show their users some emotional benefit derived from the product – “You’ll be more appreciated if you use Dash.”

18. How to reach the largest audience for your budget?

Is it better to reach a smaller audience, yet reach it more times? Or is it better to reach a bigger audience – yet reach it less often?

Here’s Reeves’ answer – buy dispersion. Try to reach more homes, not the same homes.

Reach your audience less often, but make it as large an audience as you can. (This is especially relevant for consumer products that have a wide potential user base.)

This also applies to digital advertising – e.g. try to reach a wider audience with your Facebook ads rather than show the same ad to the same people for more than 3 times.

Final takeaways

Here are five more amazing quotes from Ogilvy and Reeves that you should remember whenever creating new advertisements.

Don’t create ads that are window dressers – the ads that merely show your product without the USP. – R. Reeves

If the product does not meet some existing desire or need of the consumer, the advertising will ultimately fail. – R. Reeves

If it doesn’t sell, it’s not “creative. – D.Ogilvy

The most dangerous word in advertising is… originality. – R. Reeves

Advertising is the art of getting a unique selling proposition into the heads of the most people at the lowest possible cost. – R. Reeves

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Ogilvy’s book was first published in 1983 and Reeves’ even sooner, in 1961. It is amazing how the best practices in use back then have made their way into modern advertising.

Everything you read in this article can be applied to your Facebook advertising campaigns, Instagram ads or email marketing funnels. So take one hour and go over all your current advertisements, looking if they have a clear USP and whether they follow the basic best practices.

You might be surprised by your findings.

The post 18 Golden Advertising Rules by Legendary D. Ogilvy and R. Reeves appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.