In this marketing audit guide:

• Explanation of what is a marketing audit
• List of marketing audit chapters
• Guide on how to conduct your own
• Thoughts on using AI to save time
• Free checklist of 95 marketing audit questions

What is a marketing audit?

After working on 45+ marketing audits, each of which takes 20-40 hours, I’ve spent ca 1,350 hours of my waking life (that’s about 84 days!) switching between tabs and docs.

How did I end up writing the audits? And why?

It’s rare for agencies or consultants to offer marketing audits as a standalone service. They’re usually done in-house, by the CMO. Or by an external auditing agency as part of a bigger project.

And yet, the need for an audit of a company’s marketing activities arose every time I started working for a new brand.

A 360-degree marketing audit is the fastest way to:

1. Get an exhaustive overview of what’s worked / not worked.
2. Understand each marketing channel’s state and ROI.
3. Research competing brands’ USPs and tactics.
4. Map new ideas and opportunities for growth.
5. Align company-wide goals with those of marketing.
6. Get a prioritised roadmap for the next 6 months.

Think of a marketing audit as a complete check-up of your marketing strategy.

Audits are done 1-2 times per year, and give you a deep dive into your marketing efforts to see what’s working and what’s not, and what could be optimised for better results.

You end up with a clear roadmap for the next 6-12 months.

What does a marketing audit cover?

When conducting marketing audits for my clients, I usually spend 20+ hours collecting, analysing, and formatting the information.

The resulting Google Docs file is about 60 pages long (including screenshots).

That’s a lot of hours and pages…

But if you think about it, there are also many different aspects to marketing. A well-researched and actionable marketing audit covers every aspect of your marketing strategy, from acquisition to engagement to retention.

The best way to do a marketing audit is by taking the 360-degree approach.

You should cover all the key aspects of your growth and marketing strategy, from planning and reporting to detailed per-channel analysis.

Eight key chapters of a marketing audit:

1. Results & Reporting
2. Brand & Value Proposition
3. Website/App & Acquisition Flow
4. Customer Acquisition
   1. Growth loops
   2. Paid ads
5. Social Media Marketing
6. Content Marketing & SEO
7. Email Marketing & Automation
8. Summary & Next 12 Months’ Plan

How to get started with a marketing audit?

1. Define your marketing audit goals.
2. Set up a Google Doc with all chapters.
3. Block 2-4h every day to complete the audit in 1-2 weeks.

1️⃣ Start by defining what you want to get out of your audit.

• Is your goal to improve ROI or find new ways to scale?
• Are you looking to identify weak points in your strategy?
• Just checking if your marketing strategy aligns with the CEO’s view?

Be clear about what the final audit result should look like before you start.

2️⃣ Set up a Google Doc with all chapters.

The hardest part is to start the project. Just do it.

I like writing marketing audits in Google Docs, as they’re great for formatting, including screenshots, and team comments.

Alternatively, you could use Notion or a Miro board.

3️⃣ Block 2-4 hours of time daily.

Writing a marketing audit is not a multitasking side task. Your brain needs to go into deep-focus mode where it can take in lots of information, analyse it, make connections, and come up with strategic takeaways.

I usually aim to write a full chapter in one sitting. It ends up saving a lot of time, because you don’t have to reopen all the tabs, get back into the mindset, etc.

It’s best to work on your marketing audit in the morning, when your mind’s not yet cluttered with Slack threads and meetings.

Can you use AI for auditing?

There is one part of the marketing audit where AI tools like Claude Cowork can save you time.

That’s competitive research.

I like to create a list of 10-15 competitors, and ask Claude to scrape their website and socials, then create a spreadsheet with relevant URLs, positioning and value props.

But even then, I’ll manually click each of the URLs and analyse their websites and social posts to know what’s actually there. I also collect screenshots of good examples (website blocks, USP wordings, paid ad creatives) and add them to Google Docs with my own commentary and takeaways.

As to the rest of your audit, you’ll only waste time trying to cheat with AI.

The whole point of the marketing audit is to view, analyse, and process everything with your own wise human brain.

And, obviously, you’re the only person who can come up with meaningful takeaways and next steps.

Use AI cautiously. Otherwise, you’ll end up with lots of gibberish that does not lead to any improvements or change.

95 marketing audit questions: checklist

Below, you will find five marketing audit questions for each chapter. That’s a total of 40 questions. How about another 55 to write a substantial, detailed overview?

Access the Notion page with the full checklist by subscribing to the Marketing Fix newsletter. Get the Notion Library of 95 Marketing Audit Questions.

You will find the link to Notion in your Welcome email.

Once in, you can copy the library to your account for tracking your progress. Tap “Duplicate” icon in the top-right corner.

Chapter 1: Reporting & Results

1. Have you got an up-to-date weekly/monthly KPI sheet for marketing ROI tracking?
2. Is your current marketing reporting sufficient and gives a clear overview of per-channel ROI?
3. Is there a clear marketing plan & budget for the next 6/12 months?
4. If working with agencies: Is there transparent monthly reporting on KPIs like Cost-Per-Lead and ROI?
5. Can you track the results & ROI of every marketing channel you spend on?

Chapter 2: Brand & Value Proposition

1. Who is your ICP – ideal customer profile? Is there a clear understanding about it across the organisation?
2. Are your brand USPs strong enough to convert people to buyers?
3. What is your #1 touchpoint where future customers form an opinion of your brand?
4. Does your brand leave a high-quality and trustworthy first impression?
5. Does the #1 touchpoint clearly (and immediately) communicate your product and its 1-2 top USPs?

Chapter 3: Website/App & Acquisition Flow

1. Does your website leave a high-quality and trustworthy first impression?
2. Does the #1 touchpoint clearly (and immediately) communicate your product and its 1-2 top USPs?
3. Is there a clear CTA (in website header) with the next step you want the visitor to take?
4. Do you use numbers and client logos to communicate your USP + social proof on your Home page?
5. Are your product(s) and features/benefits well visualised & communicated on the Home page?

Chapter 4: Customer Acquisition

1. Do you have a clear documentation of all paid and non-paid marketing channels with results and ROI?
2. What are your TOP 2-3 acquisition channels that drive sales and revenue?
3. Have you done any offline advertising campaigns in the past 12 months? Describe results.
4. Are there any paid channels with low performance & negative ROAS?
5. Are there any channels underperforming or delivering diminishing returns?

Chapter 5: Social Media Marketing

1. What are your brand’s active social media marketing channels?
2. Are all of your social media accounts active and getting regular engagement?
3. Are your social media profiles consistent in branding (logos, banners) AND messaging (tone of voice)?
4. Is your social media content having high engagement (likes, comments, shares, DMs)?
5. Do you have a social media strategy & plan laid out for 2+ weeks in advance?

Chapter 6: Content Marketing & SEO

1. Is organic content marketing an active customer acquisition source for your brand?
2. How are you driving traffic to your organic marketing channels? Does your audience engage with it?
3. How has ASO (Agentic Search Optimisation) affected your website traffic?
4. How visible are you in ASO results compared to competitors?
5. Is your marketing content relevant and interesting to the ICP?

Chapter 7: Email Marketing & Automation

1. Is automated email marketing part of your strategy? Have you mapped it out?
2. Are your automation workflows set up for key customer touchpoints (welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, re-engagement campaigns)?
3. Do you have an email automation strategy to convert cold leads into customers?
4. Are you leveraging behavioural triggers (downloads, product actions, purchase history) for personalised automation?
5. How clean is your email list? Are inactive or unengaged subscribers being managed or removed?

Chapter 8: Summary & Next 12 Months’ Plan

1. Based on the audit & competitor research, how would you evaluate your current marketing strategy and results?
2. What are the weakest links in your current marketing strategy that lower your conversion rates?
3. What are the TOP 3-5 marketing activities/channels that deliver results?
4. What are the marketing activities with no ROI that you should stop spending resources on?
5. If you had to 2x your customer acquisition in the next 6 months, where would you focus?

Final recommendation

Summer is one of the best times for conducting a marketing audit.

Half the team’s off, and so are your customers.

Slow office days mean lower distraction. And this is just what’s required for a good, productive writing day.

Worried about not having enough experience?

That’s just another excuse. As with many things in life, Google is your best friend whenever in doubt.

Give it a go!

Not sure you have enough experience–or time–to write your own audit? You can hire me to do it for you. Read more here.

Further reading recommendations:

• 30min DYI Facebook Ad Account Audit
• 25+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2025 – Read by TOP 5% Marketers

The post 95 Marketing Audit Questions: Free Checklist appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

The worthwhile ones do more than summarise yesterday’s LinkedIn posts. They bring you an original idea, a useful framework, a well-researched example, or a tactic you can apply to real work.

This is my curated list of the best marketing newsletters to read in 2026. It covers growth, paid advertising, social media, go-to-market strategy, content, buyer psychology, AI, and newsletter growth.

There is no single “best” newsletter for every marketer. The right choice depends on what you are trying to get better at. If you only want the short version, start with the quick picks below.

How I selected these marketing newsletters

I work in growth and paid advertising and have held growth roles across 50+ technology companies in Europe, the UK, and the US. I read marketing newsletters to find ideas I can use—not to collect more unread email.

For this guide, I looked for newsletters that meet most of these criteria:

• Originality: The writer adds a point of view, research, examples, or firsthand experience rather than repackaging common advice.
• Practical value: A reader can apply the ideas to strategy, creative, campaigns, content, or team decisions.
• Subject expertise: The creator has credible experience in the topic they cover.
• Peer readership: I also checked which newsletters respected creators read themselves. This is not a formal endorsement, but it is a useful quality signal: for example, Kyle Poyar reads Maja Voje’s work, and Maja reads Karola Karlson’s.
• Consistency: The newsletter is active enough to become a reliable reading habit.
• Editorial quality: The writing is clear, specific, and worth opening.
• A defined audience: The newsletter knows who it is for and what problem it solves.

Subscriber numbers and publishing schedules change, so treat them as snapshots rather than permanent facts. The list was checked in August 2026.

Best marketing newsletters: quick picks by use case

• Newsletter and audience growth: Growth in Reverse
• Creator businesses: Creator Science
• Practical growth and paid social: Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson
• Newsletter monetisation: Newsletter Operator
• Practical AI workflows: Behind the Craft
• Go-to-market strategy: GTM Strategist
• Product-led and B2B growth: Growth Unhinged
• Product and startup operators: Lenny’s Newsletter
• Social media strategy: Link in Bio
• Paid social and Meta ads: The Performers
• Buyer psychology: Why We Buy
• AI for marketing leaders: The AI Marketing Generalist

Best marketing newsletters at a glance

The order below is editorial, not an objective universal ranking. I have grouped newsletters by where they are most useful.

Best newsletters for newsletter and creator growth

1. Growth in Reverse by Chenell Basilio

Best for: Newsletter operators, creators, and marketers building an owned audience
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Growth in Reverse is one of the most useful newsletters about newsletter growth because Chenell Basilio does the research most writers skip.

Each edition reverse-engineers how a creator grew an audience: where the first subscribers came from, which lead magnets worked, how referrals were designed, and what caused growth to accelerate or stall. The result feels less like generic creator advice and more like an annotated case study.

The lessons also travel well beyond newsletters. Product and growth teams can borrow the same ideas for onboarding, referrals, segmentation, and community-led acquisition.

Start here: 7 Newsletter Growth Strategies From Studying Top Creators.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for broad marketing news or quick daily updates.

2. Creator Science by Jay Clouse

Best for: Creators and solopreneurs building content-led businesses
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter with paid products and community

Creator Science treats creator growth as a discipline rather than a collection of hacks. Jay Clouse shares experiments, observations, and business decisions with unusual transparency.

Expect thoughtful writing on content strategy, memberships, audience trust, monetisation, and the role of AI in creative work. Jay is especially good at exploring the trade-offs behind a decision: what sounds attractive, what the data showed, and what changed after the experiment.

It is a strong choice if you want to build a durable creator business without pretending that every post, product, or launch will work.

Start here: The Barbell Content Strategy.

Not ideal for: In-house marketers who only want campaign tactics.

3. Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson

Editor’s pick for: Experienced in-house marketers and startup founders who want practical growth and paid-social guidance from an active practitioner
Frequency: Bi-weekly
Format: Free newsletter on Substack

Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson focuses on the parts of startup marketing that are not working—and what to do about them.

Issues cover topics such as diagnosing a Meta ad account that has stopped scaling, improving a landing page, building a growth strategy, evaluating creative, and using AI without replacing judgement. The advice draws on Karola’s 12 years in growth roles and work across 50+ technology companies in Europe, the UK, and the US.

The tone is practitioner-to-practitioner: direct, specific, and willing to say when a popular tactic is overhyped. Each edition also includes cultural recommendations intended to help marketers develop stronger taste alongside technical skill.

Representative issues: 95 Marketing Audit Questions and Meta Ad Examples.

Honest limitation: Marketing Fix is bi-weekly and selective, so it is not the right source for daily platform news or exhaustive coverage of every marketing channel.

4. Newsletter Operator by Matt McGarry

Best for: Founders and creators treating newsletters as media businesses
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Newsletter Operator goes deep on the mechanics of growing and monetising an email audience.

Matt McGarry writes about paid subscriber acquisition, list quality, deliverability, engagement, sponsorships, and newsletter economics. His perspective is grounded in hands-on work growing large newsletters rather than theory alone.

The best issues connect individual tactics to the underlying business model. You learn not only how to acquire a subscriber, but when that acquisition method makes financial sense and what has to happen after someone joins the list.

Start here: Are newsletters still worth it?

Not ideal for: Marketers who do not operate a newsletter or media product.

Best newsletters for GTM, product, and B2B growth

5. Behind the Craft by Peter Yang

Best for: Product managers, engineers, and tech professionals who want practical AI workflows
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Behind the Craft has evolved from a creator-economy publication into a practical guide to working with AI.

Peter Yang publishes tutorials on prototyping, AI agents, MCP, Claude Code, prompts, and other hands-on workflows. His product experience at companies including Roblox, Reddit, Amazon, and Meta gives him a useful filter for separating tools that improve real work from tools that merely produce a good demo.

Choose it if you want to build with AI, not just read predictions about it.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for classic brand, advertising, or content-marketing advice.

6. GTM Strategist by Maja Voje

Best for: Startup founders, marketers, and operators building a go-to-market motion
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter with paid resources

GTM Strategist makes go-to-market strategy concrete.

Maja Voje combines frameworks with examples, checklists, and company teardowns. Topics include ideal customer profiles, positioning, channels, founder-led sales, product launches, and the transition from early traction to a repeatable growth motion.

The newsletter is particularly useful for teams that know they need “GTM” but are still untangling what that means in practice. It connects strategy to the decisions a small team must make this week.

Not ideal for: Large-company marketers looking for mature-enterprise operations advice.

7. Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar

Best for: B2B SaaS leaders working on product-led growth, pricing, and monetisation
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Growth Unhinged is one of the strongest newsletters for understanding how modern software companies grow.

Kyle Poyar writes about product-led growth, packaging, pricing, sales-assisted conversion, AI business models, and go-to-market benchmarks. Issues often combine operator interviews, original data, and a clear point of view.

It is especially valuable when your question sits between product, marketing, sales, and finance—such as how to package an AI feature or when self-serve growth needs human support.

Not ideal for: Consumer marketers or readers looking for campaign-level tactics.

8. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann

Best for: Growth practitioners who enjoy detailed company teardowns
Frequency: Irregular
Format: Free and paid content

How They Grow publishes long, carefully structured analyses of how notable companies acquired users, built loops, and expanded.

The strongest pieces connect several growth mechanisms instead of isolating a single tactic. You see how positioning, product experience, distribution, retention, and network effects reinforce one another.

The trade-off is cadence. Publishing has been infrequent, so treat the archive as a reference library rather than a newsletter you will reliably receive every week.

Not ideal for: Readers who prefer short, frequent dispatches.

9. Demand Curve Growth Newsletter

Best for: Startup marketers who want tactical growth guidance across channels
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Demand Curve newsletter covers acquisition, landing pages, conversion, content, email, and paid growth in a direct, structured format.

Its main strength is breadth without becoming pure news aggregation. The writing usually turns a marketing problem into a framework, checklist, or set of examples that a team can test.

It works well as a general growth-marketing subscription, especially for early-stage teams that need useful ideas across several channels rather than deep expertise in only one.

Not ideal for: Specialists looking for advanced depth in one narrow discipline.

10. Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky

Best for: Product managers, founders, and growth leaders
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid newsletter with community access

Lenny’s Newsletter has become a broad operating manual for product-led technology companies.

Lenny Rachitsky combines interviews, benchmarks, tactical guides, and expert contributions on product management, growth, hiring, leadership, marketplaces, and startups. The archive is large enough that it often works better as a searchable reference than a conventional newsletter.

Its scale attracts strong contributors and detailed operator stories. The paid tier is most useful for readers who will also use the archive and community, not just skim the weekly email.

Not ideal for: Marketers who only want advertising and campaign execution.

11. Elena’s Growth Scoop by Elena Verna

Best for: Growth leaders, product-led companies, and marketers developing their growth careers
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Elena’s Growth Scoop is candid, opinionated, and rooted in senior growth experience.

Elena Verna writes about product-led growth, growth models, retention, experimentation, career progression, team design, and the realities of leading growth inside companies. She is particularly good at naming organisational problems that teams often misdiagnose as channel problems.

Read it when you want to understand not only what a growth team should test, but how the company must be structured for that work to succeed.

Not ideal for: Beginners who need step-by-step channel tutorials.

Best newsletters for social media marketing

12. Link in Bio by Rachel Karten

Best for: Social media managers, strategists, and brand marketers
Frequency: Twice weekly
Format: Free and paid newsletter

Link in Bio is one of the most grounded newsletters about running social media for brands.

Rachel Karten combines interviews with social managers, platform observations, campaign examples, and practical commentary on the work behind a brand account. The writing respects social media as a craft rather than reducing it to posting frequency and engagement hacks.

It is especially useful for people responsible for editorial judgement, community tone, and explaining the value of social work internally.

Not ideal for: Readers looking primarily for paid-social buying tactics.

13. Social Files by Tommy Clark

Best for: B2B founders and marketers using LinkedIn and founder-led social
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Social Files focuses on the systems behind effective B2B social content.

Tommy Clark writes about LinkedIn strategy, founder-led distribution, content formats, hooks, team workflows, and the difference between posts that earn attention and posts that sound like corporate filler.

The advice is most useful for B2B teams where the founder or subject-matter expert is part of the distribution strategy.

Not ideal for: Consumer social teams working mainly on TikTok, Instagram, or community management.

14. The Social Juice by Jaskaran Singh

Best for: Marketers who want a quick mix of social-media news and practical ideas
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Social Juice curates social-platform updates, examples, tools, and tactical observations in a readable format.

It is useful when you want enough industry awareness to stay current without opening a dozen tabs or following every platform employee. The mix is broader and faster than a deep specialist publication.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for one sustained argument or a detailed research report in every issue.

15. Geekout by Matt Navarra

Best for: Social media professionals who need to track platform changes
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Geekout is a reliable briefing on what social platforms are testing, launching, changing, or quietly removing.

Matt Navarra has spent years tracking product updates across Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and emerging platforms. The newsletter is useful because many social features roll out unevenly and are poorly documented.

Subscribe if platform changes affect your day-to-day work and you need a compact weekly scan.

Not ideal for: Readers who want evergreen strategy rather than news.

Best newsletters for paid advertising

16. The Performers by Aazar Ali Shad

Best for: Performance marketers and creative strategists working on paid social
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Performers focuses on Meta ads, performance creative, testing, and campaign execution.

Aazar Ali Shad’s strongest issues break down the relationship between the offer, message, creative concept, and media-buying result. That makes the newsletter useful for both paid-social buyers and the creative teams supporting them.

Choose it if you want specialist paid-social ideas rather than a broad marketing digest.

Not ideal for: Readers focused mainly on organic growth or brand strategy.

17. Bram’s Buzz by Bram Van der Hallen

Best for: Meta advertisers who need product and policy updates
Frequency: Approximately monthly
Format: Free LinkedIn newsletter

Bram’s Buzz covers changes to Meta Ads, including campaign features, measurement, automation, and platform direction.

The value is specificity. Instead of scanning general marketing news for the few items that matter to an advertiser, you get a concentrated view of Meta’s ecosystem from someone who follows it closely.

Not ideal for: Readers who need weekly tactical tutorials or coverage beyond Meta.

Best newsletters for buyer psychology and marketing ideas

18. Why We Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin

Best for: Marketers, founders, and copywriters who want to understand buyer behaviour
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

Why We Buy explains behavioural science in a way marketers can use.

Katelyn Bourgoin takes concepts such as social proof, loss aversion, framing, and choice architecture and connects them to familiar buying situations. The best issues help you see why a message or offer works rather than simply telling you to copy it.

It is an accessible starting point for marketers who want stronger customer research, messaging, and conversion thinking.

Not ideal for: Readers looking for platform news or media-buying advice.

19. Marketing Ideas by Tom Orbach

Best for: Marketers who want unusual campaign ideas and creative prompts
Frequency: Twice weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Marketing Ideas is built for marketers who are tired of seeing the same playbook repeated.

Tom Orbach shares unconventional tactics, examples, and provocations designed to help readers generate ideas. Some suggestions will fit your brand and others will not; the point is to widen the option set before you default to another generic campaign.

Use it as creative stimulus, then apply your own judgement to the execution.

Not ideal for: Teams looking for a complete, evidence-heavy strategy in every issue.

Best newsletter for B2B content marketing

20. Pierre’s Content Guides by Pierre Herubel

Best for: B2B founders and marketers building a content system
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free and paid content

Pierre’s Content Guides covers B2B content strategy, writing, distribution, repurposing, and the systems needed to publish consistently.

Pierre Herubel’s work is strongest when it turns an abstract content goal into a repeatable workflow. The newsletter is useful for small teams that cannot rely on a large editorial department but still need content to support pipeline and authority.

Not ideal for: Consumer brands or readers looking for paid-media guidance.

Best newsletter for AI in marketing

21. The AI Marketing Generalist by Kieran Flanagan

Best for: Marketing and GTM leaders building AI into their operating systems
Frequency: Weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The AI Marketing Generalist is aimed at marketers who want to move from experimenting with prompts to redesigning workflows.

Kieran Flanagan, formerly SVP of Marketing at HubSpot, writes about AI-assisted research, content systems, agentic workflows, Claude Code, and the changing structure of go-to-market teams.

The newsletter is more technical than most marketing publications. That is a strength if you are ready to build, test, and connect tools rather than only read high-level AI predictions.

Not ideal for: Marketers seeking non-technical beginner guides.

Best general marketing newsletters

22. The Marketing Millennials by Daniel Murray

Best for: Marketers who want a broad, accessible mix of tactics and trends
Frequency: Three times weekly
Format: Free newsletter

The Marketing Millennials covers a wide range of topics in a conversational style, from brand and content to social media and campaign ideas.

Daniel Murray has built a large marketing audience across the newsletter, podcast, and LinkedIn. The breadth makes this a useful orientation tool for early-career marketers and generalists.

The high publishing frequency is the trade-off: not every issue will match your role, but the variety is the reason to subscribe.

Not ideal for: Specialists who only want advanced depth in one channel.

23. Deez Links by Delia Cai

Best for: Media professionals and marketers working at the intersection of culture, content, and the internet
Frequency: Several times weekly
Format: Free and paid newsletter

Deez Links is not a conventional marketing newsletter. Delia Cai writes about media, culture, publishing, and what the internet is paying attention to.

That makes it valuable for marketers whose work depends on taste, storytelling, and cultural awareness. The links-format curation also helps readers discover writing and ideas outside the standard marketing echo chamber.

Not ideal for: Readers who want tactical campaign checklists.

More marketing newsletters worth subscribing to

The 23 newsletters above are the main recommendations. These additional publications are also worth exploring when they match your role:

• Behind the CMO: Interviews and resources for senior marketing leaders who want the CMO perspective.
• Ahrefs’ Digest: SEO and content-marketing guidance backed by strong product data and original research.
• Buffer’s Social Media Newsletter: Accessible social-media strategy for small teams and creators.
• SparkToro: Rand Fishkin on audience research, zero-click behaviour, and the changing search landscape.
• Marketing Brew: A broad industry briefing covering advertising, agencies, brands, social platforms, and media.
• Marketing Examples: Harry Dry’s visual breakdowns of copy, landing pages, campaigns, and positioning.
• Total Annarchy: Ann Handley on writing, content, voice, and the craft of communicating clearly.
• ICYMI: Lia Haberman’s detailed coverage of influencer marketing, creators, and social platforms.
• Stacked Marketer: A fast daily briefing across paid ads, SEO, social media, analytics, and conversion.
• Growth Memo: Kevin Indig on SEO, organic growth, AI search, and the strategy behind sustainable acquisition.
• Really Good Emails: A searchable collection of real email design and copy examples rather than a traditional editorial newsletter.
• Future Commerce: Thoughtful writing on brand, culture, technology, and commerce for DTC and retail leaders.
• The Daily Carnage: A daily collection of campaigns, tools, trends, and creative inspiration.
• Swipe Files: Corey Haines’ examples, teardowns, and frameworks for marketers who learn by studying real work.

How to choose the right marketing newsletters

A long list is only useful if it helps you build a better reading habit.

Start with two newsletters:

1. One specialist newsletter for the skill closest to your work—paid social, product growth, social media, content, or AI.
2. One broader newsletter that exposes you to ideas outside your immediate role.

After a month, keep the newsletters that regularly make you save, forward, test, or discuss something. Unsubscribe from the ones you admire in theory but never open.

The goal is not to build the world’s most impressive inbox. It is to find a small set of writers who improve your decisions.

Frequently asked questions about marketing newsletters

What is the best marketing newsletter in 2026?

There is no universal best marketing newsletter. The most useful choice depends on your job and current priority. Growth in Reverse is a strong fit for newsletter growth, Lenny’s Newsletter for product and startups, Link in Bio for social media, The Performers for paid social, and Marketing Fix for practical growth and paid-social strategy.

What are the best free marketing newsletters?

Most newsletters in this guide offer a free edition. Strong free starting points include Growth in Reverse, Marketing Fix, GTM Strategist, Growth Unhinged, Demand Curve, Link in Bio, Geekout, The Performers, Why We Buy, and The AI Marketing Generalist. Some also offer paid archives, communities, courses, or additional issues.

Which marketing newsletters are best for startup founders?

GTM Strategist, Growth Unhinged, Demand Curve, Lenny’s Newsletter, and Marketing Fix cover the most useful ground for startup founders. Together they address go-to-market strategy, product-led growth, acquisition, positioning, and practical marketing execution.

Which newsletters are best for paid advertising?

The Performers is a specialist choice for paid social and creative strategy. Bram’s Buzz is useful for Meta Ads updates. Marketing Fix connects paid-advertising execution to broader growth strategy, landing pages, and creative judgement. Stacked Marketer is a broader daily briefing that includes paid-media news.

Which marketing newsletters cover AI?

Behind the Craft is best for practical AI tutorials and workflows. The AI Marketing Generalist focuses on AI systems for marketing and go-to-market teams. Growth Unhinged explores the business-model and GTM implications of AI. Marketing Fix covers AI from a practical marketing perspective, including where automation helps and where human judgement still matters.

How many marketing newsletters should I subscribe to?

Start with two or three. Pick one newsletter for your core discipline and one for broader context. If a newsletter remains unread for a month, unsubscribe and use its archive only when you need a specific answer.

Are marketing newsletters better than marketing blogs?

The content can be similar, but the reading behaviour is different. A newsletter arrives on a schedule and builds a habit; a blog waits for you to visit or find it through search. Many strong marketing writers use both: the newsletter creates a direct reader relationship, while the website keeps useful work searchable.

Are all the newsletters in this guide active?

The main list was checked in August 2026. Publishing schedules can change, especially for independent newsletters. How They Grow has published infrequently, so it is better treated as an archive. Before subscribing to any newsletter, check the date of its latest edition.

A final recommendation

Do not subscribe to all 35+ newsletters.

Choose the one that matches the problem you are solving now. Read three recent issues before subscribing. If the writing gives you a useful idea, a better question, or a decision you can make differently, it has earned a place in your inbox.

The post 35+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2026, Read by TOP 5% Marketers appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

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What are the biggest marketing trends in 2024? 

Such questions, however fickle, help us plan better, get more results, and be prepared when change happens.

Coming up are my top five predictions on how marketing will change – or continue shifting – in 2024, from macro-level changes to specific topics close to my heart. I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback, feel free to DM me on LinkedIn.

TOP 5 marketing trends in 2024:

1. Gen Z social media is now a must-have
2. Creator marketing & UGC keep growing
3. The AI hype will calm down
4. Results & quality beat scalability
5. Real sustainability over greenwashing

But first, a few words about 2023. Because, as they say, to understand the future we must look to the past.

In 2023, I worked with several tech companies, both B2C and B2B, on their growth strategies and marketing campaigns. One thing I noticed is that it’s become a lot harder to get results at a high ROI. That is, it is hard to get those good results if you rely on the best practices that worked five years ago.

I also gave an interview to TULI where I spoke at length about work-life balance and greenwashing in marketing. And launched a weekly marketing newsletter to share my thoughts & experience.

For years, there have been so many small brands popping up, investing mostly in digital ads, and competing for social media users’ attention without being original or innovative. There is also so much more noise in general: more of everything (publications, news, films, TV series, products, and so on…). 

So how to survive in 2024 as a brand? How to maintain a positive marketing ROI? 

In 2024, marketers will keep shifting their efforts towards brand marketing instead of digital performance ads that have become up to 10x more expensive than back in 2020.

In parallel, new social media opportunities keep popping up like fungi after rain. 🍄

Keep reading to learn how to navigate the biggest marketing trends of 2024 and keep growing your user base and revenue.

1.  Gen Z social media is now a must-have

In 2023, all social media giants – Meta, TikTok, and YouTube – released plenty of new formats and features to boost brands’ sales and profits.

Most of these updates were not for the ad products but organic social platforms (and ways of driving purchases through organic engagement). Meta launched Threads, TikTok added an integration with Amazon – and these are just two examples out of tens of updates.

And the changes paid off: an increasing number of young consumers are changing their browsing and purchasing habits.

For example, 57% of Gen Z users say that they prefer to use TikTok as a search engine, not Google: the social media platform’s more relatable and personal.

In their 2024 trend report, TikTok predicts that there will be a shift towards greater brand-led social change and transparency. Users want to see brands living up to their words and promises. 

A fun example of this in 2023 was the Northface campaign on TikTok. 

Meta launched Threads in July 2023 and the platform has already 100 million monthly users. Brands have been slow to move to the platform. However, even if you’re not ready to commit to posting on Threads, it would be smart to register your brand’s presence there to secure a good user name and handle.

If you’re not in B2C marketing but B2B, a similar approach applies to LinkedIn marketing. There was a huge shift in 2023 towards audience-building on LinkedIn. However, note that you should not try to build your company’s LinkedIn account but your team’s accounts. That’s because personal LinkedIn accounts’ posts have a lot higher organic reach. 

And even on LinkedIn, the less-traditional formats like carousel posts and video perform the best. You cannot rely on static images and blog post shares anymore.

When it comes to new social media features, the fastest movers and first adopters will reap the highest benefits, growth, and profit. The same applies to reacting to daily trends and viral content.

When working in a small marketing team, committing hours each day on chasing social media trends might seem like a huge waste of time. To hack the system, follow brands with active social media teams and lots of viral content to keep your hand on the pulse.

Another thing you could do is outsource your social media content creation to people who do it daily and on a professional level: content creators.

Actionable takeaways:

1. Get serious about organic social media marketing. Test new formats on top platforms.
2. Find the best-performing social channel (Reels, TikTok, LinkedIn) and post new content 3x or more per week.
3. Create less social media content but with higher virality potential. Put more effort into scrappy videos over static posts.

2. Creator marketing & UGC keep growing

Not everyone is great at filming 5 video clips per day and one of them going viral. But some people really are. 

In 2024, influencer collaborations on social media are no longer about paying €€€ for a single post or promotion. 

Rather, the leading brands are securing long-term collaborations with content creators who become something in-between a brand ambassador and a freelance content-creating team member.

Long-term content collaborations work better for many reasons:

• Creators become familiar with your product and audience, and as they what content performs best, they create more of it.
• Creators have a long-term interest in delivering results to continue the collaboration.
• You only need to brief the creators once a month, not every time you hire another influencer.

There has also been a shift towards UGC-style ads in paid digital advertising. So many Meta ads now look like selfie videos, telling how “this product changed my life.” And they actually work. So here’s also a tip for paid ads: try UGC-style video ads.

Actionable takeaways:

1. If you haven’t already, sign 2-3 TikTok, YouTube, or Reels content creators to collaborate on video content for your brand.
2. Get serious about measuring your creator collaborations’ performance and creating clear and detailed briefs for these partners.
3. Test creating UGC-style videos for social media and ads in-house with your marketing team to build that increasingly critical creative skill in your own team.

3. The AI hype will calm down

If you had to sell chocolate chip cookies, you would not use a marketing slogan saying “These cookies are made of wheat.”

However, it doesn’t seem to be a problem for marketers and founders to say that the greatest benefit of their product is: “This product is built with AI.”

In the 2nd half of 2023, I heard many stories of startup founders who talked about creating a product with AI. What product? They didn’t know – it didn’t matter as long as there was AI. I found it funny every time I heard another founder telling me that. Of course, they were bound to fail, building an AI-using product for something that already functions without it.

But this doesn’t mean that all AI-powered innovations from 2023 and beyond are useless.

It’s all about finding the right balance. 

And, in my opinion, in 2024 this balance will shift towards less AI, not more AI. As we move into the next year, everyone has an AI hangover. Even the LinkedIn influencers who grew their audience on posting about Chat GPT hacks have fallen silent. People are full of AI hacks, and still doubtful of whether it actually helps them. 

Personally – and I think using AI is a highly personal choice – I do not use AI-powered tools for content ideation, writing, nor designing creatives. Even though Canva and especially Adobe have launched advanced AI design tools, I want to have more control over my designs.

As someone said: AI’s not going to take your job. But someone who knows how to use it will. I’ll add a caveat: Neither will someone who’s completely reliant on AI ever take your job.

The main selling proposition of AI tools is “Save time.” But for what are you exactly saving that time? For watching Netflix? For using another AI tool?

There are many bad tradeoffs in using AI-powered marketing tools in order to “save time” or “accelerate results” or “personalize marketing” or “optimize smarter.”  

• You may save time with AI-powered copywriting or design tools but the results are always worse than when done by a skilled human. You also have less control over output.
• Using AI, you lose in originality. You also lose a lot of control over what’s happening in the background, being unable to tell if you’re actually getting better results or not.

And, most importantly, I never use AI for ideation or writing. Why? For the simple reason that I do not want to outsource my capability to think with my own head.

I sometimes like to use Chat GPT to suggest rephrasing in some sentences I’ve already written. I also like to use it for official emails, recommendation letters, etc. so it tells me what the format should be. I always rewrite all the text provided by the AI to make it more creative, professional, and in my own style.

Actionable takeaways:

1. If you haven’t tried the popular AI-powered marketing tools yet, give them a go: Jasper AI, Grammarly, Canva, Chat GPT itself, Userbot, Howler, etc. 
2. See if the AI tools actually save you time and give original ideas. If yes, keep it going. If not, you’ll know this was all another hype cycle.
3. Ask yourself if you’re just using the AI tools out of sheer laziness or because of the hype. It might be convenient but will also hurt your own writing, thinking, and marketing skills.

4. Results & quality beat scalability

Between 2019-2022, most brands enjoyed fast-paced growth, often from digital strategies. And the easier it seemed to launch and grow new businesses on social media, the more there appeared.

However, already in 2023, I saw many marketers struggle with keeping up the high ROI at previous scale. The ad platforms simply did not deliver as well anymore: the price went up and the ROAS (return on ad spend) dropped.

The hangover period is going to persist for at least the first half of 2024: it will be continuously hard to grow with low effort and at a high scale.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t grow at all. My prediction for 2024 is that the marketing teams who work hard on high-quality campaigns will get the highest results.

Less is more, again. Instead of posting 5 times a week on social media and getting 0 engagement, craft 1-2 videos per week, but make sure they have the potential to get high reach and engagement. 

The shift in Bolt’s social media strategy is a good example of keeping up with the times: back in 2019, we used to do iPhone giveaways on social media. In 2024, giveaways are passé, now it’s about quality video content, brand building, and creator collaborations.

Even the brands that have historically relied on digital performance ads are turning towards brand campaigns. Nest Commerce’s analysis of their clients’ ad spend in 2023 showed a trend towards higher brand investment.

Instead of a bit of everything, make bold bets on high-quality brand campaigns and social media posts with virality potential.

No well-performing marketing campaigns come to life in a few hours. It takes time to come up with good ideas and make them happen. Therefore, create an annual and quarterly marketing plan that helps you stay on track.

Read more about seasonal marketing planning.

Last not least, the quality-originality-authority approach also applies to content marketing and SEO. Publishing blog artiles written by AI will not get you ranking on Google.

Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) framework gives priority to content coming from long-term experts on a subject, providing original information not available anywhere else (like other blogs).

Actionable takeaways:

1. In 2024, aim for quality over quantity, results over scale. It is alright to grow slightly slower if the alternative would be not growing at all.
2. Consider shifting resources from performance to brand building, and make sure your content and creatives are aligned with this change.
3. For the first time, try planning ahead for the entire year. Understand the seasonality in your business and invest more during high-demand periods.

5. Real sustainability over greenwashing

Consumers are increasingly interested in supporting socially responsible brands.

However, if back in 2022 you could get away with saying “We’ll plant one tree for each purchase,” in 2024 people will recognize this as greenwashing.

In fact, careless tree planting does more harm than good:

• Many service providers that offer tree planting do it poorly, planting monocultures. The planting of only one tree species overlooks the complex network of interactions present in the old-growth forest ecosystems. 
• Planting a tree does not undo the carbon footprint of the product you’ve purchased. It only makes you feel better about yourself.

The only green thing to do is to not purchase new products.

However, this is not how the world works. Even though I believe in degrowth, I realize that people need jobs.

So the least you can do in 2024 is to be genuine about your sustainability efforts. Instead of outsourcing tree-planting or buying carbon credits, think about how to actually improve your production pipeline, as well as the carbon footprint of product delivery.

From sustainable packaging to minimized returns and shipping in bulk, you can make your product lifecycle greener. Offer free product repairs, sell products that are made to last long in the first place – there is so much that can be improved.

I called this 2024 marketing trend “Genuine Green” because I see honesty as a key here. Do not talk about environmental topics or make social posts on World Environment Day if for the rest of the year, you’ve done nothing to live up to your words.

Good example: IKEA creating toys out of recycled plastic and launching a cute social media campaign about it.

Bad example: Dubai Electricity and Water Authority changing the color of its logo to green without any real shift towards sustainability.

When it comes to sustainability in marketing, actions speak louder than words.

As a marketer, it is part of your job to be critical of the brand messages you put out there. 

Question the slogans and campaign ideas suggested by agencies and people ranking above you. Keep your ethics and morals high, and demand that others do the same.

Actionable takeaways:

1. If you’re still doing tree-planting and other low-commitment greenwashing campaigns (like carbon offsetting) in marketing, stop it.
2. Look for meaningful ways to make your company or products more sustainable. Then do it. And only after it’s done, talk about it.
3. If your company is not willing to contribute to social responsibility, accept it and find another marketing angle.

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Et voilà! These were my predictions on 2024 marketing trends. As always, I’d love to hear your feedback. 

If you’d like to be notified about new blog articles and get actionable marketing tips, subscribe to my weekly (Friday) newsletter.

The post 2024 Marketing Trends & Predictions appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

This article is based on a keynote titled 5 Mistakes and Cures for Low-traction Startups that I presented at the Growth Marketing Summit in August 2022.

The room was packed with marketers. The screen was lit up with stupid (or, arguably, lovely) cat and raccoon GIFs. The air was filled with painful truths and aha-moments.

Essentially, everyone had gathered to find the answer to a burning question, albeit simplified: 

Are we making any mistakes in our marketing, brand, or product strategy? And how to fix it? 

Are you spending your marketing $$$ the right way or throwing them straight in flames? 💸🔥🚒

How I imagine the CMOs and CEOs must feel…

Taking a step further, it’s important to realize that marketing, brand, and product are intertwined. You can’t grow if one key aspect of your company is dysfunctional.

So instead of focusing on tiny mistakes like using on the wrong Facebook ad campaign structure or missing out on email marketing automation, I asked everyone to take the macro-level view.

Zoom out of your everyday work and consider your company from the birds-eye level.

Now, you’ll begin to notice the actual problems. And once you see them, you’ll be able to fix them.

But before we jump to the TOP 5 mistakes of low-traction businesses, I suppose I should briefly comment on why I am even the right person to talk about this topic…

20+ Marketing audits later…

For the past 1.5 years I’ve been freelancing as a marketing consultant, working with both B2C and B2B brands.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak to 60+ businesses and work with 20+ of them.

My favorite marketing collabs

Quite often, I begin a new marketing consultation project with a 360-degree marketing audit.

What is a marketing audit?

Read more: 80 Marketing Audit Questions – Free Checklist

The goal of a marketing audit is to understand how the company is doing in all aspects and channels of marketing and growth. 

It might also arise from burning questions like: 

“Marketing isn’t working. What are we doing wrong?”

Or…

“Are we using the full potential of all marketing channels?”

To compile a marketing audit, I request access to the company’s marketing reports, ad accounts, etc. I always set up calls with relevant team members to get their insights.

Once I have all the requested information, I’ll get to work…

Ultra busy checking ad accounts…

It usually takes ca 1.5 weeks to compile a marketing audit…

Typing down the 100th recommendation

In the end, I and my client end up with 60-70 pages’ worth of a Google Doc. It includes an overview of all the marketing channels. 

I also look into the onboarding process and product retention as it’s just as important a contributor to a company’s growth as new user acquisition. 

Below is a quick overview of the marketing audit sections that I generally cover.

Marketing audits cover more than just paid ads

In regards to each of the above topics, I share my advice on: 

🔍 The current state

🔍 Opportunities

🔍 Suggestions

We then meet with the marketing team – often the CEO joins as well – and discuss the key takeaways and, most importantly, how to go forward.

💫 Goals

💫 Action plan

💫 Work

As a result of a marketing audit, the company will have a clear understanding of how each of their marketing teams/channels/actions performs and how to improve it.

Now the real work begins!

Alright, sounds sort of legit… 

But what are the BIGGEST mistakes and priorities?

Let’s get right down to it!

Read more: 55+ Marketing Trends for 2025

🔥 Mistake #1: No clear goals

The first things in a marketing audit that I check are the company’s marketing KPI and growth reports.

I mean… 80% of the time I don’t check them as they do not exist. Rather, what’s been happening is the CEO or CMO saying:

“Let’s run some ads and find out who our customer is.”

 Or…

“We’ll find out the ROI and CPA once we start with marketing.”

Um… No you don’t!

You (the CEO or CMO in this case) should know the company’s growth forecast for the next 6-12 months. 

You should know where that growth is supposed to come from. And at what CPA, ROI, and payback period. How else do you intend to ever make your startup or early-stage business profitable?

Without clear growth goals, there won’t be a clear action plan.

The best a marketing team can do at such poorly-guided companies is to try to get “some” results. Without a long-term vision, this tends to result in wasting time on poor-quality social media posts or blog articles that nobody will actually read. 

Working 9 to 5… 🎵🎵🎵

Doing marketing without a clear understanding of the goals amounts to being busy for the sake of being busy.

If you don’t know where you want to go, you can’t get there.

If this sounds like your company, here’s a not-so-easy (and yet unavoidable) solution. You’ve got to demand clearer input from the top management.

The only fix to Mistake #1 is getting clear input from the CEO

Top management needs to know the goals

When consulting various companies in growth and marketing, I always begin by establishing a detailed Marketing KPI Tracking sheet. Together, we fill in the past 3 months to see if there’s any past data on the LTV and CPA per lead and paying customer.

Up next, I collaborate with the CEO or CMO to understand the next 6 months’ revenue goals and work down to other growth and marketing projections based on revenue expectations, churn, LTV, and expected CPAs. 

All this leads to having…

🗝️ A clear 6-month plan

🗝️ Alignment of marketing & product

🗝️ No gut-feeling-based surprises

… on the high level. And on the marketing team level, you’ll have…

💫 Clear expectations (numbers)

💫 Revenue, ROI, LTV

💫 KPIs and measurement

Ready for the takeoff

Once we know all this, we can proceed to implement the planned marketing activities and campaigns.

Moreover, as you know the expected KPIs, you can compare whether your results match the projections and make quick adjustments (e.g. channel & budget allocation) if needed.

🔥 Mistake #2: Amazing product, bad packaging

Remember that quote used in startup blogs and books around the 2000s? 

“If you build it, they will come.”

Well, as it turned out as I googled it, the words come from a movie titled Field of Dreams.

When talking to various businesses – both B2B and B2C – I’ve realized that many of them have a very strong product and there’s a high potential for finding product-market fit.

However, their website and ads looked like out of an early aughts’ financial scam.

Great products need great packaging

Around 10y ago it was still possible to build a breakthrough product and get people using it via engaging the early adopters and betting on word-of-mouth.

In 2022, this is no longer the case. Almost all business verticals are saturated with tens of businesses building a similar product. 

Even if your product is the best in the industry, you’ve got to earn the user’s trust. And nobody these days trusts a brand that looks low-quality.

People don’t buy from brands they don’t trust

Take this example of a well-known fintech company…

Here’s what their website home page looked like in 2012. (IDK how it didn’t look sketchy already down in 2012, but anyhow…)

Would you trust your money to this company in 2022? Hopefully not.

Of course, they know that design trends as well as website-development opportunities have changed over the past 10 years.

Today, the same company’s home page looks like this:

Looks 100x more legit, doesn’t it? 

It is told that your brand should be good enough not to get in the way of growth.

But how to tell whether your branding is good enough? I usually suggest a simple exercise:

Ensure your brand is at least as good as the competitors’.

But don’t just go with the gut feeling – your own baby will always look sweeter and smarter than those of others.

Ask three types of different audiences to evaluate your website / App Store listing and to grade its quality and trustworthiness.

🍪 Ask a brand/marketing expert

🍪 Ask your friends

🍪 Ask 10 neutral people

And what shall you do once you realize that your brand really isn’t as strong as it should be?

Hire a branding expert or agency to help you out.

Now, let’s get to the next mistake that’s the exact opposite of having a strong product and a low-quality brand.

🔥 Mistake #3: Amazing brand, no product-market fit

You can trick people on a date with your product…

… But they’re free to leave any time.

What this means is that you can spend a lot of money on paid advertising and other venues for customer acquisition.

However, if your product fails to deliver on its promises, the new customers will immediately churn.

I’ve often seen Product and Marketing teams fighting over this conundrum. Is it the fault of the product or marketing that you fail to attract new paying users with a high LTV?

Sometimes, as I ask during a marketing audit what the customers think about the product, I hear that all the users are huge fans and give positive feedback. 

“The feedback from 20 customers tells that the product is great…”

The problem with such easy-way-out customer surveys is that you might send an email asking for feedback to 1,000 users. But only the ones who like your brand will answer. 

The few fans would of course tell you almost anything you want to hear. But is it the information that you actually need?

Yes this is Dog I like the product

Here’s the problem…

People who are disappointed in your product do not bother to reply to your emails. Nor do they fill in the surveys.

So how can you get honest, relevant, unbiased feedback about your product?

By hiring a group of 10-20 random, neutral people who more or less fit your target audience group and getting them into a room or on a 1h call one-by-one. You can then ask them to test the product and to give honest feedback.

The goal here is to uncover the real issue. The most common issues include:

🔥 Solving an inexistent problem

🔥 Not the best way to solve a problem

🔥 Too expensive (time + money)

The solution to a non-existent product-market fit is, well, to find it. And it’s not going to be easy – you’re going to have to make substantial changes to the feature set, pricing model, or another product aspect. Or pivot completely.

P.S. By “improving your product” I do not mean building new cool features that seem like quick wins. This almost never works. A meaningful product change will probably take months, but will also be worth the effort.

Looks like we’re steering away from marketing and spending too much time on the product? Thing is, no marketing can make people use a bad product.

But let’s get back on the marketing track for now…

🔥 Mistake #4: Lack of focus

Most marketing teams are constantly on the lookout for new user acquisition and growth channels.

At one point, this will lead to your team of 1 or 20 – depending on the size of your company – working on many different channels at once.

Most of the time, focusing on so many marketing campaigns at once will lead to a big bold mess.

If this looked like your marketer, keep reading. Salvation is coming.

One of the most common suggestions I write down in marketing audits is this: Stop working on this marketing channel.

❌ There’s no point to post on social media if your posts are not original

❌ There’s no point to create another blog article on a topic that’s been covered 100x

❌ There’s no point to work with influencers if you don’t see measurable results

Consider all the marketing activities that you and your team spend time on and ask: Is this bringing us new customers and revenue? 

If the answer is no, stop working on that marketing channel.

Quite often, I recommend to my clients to focus only on paid advertising and automated emails for a while. 

If you can’t make paid ads work for you, the chances are low that you’ll find substantial growth opportunities in any other channels.

You can drag along for a year or more doing low-impact work. Or you could just spend the time and salary money on running 4 weeks of paid ads.

Instead of 12 months, you’ll find out in 1 month whether there’s a product-market fit / whether your brand is strong enough.

To explain this a little further, I’ll share a quick story from my Bolt years.

As one of Europe’s biggest mobile advertisers, we received a pitch from a new ad platform every week. They promised lower cost-per-install and lower cost-per-purchase prices than we had in Google or Facebook ads.

However, we always turned them down.

Why?

Because their platforms could reach only 1% of the people we could reach with our Facebook and Google ads. 

Why would we spend time on working on tiny marketing channels instead of funneling all our efforts into scaling and improving our top channels? 

Instead of wasting your team’s time on tiny marketing campaigns that promise low-cost results, focus on the activities that bring results on scale.

🥲 Kill your darlings and cute pet projects 

🥲 Focus on 3 high-potential growth channels

🥲 The same applies to product features

As a result, your team’s focus and output will improve. You’ll have to work less, but will yield better results.

To put this in Moomin terms: instead of reaping ten unripe green pumpkins, you’ll get one big juicy pumpkin.

Continuing on the subject of (vegetable) growth, we’re down to the last mistake…

🔥 Mistake #5: No growth loops

Whenever you bring a new user into your product, the first challenge is to keep them there for the first 3-5 minutes.

If you achieve that, you’ve likely got an excited user looking to explore your product further.

While it usually falls on the Product team to increase retention, reduce churn, and keep users happy over a long period of time, there are points in the in-product user journey that fall under the Marketing team’s radar. Such as…

• Post-signup retention newsletters that urge the user to complete their profile or try the product
• Post-onboarding requests to refer a friend
• Automated lifecycle marketing emails that keep bringing people back into the product/store

Know your retention stages – Image source

If you forget to think about user retention, you’ll be filling a water bucket with a hole in the bottom.

You might bring in 10,000 new users… But in 2 months only 20% keep using your product.

My friend where are tho?

Yup, that’s sad.

But there’s more than just retention marketing that you can do.

You can also build growth loops.

A playbook definition goes like this: “Growth Loops are systems designed to make every input to generate an output. That output is then reinvested as an input and, since this is a closed-loop system, the process repeats.

In more practical terms, the best-known growth loops are:

🍯 User-2-user referrals

🍯 User-generated content

🍯 Rewards programs

However, offering people €5 to invite a friend for another €5 promo code doesn’t quite cut it in 2022. You may need to find more attractive incentives.

For example, Revolut has upped their referral offering to €50 for every referred friend. On the other hand, they’ve also made it 5x more difficult to fulfill all the conditions.

Test various referral programs to turn one new customer into multiple new customers. By the time the first one leaves, their invitees are referring their own friends. 

The best time to ask for users to refer friends is while they’re excited about your product – either right after signup or after another successful engagement (e.g. ordering something from your store / unlocking a milestone inside the product).

🍩 Build in the initial surprise moment

🍩 Establish growth and retention loops

🍩 Keep people excited and engaged

Once you’ve figured out the biggest hurdles to your company’s growth, you’ll be able to fix the holes in your marketing and product buckets.

It’s only an uphill ride from there.

🍪 Thx for listening, thx for reading! If you’ve got an article/keynote topic you’d like me to cover next, drop me a line on LinkedIn.

—

A quick note: 

I am back from my writing sabbatical and taking on new marketing consultation projects. 

While my schedule for the upcoming months is already 60% booked with confirmed projects, I am still open to 1-2 extra interesting projects starting from October/November 2022. 

Reach out at marketing@karolakarlson.com and tell me how I could help your marketing/growth team.

The post Top 5 Mistakes & Cures of Slow-growth Companies  appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

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.

Well, how about googling it?

Search “how to learn marketing,” and you’ll find lists of online courses and a Quora thread on the topic suggesting that you “read marketing blogs.”

Um… That’s way too broad and not very helpful. 🤷

So what are the actual first steps to start learning about marketing?

Let’s turn the tables and start with a few things you should not start with:

• You should not start to read tens of marketing books without having a clear goal.
• You should not pay $2000 for an online marketing course or attend a conference.
• You should not necessarily acquire a university degree in marketing.

There is a time and place for all of the above, but none of those are essential to growing into a marketer.

There’s a bunch of other stuff you should be doing tho.

But first things first.

Like with all long-term projects in life, it’s important to have a solid high-level understanding of what you want to achieve.

So, you want to be a marketer?

But what does it even mean to be a marketer? Can you define what a marketer does?

A good place to kick off this article is by apprehending what learning marketing means in 2019.

What does it mean to be a marketer?

Well… There are many different marketing careers you can choose between (and you can’t have it all).

Arielle Jackson, a Marketing Expert in Residence in the VC firm First Round Capital broke down the four main skill sets for marketers today:

• Product Marketing
• Performance Marketing
• Communications
• Brand Marketing

Take a close look at the chart below and you will realise that there are plenty of different paths you can follow as a marketer.

It’s one of the best charts I’ve seen explaining what marketers in modern companies are working on.

Being a marketer can mean different things – Image source

With the understanding of all the possibilities to learn marketing also comes another revelation:

There is no way you can achieve top-level expertise in each of these fields.

Which means that you’ll need to specialize.

Let’s complicate things even further. 😈

Each of the four directions listed in the chart can be broken down further. E.g. a performance marketer can learn digital marketing, and get highly specialised in various fields such as paid advertising, social media marketing, CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)…

This means that you’ll need to decide on the level of specialization you want to reach.

That’s also what Arielle from First Round is saying:

“Most marketers who aren’t new to the field specialize in either the so-called “soft” or “hard” sides of marketing, focusing more on brand and communications or growth, analytics, and channel optimization. “Even CMO-level candidates typically tilt more heavily in one direction… You wouldn’t expect an engineer to be amazing at front-end and back-end, but unfortunately this expectation exists for marketers.”

You just can’t have it all.

But you do have a choice.

Here are a few questions to steer you in the right direction and see whether you want to learn digital marketing, PR, or product marketing.

1. Do you want to be a specialist, a manager, or a CMO?

The intuitive answer to this question is “Of course I want to be the CMO of a well-known brand one day.”

But do you, really?

Take a look at the chart below. With fancy job positions also comes responsibility.

Understand what is the best job seniority for you

CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)

Being a CMO means taking a tremendous responsibility for other people’s work performance, and very likely sacrificing many nights and weekends of fun social activities in exchange for advancing your career. Not only will you have to work hard and be proactive in driving the entire Marketing team’s performance, you will also need to develop mid-level knowhow of every marketing skill your individual team members have. How else can you be an empowering teamlead to them?

If you still feel you want to become a CMO with a team of 10+ people one day, make a conscious decision to build up a strong skill set in as many fields of marketing as possible.

A good entry-level job for you will be in a startup where you can get your hands on many various projects. More on landing the first marketing job later.

P.S. being a CMO in a 5-people startup is rather a Manager- or Specialist-level job, don’t get confused with the terms but think about the content of the role.

Manager / team lead

Manager is a mid-level marketing team member in charge of one specific field. To bring some examples, in Bolt we have roles such as Social Media Marketing Manager, Paid Advertising Lead, Local Marketing Manager (in charge of marketing in a specific country).

Being a Manager requires a high degree of knowledge in one particular field. Also, you may have to learn to work with and lead a small team which takes a considerable amount of your time.

Consider whether you want to spend your days fully focused on hands-on work or pass 20% or more of your time at meetings, working on reports, and coming up with improvements to your team’s work.

Being a Manager can be rewarding and you can make a higher impact. However, you will need to constantly invest in improving your skills and keeping up with the latest trends.

To sum this up, being a Manager requires that you’re highly passionate about your field.

Specialist

Often, Managers grow out of Specialists.

As you start off learning about marketing, you will first have a few Specialist-level jobs before stepping up to the Manager role. As a specialist, you will have the choice whether to invest your time and effort in reaching the level of knowhow where you can manage a team. Or you can decide to keep working on the Specialist level and enjoy a lower level of responsibilities and, oftentimes, stress.

The decision whether to reach the Specialist, Manager, or CMO level is essentially a lifestyle question: how much of your time are you willing to devote on your career vs social life and other hobbies.

2. Are you more of a creative or numbers person?

Do you rather enjoy working on ideas and conceptualize things or to crunch the numbers and work on highly measurable marketing projects?

I personally enjoy both. But even while I like to zoom in on behavioral economics and branding, I am more inclined towards the numbers-based Performance Marketing.

Let’s take a look at the chart once again.

Some marketing tracks require more creativity, others more logic

The projects listed under Product Marketing and Performance Marketing are more suitable to the people comfortable with numbers and spreadsheets.

Communications and Brand Marketing require a higher level of ideation and creative skills such as writing.

❗ This is not to say that Communications and Brand Marketing should not be measured!!

Whatever kind of marketer you want to become, you can’t do it without a basic understanding of tracking and measurement.

Also, Performance Marketing requires creativity when it comes to writing the ad copy, coming up with social media post ideas, and even building tracking spreadsheets requires an open mind.

It’s all about realizing where in between creativity and math you feel the most affluent.

Summing up Part 1

To help you summarize the above and take the next step towards your marketing career, here’s a brief summary:

• Define what kind of marketer you want to be: Product Marketing vs Branding, creativity vs numbers
• Consider what level of seniority you’d enjoy working in: how much of your overall time do you want to invest specifically in your career

If you are unsure what’s the right marketing job for you, test several fields. 💁

• I started out as an assistant in a PR agency, mainly working on writing content.
• Next up, I moved to a Content Marketing role in a startup, working on writing and SEO.
• I moved up the ladder to the role of Digital Marketing Manager, working on blog, SEO, CRO, social media, paid advertising, and some product marketing.
• I took some time off from the full-time job and consulted startups, being a full-stack marketer, working on the same things as in my previous role + learned graphic design to create ad visuals.
• I joined the Bolt team full-time in the Performance Marketing Manager role, working on paid advertising, social media, graphic design, and occasional copywriting projects.
• I grew into the team lead for Bolt Marketing team, working with and consulting many specialised teams, and being in charge of hiring and the high-level marketing strategy and reporting.

For me, the growth into marketer was rather organic, with the right things happening at the right time.

It also took more than three years and several turns to realize what field of marketing I like the most.

For example, I found a book about digital marketing on the bookshelf of the PR agency I was working in. In a few weeks, all I wanted to do was to work on content marketing, SEO and paid ads. Thanks to this lucky chance, I took the jump and landed in Scoro, which opened the door to many other projects.

At some point I decided to start a marketing blog. That’s how many of my freelance customers and also Bolt found me.

This blog turned out to be a very good idea

Note that cool jobs and promotions won’t come knocking on your door. You need to work hard before an opportunity opens up, and be curious enough to notice it and follow up.

Not to get too off-track, let’s resume to the assumption that you have a vague notion of the field of marketing you want to learn about.

Say you want to become a Facebook advertising expert or a partner in a media agency.

What’s next?

Where to get started with learning marketing?

You have no idea where to get started? 😓

That’s OK.

I didn’t know that either.

Not when being 18y old. Not when being 20y old. I am still not sure where I want to be in 5 years time.

However, looking back at how I got here, there are a few patterns that emerge. I will try to break them down for you.

Start from learning the essential “marketer” skills

There are a few skills that will give your marketing career a strong foundation, whatever direction you want to move in.

And, surprise-surprise, you don’t need to get a university degree in marketing to learn them. 🤭

Every good marketer I’ve met is characterised by the following: they can take on challenges and find solutions fast, they understand how people’s brains work, and they are excellent writers.

Start by training yourself in both creative problem-solving and critical thinking as well as learn to write and get a basic foundation on how the human psychology works.

Especially in the early years after high school graduation when you’re unsure what exactly you want to do, sharpening these three skills is a good way to grow as a marketer without an immediate pressure to specialize.

The reason I placed the word “marketer” between quotation marks in the headline is that these skills are relevant to plenty more career paths.

Even better so. By honing your creativity, empathy, and problem-solving capacity, you are not limiting yourself to a marketing career only. You’ll have the opportunity to switch to many other fields if you later find that another career path interests you more.

How to learn to write?

I could write an entire article on the topic. So in the general interest of keeping this article on track, I will share a few quick suggestions.

First of all, you will not learn to write by reading a few online articles, no matter how good, on “how to write a good marketing copy.”

Writing is a skill acquired through years of reading, learning, and writing. It’s a muscle you will need to train.

Or try to place a new book under your pillow every night – Image source

OK, so you want to learn to write, but need some guidance?

Read. Read a lot.

Be generally curious and read plenty of books, magazines, blogs and newspapers. Make yourself a goal to read 1 newspaper daily and finish at least 1 book per week. To give you some suggestions, I posted a list of things I’ve been recently reading in this article.

When it comes to picking the books for mastering the art of writing, I personally prefer literature to business books, due to the rich use of language.

There are also a few great books about writing I recommend that you check out:

• • Everybody Writes by Ann Handley – link 

• • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King – link

Write something every day.

What on earth would you write about every day? Well, it’s up to you. Either create a blog or start a personal diary. The point here is not to produce publishing-ready literature every time you set your fingers on the keyboard. The goal is to train yourself to write.

Find yourself an editor.

I give the most credit for learning to decently write to my high school teacher and the editors from various marketing blogs. Every time they jotted down an irrelevant sentence, meaningless adjective, or asked for a point of proof to back up my out-of-the-blue statements, I learned to avoid a rookie mistake the next time.

You can find an editor by offering to intern for a blog/magazine, finding a first job where your manager has strong writing skills and is willing to teach you, or by asking someone to become your mentor and edit your first writings.

How to learn about psychology?

As with writing, your empathy and knowhow on consumer behavior will develop in time.

Generally, it helps to read literature and to listen attentively what people are saying to you, trying to understand things from many different viewpoints.

There are also a few amazing books on behavioral economics that I consider a must-read for every marketer, no matter their chosen field:

• • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – link

• • Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini – link

• • Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely – link

Learn to understand what people really want – Image source

Here are a few examples of how understanding consumer psychology will help you be a better marketer across all the possible roles.

• Product Marketing: you will understand that $59 is a better price for your product than $60 as people perceive this as a significantly lower sum.
• Performance Marketing: you will understand which message drives people to click on your online ad and write highly converting copy using the triggers like urgency or scarcity.
• Communications: you will understand why a journalist should/should not care about the news you’re trying to get covered and can package it in the most appealing way.
• Brand Marketing: you will understand what makes people choose your product over the competitors’ and can double down on that value proposition in all your marketing channels.

How to train your critical thinking skills?

Being a marketer in 1950s was very different from being a marketer in 2020s.

With everything being digitalized, we’re able to measure a significant amount of marketing activities. Basically, all the online marketing activities can be tracked, measured, and improved upon.

As a marketer, you will need to compile strategies, figure out how to track and measure campaign results and find efficient solutions to ongoing challenges.

For me, logical thinking is a derivative of math skills mostly learned in high school + everything I have learned from my incredibly smart managers and colleagues at various jobs.

Learn to measure and evaluate marketing results – Image source

So where to get started?

If you’re still in university, take a few math courses.

If you’ve already graduated, take a course in Excel spreadsheet management – it sounds old-school, but you’ll need the spreadsheet and automation skills throughout your career.

Or pass a coding course in Codeacademy – learning a coding language, e.g. Python, will give you a better grasp of how to apply a systematic framework to various projects.

Summing up Part 2

Most people unfamiliar to hands-on marketing jobs tend to think that marketing is a specific skill set that can be acquired through online courses, business books, and a university degree.

That’s not true.

The best way to start learning marketing is to acquire a few basic “life” skills: writing, listening and understanding other people, and logical thinking.

Also, learn to google stuff. If you don’t know anything, don’t shrug and leave it be. Just check out what’s written about it online. Be curious, c’mon!

After you have obtained some of the basic knowledge, it’s time to dive in to specific marketing studies.

Learning marketing skills

There are a few options to learn specific, e.g. digital marketing skills:

• By taking university courses or paid trainings on marketing
• By reading marketing books, blogs, and newsletters
• By passing some online courses or watching Youtube videos
• By researching and analysing how successful brands do marketing

Which one of those is the most efficient way to learn marketing?

It depends on your level of motivation and the current place in your career.

Should you enroll in a university degree in marketing?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but I’d like to emphasize that a university degree in marketing is not a must-have for becoming a successful marketer.

If you haven’t gone to university yet, it could be a good idea to enroll in a marketing track or take some courses on the subject. If you’ve already been working on another job and plan to turn a new page in your career, getting a university degree is not the most efficient way to learn about marketing.

You could use that time to acquire some specific skill set, e.g. learn to create Facebook ad designs or go through thousands of ad creatives to learn what’s working.

See the 162 best Facebook ad examples in this post.

I think I’ve browsed more than 10 000 Facebook ads in my life 🤭

When hiring people to Bolt marketing team, I never evaluate the candidates based on their educational track. I look at their previous work experience, motivation letter and later the home task. However, some companies do still require job candidates to have a relevant Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

Do not expect the Marketing university degree to teach you everything you need to know.

University degrees that guide you towards becoming a marketer well versed in the digital world are a needle in a haystack. Generally, you will learn the theory and get very little practical know-how.

However, a huge benefit of going to university is that you will have time to learn, also outside of the curriculum.

If you’re fresh out of the high school and unsure what to do, my recommendation is to go to university rather than find a low-level job (it does not necessarily have to be a Marketing degree) and earn yourself three or five extra years to grow both personally and professionally. Also, companies prefer the interns who are attending a university vs candidates with no higher education.

What about paid marketing courses and trainings?

Next question: Should you take any paid online or offline marketing courses?

You can, but it is not a requirement for learning marketing.

If you decide to take any courses, I suggest that you only pay for world-class courses such as CXL’s Online Marketing Training. Unless you live in the UK or the US, you are likely to find high-quality stuff online rather than when attending some local offline trainings.

Should you go to marketing conferences?

The short answer is no.

Conferences are great for networking and boosting motivation, but not for learning detailed skills. If your goal is to learn marketing, conferences are not the most efficient way to go.

👉 Marketing books, blogs, and newsletters 👈

The above three resources are where I learned most of what I know about marketing.

When it comes to marketing blogs, be careful not to fall for basic advice written by freelance copywriters with no marketing background. The best stuff is put out by the agencies and a few marketing tools.

The marketing blogs I dare to suggest are:

• KlientBoost
• Holini
• CXL
• Moz
• Buffer
• Content Marketing Institute
• Copy Hackers
• Jon Loomer
• Backlinko

To keep up with your favourite marketing blogs, sign up to their email newsletters and bookmark them with the goal to check out the new articles at least once a week.

Here’s the list of the best books on marketing I’ve read:

• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy – link + my review to the book
• Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves – link
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott – link
• Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday – link
• Contagious by Jonah Berger – link 
• The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry – link

• The behavioral economics books mentioned above

A page from The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry

P.S. The two above lists are not the holy grails of all you will need to read to become a good marketer. There is a lot more good stuff out there.

And I also suggest that you read online (and offline) magazines + newspapers, and browse around in the online design galleries such as Dribbble and Behance to increase your general know-how and writing skills.

Summing up Part 3

There are many ways to educate yourself about marketing.

If you’re fresh out of high school, enrolling in a university curriculum (not necessarily a marketing degree) may be a good idea.

Either way, complement the highly theoretical knowledge with information about the latest best practices by reading blogs and newsletters. (Even if you’re already working in marketing, you should keep up the reading to stay on top of your game).

Now, now… let’s assume you’ve acquired some basic theoretical knowledge about the field of marketing you want to proceed with.

The best thing to do next is to get some practical experience.

Which leads us to… 🥁🥁🥁

Landing your first marketing job

If you have never worked in a marketing role before, why would a company hire you?

• You have no certificate to validate your skills
• You have no tangible results, nor job experience to present
• You have no references from previous managers

Moreover, you’ll be competing with people older and more experienced than you.

Sorry, that’s harsh.

But it has not stopped many people before you from succeeding.

So how can you get your foot in the door?

Start with internships

Instead of applying to a marketing job fresh out of university or after finishing a marketing course, try to land a few internships.

In fact, you can already pass a few summer internships during the university, and maybe even have a part-time marketing job by the end of the third year.

Also, apply to volunteer in marketing-related roles, helping to organize small events or work for an NPO (Non-profit Organization).

Find yourself an internship – Image source

Internships are beneficial on many levels:

• You are not expected to know everything but learn.
• You will have an experienced mentor who will guide your learning progress.
• You will see the kitchen side of various marketing projects and get a feel of the job.
• An internship is non-binding and only lasts for a month (low-risk commitment).
• You can do several internships to check out multiple career paths.

Not all internships are equally useful, and there are companies that only hire interns for the “dirty work.”

Which leads us to the next question…

How to land a good internship?

There are a few basic rules to follow:

• Do your research: ask around to identify the agencies/companies that do very good marketing.
• Send your motivation letter and CV to 10+ places and expect only around 20%-50% of them to answer.
• Write an exceptionally strong motivational letter as this is the main thing you’ll be evaluated upon.
• If you get no answer in two weeks, don’t let the opportunity fade away. Follow up.

Pro tip: You can create a CV that looks better than 95% of other people’s by using the free Canva templates.

Use Canva templates for your CV

P.S. I am thinking to publish an article on how to land your first marketing internship. Let me know in the comments if it’s a topic you’d be interested in.

❗One more thing!

Most companies accept the interns that come to them, and won’t even look for them publicly. If you only apply to the companies that have an intern job opening on the website, you’re missing out on 90% of the opportunities.

Reach out to all info@company emails where you’d like to do the internship.

Getting your first entry-level marketing job

In my experience, the best entry-level marketing job types are in agencies and startups – they’re fast-paced, have a wide variety of projects, and keep up to date with the latest marketing trends.

I suggest that you join a marketing team with at least one more experienced team member. If you become the only marketer in a tiny company, you’ll have nobody to learn from.

How to find your first marketing job?

Most people only search for a job on job sites like Indeed.com, etc.

However, a lot of marketing roles are filled in through headhunting and referrals.

If you’re just starting out and don’t know many people in the industry, simply send your CV and motivation letter to all agencies and brands you’d like to work for. If you have a few internships under your belt and sound hyper-motivated, there’s a high chance someone will hire you, even if they’re not publicly looking to grow the team.

Use LinkedIn to research the companies you’d like to work for, google lists of marketing agencies and startups or simply ask around.

Also, it often happens that the companies you intern for will end up making you a job offer. So make sure not to slack through the internship, but do your best work, occasionally exceeding the expectations.

Summing up Part 4

The fastest way to getting your first marketing job is by completing a few internships and building up your CV.

Also, starting your own small project or helping out a non-profit or friends’ company will be a nice springboard to a “real” job.

Be prepared to work for free or a low salary at first, developing your skills, and give your best at every job, paid or not. Eventually, you’ll have amassed the critical level of experience, references, and performance record to apply for a full-time marketing role and land the job.

Remember that your first jobs and internships will not define what you’ll be doing for the rest of your career. You will have tens of years ahead of you to learn new skills and make complete U-turns, wherever life may take you

Now go and learn to be a marketer!

Helpful Resources

Here’s a list of helpful articles, online courses, and resources that help you learn digital marketing.

List of 26 Free Online Marketing courses – by WordStream

The 30 Best Websites to Learn Marketing for Free – by Sitepoint

25 Best Resources that Help You Learn Marketing for Free – by Creative Boom

21 Resources For Mastering Online Marketing – by Neil Patel

37 Free Social Media and Marketing Courses to Elevate Your Skills Today – by Buffer

The post How to Learn Marketing? With 100+ Resources 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.