Bloom’s Summer Book List: Beach-Toting Reads for Ambitious Marketers
Elon Musk learned how to build rockets by reading. Warren Buffet credited his success to reading. Mark Cuban says he reads more than 3 hours a day, every day. So, what better motivation is there to cut out a few hours of your summer day to spend time with a good book akin to our world’s most successful business leaders?
To help you fit this valuable activity into your busy days, our team has compiled an absorbing list of book suggestions that offer illuminating insight into the marketing landscape. The result is a collection of top-notch modern marketing books that will perfectly complement a day of leisurely learning at the pool, beach, or on the porch swing.
Contagious by Jonah Berger
In Contagious, Johan Berger, a well-known expert on word-of-mouth marketing and consumer behavior, shares why certain products, campaigns, and articles catch on and go viral. Through a digestible 6-step framework, Berger explains how to create brands and messages that are worth sharing. Providing valuable information on what makes products and brands popular and how we can duplicate successful campaigns in our own marketing efforts makes this book a must read for any marketing professional.
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon, in his book, Steal Like an Artist, urges us to forget the old cliché about writing what you know: Instead, write the book you want to read, make the movie you want to watch. Kleon believes creative minds shouldn’t worry about reinventing the wheel. But, instead, we should use existing ideas as a springboard until we find our unique voice and style. Trying to be creative and unique only prevents progress. The book is a great reminder for all of us creative marketing professions that the most effective way to grow as a creative mind and content creator is by doing more of what’s proven to work while experimenting along the way.
Start With Why by Simon Sinek
Start With Why, by Simon Sinek, hypothesizes that users won’t buy into a product, service, or movement unless they know “why” they should. Drawing from a vast array of real-life anecdotes and experiences of past great leaders (like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and The Wright Brothers), Sinek illustrates how the most influential leaders have always focused on selling the why, rather than the how. The book provides a great fundamental reminder for marketers that every successful project begins simply by understanding the why.
Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria
Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria is a book that will help us understand the nature of a post-pandemic world and our response to it. Written as a set of 10 lessons, this timely read sounds off on the political, technological, and economic implications of a post-pandemic world, from the quality of government to the rise of digital life. The book speaks to past, present, and future, and, while urgent and timely, is sure to become an enduring staple in our libraries.
The Imagination Machine: How to Spark New Ideas and Create Your Company’s Future by Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller
The Imagination Machine: How to Spark New Ideas and Create Your Company’s Future by Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller is a guide for mining the imagination to find powerful new ways to succeed. The book explores how the imagination is one of the least understood but most crucial ingredients of success. It’s what makes the difference between an incremental change and the kinds of pivots and paradigm shifts that are essential to transformation—especially during a crisis, and something businesses needs now more than ever. Marketers will benefit from The Imagination Machine’s guidance on how to demystify and operationalize this powerful human capacity, to inject new life into our companies, and to head into unknown territory with the right tools at our disposal.
While these books represent a substantial collection of approaches, they all share the same intention: to help you improve your marketing strategy.
If you need any help with developing or refining your marketing efforts, send us a message.
