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Ask HN: Best intro marketing books?
Hello HN,
I just recently wanted Drew Houston's talk at Stanford where he mentions that early on in his career he had to learn a lot of different disciplines such as sales, marketing and so on.
I figured out that I need to understand a lot more about marketing than I do now (zero) and I need a good place to start. I think Drew mentioned Guerrilla Marketing as his first text, but I was hoping that you guys might recommend something even better to me.
What should my first intro marketing book(s) be? Seth Godin's stuff? Guerrilla Marketing? Others?
Thank you!
- ivv 14y agoAfter some 15 years in advertising and countless books, I now recommend Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends...", of which many modern ad/marketing books are poor derivatives. I'd also add a book on marketing metrics; an Amazon search will bring up a number of them, all fairly similar. If you are interested in specific advertising tactics, I'd start with a book about writing direct-response copy because that's the most replicable and hence useful knowledge.
- cdvonstinkpot 14y agoThere's so many Guerilla Marketing books out there that it's easy to get lost reading forever with no return on your time investment. I found one Guerilla Marketing book that's like a 'best of' called "Guerilla Marketing Remix- The Best Of Guerilla Marketing" By Jay Conrad Levinson & his wife. The Guerilla Marketing Handbook by Seth Godin seemed so dated it was hard to get through, but there were some gems in there. I think Seth's book 'Permission Marketing' is a classic & doesn't get old (not yet at least), I learned alot there. Purple Cow & Free Prize Inside are my favorites of his, still marketing I guess. Good luck.
- dylanhassinger 14y ago"Start Small, Stay Small" by Rob Walling is my fav. http://startupbook.net http://startupbook.net Also I recommend reading as much Tim Ferriss as possible