Key Resources for Marketing
On My Quest for the Best, I’ve interviewed hundreds of published authors and business experts.
Below I’ve summarized some of the best ideas, strategies, tactics, and tools in the area of marketing.
- Key Resources for Marketing
- What is Marketing?
- Industry Leaders and Sources for Marketing
- Thought Leaders and Practitioners
- Top Academics
- Top Marketing Titles Small Business Leaders Should Know
- Seth Godin is an author, marketer, and public speaker.
- Micah Zenko is an American author and political analyst who is the Whitehead Senior Fellow on the US and Americas Programme at Chatham House.
- Jonah Berger is a Wharton professor, author, and a leading expert on change and viral marketing.
- Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian-American author, speaker, public figure, and serial-entrepreneur who serves as the chairman of VaynerX.
- Adam Grant is an author, psychologist, motivational TEDx speaker, and the host of WorkLife, a top-rated TEDx podcast.
- Al Ries is a top marketing consultant who owns the Atlanta-based consulting firm, Ries & Ries. Jack Trout was an advertising executive and was the owner of Trout & Partners.
- Malcolm Gladwell is a 5-times New York Times bestselling author who wrote for The New Yorker.
- Richard Thaler is an author, economist, and a Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017 for his contributions to behavioral economics.
- Phil Knight is the business magnate founder of Nike.
- Marketing Resources on My Quest for the Best
- Featured Interviews – Marketing
What is Marketing?
Marketing is all about the 4 P’s: positioning, packaging, presenting, pricing, and promoting your offers to those who want, need, and can afford your products, solutions, and services. It encompasses market research to help you understand the needs and desires of your buyers; market messages and channels, what you say and where to stimulate attention and interest; as well as areas such as product life cycle, where you
When I was at Apple, the senior managers would whisper a truth, often in amazement: effective marketing takes the pressure off sales. In other words, when you do the marketing function really well, you have eager customers lining up to buy from you. Ever see a line outside an Apple store when a new iPhone is released?
For small business leaders, marketing is on a smaller scale, but with a similar focus and impact.
The day that I heard Dan Kennedy, a super successful and self-professed godfather of marketing, tells a story about how he changed headlines in sales letters and got not 4-10% better results, but 4-10x better results for his clients was a day that the power of marketing really clicked for me.
We want to get the right message expressed on the best mediums to the correct subset of our market-ready, willing, and able to buy from us. That takes thinking and learning from success stories, as well as applying new ideas and models, and metrics to our activities to get better results. Fortunately, marketing is a field that is active and vibrant. Refer to the resources below to hone your marketing skills and take marketing at your small business to new levels of success.
Industry Leaders and Sources for Marketing
When marketing is your priority as a small business leader, you will seek out ideas, methods, and examples from sources such as:
Thought Leaders and Practitioners
Top Academics
At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Dr. Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Professor of International Marketing and S.C. Johnson Chair in Global Marketing. Dr. Kotler is known as the “father of modern marketing,” and in 1985, he was the first recipient of the American Marketing Association’s Distinguished Marketing Educator Award. In 2011, he was given the title “Legend in Marketing.”
Dr. Jonah Berger is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior. His research and expertise center around social influence, consumer behavior, word of mouth, viral marketing, and natural language processing.
Scott Galloway serves as a Clinical Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, where he teaches digital marketing and brand strategy to MBA students.
Top Marketing Titles Small Business Leaders Should Know
Seth Godin is an author, marketer, and public speaker.
His best-known books include:
Micah Zenko is an American author and political analyst who is the Whitehead Senior Fellow on the US and Americas Programme at Chatham House.
His best-known books include:
Jonah Berger is a Wharton professor, author, and a leading expert on change and viral marketing.
His best-known books include:
Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian-American author, speaker, public figure, and serial-entrepreneur who serves as the chairman of VaynerX.
His best-known books include:
Adam Grant is an author, psychologist, motivational TEDx speaker, and the host of WorkLife, a top-rated TEDx podcast.
His best-known books include:
Al Ries is a top marketing consultant who owns the Atlanta-based consulting firm, Ries & Ries. Jack Trout was an advertising executive and was the owner of Trout & Partners.
Their best-known books include:
Malcolm Gladwell is a 5-times New York Times bestselling author who wrote for The New Yorker.
His best-known books include:
Richard Thaler is an author, economist, and a Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017 for his contributions to behavioral economics.
His best-known books include:
Phil Knight is the business magnate founder of Nike.
His best-known books include:
Marketing Resources on My Quest for the Best
On My Quest for the Best with Bill Ringle, the podcast for ambitious small business leaders, I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting and learning from world-class authorities on the topic of Marketing.
Featured Interviews – Marketing
Read and listen to these hand-picked interviews with experts for marketing. Each offers special insights and advice to help you in your journey as an ambitious small business leader.