Marketing and improving your strategy is a learning process. To survive as an entrepreneur you always have to be learning. This will let you stay ahead of the curve, and more importantly your competitors. Despite the fact you’re living in a digital world, the value of a paperback book can’t be underestimated.

If you’re willing to step back in time and learn from an old-fashioned book, you’re in the right place. This list of books will make you a better marketer.

The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data Technology, and Inbound Selling to Go from $0 to $100 million

At first glance, you might think that this is just old-fashioned Internet marketing hype. And to an extent it’s done its job because it’s attracted your attention. Mark Roberge is the author of this book and he’s come up with lots of tips to help turn your company’s marketing efforts around.

If you’ve never heard of this guy, he’s from Hubspot and he managed to generate $100 million in revenue. Only 42% of marketers say they are effective at content marketing, so in this book Roberge goes through all the tactics he has used. You’ll also learn how to use the latest technology and how to use some of the inbound marketing techniques that are making millionaires from marketers today.

Amp Up Your Sales

Andy Paul is the brains behind Amp Up Your Sales. It is a crowded marketplace and as a marketer you’re just one voice shouting among millions of others. Standing out when everyone is similar around you is your main priority, and then you need to stand out for the right reasons.

You are going to learn from Paul’s selling techniques and they’re going to help you craft a strategy that works. It’s a favorite for marketers anywhere and you’ll see it on lists like this all the time.

Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insight into Your Customer’s Expectations, Align Your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business

Buyer personas are a huge trend in marketing. But they are a trend that actually works. It makes logical sense to use buyer personas because they are there to help you understand what people actually need. Once you’ve worked that out, selling is just like reading their minds.

Adele Revella will show you what you need to do to start making these buyer personas. You’ll then make sure your company is built around those personas, so everything you’re doing is about them.

We think that this should be essential reading for every marketer. It demonstrates how to divide up your customer base into little pieces. Then you can come up with your own strategy for everyone in that group. You’re guaranteed to get great conversion rates when you’re using a laser targeted buyer persona.

What we love about this book is that there are sections dedicated to each type of customer.

Fanatical Prospecting

Fanatical prospecting is a book by Jeb Blount and it targets the finding part of the marketing process. Actually finding your customers is the first big obstacle you’re going to have to deal with. You don’t want to find just anything you want to find people who are likely to buy from your business.

There’s no point talking to people who don’t have any interest in you from the beginning.  And this book is going to show you how to bring in people who are interested in you from the start. It will take your shopping to the next level.

The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results

Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon once wrote The Challenger Sale. This was so popular because it detailed the tactics their sales reps used to gain a massive amount of success. And now this is the sequel to it. This sequel is just as relevant to marketing in 2016 as the original was when it was first released.

It uses advanced methodology so this likely isn’t one for the beginner. Instead, if you know your stuff this is the book to build on that with. It’s a complete blueprint for finding your market and find out information about your customers. Once you have that information, this book is going to show you what you need to do to use that information to actually make money.

Last Word

These five books are our favorites for selling to customers in both the B2B and B2C industries. You’ll find great information on every part of the selling process. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner or someone who has been around the block a few times because you’re sure to find something useful here.

Which of these books will you buy today?