I read a lot of books. And 99% of the books I read are marketing books to improve my school marketing craft. I enjoy learning about effective ways to engage audiences across multiple marketing platforms.
Six books have made an impact on the way I market schools in my district. The following books have shaped my school district’s marketing tactics and campaigns.
Six Books that Have Shaped My School Marketing Campaigns
1. Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins
Are you overwhelmed by the breathtaking rate of change in the business world? Are confusing consumer trends, the unrelenting pace of technology, and the breakneck speed of digital marketing making you feel irrelevant and lost? Path-finding author Mark Schaefer provides an achievable and realistic framework to help you stay ahead of the curve by re-imagining marketing in a world where hyper-empowered consumers drive the business results.
Through new research, singular insights, and inspiring case studies, this entertaining book challenges your view of what it means to be a marketer today and provides an innovative blueprint for business growth.
The Marketing Rebellion is knocking at your door. Are you ready?
Buy on Amazon by Clicking Here
2. Millennials with Kids
While everyone was bemoaning their alleged laziness and self-absorption, the Millennial generation quietly grew up. Pragmatic, diverse, and digitally native, this massive cohort of 80 million are now entering their prime consumer years, having children of their own, and shifting priorities as they move solidly into adulthood.
Millennials with Kids changes how we think about this new generation of parents and uncovers profound insights for marketers and brand strategists seeking to earn their loyalty.
A gold mine of demographic profiles, interviews, and examples of brand successes and failures, this book helps marketers rethink the typical American household and connect with these critical consumers in the complex participation economy.
Buy on Amazon by Clicking Here
3. Marketing to Gen Z
With bigger challenges come great opportunities, and Marketing to Gen Z wants to help you get ahead of the game regarding understanding and reaching this next generation of buyers.
Having internalized the lessons of the Great Recession, Generation Z blends the pragmatism and work ethic of older generations with the high ideals and digital prowess of youth. For brands, reaching this mobile-first and socially conscious cohort requires real change, not just tweaks to the Millennial plan.
Marketing to Gen Z dives into and explains all this and much more so that businesses may most effectively connect and converse with the emerging generation that is expected to comprise 40 percent of all consumers by 2020.
Now is the time to learn who they are and what they want!
Buy on amazon by clicking Here
4. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. A mash-up of the best elements of Crush It! and The Thank You Economy with a fresh spin, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really works.
When managers and marketers outline their social media strategies, they plan for the “right hook”—their next sale or campaign that’s going to knock out the competition. Even companies committed to jabbing—patiently engaging with customers to build the relationships crucial to successful social media campaigns—want to land the punch that will take down their opponent or their customer’s resistance in one blow. Right hooks convert traffic to sales and easily show results. Except when they don’t.
Thanks to massive change and proliferation in social media platforms, the winning combination of jabs and right hooks is different now. Vaynerchuk shows that while communication is still key, context matters more than ever. It’s not just about developing high-quality content, but developing high-quality content perfectly adapted to specific social media platforms and mobile devices—content tailor-made for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Buy on Amazon by Clicking Here
5. InstaBrain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z
Move over Millennials; there’s a new kid in town.
Today, Generation Z (ages 13-24) is the largest living generation, outpacing Millennials by 3 million. They represent 2 out of every 5 American consumers and influence $655B per year in purchases in the US alone! This generation is wielding its mighty influence on every other generation in every industry. Is your marketing department still focusing on Millennials? If so, you’re missing massive potential from Generation Z.
This generation of digital natives is an entirely different type of consumer. You need a new marketing strategy to reach. This book by internationally-acclaimed researcher and speaker Sarah Weise will teach you the new rules for marketing and brand-building for this youth generation. Packed with stories and insights from dozens of youth research projects, you’ll discover what you need to know about how this next generation of customers wants to learn, transact, and engage with brands like yours.
In InstaBrain, you will learn: Where they go for different types of content· What draws them in? How do they make buying decisions? What keeps them coming back· How to tailor your marketing strategy for this new generation.
Buy on Amazon by Clicking Here
6. The End of Marketing as We Know It
Marketing today doesn’t work. Or so says the “Aya Cola,” Sergio Zyman, former marketing czar of Coca-Cola and quite possibly the most famous marketing gadfly in the world. Brilliant, irascible, unconventional, Zyman is best known for reinventing the Coca-Cola Company’s marketing approach by spearheading the global launches of Diet Coke, New Coke, Classic Coke, Fruitopia, and Sprite.
Now, in this brisk and revolutionary book, Zyman shows why old approaches to marketing have lost their fizz–and how to get a jump on the strategies that will work in the twenty-first century.
Buy on Amazon by Clicking Here
Conclusion
Books can still a wonderful way to learn about school marketing. The books I have mentioned have shaped the way I go and tackle the complicated world of school marketing.
