If you want to keep up with changes in business, it is important to stay abreast of innovations in sales and marketing. The best way to do that is to read B2B business books that can teach you about those innovations. The books on this list have been published recently or are due to be published in the next few weeks. Each has a unique perspective on B2B marketing that you can take back to your company and share with your marketing team.
1. Edge Strategy: A New Mindset for Profitable Growth
This book which, releasing on January 19, 2016, is by Alan Lewis and Dan McKone and discusses edge strategy, finding profits and areas for growth that you do not have to reach for. Edge strategy is named for the concept of finding profitable growth near the edge of the company's core business. The book challenges readers to find areas of growth that exist just beyond the boundaries of your current products and services.
The authors take you through three different viewpoints to help you find these growth areas, product edge, journey edge and enterprise edge. Each viewpoint can potentially unlock future growth for your company that would complement what you already sell. The authors offer several examples to help illustrate this strategy and advice on how you can apply this strategy to different business contexts.
2. How To Win at B2B Email Marketing: A Guide To Achieving Success
Written by Adam Holden-Bache, this book released in December 2015 and discusses the crucial practice of email marketing for B2B. The author walks the reader through every step of designing and implementing a successful email marketing program and what issues may be stopping true success. With a precise focus on achieving results, this book can help you drive more conversions and get better leads from your email campaigns.
3. Meaningful: The Story of Ideas That Fly
Released in October 8, 2015, this book by Bernadette Jiwa is a conversation about empathy, relevance and affinity in business between the seller and the customer. Highly relevant in this area of customer-first campaigns, the book talks about how you can market using customers as your primary focus. Learn how to change the world and your marketing strategy by helping other people to live their dreams.
4. Competing for Customers: Why Delivering Business Outcomes is Critical in the Customer First Revolution
Releasing in February 26, 2016, this book is an excellent partner to read along with Meaningful. Examining the customer-first philosophy of sales and marketing, Amir Harman and Jeb Dasteel offer a roadmap for creating and implementing a customer-first strategy that delivers a high ROI.
The authors discuss how to bring the customer's perspective into all areas of your company's business strategy which is a very detailed and time-consuming process, but worth the investment. By embedding the customer throughout your business, you can achieve the ROI that you are looking for.
5. Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue
Another book on customer success that will be released on March 7, 2016, this book helps readers better understand this model of doing business. The authors, Nick Mehta and Dan Steinman, discuss the changes that the Cloud has brought to business, and why customer success is now so crucial to marketing and sales. A strategy primarily for B2B, this customer success philosophy guide teaches how to use the entire customer's lifecycle to help grow your business. By creating customer value in your products and services, you achieve success for your own business.
