35 Essential Retargeting Resources: How To Crush Your Campaigns With Cults, Orangutans And MRI Scans

Have you ever studied cults to improve your marketing?

Or how about Orangutans and how they function as a group…

Probably not

I have, but if I’m honest, I’m a little peculiar (But in a good way)

Like Ash Ketchum “I wanna’ be the very best!”

And so I’ve dedicated the last few years to learning and executing everything I can to improve my Retargeting campaigns

Why?

Because Retargeting is in its infancy online

There’s not a huge amount of content out there, other then guides on how to use the tools…

And there lies the problem

Look, I know how to use a saw…

…but I doubt I could build a house by just knowing how to cut wood

You need to go deeper

Likewise with your Retargeting campaigns. You need to get more depth of understanding

You have to learn more than just the tool, so you can grow, adapt and improve

Facebook will probably change its platform every few weeks…

Those who know the process can adapt, and will beat out those who just know the tool

But like I said, the resources and teachings out there are slim…

So imagine if there was 1 book you could read that would improve you retargeting campaigns overnight?

Even better:

What if there were 38 assets I personally recommend, that have helped to shape our campaigns and deliver between 7,000-9,245% ROI with our Retargeting…

And what if each one of these books could improve your campaigns and marketing and grow your business?

(And lets be clear here, these are not just any old marketing books, sorry Seth I love you but this list is a little different)

In fact, the majority of these books are not even marketing based…

I bet you would be pretty pumped, to know what they are right?

To know what your competitors don’t and they are missing out on?

Well you are in luck, because these are EXACTLY what I’m going to share with you today

(Along with my key takeaways of how you can use them to improve your own Retargeting)

35 Insanely Powerful Resources You Can Read Today To Learn How To Skyrocket Your Retargeting Campaigns

Update:

I actually wrote my own book!

It’s how I use all the information below to create ‘direct response content and copywriting‘ ie

How we use psychology and math to get profitable results from content

So less retargeting, but more traffic and sales

You might enjoy that also!

But lets get into the retargeting…

Step 1: Start To Create More Effective And Out Of The Box Solutions By Mimicking Behavior Economics…

Retargeting is a fantastic tool

But right now, we’re only using it how people tell us to use it…and not thinking of the HUGE scope it has

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of how you can use Retargeting

You just need to change your perspective…

And to make this easier you can model great thinkers:

The Wiki Man by Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland is the author of The Wiki Man, the Creative Director of Ogilvy One and the leader of their behavior change department over at OgilvyChange

I highly recommend reading this book because:

1. It will give you some great ideas about marketing and selling your product and
2. Its god damn hilarious

Rory is the classic tweed jacket British Ad man and I’m a huge fan

Be prepared to improve your life and campaigns by watching Rory’s Ted Talk below

While watching, think about the problems in your retargeting and marketing campaigns, and how you can go outside of the problem…

We took inspiration from Rory’s talks and now use Retargeting both

• before our audience gets to the offer,
• and in multiple stages and on multi channels on the backend

This has helped for huge growth in ROI, and provides an automated delivery for a better customer experience

What can you do with your campaigns when you start thinking outside the box?

The Dave Trott Trilogy: Predatory Thinking, Creative Mischief and 1+1=3

Another great thinker, writer and marketer is Dave Trott and is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award for advertising

Dave writes in a style I only wish I could achieve…

He hooks you in with great stories that provide context and marketing ideas

But most importantly, he has written a trilogy of books that help kick-start the brain and take you back to fundamentals…

Reading his books helps me energize new ideas and processes, and often helps us to see past just finding a solution and instead to fix the cause of the problem…

They are a great read and one of the few books I regularly recommend and buy for other people

(Mainly so I get to still keep my own copies!)

So now your thinking of new ways to use your Retargeting, which is perfect

But that’s not all:

Let me break down how we are using Retargeting in different ways, and the books we recommend reading to help you improve and get ideas for your own campaigns

Note:

Some books may cover similar topics, but that doesn’t mean you should dismiss them

Each author has seen great results, research or success with each book

If you only get 1 extra nugget of information but implement it…imagine how it can change your business?

Because not all customers are identical…

Learning a slight variation or way of thinking on a similar idea, can be the difference between your campaign failing and your understanding and tweaking your results…

Step 2: Learn How To Understand Your Audience, How They Actually Think And Act, And How To Sell To Them Online…

One of the biggest roadblocks in your campaigns, is understanding and communicating with your audience

People say one thing, but do another

A lot of it comes down the limbic lizard brain…that fight or flight tool that’s fired by impulses

We’re motivated by very different things to what we think, and so it causes us to take different actions then we actually should

And when you learn how to use this, it will change your entire sales…

Subliminal: The New Unconscious And What It Teaches Us

Subliminal is a fascinating book by author Leonard Mlodinow on how the brains subconscious perceives information and dictates our thoughts and beliefs

Almost all of our choices are not actually based on conscious decisions but instead our subliminal processes

How can it help your Retargeting?

The whole book is fascinating, and has won many awards, but here’s a tease that stood out to me…

Doctors will often visit patients with brain injuries to see how it affects them:

One of these patient had lost both sides of his brain that affected his vision

Some people who are blind can still technically make out bright lights

But he couldn’t see at all, not even light or dark shapes or 50 ft tall words on buildings

They performed an experiment in which they showed 2 cards to the patient:

One card had a square, the other a circle

They wanted to see if there was a subconscious connection to other areas of the brain that still perceived information, but didn’t transfer that information into sight

The patient was asked to guess if the card was a square or a circle, and as you can guess he got around 50% correct

But here’s the crazy thing:

When they did the same test but with human faces (A frowny face and a smiley face) the results were drastically different

The patient actually got almost 70% correct…

How is this possible?

There is an area of the brain called the Fusiform Face area, specifically designed to help pick out and see faces

Its independent to our actual vision (I’m simplifying here) but basically the patient could identify the faces smiling or frowning…

…And yet hes blind

That’s how powerful faces stand out to us, that we have a specific area of our brain dedicated to recognize them!

Do you have faces in your Remarketing campaigns?

And what face are they pulling?

This book is fantastic and opens up so many other ideas, which I’ll save for later…

I, Mammal: How to Make Peace With the Animal Urge for Social Power

Dr. Loretta Breuning presents an incredibly interesting book based on research in the animal kingdom and the cross research of Humans and our unseen societal rules and structures

Basically, why we do what we do, and how we act like monkeys but think that we don’t…

Social dominance promotes survival, so mammals are driven to raise their status in their social group

We are driven by our lizard brain limbic system, and so what appeals and drives us is NOT what we tell ourselves or what we do…

It why we tell people we love documentaries because in our minds we’re educated

But then the Netflix algorithm seems to want to recommend Gilmore Girls to us JUST because we had a 22 hour binge that 1 time…

How can this help me?

Understanding the driving motivators of your audience can help you position and create campaigns that help sell your products better

Often we are not doing what we think, and acting out of factors we don’t realize…and so you need to understand that when selling to someone

Understand how status motivates them, but more importantly understand how to leverage this not brazenly but subtlety in your campaigns and content…

Learn these factors and watch your ad campaigns skyrocket

Thinking Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman

So the last book discusses what drives people subconsciously…

Well this book talks about how people actually process that information

Because if you’re going to run campaigns, you need to understand how to get people to read them

Not copywriting but actually how their brains process information

It dives deep into how we consume information, how to deliver it, cognitive biases and anchoring and much, much more

Do you know how good this book is?

They gave him the Nobel prize for it…

…before there was even a category in his field!

That’s like the Oscars making a “Best Mauled By Bear Scene Category” just so Dicaprio could win with Revenant

Its so incredibly powerful to understand how people process information, so you can improve your delivery

Especially if you are selling services, high ticket sales or products that require a depth of understanding or awareness

The better you can deliver the information, the easier the job of selling becomes

Heads up though…

Some of these books seem to be trying to save on paper…and so some complex ideas (ironically) are presented poorly in the hard copy books

The font is tiny and so it makes it difficult to process

Get the kindle version and read it on your laptop instead

It will blow your mind…

Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No Ones Looking)

Christian Rudder is the creator of OKCupid and a Harvard Mathematician so has crazy amounts of data to hand, and he knows how to use it

Fascinated by the actions that people take (Again not what they are saying, but what they are doing) he started to investigate ‘Big Data’ from Twitter, Reddit and other sources

This book is his in-depth findings of these details and research…

Because if you can understand what people actually need, then you can provide it without them even realizing

And the best part?

Its a good read and pretty damn funny too!

“In the first few pages of Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses massive amounts of actual behavioral data to prove what I always believed in my heart: Belle and Sebastian is the whitest band ever. It only gets better from there.”
—Aziz Ansari

Remember, its critical to understand how your audience works

You can know all the copywriting hacks, but without actually understanding people and your own audience, you’ll waste budgets and blow campaigns

Buy-ology: How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy Is Wrong

Here’s the good stuff

Martin Lindstrom presents his results of a 3 year long, $7 Million dollar Neuromarketing study on customers and buying behaviors

He took MRI machines and tracked peoples responses with different types of campaigns, branding and imagery which lead to some very interesting ideas

If I wrote:

“Don’t think about pink elephants”

Then you’re actually more likely to think of them…

Because we cant discern the “don’t” section

We process the “Think of pink elephants” section and only then tell ourselves not to

(Again I’m oversimplifying)

But knowing this, you can start to understand why your campaigns wont work

Its what the Direct Response guys have been working with for years

Here’s the thing though…

I either see people who love this book or hate it

Like all great research its apparently “Immediately Obvious” by armchair experts

Like with ‘I, Mammal’ we instinctively know that status is important to us and in our society

But without going deeper we don’t understand how to access it and use it to our advantage

Knowing that sex sells doesn’t mean you can put boobs on toothpaste and see profits rise

You need to actually go deeper with the facts so you can learn to leverage them

Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method For Presenting, Persuading and Winning The Deal

The final book on this section and another great asset to learn from…

Like Thinking Fast and Slow, the goal of Pitch Anything is to help you understand how the brain receives information

But then he takes it further by also gives you a step by step guide of how to use that to your advantage

Oren Klaff has an impressive success rate

He’s actually raised over $450 million in investments with this approach

How?

He uses his knowledge of neuroscience to strategically deliver information

Taking science and old school direct response principles into his face to face sales pitch

What I love about this, and how we use it, is to strategically deliver content sequences that convert

(Our optins are around 61% at the moment)

We do this by using similar strategies presented in Pitch and understanding our audience, and approach to delivering information

But then taking that further with dynamic delivery, contingencies and behavior conditioning, which is what we are talking about in just a second…

Step 3: Learn The 3 Stages Of The Sale, Preframing, Making Your Offer, Reframing Objections And Segmentation Of Message

Sales happen in 3 stages:

• You have the customer before they ever see your offer, their current state of awareness, desire for your product or a solution to their needs
• You have the offer, where you present and position your product
• And you have the reframe of objections and reminders of the offer (Which is what standard retargeting is used for)

Its incredibly important to understand these stages, and also see the power and importance of segmentation of message to the right audience member and the right time

Most people and retargeter’s are focusing on just the reframe

They are only trying to remind or convince someone who has an objection

(And that’s if they go deeper than just a reminder or a discount)

But if you can interact in advance, you can totally change the relationship

You can remove objections before they happen, while creating the ideal customer experience…

…you can set the preframe but also condition the ideal response

And these books will help you learn how:

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth And Happiness

Its much easier to sell to someone, if they already believe what you believe

Its even easier, if those points of belief align with your offer or products positioning…

Nudge is the first book I want to show you were the concept of behavior change and pre-frame conditioning takes place

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have produced a fantastic book, originally about helping you make better life choices

But its actually a masterclass in how we think and act, how we don’t do what we say or think what we mean…and how to manipulate this to get the action we want

We already know that our brains process information in strategic stages

And we also know that a lot of what we think is choice, is based on subconscious thought

We actually make actions and decisions based on previous experience, cognitive biases, anchors and influence factors

Most businesses make their offer too soon, before the customer is ready for it

Their audience isn’t ready, doesn’t have the desire, interest, trust or burning need for the offer

Even if they DO want it, they are basing their choices off those previous experiences and choices

Our brains build pathways of thoughts to help save energy with decisions (Simplification again)

We then go ahead and take actions based on what we think, and before long we have a result based on those thoughts

If you think you can never lose weight, then you never take the actions to exercise, and so then you struggle to stay fit

And it can be hard to change this…we can slip into old habits, pathways and decision making without thinking about it

But in reality it CAN be done, and we can change

But it takes time and effort to make the change…

This can be done vie pre-conditioning of ideas, habits and actions

If you go to the gym 30 days in a row, chances are high you are still going 60 days later

You’ve now become the person who goes to the gym often and watches what they eat…

But before that point its hard to keep going and not slip into old paths, beliefs habits and experiences

So what does this have to do with selling?

Well, when you are selling something, people need awareness and desire for that product

They need to understand and believe the things that your product does, but also have a need and desire for it

And that doesn’t just appear out of nowhere…

But with the right strategy you can condition thoughts, ideas and actions

So that in the future, your audience then subconsciously uses that information to make decisions

You’ve created the ideas, habits and experiences they need to make their decision

Is it manipulative?

Kinda

But its more like giving them the ideal experience on automation, instead of blunt force marketing

Your replicating the ideal customer experience and sales person…but delivering it to them at a pace that they need and want it

I told you retargeting is more powerful then you’re using it right now

But you have to do it properly, and understand what your audience needs…

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way To Influence And Persuade

One of only 3 authors here to be mentioned twice:

‘Pre-suasion’ is the latest release by Robert Cialdini, the author of Influence and its entirely dedicated to preframing your offer

That’s how powerful and important pre-framing is… the entire book is about this one topic:

His last book changed businesses overnight, when they implemented its teachings

And Cialdini rightly thinks that pre-framing is even more powerful…

Pre framing allows you to not only provide massive value in advance, but when done properly, creates a reader with the ideal mindset to be most receptive to your offer

Its not magic, or hypnotism, simply providing a great customer experience without trying to sell from the second you interact

It allows you to build desire, awareness of what you offer, trust in you and your products, social proof and urgency to act

The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard

Written in 1957, this book was originally an ‘inside tell all’ of the marketing space

Designed to blow open the doors of how marketers have been researching, writing and “manipulating” customers into buying…

But the thing is its actually a great marketing book by accident

In an effort to prove what these dastardly people are doing, it actually breaks down some great marketing methods better than most teachers do!

Its a very interesting read and you can usually pick it up at most 2nd hand stores fairly cheap, as he sold over 1 million copies!

“A classic examination of how our thoughts and feelings are manipulated by business, media and politicians, The Hidden Persuaders was the first book to expose the hidden world of “motivation research,” the psychological technique that advertisers use to probe our minds in order to control our actions as consumers”

The Architecture Of Persuasion: How To Write Well Constructed Sales Letters

You may not of heard of Michael Masterson but the guys a freaking machine

He’s created, ran and sold 6 and 7 figure businesses in around 20 different niches, and hes written multiple books on the subject

The most important thing to take away from this book is this:

There are multiple elements to a sale:

• Awareness,
• desire,
• trust,
• faith and
• urgency to take an action

Often online we miss these elements or try to jump through them too fast

Likewise, it takes multiple interactions to build them up

Its much easier to get someone to buy your product if they trust you

But its also much easier to get them to trust you if they read your content, join your email list, take specific actions and then buy

Because its incremental stages to the action…much like preframing

This book actually walks you through the process via a story, but during the story you don’t realize you are being sold on each stage at each time…

Habits Of A Happy Brain:Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels

Dr. Breuning with another book on the brain and how it works and how we survive

Penned as a self help book, it teaches you how the brain works and how we create neural pathways that release feel good chemicals

The same chemicals we strive for when we purchase a new product or take specific actions..

We constantly crave these chemicals and its what drives us to take those limbic brain actions

But as a marketer who understands this, you can understand your audience better

Go deeper into the reason why they buy from you and provide what they need to make it happen and to help them take the action they need to

Help them create new neural pathways with your marketing

This is good stuff, and can also help teach you how to stick to plans and form new habits…

Psycho Cybernetics: A New Way To Get More Living Our Of Life

Another oldie and a goody by author Maxwell Maltz

Written back in 1960, this “self help” book has formed most of the ideas of Tony Robbins and other authors

Its full of great information that can help you with your campaigns…

For Example:

Did you know that if you hear something enough, you believe it to be true?

You can even create false memories…

Your brain can’t distinguish from an actual experience and something it has seen repeatedly

Let that sink in a second

Sustained repetition of a thought or idea and your brain can’t tell if it was a memory or something you read somewhere…

…which then alters new decisions you take based on that information

You can think of this in terms of branding, but its also similar to how cults are formed and people go crazy for spaceships and poison cool aid…

(Just look at Trump)

Its scary stuff, but when used faithfully to help your customers, it can help them take actions that they procrastinate on

How many times have I mentioned pre-framing so far?

How much more likely are you to start using it because of this repetition?

So now we’ve covered great content for pre-framing, let me share with you my top books for creating a great product offer…

Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz

Written almost 50 years back, this is a seminal work on marketing.

In fact most major marketers will talk about ideas presented in this book today, and its still proving true to this day

Its not the easiest to read or get hold of, but I highly recommend you read this

And then re-read it…because although this is 50 years old, the content inside is incredibly advanced and technical

You’ll get more out of it each time

For Example

Understanding the level of awareness of your audience, their current frame of mind, and how you should start to position your campaign from this research

This is talking about segmentation marketing almost 50 years back…

How can you use this in your retargeting campaigns?

What state of mind can you talk to your audience about? How should you write your ads based on this information…

Understanding the driving motivators of your audience can help you position and create campaigns that help sell your products better

Even better, learning to understand the “awareness of your market’ will help you craft ad campaign headlines that speak to your audience…

This book is generally hard to get hold of, and a physical copy will set you back around $300 on Amazon

So head to 2nd hand stores or check out if they have it at your library

If you have the cash, its a worthwhile investment…

Commonsense Direct + Digital Marketing by Drayton Bird

I’ve said it multiple times, but you need to study Direct Response marketing to succeed in Retargeting

You need to know the principles, the reasoning behind why and you need to implement them

This book is recommended by some of the best in the field as THE definite guide to Direct Response

Its easy to read and far too cheap for what it is

Get the hard copy, put it on your shelf and refer to it often

Drayton Bird also has one of the best direct response blogs out there but be warned…

…he’s an old school British “mad men” type ad man

If he thinks an ad is b*ll*cks, he’ll let you know as such on the blog

He’s also kindly gone ahead and bought another classic marketing book which you can download for free from his blog

And that book is…

My Life In Advertising / Scientific Advertising By Claude Hopkins

Actually 2 books in 1

The first half discusses Claude’s experiences and approach to advertising which is great…

…but the 2nd half is fantastic

And you can get the 2nd half for FREE from Drayton’s blog via the link above (Although I do recommend buying the 2 part hard copy edition)

Like Breakthrough Advertising mentioned before, this is a treatise on some of the most specific and important marketing methods

New books being released are still talking about these and referencing them, the ideas are that important

It covers psychology, advertising, measurement, headlines and marketing campaigns

Its a little dated but you can see the principles and apply them still today

Great Leads: The Six Easiest Ways To Start Any Sales Message

Why do we love gossip?

Why is it hard to not pay attention to stories and parables?

For generations, we’ve been hard wired to listen to stories, to pass them down from father to son

Maybe its part of our social dynamics-we share to receive and vice versa

Even social media is the transfer of our own stories to our “audience” of friends and family- we cant help but pay attention

Great leads helps to teach you how to write fantastic “lead ins” for your content

Be it for a sales letter, an email, or a note to a friend

Its important to hook them early and bring them down the page to get them to take you desired action

And this book will teach how to weave that narrative into your content…

Marketing Secrets Of A Mail Order Maverick: Stories And Lessons On The Power Of Direct Marketing To Start A Successful Business, Create A Famous Brand Name And Sell A Product Or Service

Damn that’s a long name right?

But it does exactly what it says on the cover…

Joe Sugarman is an actual legend and one of my favorite things about him?

Most of his case studies are from actual products he sold, not other peoples campaigns he ran

Based mainly around Direct Marketing, the precursor to Direct Response, it helped blaze the way forward in a potentially more difficult environment

These guys were selling MILLION’s of dollars back in the 80’s with direct mail, before even credit card purchases, phone purchases and the internet existed…

Think about that for a second

You had to get them open the mail and not throw it away, read your sales letter, take their cash or write a cheque, fill out the form and then post it back… to then receive the product a few weeks later

It was another time

If you’re struggling to get people to click a Facebook ad, then you can learn a LOT from this book alone

Remember BluBlocker Sunglasses?

That was Joe

And he made SO many sales its unreal

They sold 20 MILLION pairs sold at $60 a pair (At the time of printing the book)

That’s a cool 1.2 billion in sales if my un-caffeinated brain is working correctly

All from a sales letter in a catalogue delivered to your door…

Oh and this was back in 1986 people

He later went on to re-print the ad in multiple news papers and even took it onto tv

Remember:

Model great thinkers and marketers…

Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay

Being Direct is the biography of Direct Marketer Lester Wunderman of Columbia House Records, American Express Cards and more

Lester helped to pioneer a lot of the Direct Response methods we use today, and this book can help you seed and develop new ideas to use

Back when Columbia House was going strong, they were selling 10% of the entire music market WORLDWIDE

That’s just insane:

10% of all music sales were coming from them alone…

At the height they had 687,652 monthly members and were generating $14.88 million or more

This book is another classic, similar to Hopkins, Bird, Ogilvy and the like, but from Lester’s perspective

A history of the campaigns, how they got past problems and the ideas they came to

I use it as a primer for ideas for my Direct Response campaigns and helped us to create our staff standard operating procedures

His 19 rules of Direct Response alone are worth the book (Here’s the first 3 for you)

1. Direct Marketing is a strategy, NOT a tactic. Its a commitment to getting and KEEPING valuable customers
2. The consumer, NOT THE PRODUCT, must be the hero of your ads
3. Communicate with your audience, like its an audience of just 1…

That’s a tease for the rest…so go ahead and grab a copy

Its not just his biography, he also walks you through his thinking for his campaigns that did millions

And all proceeds go to charity

There’s A Customer Born Every Minute: P.T Barnum’s Amazing “10 Rings Of Power” For Creating Fame, Fortune And A Business Empire Today- Guaranteed!

Notice how the Direct Response books clearly tell you what they do…

They follow their own principles, and it works

In this book, author Joe Vitale breaks down the works of P.T Barnum

Who was P.T?

He was the creator of the Barnum principles, otherwise known as the ‘Forer’ Effect

Its the tendency for people to believe vague general statements as true statements about themselves…but in reality could apply to almost anyone

Its the same stuff that you see used by palm readers and star sign guides…

Personally I understand the content is rubbish but the thing is, it appeals to people

When you can speak to a person in how they feel to themselves and their personality, then its incredibly powerful

Mirror language is a key part of research, copywriting and winning content/headlines

Remember, Lester said to write to an audience of one ie appeal to that one person directly as if writing JUST for them

But Barnum is writing to one but appealing to many….

Because when you can understand your audience and what drives them, and then even better use their own language back to them, they feel recognised and validated and will buy from you all day…

Confessions Of A Control Freak: How To Get The Results You Want From Your Next Direct Marketing Program

It could be said that this book is very similar to Joe Sugarman and others before this

But don’t discount it so quickly…

That would be very unwise

This is one of the easiest reads on the subject of Direct Response, with great examples of high converting campaigns

Like I’ve said many times before, you NEED to model previous successful campaigns and understand why they convert

I would much rather learn from each of the authors here and gleam a sliver of genius from each, then focus on just the 1 author…

I managed to grab a copy of this 2nd hand and its been on my home desk ever since (if not just for the great cover art!)

I don’t hear Alan’s name in the marketing circles I’m in and that’s a huge shame

If you can find a copy, its worth reading

And if you’re reading this Alan go and get a kindle version made for some easy sales!…

Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind, How To Be Seen And Heard In An Overcrowded Marketplace

OK so here’s more of a classic marketing book, but its a powerful idea by 2 of the greats Al Ries and Jack Trout

Positioning is about how to position your brand, business and product to meet a specific perception in your customers mind…

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of understanding your audience, and how they take actions based on subconscious factors that they then justify later with logic

How you position yourself and your products in your audiences mind can be the difference between them feeling weird or vague about you, and them becoming a tribe of loyal customers

Often some products suck so bad, but their marketing and positioning help them sell more and dominate the market

I’m an iPhone fan, but many people will tell you that other companies produce better products

But apple and the iPhones branding and positioning is far more powerful then any of the other companies…

We’ve covered some various topics so far, but can you see how they gel together yet?

Good

Because I have more awesome for you…

The One Sentence Persuasion Course: 27 Words To Make The World Do Your Bidding / The Forbidden Keys To Persuasion

OK so on Amazon you can find a copy of ’27 Word’s on kindle quite cheap

Its a great book on customer psychology BUT its also a primer for Blair Warrens larger body of work, “The Forbidden Keys To Persuasion”

Its a book based on his intense training course and personal research into how cults are made and more

It used to sell for $100 + and if you check the reviews, there are some major marketing gurus who recommend this book

The best part is, you can now get it direct from his website for only $20

He doesn’t really write anymore and that’s a damn shame

I will say this however…

This content can get a little dark as it touches on some potentially upsetting aspects of the human psyche

Hes gone very very deep with this work and research

I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why he doesn’t write anymore…

Get either copies, or get both

Its one of the best investments of $30 you’ll spend

Outsmarting The Scam Artists: How To Protect Yourself From The Most Clever Cons…

OK so you might notice I read some varying and quite random things

Monkeys and scientists and now…scam artists

Boiler room bleeders…

So why bother to read about these scam artists and how to protect myself from them?

Well in fairness its always good to know how to keep your money

But most important?…

These scams worked

Not because they were clever, hidden or difficult to see coming

In fact, most of all the people scammed are highly educated, business owners and high flyers with multiple investments and revenue streams

Most could even smell something wrong

So how did they make their sales?

Because these boiler room guys knew how the human brain works and how to deliver information

And they knew how to manipulate it…

They learned the core emotional factors to get people to take action, how to keep them taking action and how to keep making sales

Even crazier is a lot of these guys had crazy drug addictions and would blow the 20k or so they would make PER WEEK

They would wake up in a gutter somewhere on Monday morning and find their way back to the office to make more sales

Now I’m not saying you need to scam people

Far from it

But if you can understand the core emotional factors that can sell garbage…

…Then surely you can sell your awesome product that your audience genuinely wants right?

I mean, you’re retargeting them

They came to your site with an interest in buying but didn’t…

So learn how to change that and help them to buy from you

Learn what your audience needs so that they can take action on things that are actually good for them AND that they want…

So far we’ve covered outside the box thinking, the stages of a sale and how to set the pre-frame, and we’ve talked a bit about sales psychology

I want to now share with you my best book recommendations to help improve your ad campaigns

How to help write your headlines, to get your ads clicked and your emails opened and your sales letters read consumed and making money…

But just before that, 2 books on possibly one of the most important factors to selling online (or offline even)

You know that the right message at the right time makes the sale

But with online sales and automation, you need to learn how to segment your message to each audience member

So that the right person gets the message they need…

Step 4: Segmentation And Learn How To Send The Right Message At The Right Time, To Make The Sale

The first book I want to share is from a killer direct response company

They run multiple businesses, have 3 of them in the Fortune 500 and actually teach and share what they do

Invisible Selling Machine: 5 Steps To Crafting An Evergreen Automated Email Campaign That Literally Makes Sales While You Sleep

Digital Marketer is an absolute beast

If you’ve been in this space for long enough, I would be very surprised if you haven’t heard from them

Rather than do client work, they create their own business properties and get them to HUGE success in various niches

One of their sites makes over $6million per MONTH!

The DM site itself has over 9,000 members in their paid training platform and I would not be surprised if they make 7 figures from this business alone

(Those 9000 members are generating around 330k per month just on the entry level training)

But how did they get so huge?

They understand and act on segmentation of message and much more, WITH automation’s

In fact this book is designed to be more about email marketing alone, but it contains some core marketing gems and eye openers you may not of thought of before…

Its cheap to pick up, and if anything, it will also help you start to make more sales from email

Save $10 and buy it from them directly here

I’m going to give away a FREE nugget here of my own so pay attention:

If you can get someone to do one thing, they are almost 40% more likely to do another action you ask from them…

So when building that much needed trust online, you are FAR more likely to get a sale IF you ask for an email in advance

The email is a smaller ask and less resistance, but the relationship changes

They now trust you..

Try it in your business

You won’t regret it

Make more sales from your emails with the advanced segmentation they talk about in this book…

Before learning some more ideas on segmentation with:

Dotcom Secrets:The Underground Playbook For Growing Your Company Online

So segmentation of message works and is NEEDED to grow your business

Segmentation of email message is great also…

…but what about content segmentation?

How can you make sure that you are delivering content to the right audience?

And more so, how can you leverage the persuasion and trust principles to make more sales?

Russell Brunson runs a similar direct response business to Digital Marketer, but his focus for this book is on sales funnels i.e the path you take your audience from a to z, to change the relationship for sales

One of my favourite things is his passion and enthusiasm for this field

He’s probably forgotten more than most know… he even had a huge box of swipe file ad campaigns as a child

When you buy his book, you get access to a $300 training event he recorded that may just melt your face off

At one point these guys were even selling their book for just $1 + Shipping…

Ask yourself how they can do this?

And why they would do this?…Because if you can learn that, you’ll crush sales in your business

(Oh and maybe add learn some killer segmentation and sales)

Read this book

Learn what they are doing, but better?

Learn why they do it so you can tweak edit and evolve it into your business…

Finally, its time to dive into the core content to help you improve you ad campaigns

These are the books I personally recommend to have sat on your desk to help write campaigns, create killer ads and learn from the greats

Step 5:Learn How To Reframe Your Lost Customers Objections Into New Sales

Do you know why Retargeting works so well?

There are segments of your audience who WANT to buy…but need something else from you

Most retargeting campaigns focus on simply reminding people…

But in reality there are other elements that specific groups of your audience need, to help them buy

Some need to desire what you have more

Others need to trust what your selling, your site or your product

Another segment makes up self imposed objections

And others just procrastinate and don’t take action till you twist the knife…

So rather than just running reminders, learn how to reframe these other segments of your audience

And open up an entire other section of your sales…

Instant Influence: How To Get Anyone To Do Anything FAST!

Dr. Michael Pantalon is a professor at Yale University teaching in their medical and psychiatry department, as well as a guest lecturer at Harvard University

His core research is in helping people with crippling addictions to overcome them

He literally helps people reframe their objection and habits to connect with the desires and reasons they need to take the right action, and stick to it

He works with drug addicts and other such cases with a huge margin of success, from a simple 6 step process

If he can use these methods to reframe mental and physical addictions, just imagine how powerful it can be to reframe customer purchase objections…

Like we stated before, there are segments of your audience who WANT to buy

They just need to get past an objection.. to help reframe it and get them to take action

Get this book…

(Its a New York Times Bestseller)

Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Often when trying to persuade or influence someone, we try to get them to align with our desires

But the thing is this:

Sometimes their beliefs or desires are in opposition to ours

Rather than help them to understand and believe the same thing, we try and tell them how they are wrong…

…And how they should believe our beliefs instead

And that’s a big mistake

It just causes friction and opposition, even if they “agree” with you

Chris Voss is a former FBI negotiator saving lives from bank robbers and dastardly terrorists..

He now teaches fortune 100 companies how to succeed better in negotiations and make more sales

If it works them, its good enough for me right…

And learning how to get someone on your side is an important element in your retargeting campaigns

Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion

The book that started it all…

Ironically when this book came out, it was years until people embraced it

In fact, it was after marketers read it and started implementing the lessons, that it took off

After that, the school of Behavior Economics became more interesting, and marketers and businesses looked less at data, and more at psychology instead to help make the sale

Cialdini ran numerous studies for years and listed out his 6 triggers on influence:

• Reciprocity
• Authority
• Commitment
• Social Proof
• Scarcity and
• Liking

It wasn’t until his latest book where he lists the 7th element to be preframing the mindset of the audience to be most receptive..ideally by using the other 6 elements

People by from those they trust, they give back to those who give value to them, they trust the opinion of others, they follow through after an action has been started, and they buy from those they like…

One of the most important marketing books of all time, and that’s not an overstatement

If you can find the breakfast talk he gave at Yale, I highly suggest you watch it

Now that we’ve covered the last stage of learning how to reframe your audience, its time to help you improve your actual retargeting campaigns

From the images you use, to the copy you write…

Step 6: Improve Your Ad Campaigns, And Pour Liquid Hot RocketFuel Onto Your Headlines

You can have all other elements correct

But without ads that appeal to your audience, and copy that attracts and converts…

Your going to blowing your budget

These are the final 6 books to share with you, and why you need to read them…

Tested Advertising Methods: Fourth Edition By John Caples

An all time classic direct response book

Ogilvy stated that if you have a dollar for advertising, spend 80 cents on your headline

Because if your headline doesn’t get read, then the rest of the ad campaign is pointless

It wont get read and the budget is wasted

In fact, improving your headline can be the fastest way to improve sales in your campaign

This book is from copywriter/ direct marketer John Caples and walks you through different elements of headlines, different templates, how to improve headlines and much more

It seems like such a simple thing, why would you need a book on this?

Like we said before:

A good headline gets seen, a great headline gets clicks and sales

Based on over 40 years of experience of running campaigns, testing and split testing

Millions of ads were run to understand which headlines worked best, so this is worth its weight in gold

Get the 4th edition if possible, but if not any will be better than none

Cashvertising: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone

Drew Whitman is a direct response marketer, who’s been in the game for almost 30 years

Cashvertising is his magnum opus of his experience, distilled down into an easy to use table reference book

Its not the newest information, but it does cover older techniques with a new eye and thought process

Again, I like to keep a copy to use for its sections on head line writing, ad design and more, so I can use it when stuck for ideas

Is it similar to other books in the field?…

…Yes that’s true

But likewise, if you want to be the best, gleam every nugget you can from every experience marketer in the field

Also, the books pretty damn cheap!

Words That Sell:The Thesaurus to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas

Another must needed tool

You NEED this on your table if you design or write any ads, sales pages or emails

End of story

You know the difference between good copywriting and bad?

Research and editing…

…lots of editing

To improve the flow, the emotion and the terms that people connect with

Its hard to write powerful copy every time

Are you just made of bottled inspiration and creativity?

I don’t know about you, but my brain melts our of my ears after a few hours of ad writing

I literally need a lie down sometimes

So I make it easier on myself

I use headline examples (And create swipe files) and I use editing examples

Words That Sell is a resource of powerful words and terms to add into your copy to give it pizazz

That ‘je ne sais quoi’

That magic that takes a poor converting page and make you rich beyond your dreams

Or at least gets your damn advert to convert…

Ogilvy On Advertising

The godfather himself, David Ogilvy presents his seminal work on marketing and direct response

His agency is still crushing it to this day, and the man bought a freaking French Chateau from how well they do

It covers his history, his major campaigns and how he formulated ideas

More importantly, it also includes lessons on ad design, headline writing, layout design and more

The information in here is still true today, and highly valuable

I’m a huge fan of Ogilvy and his work

He broke down every segment of his marketing to a step-by-step analytical approach

One of the early users of psychology research, and I cant help but feel this forward thinking is the reason they have a behavior change department today

You can pick this up in most locations online, and yet another book that needs a kindle version as its missing out a few easy sales!

But likewise, get a desktop copy to refer to when creating your ads

The information gleamed in this resources has helped us create our very own checklists and SOPs…

Isn’t it time to make your own to make your marketing easier?

Now for the last book in this collection

Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide To Creating Great Ads

The final book in this collection by author Luke Sullivan and published through Adweek

Described as a cross between Bill Bernbach and Hunter S Thompson and I would have to agree…

Te book starts out with a monologue on traditional advertising and destroying traditional ad campaigns with machine gun fire and goes on from there

Luke has won numerous awards for his ad campaigns and this is his definitive guide to creating and planning new campaigns

His process for “Selling without selling out”

Like a few of the books here, it covers similar subjects like planning, design creatives, video ad design and more

Yes we’ve covered that in others but as I’ve said numerous times in this article

Learning from the experience of multiple people in your craft will only continue to help you formulate ideas and campaigns

You have here a ‘swipe file’ of some of the smartest minds in marketing that you can access at a moments notice, when the hour is late and the caffeine just wont get the campaign finished…

Conclusion

There you have it…

My condensed guide on the very best books to read to improve your remarketing and retargeting campaigns

We’ve broken down the reasons why you should read them, alongside the context of how we use these resources in our own campaigns

Do you need to read them all?

That’s up to you but ask yourself this:

Do you want to be the very best?

Are your campaigns missing something?

In all honesty, there are around 7 books that I highly recommend you add to your arsenal, the rest fill in the gaps and will make your better and more successful

But you do NEED these books to meet each of the segments we talk about

To get my 7 book list, simply hit the yellow box above to get my checklist for all these books and the 7 books you need to buy

Your campaigns will thank you for it

So before we close up just a few questions

• What did you think of the guide?
• An y books you think we should add to this?

There was no Gossage, Reeves or Bernbach included as yet… (Hard to get hold of the originals)

• What would you add?
• What have you read?

Leave a comment below now…

And then get our book checklist

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