Nowadays, you can’t look at a marketing website for more than a few minutes before you see something about branding. When it comes to your business, branding is incredibly important. Effective branding gives your business personality. It can also help you resonate more with consumers and other businesses.
If you want to learn more about how to do this, why not check out the best branding books?
Table of Contents
1. Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design
To fully understand the impact of branding on your business, you’ll want to check out one of the best branding books from Marty Neumeier. In his recent book, The Brand Gap, Neumeier effectively explains the importance of branding in a book that’s easy to understand.
Neumeier’s writing style reels you in and keeps you wanting to turn more pages. In this book, you’ll see how your company’s branding gives you a competitive edge, the impact of design in branding, and how to test new branding ideas without spending a fortune. It also comes with a 220-word brand glossary for quick reference.
2. Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
I understand that some people enjoy reading lengthy books filled with pages of text. Other people prefer their information to come in a more visual format. If you’re the latter, think about picking up a copy of Designing Brand Identity. This book breaks down everything you need to know about branding in three separate sections.
In the first section of this best branding book, you’ll learn the basics of branding. If you consider yourself brand-savvy, be aware that you might learn quite a bit in this section. The second section helps give your company a universal and proven way to start effectively branding your company. The final section of this book goes over branding best practices. This section is where your company receives actionable ideas it can start using right now to improve its branding.
Designing Brand Identity An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team features stunning illustrations, over 50 case studies, and 400 powerful branding quotes. If you want a book full of great visuals and helpful information, check out Designing Brand Identity.
3. Power Branding
You don’t have to spend much time reading Content Marketing Life’s blog to know that I’m a huge fan of learning from the best. Chances are, these people or companies spent countless amounts of time and money to find what works. If you share this belief, you’ll want to get a copy of Power Branding: Leveraging the Success of the World’s Best Brands by Steve McKee. This pick is easily one of the best branding books I’ve read in a long time.
When it comes to effective branding, Steve McKee is one of the best minds in the business. He’s the owner of McKee Wallwork & Company, a marketing firm that partners with some of the world’s most popular brands. Throughout his life, McKee has given speeches for countless companies around the world.
In Power Branding, you’ll learn how branding separates great companies that gain popularity from others that never seem to get their feet off the ground. This book does a great job of using real-life companies as examples of why branding is and will always be here to stay.
4. Identity Designed
If you’re a designer looking for the best branding books, check out Identity Designed. This is a book that’s better for those looking for visual tips surrounding brand design and other similar factors. Still, content writers and other people involved in branding should gain valuable insights from this book.
Identity Designed goes over branding best practices, invoicing, acquiring clients, and much more. You might even find that having a copy of Identity Designed handy provides better tips than your best Brand Consultant could.
5. Branding in Five and a Half Steps
Another one of the best branding books is Branding in Five and a Half Steps. Written by Michael Johnson, this brand building guide takes a look at some of the most popular companies brand themselves.
What’s great about this book is how Johnson provides step-by-step instructions for creating a brand identity. This book brings the power of a whole branding team to your business venture.
You’ll learn about visual branding, building a story brand, and much more. This book is well worth a read if your company needs help coming up with brand strategies.
6. Book of Branding: A guide to creating brand identity for startups and beyond
If your company needs a great brand strategy, you need to check out this book. Written by Radim Malinic, this is a great book on brand building (regardless of where your company is in the branding process).
This pick is one of the best branding books because it gives you an in-depth look at everything you need to build an excellent brand strategy, including:
- Starting a branding company
- Correctly handling copyrights and trademarks
- Presenting great presentations
- Dealing with brand-related disappointments
Best of all, the author of this book is a branding powerhouse. So, you know you’re reading advice from someone who continues to realize success as a branding professional.
7. Brand New: The Shape of Brands to Come
Branding has changed a lot in the past decade or so. If you’re wondering how to build a successful brand, it’s worthwhile to check out Brand New: The Shape of Brands to Come.
This book is a great guide to help your company with visual branding and the struggle business leaders face to become a great brand. I love the no-nonsense approach that Thames Hudson uses. His writing makes it easy for almost anyone to understand how to build a charismatic brand.
What makes this one of the best branding books is that Hudson isn’t afraid to use other companies’ blunders as lessons for his readers. By avoiding the mistakes other companies made, it’s much easy for you to develop a winning brand identity design.
8. Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
No list of the best branding books would be complete without including Building a Story Brand in it by Donald Miller. This book takes a closer look at personal branding, building a brand identity, and the problems business leaders face to have their brand stand out.
Donald Miller, the author of this pick for one of the best branding books, uses his branding expertise to give your business everything it needs to create a successful brand.
Miller’s Seven Universal Story Points are simple enough to understand. However, it’s also incredibly effective to help your company develop a brand identity. There are even some great digital marketing tips in this book that make it well worth its cost.
Whether you’re trying to tackle personal branding or developing a brand for a huge corporation, this book’s branding strategies will be a major source of help.
9. Start With Why
When you’re looking for the best branding books, it’s a smart move to find Start With Why, written by Simon Sinek. This book takes a look at why companies succeed at branding concepts and other businesses do not.
This book will teach you how to develop either a business or a personal brand. Plus, it’s also full of branding techniques that some of the largest (and most popular companies) use. By reading this, you can make sure your branding efforts pays off in a major way.
This is also one of the best branding books for a company that wants to tell its story effectively and in a way that engages people. Simon Sinek brought some of his best brand storytelling tips to this book. You won’t regret checking it out, especially the section on “The Golden Circle.”
10. What Great Brands Do
If you want to learn from the best branding experts, you need to read What Great Brands Do by Denise Lee Yohn. This book teaches you about the best digital marketing and traditional marketing tips companies use to make their way to the top.
With this book, it becomes much easier than normal to come up with a great brand identity. It’s also one of the best branding books for those who are new to marketing their companies.
Instead of worrying about what to do, let Denise Lee Yohn guide you through one of the all-time best branding books.
11. Logo Design Love
One of the most important parts of any company’s identity is its logo. A great logo lays a foundation for everything from small businesses to successful corporations.
With this book, you’ll have one of the greatest branding books to help with designing logos. The author of this book, David Airey, will show you how any business owner can create design briefs and outstanding logos.
Considering how important a logo is for a company’s brand, it’s important to check this book out and see if your logo needs a facelift. Besides being one of the best branding books, it’s also a must-have for graphic designers, too.
12. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
Written by Al Ries and Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is an extremely helpful book. Whether you’re managing brands or working for a single business, you’ll learn a lot from this one.
The knowledge in this best branding book pick will have you take a creative approach to tell compelling stories and build a stunning visual identity for your business.
13. Shoe Dog
Not all of the best branding books follow the same format. By this point, you’ve seen plenty of branding books that walk you through various concepts. But what if you could get an inside look at how someone formed one of the biggest brands in the world? In Shoe Dog, you can.
Written by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, you get an in-depth look at how one of the best brands of all time came to be. The amount of practical advice in this book makes it a must-read for anyone interested in better brand positioning.
14. Purple Cow
You might be wondering why a book about purple cows is on a list of the best branding books. The strange-sounding book title is actually one of marketing’s most essential disciplines: a purple cow stands out.
However, what’s really worth mentioning is all of the helpful content inside of this book. You’ll learn about creating brand identity that sticks out and places you ahead of your competitors.
This book takes a deep dive into consumer psychology to create an amazing customer experience.
15. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Speaking of positioning, another must-read book is Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Reiss and Jack Trout.
From a company’s marketing director to a large team of recently hired marketers, all of them know that most marketplaces are competitive and overcrowded.
If you want to learn how the best brands grow, you need to read this book. This book shows you real-life examples from leaders who’ve created a major brand.
You’ll find tons of creative problem-solving tips and essential disciplines needed to help brands grow. While this book is a little older than most others on this list, it’s still full of good business and marketing tips that you shouldn’t miss reading about.
Alex Eagleton is a copywriter and digital marketer passionate about helping companies connect with customers. Throughout the past decade, he’s worked with companies including Referral Rock, Connecteam, and Ramsey Solutions. He’s a versatile writer who understands how to align with companies, truly matching their voices and tones.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys spending time with his dogs, reading, and playing guitar.
You can reach him by emailing alex@contentmarketinglife.com.