Just Start with Content Marketing
Content marketing is the practice of attracting and retaining an audience by creating genuinely useful content instead of interrupting people with ads. When done well, it turns a business into a trusted resource that buyers seek out on their own. The idea is not new, but the internet made it the most powerful marketing approach available to companies of any size. A swimming pool installer writes honest answers to customer questions and becomes the most visited pool website in the world. A startup builds a loyal newsletter audience before it has a product to sell. A media company discovers that its marketing department generates more revenue than its advertising sales team. These books show you how to think about content as a business strategy, not just a marketing tactic. They cover the full spectrum: from answering your customers’ real questions, to building audience-first businesses, to rethinking what marketing departments should even be for.
Start here
They Ask, You Answer
Marcus Sheridan · 352 pages · 2019 · Easy
Themes: content marketing, inbound sales, blogging, trust-based marketing, SEO content
The book that turned a swimming pool company into the most trafficked pool website in the world, built entirely on the principle of answering customers’ real questions with radical honesty.
Why Start Here
Marcus Sheridan’s pool company was on the verge of bankruptcy during the 2008 housing collapse. With no marketing budget left, he made a simple decision: he would write articles answering every question his potential customers were actually typing into Google. How much does a fiberglass pool cost? What are the problems with fiberglass pools? Who are our competitors? The questions that most businesses dodge, Sheridan answered openly. Within months, his website traffic exploded. Within a few years, River Pools became one of the largest pool installers in the United States.
They Ask, You Answer captures that approach and makes it applicable to any business. The core idea is disarmingly simple: your buyers have questions, and if you are the one who answers them honestly and thoroughly, you become the most trusted voice in your industry. Sheridan calls this “the Big 5,” the five content categories that drive the most traffic and revenue for any business: pricing and costs, problems and negatives, comparisons, reviews, and best-of lists.
What makes this book stand out from other content marketing books is its focus on culture, not just tactics. Sheridan argues that content marketing fails when it stays inside the marketing department. It works when the entire company, especially the sales team, embraces a philosophy of teaching and transparency.
What to Expect
A practical, 352-page guide written in a conversational style. Sheridan draws heavily on his own story and client examples to illustrate each principle. The revised and updated edition includes guidance on video, AI-driven search, and how to integrate content with sales. No jargon, no academic theory. This is a book by a business owner for business owners.
Alternatives
Joe Pulizzi · 368 pages · 2021 · Easy
The blueprint for building a business by growing an audience first and selling products second, written by the person who coined the term “content marketing.”
Why This One
Most businesses start with a product and then scramble to find customers. Joe Pulizzi argues that this is backwards. The smarter, lower-risk approach is to identify a content niche, build a loyal audience through consistent and valuable content, and only then create or offer products that audience actually wants. He calls this the Content Inc. model.
Pulizzi is not theorizing. He built the Content Marketing Institute from a simple blog into the fastest-growing media company in North America (as recognized by Inc. magazine three years running), then sold it for a significant sum. The book walks through his six-step model: finding your sweet spot, tilting your content to stand out, building a base on one platform, harvesting your audience into subscribers, diversifying channels, and finally monetizing.
The second edition updates the framework with new case studies and practical guidance on modern platforms. Pulizzi writes with the clarity and directness of someone who has done exactly what he teaches.
What to Expect
A 368-page business book organized around a clear six-step framework. Each step includes real examples of entrepreneurs and companies that have used the model. The tone is encouraging and practical. If They Ask, You Answer is about making content marketing work inside an existing business, Content Inc. is about building an entire business around content from the ground up.