Marketing self-education stretches far beyond marketing itself – it is now deeply related to technical skills, coding, copywriting, design, journalism and more. You can’t afford to miss a new marketing method, a new tool or software, or even a new policy update by giants like Google or Facebook.
Self-education is available in all shapes and sizes – from online courses at various universities, to Youtube videos, podcasts, and webinars. But there is one type of educating content that has now been alive and kicking forever. Books!
Once distributed digitally on forums like WarriorForum and DigitalPoint, many marketing books have become true gems and vital handbooks for both beginners and advanced marketers. We will cover the best email marketing books for beginner- and mid-level email marketers.
1. E-Mail Marketing For Dummies by John Arnold
Market your goods and services without being a spammer
First things first! If you are a beginner, this is definitely the book to start with. It is not as advanced as others, but this book will give you a general understanding of the components of email marketing, its key methods, and the tech behind email delivery.
Don’t be in a hurry to scroll down yet if you are an experienced email marketer – repetition is the foundation of learning, and it’s never a bad idea to brush up on your knowledge of cornerstone methodologies of email marketing.
In short: A great book for beginners and pros looking to refresh their knowledge of basics.
Buy: Amazon – $13.00 (Kindle), Dummies Store – $16.99 (eBook)
2. Email Marketing Mastery by Tom Corson-Knowles
The Step-By-Step System for Building an Email List of Raving Fans Who Buy From You and Share Your Message
This is another great book that covers the basics of email marketing, and just as the one before, it is a great choice for beginners. Through this book, you won’t just understand how email marketing works, you’ll also learn how to analyze whether it’s a great time and place to implement email marketing campaigns in your company – the book offers a practical checklist of 8 factors to consider before setting up email campaigns.
This book shows you how to launch your email marketing campaigns and overcome various technical difficulties. From building your very first email list and engaging subscribers to traffic and revenue generating email marketing campaigns – this book has it all.
With a case study that is available in addition to previously mentioned 8 factors, email marketing beginners can use this book to learn how to set up autoresponders and get the most out of them.
In short: A book with actual practical advice perfect for beginners. With a 5-star rating and multiple positive reviews, it’s a must-read for experienced email marketers as well.
Buy: Amazon – $4.99 (Kindle), Free (Audible), Barnes & Noble – $14.99 (Paperback)
3. Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business by Susan Gunelius
The two previous books are perfect for specialists taking their first steps in email marketing, but this one by Susan Gunelius is a great choice for small business owners and solo entrepreneurs. If you run a small business, offline or online, this is your key to learning all the basics – from email list building to revenue generation by using email marketing techniques.
This is a practical book and you will learn how to start with such simple yet effective techniques as “freebie magnets,” simple conversion funnels, basic list segmentation, targeting methods and more. If you want to deliver the right message to the right person, this book is the one you need to read first.
The second part of the book covers email list analysis, key metrics to keep your eyes on, proper usage of personalization, and even basic automation mechanisms.
In short: Book for small business owners and entrepreneurs covering all the practical basics and topics like conversion funnels, segmentation, personalization, automation, key metrics and more.
Buy: iBooks – $21.99, Amazon – $13.19 (Kindle), $14.57 (Paperback), Book Depository – €15.64 (Paperback), Barnes & Noble – $19.79 (Paperback)
4. The New Email Revolution by Robert W. Bly
Save Time, Make Money, and Write Emails People Actually Want to Read!
Launching your email campaigns and building a decent list of email subscribers is purely a matter of time and skill. But what truly transforms an email campaign is the email message itself.
The New Email Revolution will help you get your subscribers to actually read your messages. You will learn the secret tactics of perfect email copywriting, find out how to choose the right templates for your campaigns, how to implement visual, audio and video content into your emails, and much more.
Email marketing beginners should definitely read this ebook among the first few because the sooner you sharpen your email copywriting skills, the better.
In short: Great copywriting book for beginners covering general copywriting techniques, as well as visual, audio, and video content in emails.
Buy: Amazon – $9.87 (Kindle), $10.39 (Paperback), Kobo – $10.99 (eBook)
5. Email Persuasion by Ian Brodie
Captivate and Engage Your Audience, Build Authority and Generate More Sales With Email Marketing
This one is not a new book – it was released in 2013 – but Email Persuasion by Ian Brodie is still a gem, and I believe it’s a must-read book for all the digital and email marketers who are entering the cruel world of online marketing.
Many famous marketers and ordinary readers name it as one of the best books on email marketing – it’s full of practical methods, strategies, and easy-to-understand theory.
If you want to understand just how good this book is, take a look at the reviews. Here’s one:
“I used the advice in this book with my e-commerce business. I was able to generate over $80k in sales over a 12-month period with no other advertising. Email marketing works. And the strategies in this book are sound.”
It worked for this guy in 2017 and it can still help you take your email marketing to the next level in 2024.
In short: Great email marketing book full of practical advice, strategies, and understandable theory. Highly recommended by both marketing gurus and simple marketers.
Buy: Amazon – $6.49 (Kindle), $15.99 (Paperback)
6. Email Marketing Demystified by Matthew Paulson and Elisa Doucette
Build a Massive Mailing List, Write Copy that Converts and Generate More Sales (Internet Business Series)
This book is only $2.99 on Amazon, but don’t let the price fool you. Email Marketing Demystified will show you actual strategies and methods for growing your list from 0 to 300,000 subscribers.
This book is one good case study full of practical steps that were all tested by Matthew Paulson and Elisa Doucette. Piggyback on their experience and grab your chance to build a massive email list yourself.
This book is probably not the best choice for complete beginners, but as soon as you feel comfortable with building smaller email lists, this book is your key to a massive expansion of your email campaigns.
In short: A great case study book of tested practical advice for young email marketers.
Buy: Amazon – Free (with Audible trial), $2.99 (Kindle), $9.95 (Paperback), Barnes & Noble – $9.95 (Paperback)
7. The Email Lifeline by Anik Singal
How to Increase Your E-Mail Marketing Profits by 300% Using a Simple Formula
Do you ever want to achieve something in as short a time as possible – with no hassle, no challenges, just the results? If so, this book is your savior. It will teach you how to build your very first email list without any complicated research, planning, or advanced strategies. You will just start building your list. That easy.
Building an email list is not rocket science, and often you need just a few valuable pieces of advice to see the first results. This book will not only help you with that but also help you choose the right products and services to promote and earn as an affiliate. And much more!
If you are a beginner, value your time and want to get the most hands-on methods – this book by Anik Singal is for you.
In short: Simple hands-on methods and strategies for beginners.
Buy: Amazon – $7.87 (Kindle), $17.85 (Paperback),
8. Email Marketing Rules by Chad S. White
Checklists, Frameworks, and 150 Best Practices for Business Success
Chad S. White is one of the top email marketing experts who gained his popularity via Twitter. As one of the top managers at Litmus, a well-known email marketing software that has been on the market since 2005, he got a unique chance to gather and analyze data from thousands of email marketers.
Though Email Marketing Rules has precious info on email list building, it also contains a lot of checklists, step-by-step methods, and frameworks for email marketing in general. If you love to sometimes skip the theory and start practicing right away – this is the perfect book for you.
It is definitely not an entry-level email marketing book, but mid-level and advanced specialists will find it extremely useful.
In short: A fantastic book with practical guides on email list building, checklists, and frameworks from one of the top email marketing experts – Chad S. White.
Buy: Amazon – $9.99 (Kindle), $19.99 (Paperback)
9. Mastering Online Marketing by Magnus Unemyr
Create Business Success
As we’ve mentioned before, these days email marketers are usually full-stack marketers, or are at least good at a few more things other than just email marketing. This book will help you become an all-around pro because email marketing is really just one of the pieces of your skill set.
This book will give you a good understanding of online marketing in general, but also help you see the bigger picture and learn how to create websites and landing pages, how to optimize them for a better conversion, how to nurture your subscribers and more.
Mastering Online Marketing will help you grow your metrics and results by adjusting mechanisms and puzzle pieces outside the email marketing. Of course, this book contains a lot of useful info and methods related to email marketing, but the goal is to understand how all online marketing processes work together.
In short: A great read for beginners and mid-level marketers that touches upon marketing automation systems, SEO, content marketing, SMM, Google Analytics, and more.
Buy: Amazon – Free (Kindle), $19.00 (Paperback)
10. Integrated Digital Marketing by Eric Carlin
The First Playbook for Integrated Marketing with Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, and Retargeting
We open our list with Integrated Digital Marketing by Eric Carlin, who is one of the top-selling marketing authors. This book consists of guides and strategies on all things digital marketing – from pay-per-click marketing and social media marketing to email and content marketing.
This is a great book to start your self-education journey – you will learn tried and true email marketing tricks, as well as find out more about other digital marketing niches and learn how to communicate with your targeted audience through various online channels.
In short: A great read for beginners and mid-level full-stack digital marketers covering all of digital marketing, as well as email marketing. Includes a case study and actual practical advice.
Buy: Barnes & Noble – $9.49 (Paperback), Amazon – $2.99 (Kindle), $9.49 (Paperback), free excerpt available.
11. Digital Minds by WSI
12 Things Every Business Owner Needs to Know About Digital Marketing
WSI is one of the leading digital marketing agencies on the market. These guys are the real deal but you probably already know that. Their Digital Minds book is a great guide for business owners, marketing managers and junior-level digital marketing specialists, including email marketers.
This book will help you navigate through the complex world of digital marketing: with the help of over 10 thought-leaders from WSI, you will learn more website building, e-commerce, SEO, marketing automation and email marketing tricks.
In short: A real must-read from the leading digital marketing minds of the world. A truly comprehensive guide for all business owners.
Buy: AbeBooks – from $1.00 (Paperback), from $32.46 (Hardcover), Amazon – Free (Kindle), $18.54 (Paperback), $34.99 (Hardcover), free excerpt available.
12. Blog Writing by Anthony James
Traffic Generation Secrets, Hint and Tips (How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog All Day And Every Day To Gain A Loyal Audience Even While You Sleep!)
Email marketing doesn’t just require a certain degree of technical understanding but also copywriting and conversion optimization skills. Blog Writing by Anthony James will teach you how to make your content more noticeable, and let you grab more traffic with fewer efforts. You will find plenty of tips you’ll be able to apply to email copywriting as well.
Besides copywriting tricks, you will also learn more about search engine optimization, content marketing, guest posting, pay-per-click marketing, and much more.
In short: Great book for beginners to learn more about the basics of copywriting, SEO, content marketing and much more.
Buy: Amazon – $2.99 (Kindle), free excerpt available. Audible – $9.68 (Audiobook)
13. Marketing Automation & Online Marketing by George Pain
Automate Your Business through Marketing Best Practices such as Email Marketing and Search Engine Optimization
It doesn’t matter whether you run your own business or are a part of a digital marketing team – you understand that automation is the key to scalable results. You want your processes to run perfectly, so you can scale them and switch to other revenue-generation questions, right?
If so, Marketing Automation & Online Marketing by George Pain will provide you with answers to your questions regarding email marketing and search engine optimization. This book is great for small and medium-sized companies that have already implemented email marketing processes and now want to scale and automate them. Learn almost everything there is to know about automation and find many useful tips on how to choose marketing automation software and services.
In short: A detailed book on how to automate your marketing, streamlining your resources, and boosting your marketing ROI. Best for small and medium-sized companies, suitable for beginners.
Buy: Audible – Free (with trial), $6.95 (Audiobook), Amazon – $4.99 (Kindle), $19.99 (Paperback), free excerpt available.
14. Email Marketing by Jack Stone
22 Ways to Supercharge your Emails: Proven Tactics for Maximizing Engagement Levels & Revenue
Finally, a book that is completely focused on email marketing alone! Email Marketing by Jack Stone will teach you how to increase email engagement as well as revenue generated from email campaigns. This book is great for everyone in the e-commerce niche, not just email marketers.
In this book, Jack Stone provides you with tested strategies and shows you real cases and examples of those in action. You will learn how to grow your list the efficient way, create outstanding call-to-action messages, give discounts your clients can’t resist, convert more readers into real buyers, make your customers buy again and again with the help of email marketing, and much more.
In short: Tested tips and strategies to help you boost your brand, your sales and your email marketing ROI.
Buy: Amazon – $6.99 (Kindle), $15.99 (Paperback), free excerpt available.
15. Zero to $1 Million by Tiz Gambacorta
5 Steps to Doubling Your Income With Email Marketing
This book will walk you through the whole email marketing path from the very beginning (creating your first email list from scratch) to generating revenue through email marketing alone. Tiz Gambacorta has more to offer than just a theory of email marketing – he is not just an author, he’s an entrepreneur and online marketer with more than 15 years of experience. He established a dozen digital businesses earning him five to six figures each on a monthly basis.
You will learn how to build lists, run email campaigns, optimize your messages and offers, and create emails that actually generate revenue.
In short: This book promises to show you how to make 4 to 7 figures with email marketing. Not going to lie, the clickbait title does not work for me personally, but the lessons you can learn from a successful email marketer who pulled himself up by the bootstraps will be valuable for both beginners and advanced email marketers.
Buy: Barnes & Noble – $13.94 (Paperback), iTunes – $3.99 (Audiobook), Audible – $3.95 (Audiobook), Amazon – $9.95 (Kindle, Paperback), free excerpt available.
16. Email Marketing for Profit by Jason Morgan
The Ultimate Guide to Creating an Email Marketing Strategy for Lifetime Sales in 2018
Email Marketing for Profit was released in 2018, so it contains all the fresh and relevant email marketing strategies and guides. This book is a complete guide – it covers everything from email marketing basics to advanced techniques and the revenue generation aspect.
Jason Morgan will teach you how to create a business that is mostly based on email marketing and completely automate it for best results. It covers effective list-building, competitor analysis, most common mistakes and how to avoid them, CTAs, conversion optimization and much more. You will find real cases, examples, email message templates, landing page templates, curated lists for email marketers and more. A lovely all-in-one package.
In short: A superb comprehensive all-in-one guide for email marketing specialists, business owners, and solo entrepreneurs, covering every single aspect of email marketing and offering tips, examples, and even templates.
Buy: Amazon – $2.99 (Kindle), $9.99 (Paperback), free excerpt available.
17. Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina
The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing
We are not going to say that content is the king, but content is definitely one of the most important parts of email marketing. As a solopreneur or an email marketing specialist, you have to be quite a pro in content marketing to achieve great results.
No one will argue with the fact that a great email copy is what makes people read it, engages them and pushes to an action. In Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina you will learn how content can be used in email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing and digital marketing in general.
It explains the social, analytical, and creative aspects of content marketing and provides a lot of practical scenarios, examples and case studies.
In short: One of the best reads on content marketing in relation to email marketing with lots of practical info. A must-read for everyone.
Buy: AbeBooks – from $5.00 (Softcover), BookDepository – €20,62 (Paperback), Barnes & Noble – $22.20 (Paperback), Amazon – $44.28 (Paperback), free excerpt available.
Know a great marketing book we haven’t mentioned? Let us know in the comments!
