Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

1. Positioning by Al Trout 2. Lean Startup by Eric Ries PS - I help startups with marketing so if you need any advice let me know. Contact details and bio on my website (see my profile)

I'm not sure if the fact that it's a game changes anything or not as I don't play in that space myself. But just in terms of marketing in general, some of the essentials include: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - Al Ries & Jack Trout Positioning - Al Ries & Jack Trout Repositioning - Jack Trout (with Steve Rivkin) Differentiate or Die - Jack Trout (with Steve Rivkin) The Ultimate Marketing Plan - Dan S. Kennedy The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes All Marketers Are Liars - Seth Godin The Purple Cow - Seth Godin

Blue Ocean strategy -- Really solid and well researched book on how to create things customers will gladly pay for while minimizing your own costs. Creating uncontested market space for yourself and making the competition irrelevant. Visual Communication -- old book currently out of print but timeless principles for effective communication. Visual communication is often more effective than words. Eat, Drink and Be Healthy -- How to enjoy food but stay in great shape. You do not need to live on steamed broccoli and granola to do this! Lots of bland foods are unhealthy and lots of healthy foods are actually tasty. You just need to know which ones. How to build a start up community in your city -- Book by Brad Feld with some interesting ideas about 'leaders' and 'feeders'. Read it to to build a community around http://AfriTech.org Positioning -- interesting ideas on how to succeed in a crowded market place Writing Non Fiction -- another old book that is out of print but lots of good ideas on how to communicate effectively

All Marketers are Liars, Permission Marketing, Crossing the Chasm, Positioning, 4 steps to the epiphany That's probably enough for a while. And if you haven't already read Getting Real then read that too.

I recommend: "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices" by Peter Drucker, "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind", by Al Ries, Jack Trout and "Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age" by Tom Peters. They aren't all strictly marketing books but they are awesome as well as informative.

Ries and Trout are excellent. I've read several of their books, and they all basically amount to the same ideas presented in Positioning, but they include a lot of great anecdotes that make things concrete--sometimes it's hard to see the right positioning for your products, so it can help to hear stories of how they found the right positioning for various products.

Ries & Trout "Positioning" is a classic, and a short read.