Sounds like you're in need of strategy, rather than just testing.


Here's a blog post I wrote last month on digital strategy:


---


HOW TO BE MORE THAN THE SUM OF YOUR PARTS.
Look at Apple when Steve Jobs came back, or Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp.

What’s going on? It’s the power of a clear plan and vision.

When everyone is pulling in the same direction, and they all understand the specific destination and the checkpoints on the way, magical things happen.
And of course, it happens the other way round too – previously successful teams fall apart, even though individually they’ve got all the elements and skills to succeed.

This is what I see a lot with companies and their marketing – they have pretty much all the components required, but they have no plan, nothing pulling it all together, and therefore it’s ineffective, and often a mental weight, weighing down the owner or manager.

Specifically in my world – people run Facebook ads with no clear idea why, they just heard Gary V proselytising about spending money on social so they do it – but actually there’s’ no benefit because it’s not being used to move them anywhere specific.

So let me lay it out for you.

Here is a general, slightly-vague-so-that-it’s-relevant-to-all strategy that applies to pretty much any business with an online presence.

It’s the strategy I’m in the process of putting into place for my own business, and it’s what’s going to see our number of happy clients grow and grow in the months and years to come.

Step 1 – Branding.

Refine your messaging across the board, get clear on:

• Who your customers are,
  
• What you want to be known for,
  
• Who the ‘common enemy’ is,
  
• What your big idea/USP/identity is
  
  Then use that, and make sure your brand and messaging is consistent everywhere – website, social, email.
  
  

  Step 2 – Content.
  

  
  📷
  
  The best book I’ve read on approaching content recently is ‘They Ask, You Answer’ by Marcus Sheridan.
  Honestly, it’s fantastic and you should read it.
  
  With the internet so full, quality content (emphasis on QUALITY) is the best and cheapest long-term strategy to become trusted by your industry and attract new clients.
  
  

•  Answer questions that your prospects will have.
  
• Shoot down bullshit you see in your industry.
  
• Let people peek behind the curtain.
  
• Educate and entertain.
  
  This could be linking to blog posts or writing long content pieces,
  but for most businesses,
  video is the best place to start,
  because people can show that they’re interested in what you do simply by stopping their scrolling and watching – allowing you to build audiences quickly and cheaply.
  
  

  Step 3 – Audiences.
  

  
  Writing content is great, but results from SEO are SLOW, so don’t expect to be ranking on Google in days or weeks.
  
  Accelerate the process by promoting your content on social (this is even the strategy I’m helping to put into place for an SEO agency)
  
  Choose the platform where your clients are – for most businesses that includes Facebook, but then maybe LinkedIn, or Instagram, or Twitter, or anywhere else that your audience spends time.
  
  You’re not selling here – you’re just introducing yourself to people in a non-annoying way, showing them that
  
  a) you understand them.b) you know your shit.There is a specific best-practice when it comes to pushing content out on Facebook that I will write about soon.
  
  

  Step 4 – Retarget
  

  
  Now that you’ve built an audience of people who have engaged with your content, it’s time to build that relationship.
  
  The way we do that is by using retargeting to guide them along your customer journey/funnel/eco-system.
  
  Depending on your audience, prices, buying cycle, and product type, you might need to do lots of warming up – sending people to blog posts, to more videos, to in-depth guides… But the goal is to gradually ask for more commitment from them.
  
  You are qualifying them at the same time as building your own authority.Here’s a list of potential free steps (in rough order of increasing commitment), start with one near the top, then choose a lower one, then another etc.
  
  

• 30-60 second video
  
• 2-5 minute video
  
• 5 minute + video
  
• blog post
  
• Long blog post
  
• Online quiz
  
• video series
  
• Quick cheatsheet download
  
• Guide download
  
• ebook download
  
• A webinar
  
• A real book for free
  
• A quick consultation call
  
• A long strategy call
  
• An in-person event
  
• An in-person strategy session
  
  The end goal of this is generally to get qualified contact details, so an email, or a phone number, or an address, so that you can continue the conversation on another platform (email, phone, in person).
  
  For some businesses, such as e-commerce, you might just need to do one post from the top of the list, then send them straight to your shop, for others, you might need a lengthy warming-up process.The best way to work out what you need is to reverse engineer it – start from the purchase of your core-product, and work backwards in small steps, asking yourself at each one “what would I need to know/feel/understand here to take this step.The series of steps you choose should ‘flow’ easily – so that each following one feels like the natural next thing to do.
  
  

  Step 5 – Sell
  

  
  By this stage, you’ve built up a relationship and established yourself as an authority to be trusted – now it’s time to sell.Whatever sales procession takes over, whether that’s sending people to your online store, getting your sales team to follow up, or meeting them in person for a coffee, you should now be dealing with a qualified prospect who trusts you and is receptive to working with you.That’s the strategy, you can add in extra elements if needed, for example if Google Adwords are a good source of leads for you, then send them somewhere that you can retarget them, and let them take the steps from there.The aim here was to give a strategy that was broad enough to show almost any business how things could be broken down without it becoming irrelevant- but clearly to go into more detail would require more knowledge of your business and clients.
  ---
  
  
  Hope that helps.

First of all, welcome to the world of marketing operations! It's a relatively new field, which leaves you with figuring stuff out as you go, but that's what makes it so exciting! I officially started as a Marketing Operations Analyst myself about a year ago too, and these are the resources that helped me a lot:

1. ChiefMartech - this is a blog ran by VP of Platform at Hubspot Scott Brinker. He's definitely one of (if not the) most prominent figures in martech. You will find a lot of strategic frameworks that will make it easier for you to build and manage your tech stack strategically. I would also highly recommend his book "Hacking Marketing".
   
2. Manufacturing Demand - written by David Lewis who has been running a marketing operations services consulting firm for 10 years. Also has a lot of frameworks that I refer to all the time. He also hosts a super interesting podcast "DemandGen"
   
3. Martech Advisor - these guys have a lot more "how-tos" and share more practical tactical articles, as well as industry news. They also have a great podcast called "Talking Stack".
   
4. CDP Institute - CDPs are the latest emerging platforms in martech, and I think now it's big enough to seriously start learning about it and potentially test.
   
5. JennaMolby.com - Jenna shares a lot of technical "how-tos" about Pardot, Salesforce and Marketo platforms which has helped me a lot as I was learning marketing automation platform features.
   
   These are my go tos, otherwise I just learn related disciplines directly and then find connection to marketing ops. For example, if you deal with Google Tag Manager a lot, check out Simo Ahava's blog and Analytics Mania. There's also a cool subreddit to join: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleTagManager/
   
   If you are responsible for conversion optimization as part of your duties (or even if not, experimentation and A/B testing is still a huge part of markops), you should totally check out ConversionXL (they also run a great Facebook Group) and Widerfunnel's Blog.
   
   ​
   
   I'd be interested to hear from you as well - any resources you found helpful? Cheers :)

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

So it is the question of every start-up... every company. It's kinda industry specific, I recommend reading Purple Cow. To grow slowly, yeah, I mean pull out a few facebook ads, maybe some google ad words, local ads, etc. But to really get that first umph, would be "Growth Hacking." Which I know as, "getting to your first 500,000 customers." And that comes from being really unique, doing something really unique, where it just goes viral somehow. It's kinda a luck thing, with a splash of brilliance.

Photography is popular on Facebook, but also 500px, and I'm sure plenty of photography blogs, websites, etc. Blogs are a big boost if you are a good writer. Just be creative. If you follow the pack, you're not gonna be leading it anytime soon. People ignore, just every other photographer. My Dad was a professional photographer for 15 years, being on the cover of People magazine, etc. The reason I think he was successful, was because he did just one thing, celebrity weddings. If you're known for one thing in trades, that's where the money is. My mom spreads herself really thin, she is good at a lot of things, and not GREAT at one thing, and she sells herself as good at a lot of things... She isn't as successful (great mom though).

It's slow, and it really doesn't have to cost much. But for most of my stuff, I was really good at timing, and clever with referring the product (getting people to recommend my product).

Uber for example got popular because they got sued, and the publicity from the lawsuit got everyone to know about them... and it's kinda what they are doing now in every country. Not my recommendation.

Great photography, good luck. Always feel free to PM me.

http://www.amazon.com/Purple-Cow-Transform-Business-Remarkable/dp/159184021X

Our agency doesn't delve too much into ecommerce marketing but since it does overlap with the technical side of a business, we research and write about it some.

That being said, delving into a "marketing plan" isn't something we'd typically cover on our blog.

However, I - personally - think the idea of a "marketing plan" is a bit outdated. In the good ol' days brands would hire an agency, request a plan for the year, and the team would continue to execute on that plan all year. It doesn't really make sense when you think of how little room that gives you to iterate based on things like trends, customer demands and current events. (This thought process was inspired by a book I'm currently reading: [Hacking Marketing: Agile Practices to Make Marketing Smarter, Faster, and More Innovative] (https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Marketing-Practices-Smarter-Innovative/dp/1119183170) )

With Chubbies, I think their "luck" with using UGC for marketing really goes hand-in-hand with nailing their target demo. The type of guy that would buy Chubbies shorts would also be the type to take an outrageous photo and caption it with their branding...just to do it. They've really perfected the idea of creating a "loyal fan". There are many brands that are examples of this (Warby Parker, Birchbox, etc.)

So, I don't necessarily think this can come from a plan. To me, their success is a result of validating their product/market fit and having an agile team who can iterate and execute on a plan when they see something working.

As for guides on UGC marketing: I don't have one off the top of my head, but two great resources for marketing strategy are:

[Inbound.org] (http://inbound.org/)

[Growthhackers.com] (http://growthhackers.com/)

Hope that helps!

>Producing in the USA is a positive thing

I think you're overrating this from a marketing standpoint. It can be nice from a production standpoint due to reduced shipping costs, but with your product shipping shouldn't be that expensive anyways.

Anyways, onto the questions.

>How do I tell a good design from a bad one?

Just read a marketing textbook. People have already done the marketing research and work for you.

>Do people often try niche products and categories?

Yes

>If you are trying to do something niche, how can I successfully appeal to just a specific group of people without having them feel like I am marketing to them?

See above marketing book

>If you have a product in mind, and want to get it produced -- what is the best way going among your peers on the internet, real life, and other areas, of presenting your idea, product and prototype, without fear that they will try and compete with it before its officially released?

By doing it before/better than them. You can't eliminate competition. You just need to be better than the competition.

>Is it best to copyright the design first, and then finalize it afterwards?

Your reddit plushie design cannot be copyrighted.

>How can you ensure that you are getting the best feedback possible without fear that they will want to do it themselves, and then try to beat you to the punch? I am truly afraid of someone going "I'm going to steal this idea and do it myself now". This has happened to me before. How can I deal with this fear?

By making your product.

The blog and podcasts from Listen Money Matters are a great introduction for someone new to investing. I´d start here: https://www.listenmoneymatters.com/investing-101/

Keep in mind that they write from a US standpoint. The basic ideas and principles are the same, but for specific tactics you´ll have to look for more localized information.

I´m a non-Spanish resident in Spain and this book was super helpful. Maybe there´s a similar edition available in Germany? (This one?)

And finally I´d also recommend reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street and/or The Intelligent Investor.

These 3 resources you should give you a good foundation to start your journey. From there you can find answers to specific questions on subs like this one /r/finanzen and /r/investing and Google searches.

Good luck!

I think you have an interesting idea here. But I see one glaring problem with turning this idea into a successful business: scale-ability.

With service-based businesses - like you concept for electronics repair - is that your ability to service customers depends on physically traveling to them, having the customers travel to you, or otherwise finding a way to obtain the product needing repair, repair it, and return it to the customer.


Online Courses

A think a better option for you might be to create and market an online training course that teaches people how to repair electronics. Sure, plenty of people who might need a watch repaired won't want to bother learning to do it and acquiring the tools needed themselves. But plenty of other people might be thinking exactly what you are not, which is where they can find a course on watchmaking or electronics repair.


Leveraging your Knowledge NOT your Time

By creating a course made up of relatively low-tech and easy-to-create video tutorials or a few webinar courses that you record and later distribute, you don't even have to be in a classroom to actually teach what you know. In fact, you don't even have to teach the course repeatedly - just record it once, collect feedback and refine the course, and then sell the course online. Then you'll be generating what some refer to as "passive income" and you'll have to do very little work to maintain that income. Hence, you'll be leveraging your knowledge for income, not your time - a very important distinction.

Suggested reading:

• Launch by Jeff Walker
  
  This book will walk you through the concepts for creating an online course, including how to effectively market one. This is a very highly regarded book for this industry and is applicable to others aside from online courses, as well.
  
  
• Trust Funnel by Brian G. Johnson
  
  This book is less well-known but offers good advice for branding and some of the technical aspects of creating and marketing video online.
  
  I hope my brief insight has been helpful. And I do hope you at least explore this option before deciding to go the direct-service route with your skills and knowledge.
  
  Cheers!

My current company has me selling off this god awful fucking outdated book and "technique." So obviously I do what I think is best for the modern era.

I get the core content of what he's trying to convey, but my sales leadership is more outdated than this dude's outdated pop culture references.

I think the best sales books are The Challenger Sale, The Challenger Customer, and The New Solution Selling

AND!!! Personally, I think, especially as you progress into a more advanced sales career, THE takeaway of what it is to sell in a modern world is best encompassed in The Challenger Customer...it more or less boils down to the fact that customers are more informed than ever, old-school "slick" sales techniques do not work, and by the time the customer is meeting with you, they are like 75% into the buying process.

The days of being the smooth talking sales guy are over (thank god!).

I've seen it happen in IAMA before. Some person starts an AMA, starts answering questions with "I cover that in my book, buy it here." People notice the motive, backlash ensues. It's all pretty organic. In fact, this is the first time I have ever noticed a mod jumping in to to explain the situation. But then again, I don't frequent that sub any longer.

Honestly it's one of the reasons I unsubscribed from IAMA. I think most of the posts in there are purely fictitious but then you get these guys who periodically show up, who are some of the only people who obviously are who they say they are and they get downvoted for trying to sell some of their work. Bonkers if you ask me.

Sometimes it works pretty well, I think Ken Jennings is an example of how to put the sell to Reddit. He came in with a great attitude answered a ton of questions with really funny replies and essentially said to check out his book and website if you liked the AMA. Of course, we can't all be Ken Jennings, but I think that is a good precedent on how to avoid the backlash.

edit: That's not my book by the way. I, in fact, do not have a book. I just thought it would be a funny book to link to whilst having this discussion.

My go-tos are the core texts from the Chartered Institute of Marketing's metrics module.

• Measuring Marketing: 110+ Key Metrics Every Marketer Needs
  
• Key Marketing Metrics: The 50+ metrics every manager needs to know.
  
  For fundamental marketing stuff, I always recommend HubSpot's Inbound Marketing certification and as somebody else mentioned, Google Analytics certification.
  
  I'm kind of an all-rounder, but in my experience, higher uppers want sexy tactics and sales - I've found there's not much patience for numbers and what they mean to get to said sales, or using data to do things better or more efficiently.
  
  What I'm getting at is that your knowledge of data is one thing, but translating it for presentation so other stakeholders see the relevance is half the challenge, so I'd suggest looking into marketing dashboards in particular.
  
  Best of luck!

**CREATIVITY**

​

Adding this section because I've been ignoring it.


Read this article:


https://getpocket.com/a/read/2496701934

​

And it really got me thinking about my "type."


I've always been an artist, a musician. I've been in bands forever. I'm in a fucking band right now, playing two sold out shows in March, playing a sold out show in Europe in the spring, doing a west coast tour in the summer. People love the shit I produce.

​

This used to be the driving force in my life, and I've shunted it to the side.


Why? Well, for one, the business uses a lot of the same muscles - the creativity, the restless thoughts. It also eats up a lot of my time, the rest of which is taken up by family/kids/working out/etc.


Secondly, since I've been at MRP I've been focused on increasing my "masculine traits" - my dominance, my muscles, whatever. This was a latent part of my personality that needed work.

​

But I feel that loss. I miss thinking about aesthetic things - reading for what it makes me feel, rather than to learn the next marketing technique.


These live shows have forced me to work on it - to go to band practice, remember how it feels. We're also recording some new songs and I need to get vocals done and recorded.

​

I scheduled two nights this week to come in late and record. That'll get me back on the horse - and I want to continue working on new material so I can accomplish my goal of a short solo tour.

​

I've done a lot of work on myself, and that work will continue - it's never a bad idea to address your weaknesses. But I can't forget my strengths, either - it's time to integrate what I've learned here into my own unique personality.


**READING**

​

I got a bit tired of non fiction, so I've been reading this:


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVR786/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
"The Best American Noir of the Century"


Man, it's great. Highly recommended. Short stories, includes a bit of history of the genre and the authors with each chapter. Very fun, very dark - obviously.

​

Been reading "The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less - by Mark Joyner"

Quite good - basic, but a very nice framework for putting together offers, which is good for me right now.

​

Still working through "Human Nature" by Greene - it's very good, as always.

Here are a few of my favorites (btw these are not affiliate links, I just thought it would be useful to share the direct links):

On content writing: 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118905555/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

On data driven marketing: 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470504544/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (a little dry but SUPER useful info)

and 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119257239/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good luck!

I have been learning about this myself for the past few years. I have no legal background at all, so take this advice with a grain of salt.

WARNING: there are many scam invention development companies out there. Do your research on this!

Roger Brown is a successful inventor that chooses to show his ideas to companies that will sign NDAs [non disclosure agreements]. YMMV.

Another good resource with a different approach is The Inventor's Bible

You need to read about a few different approaches and decide what you feel comfortable with.

First thing you should do is do a google patent search yourself before you spend a dime. I heard a patent attorney say this database is better than using the US gov database. Then find a reputable patent searcher, patent agent, or patent attorney [listed in order of how much you will likely pay] to search for you, because they will do a much better [but probably never perfect] search for you. Try not to pay more than a few hundred dollars for a search.

Like Lutusp is saying, most times you will find there is something else out there that is the same as your idea, but you never really know until you search. To add to that, just because you get granted a patent does not at all mean you will make money. You need to learn a bit about how to analyze whether your idea can even possibly make money before you spend any.

Read, read, read reputable sources and talk to successful inventors in your area in person. You may have an inventors group near by. Search on google. Some are better attended than others so you may need to go to a larger city.

Hope this helps. Inform yourself well and learn to evaluate your idea before you spend.

Simply put, a bond is a license to produce alcohol. You can make a vintage (or two) on someone else's bond while you're getting yourself together and have wine to sell when you open. Or continue that way indefinitely if you find the business relationship to be beneficial on both ends.

"Wine Marketing and Sales", by Wagner, Olson, and Thatch is a really solid read on the topic. That's the second edition, released in 2016, so it should be pretty up to date with how the economy is now. I have the first edition from when I was in school and it's a bit outdated. Definitely a good place to start, and they cover multiple aspects of wine business and how to go about setting up your channel split and all of that jazz.

"The Science of Wine: From Vine to Glass", by Jamie Goode I think is a good place to start (disclaimer: I haven't yet read this book, but my roommate had the first edition in college and spoke highly of it, and it's on my reading list as well). After that I would suggest having a copy of "Wine Science" by Jackson on hand. Much more in depth, it's literally a textbook. Good resource to have on hand to look up topics and get a more in depth look at things happening on a molecular level within the winegrowing and winemaking processes, which I think is crucial to making informed decisions from a production standpoint. Fantastically sourced bibliographies as well.

UC Davis also does an online Winemaking Certificate Program that will run you through the basics.

Below is a book I received in grad school, still use it sometimes to help write questionnaires. Good examples of different scales.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Writing-Questionnaires-Information/dp/0615917674

Green book has some interesting articles sometimes.

http://m.greenbook.org

If you're willing to dish out some dough, the Burke Institute is well known... better to have your employer pay for these though ;)

http://www.burkeinstitute.com

Feel free to message me if you have any questions, I'll try my best to help!

Game theory is great for defining minimum success parameters and working through tough decisions at a basic level, but doesnt really lend itself to the daily ebbs of managing a successful marketing strategy. Game theory is a tactical, quantitative tool and, once you can run through a decision tree, it has pretty much given you what you can get from it. Game theory cannot predict a real-world competitive environment. No matter how granular you get, you need a strategic, qualitative guide to string your tactics together.

Though cliche at thia point, i find Sun Tzu's Art of War to be a more successful framework to guide a marketing strategy. And it seems like a lot of marketing bloggers agree with me:

http://dallasmclaughlin.com/6-principles-of-content-marketing/

https://www.revlocal.com/blog/online-marketing/3-essential-marketing-lessons-from-sun-tzu-s-the-art-of-war/

http://relevance.com/blog/10-executive-marketing-lessons-from-sun-tzus-the-art-of-war/

There is also tjis book, though the basic text is clear and applicable enough IMO: https://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Plus-Marketing-Conquering/dp/1929194749

I just bought this book and so far it has been pretty educational but not so in depth that it hurts your brain. Also the 4 hour work week is da bomb but I highly recommend using his online resources as much as possible, they're very helpful.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470504544/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

May I also point you to Seth Godin and Purple Cow, plenty on Youtube from this guy too about marketing.