THE SHELF

• $100M OffersAlex Hormozi, 2021The value equation and the case for building offers so good people feel stupid saying no. The best book on the first four decisions.
• Breakthrough AdvertisingEugene Schwartz, 1966The stages of awareness, and why the same offer reads differently to each.
• InfluenceRobert Cialdini, 1984Reciprocity, commitment, social proof and scarcity: the psychology inside gifts, trials and deadlines.
• Predictably IrrationalDan Ariely, 2008Decoys, the pull of free, and why prices are always judged against other prices.
• Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman, 2011Loss aversion and reference points, the science under every guarantee.
• Tiny HabitsBJ Fogg, 2019Motivation, ability and prompt; why making the next order easy beats making it cheap.
• The Strategy and Tactics of PricingThomas Nagle and Georg MüllerThe standard text on value-based pricing and price communication.
• Monetizing InnovationMadhavan Ramanujam and Georg Tacke, 2016Design the product around the price customers will pay, not the other way round.
• PricelessWilliam Poundstone, 2010A readable history of anchoring and price psychology.
• Customer CentricityPeter Fader, 2012Why the customer base is lopsided, and why averages mislead. The intellectual root of the one-and-done number.
• The Customer-Base AuditPeter Fader, Bruce Hardie and Michael Ross, 2022How to read your own customer data properly: cohorts, concentration, and the reports that lie.
• How Brands GrowByron Sharp, 2010The case for reaching new buyers and the limits of loyalty; a useful argument with this book.

And the research: Lewis (2006) on acquisition discounts and customer value; Anderson and Simester (2004) on promotion depth for new and established customers; Dholakia (2006) on how customers arrive; Ailawadi and colleagues (2006) on promotion profitability at CVS; Lewis, Singh and Fay (2006) on shipping fees; Janakiraman, Syrdal and Freling (2016) on return policies. Full references are in Appendix C.

What most offer writing leaves out is what this book tried to add: judging the offer by the customer it brings, and planning the second offer before the first one runs.