Written by a Director of Marketing, a marketing consultancy based in Oxfordshire, this book is meant for small business owners and independent professionals who want to make a success of their business. It provides ideas which are practical, real and easy to understand and apply.
As we all know it is a common practice for many small business owners to spend a lot of time in doing and not on planning. You may have a plan in your head but it needs to be committed to paper for success of any small business and it is of prime importance to have a marketing plan.
The author points out some of the major mistakes that small business owners make and these include not chalking out a plan, jumping from one failed idea to another, keeping the marketing plan in one'shead, making untargetted attempts to generate sales, not really knowing what works and what does not to make informed decisions, trying to do too much too quickly, wasting money, time and effort in creating what does not work, making poor decisions on what to invest in, suffering from ?feast and famine? cycles, mixing messages with no coherent theme, too busy doing business than considering how to develop it, over-complicating marketing activities, struggling and thinking that marketing is complicated, relying on one or two methods to generate business, not maintaining a good record of customers, not able to explain why one should buy from you, hoping and praying that business will come to you an making use of outdated or weak brand identity.
According to the author, in such a scenario, it is essential to create a marketing plan, define and evaluate your business, get clear about where you are headed, understand your marketplace and competitor, understand your customer, create solid foundations, get the prices of products right, develop a marketing plan, adopt marketing methods that boost the business and attract new customers, adopt profile building marketing, sell your services, create a system and resolve to make it happen.
What normally happens is that you own a business where you are often too busy ?working in the business? to spend time ?working on the business? and this is where things start going wrong. Here the major point to remember, says the author, is to realise where you are right with your business product or service and then go according to the marketing plan. Every step you take adds a vital piece to your ultimate marketing plan of action. At the end you will have a market plan that you have created yourself. You will learn what marketing strategies will offer your particular business the greatest leverage and where you need to apply them.
This is a self-help book to learn marketing strategies that can be applied to your own business so that you feel motivated and inspired to try them.
(Macmillan India Ltd, 2/10, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110 002.)
