Sunday, July 12, 2009

Marketing Without Advertising Easy Ways To Build A Business Your Customers Will Love & Recommend by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, 6th Edition

Marketing Without Advertising Easy Ways To Build A Business Your Customers Will Love & Recommend by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, 6th Edition


This book is how to attract and keep customers without buying advertising. It claims it is better to do your own marketing and create an atmosphere where customers will come back and use your business repeatedly. Advertising is often deceptive and can lead to bad publicity.


The book suggests that you should buy listings in places like the phone book and get your name listed in as many places as possible instead of spending money on advertisements. In addition to buying listings, you should create your own customer lists and market directly to them.


There is a focus on creating customer recommendations and testimonials. Some ways they suggest to do this are to keep a clean site, make your business conform to industry standards, and build a theme which customers can identify with. It is important to be consistent and treat people fairly.


There are tips on how to create an honest, open business which people can trust. This includes descriptions on how to identify the business you are in and make clear statements about your purpose.


A central idea is that more hand holding equals more customers and better information leads to more sales. Several examples of information which can help a business like how to create an informational video, make business labels, and make easy to read signs that explain what you do are given.


The book also covers technology. It reminds you that it is important to have an email account, join listservs, have a newsletter, build a website, and offer marginal additions like bookmarks and fliers to keep people informed.


The book taught me something new there are three types of marketing. Peer to peer marketing is where you market your business to colleagues. Direct marketing is where you market your business directly to customers, and parallel marketing is where you invite similar institutions to work with you.


This books shows how to build a business without using deception and without investing in advertisements. The pattern which is explained here is based on honesty, integrity, personal recommendations, and useful information. The publishers of this book, Nolo very much fit this mold.


There are a number of different ideas like creating a calendar of events, making brochures, and creating displays which are discussed in this book. If you want to get ideas on how to build a business based on building your own client base without outside advertising this book will be very useful. I think I learned a few things from reading it.



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