Customer Reviews

Marketing Without Advertising (Marketing Without Advertising, 3rd ed)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The first couple of chapters set the tone for this novel book. Chapter 1 is called "Advertising: The Last Choice in Marketing." Chapter 2 is called "Personal Recommendation: The First Choice in Marketing." Need we say more? Probably not, but it is refreshing to see a marketing book that deals with such basic elements as trust, helping people, and educating customers. Particularly for the small business, these discussions are invaluable. Yes, there's also the (sigh) chapter on Internet marketing, and chapter on the marketing plan. Even those items are put in the proper perspective. One would think the authors, with 50,000 copies in print of the first edition of their book, might have some say in the title. But no, the publishers rejected the author's choice of title: "It Worked for Jesus!" Copyright 1998,Michael Pellecchia.

It builds a strong case for using customer satisfaction as a key marketing strategy. Illustrates in detail many cases of businesses which have built huge success without advertising. This is a great resource for business owners.

This book is ostensibly about marketing, but much of the information is of general relevance to running your own business. I received my MBA from an Ivy school, and I have to admit that a substantial portion of the material in the book was stuff that we never covered in marketing classes. Overall, a very useful book about starting and operating your own small business. I highly recommend it.

Put your customers to work they will love doing--singing your praises to their circles of influence.

Read this book to build your word-of-mouth business referrals. The authors offer solid common sense coaching on how to run the kind of business that attracts customers from first impression to lasting impression.

Methodically, from the inside out, they coach you to analyze every aspect of your business image and take the action necesary to reach the level of quality and service that brings in the coveted word-of-mouth referrals that are the lifeblood of successful businesses.

The authors of this book cut right to the chase. This isn't just a book about marketing. They tell you what common mistakes people make when running a small business and how to fix them.
I attended a presentation by Terry Matthews, the CEO of March Networks and one of the wealthiest men in Canada. It was interesting to hear him describe many of the same techniques outlined in this book and how he used them in the 70's to make his fortune manufacturing telephone equipment.
The book is written in such a way that it only takes a few hours to read, but the concepts stay with you for a long time.

It is often observed that creative people, such as inventors and entrepreneurs, seem to have been cast in a mold different from the mold that produces successful business people. Therefore, when creative people decide to market their own product, it is wise to have at least one associate who is business wise.

If you do decide to go it alone you will find your local bookstore or library has shelves full of books that claim to guide you through the stormy seas of the business world. This book is somewhat unique in that it takes the view you can, and in many cases that you should, do your marketing without advertising.

The authors feel that many of the claims of the American advertising industry are, in fact, monstrous myths. They support their claim by citing that of the 11 million non-farm businesses in the United States, 36% do no advertising at all, but rely on "personally knowing their customers, on their reputation, and sometimes on salespeople or commissioned representatives". Another 70% are one-person firms that rely mainly on personal recommendations. It should be noted that the authors, for the purposes of this book, exclude yellow page listings, directories, and trade shows from their definition of "advertising."

They caution that with a retailer or wholesaler that "it is almost never worth signing an exclusive agreement of any sort". They assert: "Never let short-term greed get in the way of long-term good business practices".

On the subject of intellectual property, such as patents, copyrights, designs, and trade secrets, it is often better to license, share the ownership, than to attempt to maintain a monopoly. They cite how often even the largest and most powerful firms have lost out when firms, such as Phillips for example, gave reasonable licenses to almost anyone manufacturing audio tapes.

The chapter on marketing on the Internet cautions that we, as Americans, have a boundless faith in the future of technology and therefore seduce ourselves into believing the Internet will solve all our marketing problems. After all, is it not "free" and it makes your message available to the entire world?

They point out some products and some people may not fit the Web site method of marketing. For example, you may have a product that must be physically examined to make the sale or you may have a service that is so specialized that your clients seek you out. They urge you "to keep in mind that for many businesses having a Web site is like having vanity plates for your car".

If you do decide on going the Internet route, they suggest you consider two key facts. One, you may be one of 30 listed in your local yellow pages, but you may be one of 9,000 on the Internet. To stand out they suggest imagining trying to "make it into The Guiness Book of World Records", that is, make yourself unique and desirable above all others. Two, if the nature of your business is necessarily local, point it out clearly by a map and with words.

While the cost of a net site can be low, they caution gimmicks can be costly in time and money. They quote one expert in the field as advising that it is better to have a "few thousand loyal customers" than "a million new people visit each month and never return".

The authors give suggestions on how to get covered by search engines. They especially note the importance of selecting good key words to avoid being lost in the oceans of words spewed out by hundreds of thousands of firms in similar fields.

The appendix of this book contains 21 worksheets that will help you analyze your business, your customers, and will aid you in planning your marketing efforts. This book is a down-to-earth, hands-on book, by two people with vast small business experience and they have the ability to convey their hard-earned knowledge without pretentious theories, graphs, and other technobabble.

A real pleasure to read, a very low price, and a chance to view marketing and advertising from a different perspective than the conventional one.

Now in a substantially revised, updated, and expanded third edition, Michael Phillips and Salli Raspberry's Marketing Without Advertising continues to be a premier and indispensable manual for entrepreneurs and business managers seeking to employ high-impact, low-cost marketing strategies for their goods and services in today's competitive business environment, whether local, regional, national, or global. Readers will learn how to attract new customers and acquire repeat business from existing and former customers; transform dissatisfied customers into loyal supporters; plan marketing events; enlist the support of the media; utilize the Internet and the World Wide Web as integral aspects of their marketing and promotional efforts. All with an eye toward budgetary fiscal restraints. Thoroughly "user friendly", Marketing Without Advertising is essential and profitable reading for anyone charged with marketing and promotional responsibilities for their business.

I found it in the library, read it, returned it, bought it.

With each store example they use to describe an marketing idea, a bulb went off in my head because the stores are my favorites, but I could never have made the connection of using the same ideas for our own businesses. Now that I am attuned to the concepts, I can appreciate the things that the small businesses we've been patronizing for 10 years have been constantly doing.

Yes, this book does have good ideas on each page as others have stated; however, many are neither unique nor original. I got more out of Levinson's books.

This was written in 1997, and needs to be updated. Truly a disappointment.