Mini Marketing: The New Common Sense, Low Cost Approach for selling yourself, your products, and your services [Paperback]

Ron King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2002

You don't need an MBA to read this book, and it's a godsend for people with a minimum budget for a big marketing campaign!

Mini-Marketing will appeal to the over 50 million people now running their own small businesses, because getting the word out about who they are and what they do is a problem most of them have.

Mini-Marketing's low-cost, common-sense approach, easy-to-read format, and straightforward writing style make it easy for beginners to understand marketing basics and realize they already know hundreds of ways to market themselves at very little cost.

Time and again, shoestring marketers get clear insights, simple exercises, and step-by-step guidelines that help them get comfortable with basic marketing concepts and how they can be applied using the business-owner's existing knowledge and resources.

Over 200 simple marketing tips, plans, and techniques can be put to use right away using good common sense and the numerous fill-in-the-blank exercises. The final chapter in the book is a comprehensive outline for a marketing plan that will even impress the well-seasoned business owner.

Other, exciting, practical ideas include: A quick primer on marketing that provides perspective for the beginner. 10 good reasons why you shouldn't bother marketing. 23 better reasons why you should. Why relationship marketing is critical. How to find great customers. 15 ways to present your image (practical design guides included). 50 ways to get more referrals. 24 ways to market your office image. How to make technology work for you. 17 free Internet sites catering to small businesses.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Common-sense marketing professional King knows that being in business doesn't necessarily mean having a closet full of suits, an office, or designated parking.

If you're making a living providing products or services, you're in business, he says, regardless of scale. Whether you make the best widget ever, consult to organizations, provide whiz-bang accounting services, or are new in business or an old hat, Mini Marketing guides you with sound, practical advice and numerous, hands-on exercises that make you feel like a marketing expert.

King says marketing is all about conveying the benefits of your products or services to potential customers. It's about creating long-lasting, trusting relationships. It's about the way you let someone else know what you do. It's about creating an image that has value.

All it takes is good common sense and a way to organize thoughts and actions that produces results. King's easy-to-understand marketing concepts and the simple exercises that put them to use are all anyone needs to get started. His 200 mini marketing plans are deceptively easy, simple, and low cost.

Most books in the business section of bookstores are so full of jargon and so complicated that entrepreneurs freeze up when they see them. Yet, King asserts, marketing is something we all do anyway, so it's really nothing to be afraid of.

Convincing friends to go to a movie is marketing. Showing up at Rotary, figuring out who's going to buy a product, answering the phone with a pleasant message, or keeping track of the 12 contacts each customer needs before making a decision to buy, are all effective mini-marketing strategies. King helps you identify the best ones, develop ways to implemen= t them, keep track of what works, and build on your success.

There is plenty of detail, too, including steps for designing a powerful brochure, the best small business web sites, the most effective office technology, a comprehensive marketing plan outline, and 15 easy ways to manage your image. -- Becky Rule, Concord Monitor, October 12, 1997

From the Author

My consulting business is based entirely on working with small businesses, self-employed professionals, and start-up entrepreneurs. I wrote this fast-reading, easy-to-use, common-sense marketing book with those people in mind. I've made it deceptively easy for you to understand, develop, and implement marketing plans that fit your style and are fun to use.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: RKA Publishing (February 2002)
• ISBN-10: 0966187806
• ISBN-13: 978-0966187809
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,558,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So good I'd use it to teach a class!, October 9, 2002

By 

Ron King (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mini Marketing: The New Common-Sense Low-Cost Approach for Selling Yourself, Your Products, and Your Services (Paperback)

This book is full of fun and informative exercises, cartoons, charts, checklists, boxes, little asides, and surveys presented in an easy-to-read format.

If I ever decide to teach a marketing class I'm going to use this book as the text.

The content is good; in some places it's excellent.

Two excellent worksheets focus on charting who your customers are & where your sources of business come from.

One of the best worksheets is "Worksheet for Potential Customers." It takes up an entire page and is the best way I've seen to target each group of your potential customers and decide how you will market to each of them.

Another idea made easy is putting together a `sound bite.' Some people call it your 30-second commercial. King's step-by-step instructions make it a very easy exercise to do.

King also mentions "The Brand Called YOU" a concept that promotes making * yourself * the brand. You = your business in the sense that customers aren't buying your product or service, so much as they're buying you. This also works when you're selling yourself as an employee.

FAST COMPANY magazine spent a good part of an issue in Aug/Sept 1997 on this and I'm surprised that King's book is the only marketing book where I've ever seen it mentioned. The idea was (is?) so radical Fast Company gave it a separate web site.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book makes sure I hit the target every time!, January 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mini Marketing: The New Common Sense, Low Cost Approach for selling yourself, your products, and your services (Paperback)

Before reading Mini-Marketing, my own marketing was like throwing darts at a board: sometimes I hit a bullseye and sometimes I missed the target altogether. This book makes sure I hit the target every time, and that everything I do fits nicely into a strategic plan. I have to admit that I was really shocked that one of the author's simple mini-plans worked so well. He suggested showing customers some gesture of special gratitude, so on a lark I brought one of them donuts and muffins. They have since switched all of their business over to me and have become my largest account! Mini-Marketing has a special place on my bookshelf, and I refer to it constantly!" Andrew Weiss, President Above Discount Companies "Where Savings and Service Connect" 800-599-9646

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable, April 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mini Marketing: The New Common Sense, Low Cost Approach for selling yourself, your products, and your services (Paperback)

I've looked at and browsed through many marketing books, but this is the first one I've been comfortable with. King does an extraordinary job of making it all look simple, and I have to agree!

It's a highly interactive marketing workbook. It encouraged me to use my common sense and what I know about my business to develop simple, effective marketing plans that really seem to work! I was VERY surprised!!!

I also like the way it's written. It's very easy to read, has lots of graphics, and probably 100 or more mini-marketing plans, many of which I was able to put to use right away!

I figure if he's been successful at 6 buinesses, I'll try what he says!

Great book!