A great handbook for wanta-be entrepreneurs and small business owners who need a reference source for...

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	• The Unofficial Guide to Marketing Your Small Business (Unofficial Guides) Marcia Layton Turner Wiley, 2006 - 312 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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A great handbook for wanta-be entrepreneurs and small business owners who need a reference source for marketing tactics.

This little book is pretty, organized, well-written, and packed with content. It claims to have six parts and 19 chapters. But the chapters are so short that the "parts" are really chapters and the chapters are really chapter subpoints. The six parts are:

1. Marketing Matters
2. Planning Your Success
3. The Least Expensive Ways to Market Your Business
4. Moderately Priced Marketing Approaches
5. Higher-Cost (but highly effective) Marketing Tools
6. Finding What Works and Sticking with It

My favorite part of the book was Part 3 that included subtopics entitled Public Relations, Networking, and Public Speaking. I think all three topics were presented very well. A great supplemental book for the public relations chapter is Marcia Yudkin's entitled "6 Steps to Free Publicity" (ISBN: 1564146758). A great supplemental book for the networking chapter is Bob Burg's entitled "Endless Referrals" (ISBN: 0071462074). And arguably a great supplemental book for the public speaking chapter is Dottie Walters' entitled "Speak and Grow Rich" (ISBN: 0735203512).

I suppose the fact that I have just cited three books in this review indicates that I think the author's booklist in Appendix C is lacking. There are so many books that could have been listed there, but weren't.

I also liked very much the Part 4 subtopic entitled Online Marketing. The author did a wonderful (but short and simple) job of covering that topic. Her comments at pages 146-7 regarding Podcasts were new to me. And I think they were great!

Last year for 10 months in 2005 I was a member of two Toastmasters clubs. That organization is a simple and very inexpensive way to develop public speaking and leadership skills. Although the author mentions Toastmasters at page 115 as a "Bright Idea," I think she should have covered the topic in greater detail. Furthermore, it is not merely a national organization with local chapters. It is an international organization with numerous districts and below that thousands of local clubs.

Although I liked this book a lot, and I recommend it highly to people needing to start or revamp their marketing programs, I would have liked it better if it had three more parts or chapters. One on business models and which marketing tools or tactics work best with which models. One on business plans and how a marketing plan fits into a business. And one on why a formal written marketing plan that soundly ties into a sound business plan is so important to have before designing and building a business Web site.

The other night I had a SCORE client seek counsel from me on how to improve his marketing mix. The other counselor present asked the client what he was doing now for marketing. I asked the client what his business model was and whether he had a formal written business plan. The client informed us that he did not have a formal business model nor a written business plan. I told the client that his approach to marketing was bound to fail because he was kind of like a 90 pound weak kid going to the gym to build up his arms so he could win a fight at school. Without building up his legs, lower back and abdomen the boy's arms would be worthless in the fight since they had no grounding. The same holds true for marketing when a business has no sure business model or business plan. Efforts in marketing without a business model and business plan are not going to provide good results.

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Great Starting Point for Marketing A Small Business

This book, by it's nature, is generic, but is still very helpful. It is especially good for a new business and for a small business that has not been very successful at marketing. Ms. Turner provides a lot of detail for planning and execution and she shows why planning is absolutely necessary. Her book provides a good preliminary understanding of marketing concepts and principals. It would be an excellent companion to a niche marketing resource. As a consultant, author and trainer for women and minority owned businesses I continually try to stress that research is essential to the marketing, and ultimately overall, success of a small business; so I applaud Ms. Turner for emphasizing and explaining this fact. She also shows how targeting ones marketing efforts brings higher payoff. I have always felt that marketing is all about angles -- finding the right one and using it effectively; this book provides a lot of help in finding and using a good marketing angle.

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From the author of the successful The Unofficial Guide to Marketing Your Small Business, this handy guide provides detailed information on low-budget, high-impact marketing techniques that produce near-immediate results. Small businesses need a quick return on their marketing investments, and this book shows the best ways to achieve it. Small business expert Marcia Layton Turner puts her wealth of business knowledge to work for business owners who need results now. The Unofficial Guide to Marketing Your Small Business provides comprehensive, straightforward coverage of everything small and large businesses need to know about the vital basics of effective marketing.

Marcia Layton Turner (Rochester, NY) is the founder of her own marketing consulting firm and a small business expert who has been profiled or quoted in such publications as Money, Entrepreneur, and USA Weekend. She is also the author of The Unofficial Guide to Starting a Small Business (0-7645-7285-7), from Wiley.

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