By Philip Holden and Nick Wilde.  This is a practical book, tempered with some theory and written in a humorous tone. It is a light and easy read, with very practical marketing advice to anyone who has started or is thinking of starting a small business.

In the first two chapters, the authors make you think about how many customers are out there, how much they spend, etc. They introduce the Holden-Wilde (HW) matrix as a framework to help you establish some of these answers.

Refreshingly, the third chapter begins to dig into the practical side of marketing in small businesses. It helps you find the most cost effective ways of collecting information and introduces the technique of a market breakdown calculator – useful but crude. The chapter also goes through basic concepts of market research, such as sampling, questionnaires, surveys, interviews, observation, mystery shopping and focus groups. It offers practical suggestions for each, while not going into too much detail.

The subsequent chapter helps you develop a range of alternative marketing strategies. Although the book loses its sense of direction and structure slightly here, the green “how to” boxes add significant practical value.

Chapter five focuses on keeping customers and ways of growing the business. It introduces the concept of looking at the moments of truth for your business from a customer perspective. This exercise forces you to look from a customer’s point of view and write down all the times that the customer has contact with your business – an interesting and particularly valuable exercise.

The following chapter looks at ways of attracting new customers by using the existing customer base, and introduces the importance of branding as the basis of consistent marketing communications. The final chapter considers the decisions that have been made so far and discusses how the resulting plan might look.

Conclusion

Having read quite a few marketing books, this book takes a somewhat simplistic view of the field of marketing. The positives are mainly in the refreshing focus on the small business context, and the humorous and light-minded approach. An example of this style is in a phrase that resonated with me, as an owner of a small business: “you can't shout louder than everyone, but you can whisper in the right ear”. However, keeping to this friendly style of writing while trying to give credible marketing advice is treading on a fine line. In certain sections of the book, you can get lost in the waffle. But, overall this is a deceptively easy book to read; in a friendly tone, with valuable and accessible marketing advice to anyone running a small/medium sized business.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Partnerships