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Title:

Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide

Review:

If you work or own a small businesses, or operate a service-related unit within a larger organisation, you'll find the practical advice in "Duct Tape Marketing" of immense value. Author John Jantsch has developed his marketing system through more than 20 years of coaching and consulting with small business owners and independent professionals.

Jantsch defines marketing as 'getting people who have a specific need or problem to know, like, and trust you'. The customer ultimately determines what a business is selling - it doesn't sell goods and services, but solutions to problems. In Jantsch's view, every business is actually a marketing business. The strength of his approach is his focus on strategy rather than '101 great marketing ideas'. To be sure, he offers plenty of practical tips and suggestions, but he wants to make sure that business owners understand their core strategy first. That is, understanding what makes your business different from others and communicating that difference.

Duct Tape MarketingThe goal of marketing, Jantsch says, is not to sell but to educate prospects about what a business has to offer and how it provides solutions to their problems. Jantsch walks through the steps involved in creating an educational marketing kit. He provides well-researched advice about how to build a content-driven website that 'acts as a tool to integrate and connect all of your marketing communication and education'. He competently discusses how to draw traffic to a business website through search engine optimisation, paid advertising, local search options and the use of blogs to demonstrate expertise.

He also focuses on lead generation and conversion. A business should deliver its core message through as many vehicles as possible. Businesses get the most leverage from '2-step advertising'. In this model, a print ad offers the reader a free or low-cost information piece or service that is valuable to the target market. The business then captures the contact information of respondents. They automatically become qualified 'prospects' worthy of further marketing efforts.

The book addresses specific marketing techniques as well. Jantsch believes that direct mail is the ideal medium for small businesses, but only if the message is highly targeted and the advertising piece is sent to a list of clients that matches the ideal target profile. He describes how to write a 'sticky sales letter', how to develop a consistent client contact strategy, and how to develop 'earned media attention'. He provides sound advice about how to get a reporter's attention, how to develop a good pitch letter, and what elements to include in an effective press release. He also provides advice for the media interview and how to write articles that establish a business owner's expertise.

Finally, Jantsch discusses how to turn prospects into clients and clients into partners. Again, his focus is on educating the client rather than selling to him or her. He describes a successful lead conversion system that involves the steps of discovering whether a prospect actually fits a business's target market, making a quasi- scripted presentation to the client, and using an effective first purchase transaction process.

Jantsch has produced a readable, practical guide for small business owners on how to develop an effective marketing system. More than that, he has provided a strategic framework that any business owner can use to align their offerings to what is important to their customers and to present their products and services in a way that makes sense to their clients.

FreePint Reviewer:

Christine Hamilton-Pennell is an information professional in Denver, Colorado. She holds a Master's degree in Library and Information Services from the University of California at Los Angeles and a graduate certificate in Developing Web-Based Learning Environments from the University of Colorado at Denver. She has developed online courses for the library and information community, and has completed literature reviews for seven state-wide studies examining the impact of school library media centres on academic achievement. She has also published in a variety of professional and scholarly journals.

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