50 Marketing Secrets of Growth Companies in Down Economic Times
A Small Business Owner's Guide to Surviving & Thriving in a Recession
Any book that promises to reveal “50 marketing secrets” had better deliver with solid strategies and tactics that the reader can put to use immediately. Sherré DeMao’s book does just that–and at a cost of about 50 cents per idea, it’s a value that’s hard to beat.
DeMao, a small business marketing strategist with over twenty-five years of experience, packs this fast-paced, well written guide with advice covering just about everything: brand image, customer relations, cross promotion, effective use of the Internet, how to leverage charitable giving, the value of public relations, and more.
DeMao based her book on a multi-year study designed to validate an approach she had taken with her own clients called “The CRISP Principle: Power of Five.” She claims that these tactics should be the foundational core of every business marketing program: customer relations, referral relations, an Internet presence, strategic involvements, and public relations and uses the five areas to form a framework for the book’s content.
In fact, DeMao does an excellent job of dividing the book into sections that support the five areas so that the secrets are related rather than randomly shared. “Strategic Involvements,” for example, includes these seven secrets: Purposeful Affiliation, Trade Collaborations, Charitable Giving, Charitable Cause, Strategic Relationships, Sponsorships, and A Sense of Community. In “Strategic Relationships,” DeMao discusses how high-growth companies foster strategic relationships on several levels, including business alliances, advisory boards, mastermind groups, and universities. The author may not cover every possible type of relationship, but she certainly hits the high points.
Every one of DeMao’s “secrets” is a brief golden nugget with just the right amount of descriptive text and a relevant case study that demonstrates how to apply the secret in the real world. Intended for small business, DeMao’s book assumes the reader has minimal sophistication in marketing and a modest budget–two factors which help make the content all the more relevant. Yet DeMao doesn’t talk down to the reader; instead, she offers wise counsel that will assist the small business owner to think like a big business marketer. The last four secrets in the book are especially interesting, since each shows how several of the previous secrets can be combined for an even more potent marketing approach.
50 Marketing Secrets* is a book that offers a great deal of solid marketing counsel, all in one place. Small business marketers will want to refer to it time and time again.
Reviewed by
Barry Silverstein
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
