Marketing Articles & Book Reviews

The full title of this book by Leon Jay is

21 Business and Marketing Lessons From A Prostitute: Seductive Street Secrets From The Worlds Oldest Profession To Improve Your Results In Any Business

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 4 Stars.

Here is my review.

Interesting comparison done well for business owners who wouldn’t normally read business books

I ignored this a few times as salacious but then I gave in to the curiosity of my darker instincts.

In fact I had once thought of doing something similar by using prostitutes as a way of explaining the different dimensions of differentiation. I haven’t yet. [continue reading…]

In my review of

Summary: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Review and Analysis of Ries and Trout’s Book

posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the summary 4 Stars.

Here is my review.

The big picture of marketing

As a general rule, I think it’s well worth reading summary books by Trout and Ries. Books of X laws or Y tips or Z rules are particularly suitable because curiosity drives you to want to know what they are. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Dawid J Malherbe is

The Marketing Audit Handbook: The Art of Asking the Right Questions

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book 3 Stars.

Here is my review.

Marketing review questions suitable for bigger companies

The purpose of a marketing audit is to review the environment, the objectives and marketing activities to identify opportunities for improvement. It’s therefore much more proactive than the traditional financial audit that checks whether the report and accounts present a true and fair view of the business performance. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Fraser Hay is

180+ Marketing Tips for the self-employed : The 3 Minute Marketing Brainstorm

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 3 Stars.

Here is my review.

Long list of things you could do in your marketing

I read this straight after reading the author’s 3 Minute Marketing Audit so the first point is that much of that book is repeated in this book including the marketing audit questions.

What we then have is a list of 200 marketing tactics you could be using. You may have seen a similar list in Guerrilla Marketing books by Jay Conrad Levinson. No detail about any of them at all. [continue reading…]

In my review of the book

The 3 Minute Marketing Audit by Fraser Hay

posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 3 Stars.

Here is my review.

A nice idea, not so sure of how it’s implemented.

As soon as I started reading this book, I was struck by one thing. There are very long sentences. The longest I found in the first couple of pages was over 70 words long. The author promises this is one if the shortest books but effective editing would make it shorter and cut out the fluff. [continue reading…]

The Propensity To Buy Matrix contrasts the uniqueness of your product with the customer’s knowledge of your business to create four sectors with different propensities to buy.

I read about it in the book, Marketing by Matrix by Malcolm McDonald and John Leppard and wanted to share it with you.

What Is The Propensity To Buy Matrix?

This is presented as a two by two matrix, effectively forcing High/Low choices but I don’t see why it can’t be used in a three by three matrix with High, Medium and Low options. [continue reading…]

In my review of

Summary: Marketing Warfare: Review and Analysis of Ries and Trout’s Book

posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 4 Stars.

Here is my review.

How military strategy can be used in business

It’s many years since I read the full book but it’s one I’ve been intending to go back to and review. When I saw this summary available through my kindle unlimited subscription, it instantly appealed.

Just as armies fight over territories and the people in them, businesses fight over customers. The methods of waging war have changed dramatically over the centuries while the strategies have remained constant. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Robert Woodruff and Sarah Gardial is

Know Your Customer: New Approaches to Understanding Customer Value and Satisfaction

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave this book Four Stars. This means it is Good and Well Worth Reading, provided you don’t mind the academic nature of the book.

Here is my book review.

A challenging read

I read a great academic summary by Robert Woodruff on customer value and how you had to consider issues at the different levels of the customer’s thinking.

I was encouraged to buy this book, expecting to learn a lot. [continue reading…]

This book by Peter Doyle is called

Marketing Management and Strategy

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Four Stars. This means it is Good and Well Worth Reading.

Here is my book review.

Very good marketing book for university

I didn’t like the recommended text book for my MBA course back in the late 1990s so I bought this one.

It’s much better. Well written and it has the best explanation of building strategy taking into account the interests of all of the stakeholders that I’ve ever read. [continue reading…]