Includes index.

Tools for Designing Great Marketing Programs -- Boosting Your Business with Great Marketing -- Understanding the Benefits of Marketing -- The Heart of the Matter: Knowing What Your Business Needs -- Designing Your Marketing Program -- Exercising Your Marketing Imagination -- The Five-Minute Marketing Plan -- Auditing Your Marketing to Achieve Your Business Goals -- Performing a Marketing Audit -- Examining the Parts of the Audit -- Using Your Results to Plan Your Attack -- Marketing Plans -- Considering Marketing Plan Designs -- Writing Your Marketing Plan the Easy Way -- Using the Marketing Plan Template -- Developing the Strategy Section of Your Plan -- Goal-Oriented Marketing Experiments -- Planning Benchmarks for Marketing Communications -- Boosting Your Marketing Skills -- The Customer Research Workshop -- Talking to Your Customers -- Auditing Your Customer Service -- Using Experimentation as a Research Technique -- The Creativity Workshop -- Creativity's Impact on the Five Ps -- Being Creative but Also Practical -- Tools and Techniques for Generating Creative Concepts -- Managing Creative Projects and Teams -- Writing Well for Marketing and Sales -- Writing Persuasively -- Getting Serious about Testing Your Copy -- Evaluating for High Involvement -- Interpreting Your Ad Research to Select or Refine a Design -- Designing for Stopping Power -- Applying Great Writing to Your Web Site -- A Final Check: Auditing Your Marketing Communications -- Using Testimonials and Customer Stories -- Effective Use of Testimonials - a Real-life Example -- Borrowing a Page from Books -- Why Quotes Work -- Using Quotes in Catalogs -- Seeking Customer Testimonials -- Letting Testimonials Stand on Their Own -- Using Customer Videos and Photos -- And Now for an Easy Alternative -- Selling Services with Customer Stories -- Advertising Management and Design -- Planning and Budgeting Ad Campaigns -- Defining Your Overall Advertising Goals -- Having a Specific Objective for Each Ad -- Testing Your Ad Design Against Your Objective -- Budgeting Based on Objectives -- Shortcuts to Great Ads -- Do-It-Yourself Shortcuts -- Creating Ad Concepts for Fun and Profit -- Visual Shortcuts to Great Ads -- Power Alternatives to Advertising -- The Basics: Branding through Business Cards and Letterhead -- Who Are You?: Establishing Brand Identity -- Creating Your Name and Logo -- "Selling" Your Business Cards -- Designing Your Letterhead and Envelopes -- Placing Brand Identity on Your Web Site -- Essential Brochures, Catalogs, and Spec Sheets -- Considering Your Needs -- Beautiful Brochures -- Digital Brochures -- Captivating Catalogs -- Spectacular Spec Sheets -- Booklets and Books -- Planning Coupons and Other Sales Promotions -- The Importance of Profit -- How Promotions Affect Sales -- Planning Coupon Programs -- Some Alternative Approaches to Sales Promotions -- Spreading the Word with Newsletters -- Why You Need a Newsletter -- Examining the Elements of a Newsletter -- Looking for Inspiration from Top-Notch Newsletters -- Learning from a Newsletter Case Study -- Taking a Simplified Approach -- Saving a Tree: Electronic Newsletters -- Taking Advantage of Publicity -- Publicity in Action -- Just What Is Publicity? -- How to Generate Great Publicity -- The Press Release That's Going to Get You Publicity -- Pitching Your Release to the Media -- Creating Your Mailing List -- Planning Your Publicity Program -- Sales and Service Success -- Mastering the Sales Process -- Walking through the Sales Process -- Getting the Most out of Your Contacts -- Making the Presentation -- Asking for the Business -- How to Close the Sale -- Realizing That Closes Aren't Only for Salespeople -- Mastering a Few Closing Techniques -- Something Stinks! Passing the Prospect's Smell Test -- The Sales Success Workshop -- Improving the Flow of High-Quality Leads -- Using Sales Collateral to Help Win 'Em Over -- Overcoming Sales Setbacks -- Dealing with Difficult Customers -- Flexing Your Style to Be Customer Oriented -- Utilizing the Difficult Customer Diagnostic -- Making Sure Your Ads Are Stylin' -- Ten Great Marketing Strategies -- Sponsoring a Community Event -- Finding the Right Trade Show -- Remembering What Your Customers Like -- Rewarding Large Purchasers -- Sending Interesting Mailings -- Allowing Customers to Access You Easily -- Sharing the Customer's Pain -- Letting Prospects Test You Out -- Getting Everyone Talking about You -- Working for Your Customer -- Ten Ways to Make Marketing Pay -- Print It Yourself -- Do More PR -- Use More Distributors -- Give More Product Away -- Edit -- Eat Out More -- Slash Unproductive Programs -- Invest More in Your Stars -- Stage Events -- Control Product Costs -- Ten-Plus Ways to Market on the Web -- Have a Well-Defined Objective -- Use a Power Name -- Give Away Great Content -- Check Your Files -- Minimize Your Load Time -- Create a Sense of Community -- Hold Contests -- Add a Weekly News Feature -- Links.

This indispensable book-and-CD kit gives you the practical tools you need to implement effective marketing campaigns quickly and affordably. With ready-made forms and templates, the latest in online marketing, and even more specialized information for small business owners, this newly updated edition is better than ever.

System requirements for accompanying CD-ROM: A PC with a Pentium processor or a faster processor; or, a Mac OS computer with a 68040 processor or a faster processor; Microsoft Windows 98 or later; or, Mac OS system software 8.1 or later; At least 16 MB of total RAM; for best performance, I recommend having at least 32 MB of RAM; A CD-ROM drive; A monitor capable of displaying at least 256 colors or grayscale.