Book Reviews
BUSINESS BOOKS 67
Book Reviews
Telemarketing There are both advantages and disadvantages of telemarketing over other forms of marketing.
Contacting consumers by telephone allows you to gauge the customer’ s interest immediately; ask questions to assess the customer’ s needs; explain technical or complex messages more effectively. However, many people find marketing calls annoying and too interrupting. In business-to-business( B2B) marketing, people are more receptive to marketing calls which are taken as part of their work and during their work day rather than when someone is home.
Email and fax marketing Email marketing is a very cheap form of direct marketing as one email message can be sent to thousands of recipients at virtually no cost. It’ s also the easiest way to target the exact person you need to reach. Measuring response rates is simple and recent figures show that responses from email marketing are higher than those for mailshots. The main disadvantage of email marketing is your contacts going out-of-date. Your marketing emails also need to stand out – among the increasing amount of spam( unsolicited mail)- so that they are read rather than being immediately or automatically deleted by antispam software. Fax marketing has become less and less popular as a result of email marketing becoming more popular and also due to people cutting down on the printing out of information on paper to be more environmentally-friendly.
Next issue: Choosing the right website for your business.
In this issue books reviewer Caroline Lashley takes a look at three new business titles.
Caroline Lashley runs The Editor’ s Office, a PR consultancy helping small businesses and entrepreneurs gain basic skills in public relations. She is also the publisher and editor of small business ezine, Sister Business UK. Caroline can be contacted via email at theeditorsoffice @ yahoo. co. uk
Your Ethical Business
- how to plan, start and achieve success in a company with a conscience
With the recent passing of The Body Shop founder, Dame Anita Roddick, large companies are falling over themselves- along with politicians- to prove to the British consumer how ethical and green they are in order to secure big profits.
But big companies weren’ t always so“ socially responsible”- many are reacting to consumer demand to stay ahead of the competition. If you’ re just starting out in business, however, and looking to hang on to ethics and integrity, there’ s a new business guide that’ s recently hit the bookshelves.
“ Your Ethical Business”( YEB) is- according to the press release- a unique new‘ how to’ handbook that offers a step-by-step guide to creating a business using your own conscience as a starting point. Packed with examples and top tips from successful ethical firms [ such as ] Howies, People Tree and Ecotricity, it is backed by some of the biggest names in ethical business including... Innocent Smoothies, Cafédirect, The Big Issue and The Body Shop.
Peppered throughout with useful web addresses, YEB is a comprehensive read, beginning with guidelines and a personal definition of what’ s ethical to choosing the most appropriate legal structure, right through to all the big issues facing every potential- and actual- ethical business. VERDICT Essential reading if you’ re looking to balance business with social responsibility and ethics. AUTHOR: Paul Allen PUBLISHER: NGO Media ISBN: 978-0-9553695-0-6 PRICE: £ 10.00
How They Started
- How 30 good ideas became great businesses
The 30 businesses featured in this book are, for the most part, household names( or at least very well-known in their respective fields). Written by David Lester, himself an entrepreneur and the founder behind the small business online portal, Startups. co. uk,“ How They Started” features very tightly written, in-depth interviews with founders of household brands such as Dyson, Innocent Drinks, Cobra Beer, Bebo to name but a few.
It details how these big brands started with a simple idea and turned it into a major business success.“ How They Started” includes incisive insights on how the businesses raised the money, road-tested the idea, sourced supplies, made initial sales and finally, found the right staff.
Designed to be both insightful and inspiring, this book is aimed at those who cite Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice as must-see TV as well as those toying around with the idea of entrepreneurship. Loaded with useful information and tips on how the best got started and how to turn a good idea into a thriving business, this is a good book for starters.
VERDICT An excellent book for reminding would-be entrepreneurs that the road to success is one to be navigated well...
AUTHOR; David Lester PUBLISHER: Crimson Publishing ISBN: 978-1-85458-400-7 PRICE: £ 12.99
PR on a Beermat
Don’ t let its slim, sleek size fool you. This 44-page e-book( so you won’ t find this tome on conventional bookshelves) takes a very conversational route to discussing how to use PR as an essential tool in promoting your small business.
Written by Louise Third, herself an entrepreneur with 25 years’ of experience in PR and helping small businesses, it is a succinct handbook guiding readers on how to structure and plan their own PR campaign to get the right sort of press coverage; how to get on the best side of writers, reporters and journalists and when the business achieves sufficient growth, how to outsource those PR activities. It also gives clear advice on how to find the right freelance PR consultant or if the budget allows, the right PR agency to raise that company profile higher to ultimately be more successful.
The electronic format( it’ s downloadable from www. beermat. biz as a PDF) might pose a problem for entrepreneurs more familiar with hardback and paperback books, but the upside is that it’ s something that can be easily placed on the computer desktop( or printed out as reading material if you’ re on the bus / Tube / train journey to your next meeting), for easy reference.
Good for entrepreneurs getting to grips with doing their own PR but still feel the need for good solid guidance. It’ s an e-book I would definitely have on my desktop if I was doing my PR activities VERDICT A business essential- especially if it’ s on that computer desktop as an accessible handbook. AUTHOR: Louise Third PUBLISHER: Ecademy Publishing ISBN: Not available PRICE: £ 14.99
ISSUE FIVE 2007 engage | uk