Review: Out of the Box Marketing

Out of the Box Marketing

Book reviews > Out of the Box Marketing

Abingdon, David (2005). Out of the Box Marketing, London: Thorogood

So you're a small business with a great idea. You've develop the product and got the processes for manufacture and/or delivery. So how do you get your head around the tricky field of marketing. Of course you could read lots of big marketing books that discuss neat 2x2 matrices, but the world is messier than that, you know.

If the above makes sense to you, then David Abingdon's book could be just what you need. The author consults into smaller companies for a living. He knows how they think and what they want, which is why he writes as he does, and which makes for a book that is both readable and valuable.

The book is not a 'classic' text on marketing. It will not discuss diffusion theory, Ansoff matrices or other such things you might find on on a marketing diploma course. What it does offer is a long list of terse wisdoms around sales and marketing, with around a page of explanation for each suggestion.

For example 'Gold Marketing Principle #1' is 'Long copy outsells short copy'. The idea is that, perhaps counter-intuitively, more words sell better than few words. Of course the words have to be right and used in the right context, but when you have people interested then giving them more information will help answer questions that lead to a sale.

So. Should you buy the book. For a small company, the answer is yes, definitely. In the words of the clich? it may be the best investment you ever made. For larger companies, even up to 'blue chip' level, the answer is still yes. You may not agree or approve of everything here, but you will be challenged on some of the conventions you have not questioned in the past. And there is so much given away in the book it would be very surprising if you could not recover the cost and time many times over.

Buy Me

David Abingdon, Out of the Box Marketing, Thorogood Books, London, 2005

A highly practical book written for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), packed with useful tips and information to help entrepreneurs get their products marketed and sold. See also the review.