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Find & Keep Customers For Your Small Business from CCH Provides Step-By-Step Guidance For Successful Marketing

From Market Analysis and Product Development, to Packaging and Promotion, New Book is a Must for Entrepreneurs Who Want to Take Advantage of Their Size

(Riverwoods, ILL., August 20, 1999) – For any business, long-term success requires strong marketing and sales strategies and techniques. However, for small businesses, often operating on shoe-string budgets, effective marketing often is a make-or-break necessity: they have to be faster, smarter, more focused with their marketing programs, according to CCH INCORPORATED, a leading provider of small business information and publisher of Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business.

"For many small business owners, strapped for time and resources, marketing means advertising and selling," according to Alice Magos, a CCH small business analyst and a co-author of Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business. "But a more successful and sustainable marketing advantage comes from taking a big-picture approach: analyzing your products or services and your business in relation to your competition, your customers and trends and conditions in the marketplace, and then implementing a marketing program that reflects these unique attributes."

Now available in retail and Internet bookstores nationwide, Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business provides practical steps, useful tools and a comprehensive approach for developing and implementing effective marketing programs specifically for small businesses. Plus, the book is supplemented by online information, business services and guidance from the team of small office/home office experts who created CCH Business Owner’s Toolkit (www.toolkit.cch.com, AOL Keyword: CCH and Compuserve: Go CCH).

Developing a Marketing Mindset

Divided into two key sections, the first section of Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business focuses on developing an effective marketing program. This includes tools for analyzing the competitive environment and cultural trends small business owners need to examine in order to assess their business’s place in the market. For example, the book provides thorough guidance for understanding who the competition is, and their strengths and weaknesses, as well as identifying target customers and their purchasing behaviors.

Also described in detail are helpful steps for finding the right market and building a plan to reach that market segment, including market research techniques, with an emphasis on those that will be most useful and affordable to smaller businesses. The book also looks in-depth at creating a marketing plan and outlining a realistic marketing budget.

"Often times, small businesses are more nimble and can act more quickly than can their larger competitors," said Magos. "While this can be a significant advantage, it also can be devastating if they don’t have a clear marketing foundation. That’s why having the fundamentals of marketing covered – clearly understanding their product, business, competitors and customers – is so crucial to small businesses."

From Plans to Actions

The second section of the book provides an in-depth discussion on implementing effective marketing programs. Key areas addressed include product development and refinement, emphasizing the importance of providing unique products or services that will meet customers’ needs as well as a process small business owners can use to develop new products from their business.

Packaging, pricing and distribution strategies also are addressed in detail, including tips on package design, developing profitable pricing programs and evaluating the pros and cons of different distribution channel alternatives for delivering products or services to customers.

An in-depth discussion of sales and customer relations helps small businesses pinpoint their sales philosophy. The guide also illustrates how to build effective customer service programs, including tips for developing successful sales presentations, how to effectively leverage emerging e-commerce sales and customer service opportunities, and creating total quality management programs for customer service initiatives.

Chapters on promotions, advertising and media and community and professional relations present steps for effectively planning and budgeting marketing communications programs, using key promotional tactics and evaluating various advertising media, including print ads, signage, Internet marketing and direct mail. Also addressed is how to target appropriate stakeholders, including the press, community and professional contacts and develop communication programs that effectively reach these key audiences.

Applying the Book's Lessons Online

Small business owners are encouraged to use the book together with CCH’s free Internet service, CCH Business Owner’s Toolkit (www.toolkit.cch.com), and the experts who developed the site and created the BOT small business book series. The site offers special business services and tools that can assist the business owner in preparing and implementing a successful marketing program. Through BOT, users can affordably conduct customer, prospect and competitive research, write and distribute press releases and find support for carrying out other marketing and business-related activities.

CCH Business Owner’s Toolkit, which was recently named one of the 100 best sites for entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur magazine, is constantly updated to ensure small businesses have quick access to current information. For example, the service includes daily news specifically geared toward the specialized needs of a small office/home office business owner. Entrepreneurs can think of Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business as a book they can talk to. Co-author Alice Magos, also known as Ask Alice, answers individual questions on the site.

Pricing and Availability

Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business (ISBN 0-8080-0354- 2) is available in major bookstores nationwide, on amazon.com, via the Business Owner’s Toolkit Book Store (www.toolkit.cch.com, AOL Keyword: CCH, CompuServe: Go CCH) or by calling 1-800-248-3248. The book is 224 pages, with soft cover. Single copy price is $16.95, plus applicable shipping, handling or tax. Quantity discounts are available.

CCH INCORPORATED, headquartered in Riverwoods, Ill., was founded in 1913 and has served four generations of business professionals and their clients. The company produces more than 700 electronic and print products for the tax, legal, securities, human resources, health care and small business markets. CCH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer U.S. The CCH web site can be accessed at www.cch.com.

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EDITORS NOTE: An editorial review copy of Find & Keep Customers for Your Small Business is available by contacting Mary Dale Walters at 847-267-2038 or mediahelp@cch.com.

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