Name: Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated
Rating: 4.1 (29 reviews)
Author: John Jantsch

Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated summary

John Jantsch

The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide

4.1 (29 ratings)

17 mins

Brief summary

Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated by John Jantsch is a comprehensive guide for small business owners to create a successful marketing strategy. It offers simple and practical steps to attract and retain customers, grow sales, and build a profitable business.

Table of Contents

What’s in it for me? Master the easiest, cheapest and most efficient marketing techniques for your small business.

If you studied marketing in college or business school, here’s some bad news: You’re way behind the times.

Today’s marketing strategies are a far cry from those textbook examples. In fact, for small businesses, what marketing means has changed completely. Modern strategies are now much more practical and easy to apply in our technological age.

The strategy goes like this: Find people who have a problem you can solve, and make sure they know, like and trust you. But the challenge remains: How do you find those people?

As you’ll learn in these blinks, it starts with a plan. Whether you’re in desperate need of a marketing tune-up or ready to throw more cash at your successful early strategy, you need to ensure your messaging makes customers stick – like duct tape – and stay.

After reading these blinks, you’ll know

how to talk to your ideal customer and get her to recommend others;
how to craft a great marketing purpose statement; and
why traditional advertising is far from dead or irrelevant.

A clear objective, a unique mission and a concrete goal make up a solid marketing strategy.

Lots of people are full of ideas for colorful print ads or flyers, and think that’s what it takes to know how to market their business best.

But before you dive into the details, take a step back. The first thing you need is a general marketing strategy. A marketing strategy outlines how you want to reach your ultimate goal.

First, you need to define your objectives, missions and goals.

An objective could be to become market leader; a mission might be serving your customers honorably; and a goal could be to double your number of customers within a certain period.

After you define these terms, you can think about how you want to reach them. This is your marketing strategy.

There are three steps to take when developing a strong marketing strategy.

The first step is to figure out who you want to serve. Find your niche and define your ideal customers. This will make it much easier to appeal to them with your specialized services.

Next, think about how you want to attract those customers. How can you stand out against your competitors? You might focus on offering a unique service, or higher-quality products. If you don't, your potential customers will just compare prices; and if you aren't the cheapest, you won't be the first choice.

When you've got the first two steps figured out, you can move to the third step, which is combining them. How will you bring your service to the right people?

Start by analyzing your business environment, like your competitors, and your customers' habits and needs.

Define your ideal customer and seek to solve their problems; they’ll stay loyal and refer friends.

Marketing used to be based on trying to reach as many customers as possible. Nowadays, that's ineffective. Instead, you need to appeal to people who will really use your products.

This means you need to find your ideal customers. Who are they? What problems are you solving for them?

Offline ads are still effective; they should grab a viewer, making them stop and pay attention.

Traditional ads might seem boring compared to online options, but they are still quite effective.

There are many forms of free advertising, but paid advertising is also important. The bottom line is that advertising gives you more credibility. When you can afford ads, people think your business must be doing well, so they'll pay more attention to your message.

Key ideas in Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated

Powerful ideas from top nonfiction

Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,000+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.

Start your free trial

Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club

by Robin Sharma

Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated summary

Brief summary