Book Review Summary
This book is about the fastest path to the money, which comes about from consistently and successfully marketing your business. The author, Allan Dib, lays out a clear, straightforward plan that is easy to understand through his telling of stories and providing plenty of examples to illustrate his points
I think The 1-Page Marketing Plan book is perfect for a small business owner or any business that has limited resources (primarily personnel) to implement a marketing plan.
The author is a proponent of direct response marketing, creating an online lead generator and collecting email addresses, and implementing email marketing campaigns to complement your direct response and other media marketing efforts.
Look at this book if you want to get better results from your marketing efforts, are unhappy with the results you’re getting or are unsure where to start. This book will get you heading in the right direction.
It is an excellent marketing book and I give it a Five Star rating!
In-Depth Book Review
This book is for small business owners who have a business, that no matter how hard they try, they can’t get to the next level of revenues and profits. If you’re starting a new business, this book is for you, too.
The author, Allan Dib, gives simple, clear advice about exactly how to market your business to get traction, build momentum, and grow. This book is also for you if you don’t have a full or even a part-time person on the staff that is dedicated to marketing your business.
I like this book because as a small business owner, who has been ‘in business’ for a long time, I have experienced the struggle of trying to create a marketing plan that encompasses all the shiny objects that all the marketing gurus out there tell us we need to do. Marketing activities such as social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, podcasting, email marketing, writing a blog/vlog, building communities of followers on Facebook and Google advertising.
I’ve tried them all. Many of them at the same time. Though they worked for a short while, I couldn’t keep up with the demands of keeping it all going and eventually stopped all efforts from the sheer exhaustion of trying to do it all.
What also happens to me is when my marketing is successful, I end up not marketing because I am busy serving clients. I well know that even though I am on a long ride of clients and cash flow, my future cash flow prospects are sloping downward, to eventually bottom-out, and I find myself in a place to market again.
The author is a fan of Vilfredo Pareto, founder of the well-known 80/20 Rule of the Pareto Principle. He’s got this right and uses it to make a case that 80% of your results come from 20% of efforts. Driving home the point that you don’t need a complicated marketing plan! You only need the easiest to implement and most impactful one.
Allan Dib writes that struggling business owners will spend time to save money, whereas successful business owners will spend money to save time. You can always get more money but not more time. So spend your time doing the things that will make the biggest impact and leverage your time.
He states that there are many areas in your business that you can leverage to expand it, but in his opinion the biggest leverage point in any business is marketing. If you get 10% better at marketing, this will have an exponential effect on multiplying your bottom line.
I liked that the author gave a simple prescription for a marketing plan that will have an impact and get results. Focus on this. Do it well. Target your efforts, and you’ll get massive results.
Toss Your Marketing Budget
Allan Dib tells readers to not have a marketing budget. What, no budget? My mind raced. But he made the case for not having a marketing budget and he changed my mind.
A marketing budget . . . In the past, I always set one. The author stated that having a budget allows you to spend the money and not get results. But if you pay attention and focus on results, that your marketing efforts make an impact, then your marketing budget is unlimited.
Why stop marketing if it is working and you are getting an ROI? YES!
For the layperson (and not so much of one, too), the author explains what marketing is, the difference between strategy and tactics, and then makes a case that the best marketing method for small to medium-sized businesses is direct response marketing. This is because it is:
Targeted
Works on a small budget
Ensures you get a return on investment
The 1-Page Marketing Plan
After introducing direct response marketing as his method of choice he introduces his tool, My 1-Page Marketing Plan.
Now I have seen tools similar to this before. I’ve even created my own 1-page marketing plan template, which I lay out in my book, 7-Step Easy-to-Implement R.E.S.U.L.T.S. Marketing Success System, that I wrote in 2010.
My template is good. Allan’s template is different, and in some ways better because it is a less complicated, and applies to today’s marketing landscape by being heavier on the use of creating online lead generators and doing email marketing.
What is really helpful in this book is the author addresses the different phases of the marketing journey: before, during and after: and defines each phase and what marketing activities to do during each of them.
For example, in the Before phase, people are prospects, and they rarely know you exist. Successful completion of this phase is that the prospect knows who you are and shows interest by responding to your marketing.
How this looks is a potential client is having a problem with losing money and comes across an online headline, “5 Unknown Strategies to Increase Your Cash Flow.” The business owner clicks on the ad and is taken to an online form where they must enter an email address to download a report. This could just as easily be accomplished with sending a lump package in the mail with a direct response mail postcard.
In the During phase, people are leads because they have indicated interest in your offer. Successful completion is they have bought from you the first time.
In the After phase, people are labeled as customers; they are a person who buys from you repeatedly, is a fan of your products and services, and recommends and introduce you to new prospects.
What I really enjoyed about the My 1-Page Marketing Plan template that the author created is it is a simple tool that is impactful. I am not new to marketing. Yet I was intrigued by how his tool is different from my own and how the author provided a different insight into how to approach and manage the marketing beast. His words reminded me that I need to apply the marketing concepts to achieve success and showed me how to do it.
The author also lays out something that he calls the PVP Index and asks readers to give each market segment they serve a rating out of 10. PVP Index means:
P-Personal Fulfillment: how much do you enjoy dealing with this type of customer?
V-Value to the marketplace: how much does this market segment value your work?
P-Profitable: how profitable is this work for your segment?
Looking at all the ratings for each of your market segments makes it easy to hone in-on the best segment to focus your efforts and market.
USP Redux
Messaging, coming up with a USP—Unique Selling Proposition—again is something I have personally struggled with over the years. I always felt my USP was okay, but I never felt it was ‘good enough’ or truly communicated what makes my business unique and different from others who provide similar products and services.
Allan Dib’s instructions on how to create a powerful USP that communicates clarity about what makes you special is so important in today’s noisy world, where prospects and customers are tuning out of the sales conversation.
His method provides a process for simplifying your message and articulating your place in the prospects’ and customers’ world and communicates the outcomes you deliver.
Developing a USP, "un-commoditizing” your product, creating an elevator pitch and crafting an irresistible offer—this section in the book is a goldmine if you struggle to be heard in the marketplace—which is mostly everyone except if you have a big marketing budget and a nationally known brand.
Allan Dib also gives valuable advice on headline and copywriting. I’ve seen this before. But if it’s been a while since you’ve spent time on these topics it’s a good review if you are a student of or are new to marketing.
Get an ROI for Your Marketing Efforts
The author, Allan Dib, drives home that you must get an ROI (Return-On-Investment) for marketing dollars spent and knowing what that number is. You must track and measure to see if you have a successful marketing campaign. You need to have a profitable target market you send a message to through media (radio, direct mail, telemarketing, Internet, TV, etc.).
What media you choose is based on your marketing strategy and the tactics you use. The author is a proponent of email marketing and building a list of prospects through online advertising, blogs, and social media activities (which he admits can be a time suck), and complementing all these activities with direct mail.
The Bottom Line
The author delivers a simple, clear, straightforward way to create an impactful, successful marketing plan, and the tools to help you, in his book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan.
I admit I looked hard to find something wrong with his method: is it too simple? Then I realize there I go again . . . trying to make something more difficult and complex than it needs to be.
I am delighted to write that I think this book and Allan Dib’s marketing plan is perfect for a small business owner or a business that may not be that small, yet has limited resources (personnel) to implement a marketing plan.
I highly recommend this book and enthusiastically give it a Five Star rating.