reviewed by Abbie Martin

“If the moola you spend on marketing isn’t growing your business and bringing in more moola in return, then you have marketing that…sucks. Welcome to Extreme Marketing.”

This, in Mark Stevens’ words is what his book is all about.

Marketing doesn’t have to be snazzy with glossy brochures and television ads that win international awards to be successful. That is if you define success as making sales. At the end of the day, if you want your business to make money Mark Stevens says that ‘Extreme Marketing’ is the only way to go.

‘Extreme Marketing’ is simply another term for ‘Integrated Marketing’, a phrase constantly thrown around in business and marketing circles, but, if Mark Stevens is right, isn’t properly applied in the majority of cases. This book goes back to the basics of Marketing and forces you to realise how important these basics are if your Marketing is going to be successful.

‘Your Marketing Sucks” is an insight for both large corporations and small businesses alike. Mark Stevens takes a ruthless look at current marketing practices, demonstrating why certain methods don’t work, and what to do about it. For small businesses in particular, Mark Stevens outlines simple, logical and mostly low cost marketing strategies to make the sale and keep the customer.

Mark Steven’s fresh phrases such as ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ to refer to your existing clients, jazzes up familiar Marketing concepts and makes you think “I know this!”, but then forces you to ask, “but do I do it”.

For anyone involved in the marketing process, or perhaps should be but isn’t, this book provides an easy to read text with familiar business examples and a variety of tips for how you can improve. It is ideal for start-ups who can readily incorporate this into their developing business practices, and for established businesses who can’t answer the questions “is our marketing working?” and, if not “why?”

So ask yourself, is the marketing ‘moola’ you’re spending bringing in more ‘moola’ in return? If not, you need this book.

About the Author
Mark Stevens, president of MSCO, is one of the nation’s leading experts in ROI-based marketing and the creator of the Extreme Marketing process. He is an entrepreneur, advisor, business builder, and author of such prominent books as The Big Eight, Sudden Death: The Rise and Fall of E. F. Hutton, and Extreme Management.

Abbie Martin is the Director and Founder of Lifestyle Elements, a Personal Concierge and Lifestyle Management service based in Adelaide, Australia. Lifestyle Elements is for anyone who needs more time and provides professional, personal assistance to complete all those items on your ‘to do’ list. www.lifestyleelements.com.au. Contact Abbie at abbie@lifestyleelements.com.au