Unconventional New Book Offers Lighthearted, Hands-On Approach to Small-Business Marketing and Promotion

    HARRISVILLE, RI, January 25, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- During a marketing presentation in early 2011, an attendee asked Dr. Joe Webb, "Does a plumber need a Web site?" This question inspired an unconventional new business book, written with "co-conspirator" Richard Romano, about a handful of interesting and motivated characters facing small-business sales and marketing challenges. A year and a half's worth of conversations with graphic communications professionals and small business owners across the country and around the world answered the question, and led to the book's title "Does a Plumber Need a Web Site?: Mad Dentists, Harried Haircutters, and Other Edgy Entrepreneurs Offer Promotion Strategies for Small and Mid-Size Businesses." The book is available in paperback and Amazon Kindle editions, and discusses today's and tomorrow's practical strategies for marketing. The book explains why small business has to be more aggressive with its promotions because of the proliferation of new digital communications formats. "It's not as simple as the Yellow Pages and a church bulletin ad," the authors explain.

"Does a Plumber Need a Web Site?" has concrete examples of how multiple media channels work together to reinforce brands and enhance the visibility of a business, especially a small business. The book carefully explains the steps that companies can take to implement these new marketing services, allowing businesses of all sizes to maximize their marketing and promotion efforts while minimizing their costs.

The centerpiece of the book is eight detailed and entertaining "case studies," a cross-section of hypothetical small and mid-size businesses and all the marketing strategies -- print, non-print, old media, new media, social media, and even some cutting-edge media -- they can employ to build their own businesses. These sample businesses run the gamut from a business-to-business manufacturing company, a business-to-business service provider, a small retail business like a hair salon, two types of restaurants (sports bar/pub and an upscale bistro), a professional services provider like a plumber, a medical services provider like a dentist, and a fitness center. The book looks at how all these companies would have marketed themselves 30 years ago, how they market themselves today, and how they likely will do so in 2015. None of the case studies are real, but the business situations and challenges they illustrate are faced by entrepreneurs every day.

"Does a Plumber Need a Web Site?", an entertaining and often funny walk through business media, is designed to stimulate ideas and provoke thoughts about how to engage customers and prospects. Whatever business you are in, this book will get you chuckling -- and seriously thinking about the new ways of promoting a business today, and in the future.

Visit the book's Web site, doesaplumberneedawebsite.com, to meet the book's cast of characters, read a free chapter, and download the book's handy "media chart" that identifies the full range of communications media available to businesses today.

About Dr. Joe Webb

Consultant, entrepreneur, and economics commentator Dr. Joe Webb started his career in the industrial imaging industry more than 30 years ago. He found his way into business research, planning, marketing and forecasting executive positions along the way, as well as consulting for firms ranging from large multinationals to small businesses. Dr. Webb started an Internet-based research business in 1995, selling it to a multinational publisher in 2000. Since that time, his consulting, speaking, and research projects have focused on the interaction of B2B economics and technology trends. He is a doctoral graduate in graphic communications management and technology from New York University, holds an MBA in management information systems from Iona College, with baccalaureate work in managerial sciences and marketing at Manhattan College. He has taught in graduate and undergraduate business programs in a number of Northeast US colleges, and currently resides in Rhode Island.

About Richard Romano

Richard Romano has been a professional writer for the graphic communications industry since 1994. From 1999 to 2008, he was a senior analyst for TrendWatch Graphic Arts, and from 1995 to 2001, had been a writer and editor for Micro Publishing News as well as Digital Imaging. Over the years he has also written for such magazines as Graphic Arts Monthly, GATFWorld, Printing News, HOW, and others. He is the co-author, with Dr. Webb, of Disrupting the Future, and was editorial director of Dr. Joe Webb's Renewing the Printing Industry: Strategies and Action Items for Success. He currently contributes to WhatTheyThink.com as the managing editor of the Going Green blog, and other media publications.

Dr. Webb and Mr. Romano are available for keynote speaking, workshops, planning meetings, business discussions, organization events, and presentations about this book, or about other essential topics about print and media. Please contact Ms. Cary Sherburne at [email protected] for more information.

Availability...

"Does a Plumber Need a Web Site?: Mad Dentists, Harried Haircutters, and Other Edgy Entrepreneurs Offer Promotion Strategies for Small and Mid-Size Businesses" is available in either a paperback edition online at http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/does-a-plumber-need-a-web-site/18648667, or an Amazon Kindle e-book available at http://tinyurl.com/7fhf9ej.

Additional information pertaining to the book is available for editorial purposes. Please make inquiries directly to Cary Sherburne at 603-430-5463 or [email protected].

Press/Business/Sales Contact:
Cary Sherburne
Sherburne Associates
T: 603-430-5463
E: [email protected]

# # #