The Marketing Manual: making sure the message gets across

By Heather Maitland (Arts Marketing Association, 2000, ISBN 1 9033 1 5 02 6
£25.00 [£33.00 inc p&p]).

Every marketer wants the perfect handbook to dip into for reassurance and guidance and this is an excellent choice. Peppered with case studies and examples, it's full of useful tips and suggestions.

Two thirds of the book gives clear, jargon-free recommendations on day-to-day marketing from basic planning and copywriting to managing budgets and advertising campaigns. It also covers areas which may be outside some marketers' expertise: for instance how to brief photographers, design a website or write a lottery application.

For the bigger issues, turn to the book's remaining third. Advice on research, analysis and targeting of existing and new audiences lies alongside matters of corporate identity, branding and pricing.

At around 1.5kg it's not very portable, but as a desktop reference book, it will definitely become a permanent, well-thumbed fixture.

Review by Debbie Court, Marketing Officer, Welsh National Opera

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This book will surely become a 'must-buy' addition to marketing office shelves across the arts. Written with Heather Maitland's customary clarity of thought and expression it will be of use to marketers at all levels of experience. The nineteen chapters of the 'how to' section offer systematic advice in the everyday tactical tasks of arts marketing, backed up by case studies, examples of work and the odd pro-forma; the rest of the book deals with some of the more strategic issues that marketers will face, particularly as they progress up the career ladder.
As a marketer of mature years, it won't, for me, be a cover to cover read. But I can imagine using the book as a comfort blanket in those moments of self-doubt and as both a refresher and challenge to my own, and my department's, thinking.

For the cost of a mid-priced opera ticket it's worth every penny.

Review by Peter Bellingham, Director of Marketing, Welsh National Opera
Issue 69 - 26 February 2001

SAM's Books compiles the Bookshop section of Arts Professional magazine, and used to compile Bookshop in its predecessor, Arts Business. This review has appeared in Arts Professional or Arts Business. It gives a longer and more personal description of the book than appears in the booklists.