Marketing for Keeps: Building Your Business by Retaining Your Customers

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

There’s an ingrained resistance among some marketers to seeking more
business from current clients, which is odd considering that it is much
harder to obtain new clients than it is to increase your service to
present ones. You have an insider’s knowledge of their operations that
can enable you to suggest valuable increased services, and there are
abundant opportunities to demonstrate your firm’s abilities and
personnel skills.

This well-organized book is filled with practice exercises and actual
case histories that illustrate how 35 corporations have profited from
marketing for keeps. There’s some hard-headed advice about winning
back those customers you lost, too. Consultants, advertising agencies,
research firms, and similar marketing outfits will in particular benefit
from Furlong’s suggestions.

There are the inevitable statistical tables, complete with boxes,
arrows, and flowcharts. What would any marketing presentation be without
them? Mercifully, Furlong does not belabor the “scientific”
approach. Her concentration on practical, real-life details helps make a
convincing case for looking no further than your current client for that
next chunk of profit.