Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Smith writes about the key marketing issues facing managers. These include marketing planning, forecasting sales, purchasing and supply, pricing, design, and development of products and services, promotion and achieving quality customer service.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series adviser's preface (p. ix)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Every book needs a mission statement (p. 1)
• What has changed since the last edition? (p. 2)
• How different is this book? (p. 3)
• How can you use this book? (p. 3)
• 1 First, know yourself (p. 5)
• Customers? Who are they? (p. 6)
• You are a stakeholder (p. 7)
• Barriers to understanding your customers (p. 8)
• How organizations relate to customers (p. 9)
• Routes to the customer (p. 11)
• Customer interfaces (p. 14)
• Communications (p. 15)
• Information sources (p. 16)
• Competitors (p. 17)
• Players in the game (p. 19)
• Plans, objectives and other good intentions (p. 20)
• The spotlight is on you (p. 21)
• 2 Customers: who do they think they are? (p. 25)
• Customers - what are they like? (p. 25)
• Psychology of the customer (p. 26)
• Buyer behaviour (p. 28)
• Understanding consumer purchasing (p. 32)
• Media consumption (p. 35)
• Religious beliefs (p. 36)
• Combinations of factors (p. 37)
• Customers in your organization (p. 41)
• Customers in the buyer company (p. 44)
• Customers defined by the relationship (p. 44)
• References (p. 51)
• 3 The route to your customers (p. 53)
• Reviewing the route so far (p. 53)
• Emotional routes (p. 59)
• Where does motivation lie? (p. 59)
• Indirect contacts (p. 64)
• Gaps and other offerings (p. 67)
• Focus on internal markets (p. 68)
• The balancing act (p. 70)
• 4 Competitors and how to make the most of them (p. 75)
• Who are your competitors? (p. 76)
• Overlaps and conflicts (p. 79)
• Basis of competition (p. 87)
• Strengths and weaknesses (p. 89)
• Reference (p. 90)
• 5 Starting the planning process - where do you want to be? (p. 91)
• An overview of planning (p. 92)
• The importance of action plans (p. 95)
• Objectives and priorities (p. 97)
• Milestones and measurements (p. 98)
• Reviewing your current plans (p. 98)
• Fitting into your organization (p. 100)
• Current knowledge (p. 103)
• The new shopping list (p. 106)
• 6 Marketing - the tools for understanding and analysing (p. 109)
• Listening, asking, understanding and sharing (p. 109)
• Using the professionals - the commissioning process (p. 119)
• Sense and presentability (p. 122)
• Statistics, dumb statistics and misleading interpretations (p. 125)
• Communicating findings (p. 129)
• Reference (p. 130)
• 7 Marketing - conversing with customers (p. 131)
• External customer communications (p. 132)
• Keeping in touch (p. 136)
• Complaints - a wonderful opportunity to really communicate (p. 140)
• Internal customer communications (p. 144)
• Choosing your relationships (p. 147)
• 8 Marketing - measuring all that is important (p. 153)
• Why measure? (p. 153)
• Measuring within a cycle of improvement (p. 154)
• Making sense of your options (p. 162)
• How to use your measures (p. 171)
• 9 Virtuous cycles (p. 175)
• What are virtuous cycles? (p. 175)
• A closer look at cycles (p. 180)
• Balancing inputs and outputs (p. 183)
• Negative influences (p. 185)
• Positive aspects (p. 186)
• You, your customers and virtuous cycles (p. 188)
• Virtuous cycles - an example in E-Commerce (p. 192)
• 10 Revisiting your plans (p. 195)
• Audit (p. 196)
• Making sense of things (p. 197)
• The 'big picture' box (p. 199)
• Priorities (p. 201)
• Aims and objectives (p. 207)
• Conclusions: Not the end, this is just the start! (p. 211)
• Index (p. 213)

Author notes provided by Syndetics