Book excerpt: Businesses that thrive-and the managers who run them-have one thing in common: they make their decisions based on meeting their customers' needs. They are good marketers. Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of such business owners-and his own as an entrepreneur and consultant-into this guide to attracting customers, persuading them to buy, and turning them into customers for life. Learn how to increase the return on your advertising investment by following a few basic rules of the game. Find out what makes your customers tick and why they buy from you-or your competition. Discover how to build your profits on a solid foundation of good marketing skills. In the first two sections, managers and entrepreneurs just like you tell how they handle the nitty-gritty details of creating ads, buying media, designing promotions, and all the many other tasks of good marketing. Insightful case studies of small companies across the country-retailers, manufacturers, service providers, and more-help you see how marketing drives successful business strategy. As a bonus, section three contains twenty-three promotions and ad campaigns you can use. Study them, run them, or adapt them to your specific needs-they've all been proven to work for businesses just like yours. The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing & Advertising isn't about theory-it's about how to succeed in the real world of small business.