Click here to learn more about The Small Business Promotion Guide

Who is Johanna?

Johanna Baker-Dowdell is the owner and manager of Strawberry Communications. We’ve been chatting on twitter for quite a while and I really trust the information she provides. She has a lot of practical industry experience and is one of the best people I know to deliver this ebook to Aussie small business.

The content

How do I get started?

In this chapter, Johanna lists a number of questions that a business owner should ask before seeking promotional opportunities. These were very similar to the ones recommended in Marketing School, but are a lot simpler.

Write an attention-grabbing media release

I really liked this chapter. Many products I’ve read discussed the importance of press releases, but didn’t explain how to create an effective one. She:

  • gave tips on writing a create media release
  • Provided a media release template

After reading this chapter, I decide to enquire about her media release services. I’m convinced that she could help me grow my business,

Use the media

She initially recommended that you start with the local media. This is similar to the concept of bloggers guest posting on the smaller blogs. It creates a sort of snowball effect until eventually, the big names take notice of you. I plan to target the local media initially so this chapter was really handy.

Social media

I really appreciated how Johanna emphazied that social networking was about relationships. She could have easily hyped it up like other products.

She focused on three social networking sites:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

Each section was only 2-3 pages long but it gave enough information for you to ascertain whether a platform fit with your business goals.

The final chapters focused on:

  • Email marketing
  • Giveaways and competitions
  • Strategic alliances

These are concepts that many social media users may already be quite familiar with. I appreciated how she simplified the information for an audience that isn’t as web savvy.

What I liked:

It was a lot broader than most books

A lot of the books I read seem to JUST focus on social media. I liked how she focused on other methods of promoting your business

It was easily digestible

This contained enough information to absorb in one sitting. It made me feel confident enough to promote my site through other methods.

What annoyed me:

The following are minor annoyances, but these are the problems I see a lot of first-time ebook authors use. I hope that Johanna doesn’t mind me using her awesome ebook as an example:

  • Its short. The font size is larger than most ebooks I’ve read and I felt like this was unnecessary. Many people worry about meeting a minimum page length but most don’t care. They just want good content, which she provided.
  • She should have moved the bio to the end of the book. While it is useful to know more about the author, I prefer a short bio at the start and then use the end bio to encourage the reader to check out other content.

The content is really solid. I would have actually used this product as a free ebook to promote my services, but I know that Johanna already has a lot of happy clients.

My verdict:

I really liked this ebook, but it is too basic for most of my readers. I would only recommend it to those who have very little understanding of media releases and social media. For that audience though, it will revolutionize the way you look at promotion.

Click here to buy it now.