Grassroots Marketing

The best product or service in the world will never be successful unless its provider knows how to attract enthusiastic customers.

Chelsea Green has published numerous books that promote self-sufficiency through independent work. Eliot Coleman inspired a nation of market gardeners with his New Organic Grower. Then Lynn Byczynski refined the model of horticultural entrepreneur in The Flower Farmer, and Michael Phillips followed suit in The Apple Grower. Gene Logsdon's The Contrary Farmer provides the tools to make cottage farming economically viable, while in The Bread Builders, Daniel Wing and Alan Scott lay the foundation for revival of the village baking tradition.

We expect that Shel Horowitz's Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World will be welcomed by the organic farmers, solar-energy installers, telecommuters, environmental activists, community gardeners, and straw-bale-house builders of the world. Although he doesn't presume that all of his readers will have embraced the principles of sustainable living, Horowitz's approaches are especially well-matched to the bootstrap businesses and organizations that comprise the new sustainability economy.

Horowitz's key assumption is that the diverse entrepreneurs who need this book will have one thing in common--they won't have much money to spend on marketing efforts. His book tells you:

• How to get more than your money's worth in paid advertising;
• How to get free ink from the press by turning yourself into news;
• How to develop a multi-pronged, multi-media strategy just like the big guys (but without big bucks).

Originally published as Marketing Without Megabucks (Simon & Schuster, 1993), this book has been thoroughly revised, including a major new section on the development that has been the greatest boon ever to the grassroots marketer--the Internet.