Handbook of Marketing for Continuing Education, Robert G. Simerly et al. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1989, 521 pages.

Donald L. Kasta

This handbook sets out to be a comprehensive guide to effectively marketing continuing education courses and programs in small, medium, and large organizations. It succeeds admirably. It brings together original chapters from leading scholars and practitioners and treats virtually all aspects of the marketing process in a most effective way.

Simerly's definition of marketing goes well beyond advertising, promotion, and publicity to take in the entire complex series of events "whereby an institution exchanges information regarding attitudes, wants, desires, values and needs with its environment." From here his two lead articles discuss how marketing can be incorporated into strategic planning, how it can be an important factor enabling the organization to achieve its mission and how it can aid organizational renewal.

The book makes the important point that because an institution's mission, goals, and objectives often lack clarity, its marketing efforts often lack clarity. In such cases marketing usually turns out to be a series of loosely constructed activities that lack focus because they are not designed to achieve specific goals.

Subsequent sections deal with the following key areas: positioning an institution most effectively in a market; carrying out direct mail, public relations, and advertising campaigns; keeping abreast of market changes to en-sure long-term success; and several more. Detailed advice is provided on how to design registration forms to collect data on clients, tracking results of public relations efforts, and budgeting for marketing activities. Important suggestions are made for including all staff in a marketing orientation approach to operating a continuing education unit.

The following three requirements of a successful continuing education unit are drawn from different sections of the book and bear mention:

1. the need to insure that the image the unit is portraying is not at odds with the image the parent organization wishes to portray;
2. the need to insure that the unit should always align itself with the parent institution's values; and
3. the leader of the unit must develop a thorough understanding of the culture of the parent organization and must be perceived as a strong partner in assisting the institution in reaching its goals.

The organization and presentation of the material is excellent: eight major sections, each with four or five individual presentations by different writers. These are complemented by several case studies presented briefly and followed by an informative analysis of the cases. Included as well are numerous guidelines and suggestions on "how to" accomplish specific marketing tasks, executive summaries at the end of each of the 33 articles, and a valuable section on resources that includes an extensive annotated bibliography. The result is a work that is eminently readable and an excellent reference source.

One disappointment with the book involves the section on positioning and the absence of any reference to the need to determine where the institution and its products fit in the hierarchy of needs of its potential customers. This can be important in developing effective advertising.

The introduction to the book advises that the principal editor is interested in "helping organizational leaders improve their daily leadership effectiveness." It would be unfortunate if this important work were read only by those we traditionally associate as being involved with the marketing function because one of its main strengths is the way it shows the critical role marketing should play in the overall management of a continuing education unit.