Marketing Speaker for Creative Businesses

David Parrish is an international speaker on strategic marketing for creative businesses and entrepreneurs.

His approach to marketing begins not with promotion, advertising or social media, but with some more fundamental business questions:

Only after answering questions like these does it make sense to decide how to promote the business, which communication channels to use, or what to say to potential customers.

Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur, business adviser and author, David helps creative businesses identify their competitive advantage, choose the right customers and opportunities, and build a focused marketing strategy around them.

Strategic Marketing — Choosing Where to Compete

Successful marketing isn’t about trying to sell everything to everybody.

Different customers want different things — and different businesses have different strengths.

David shows how creative enterprises can identify the particular combination of strengths that gives them a competitive advantage, then focus their marketing on customers who value those strengths most.

This approach turns conventional marketing thinking around.
Instead of asking simply “How can we sell more?”, David encourages entrepreneurs to ask:
“Where can we compete most effectively — and which customers should we therefore choose?”

Marketing then becomes a matter of strategic choice, competitive advantage and focus, rather than simply more promotion.

Chase One Rabbit

David develops this approach in his book Chase One Rabbit: Strategic Marketing for Business Success. 63 Tips, Techniques and Tales for Creative Entrepreneurs.

The title comes from the proverb:
“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.”

For David, successful marketing requires choices. Businesses cannot pursue every possible customer, market, product and opportunity equally well.

He encourages entrepreneurs to understand their competitive advantage, identify the opportunities where they have the greatest chance of success, and concentrate their resources accordingly.

This is particularly important for entrepreneurs and smaller creative businesses. With limited time, money and resources, deciding what not to pursue can be just as important as deciding what to pursue.

Strategic Marketing Keynote Topics

David can tailor keynote speeches and presentations around themes including:

The emphasis can be adapted to creative entrepreneurs, startups, established creative businesses, business support organisations and other audiences.

Practical Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs

David’s approach comes from practical experience rather than marketing theory alone.
He has started and managed businesses himself and has advised creative enterprises internationally on strategy, marketing and business development.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM) and a Chartered Marketer.
His presentations therefore combine professional marketing expertise with the realities of entrepreneurship.

David uses practical business tools, stories and international examples to explore questions familiar to entrepreneurs everywhere: Which opportunities should we pursue? Which should we reject? What makes us different from our competitors? Who are our most valuable potential customers? And where should we concentrate our limited resources?

His aim is not to provide audiences with another collection of marketing tricks and techniques, but to help them think more strategically about where and how their businesses can succeed.

Invite David to Speak About Strategic Marketing

David speaks about strategic marketing at conferences and events for creative entrepreneurs, creative businesses, startups, creative hubs, business support agencies and organisations supporting the creative industries.

A keynote can also form part of a wider programme combining speaking, training workshops, books for participants and other business-development activities.

Contact David to discuss your conference or event

For videos, testimonials, other keynote topics and more information about working with David:

Explore David Parrish as an international keynote speaker