Football fans know the value of a team's playbook: It contains their overall strategy for victory and details the specific plays (tactics) that they must execute in order to win.
In The Marketing Playbook, authors Zagula and Tong lay out the five basic marketing strategies—or plays—behind all marketing moves that can eventually lead to success. They make the grand claim that these Fabulous Five "really covered all the situations we faced" and "seemed universally applicable."
Part one introduces the five plays: Drag Race (beat your competitor in head-to-head races), Platform (sustaining and exploiting your success), Stealth (gaining a foothold against a strong competitor), Best-of-Both (finding the untapped middle market of a category), and High-Low (the inverse of the previous play, i.e., how to split a category, working both ends to oppose the middle).
Part two illustrates how to map the playing field before you jump in: Measure the overall terrain of the market including trends, determine your customers' frustrations and unmet needs, analyze your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and, finally, assess your own capabilities.
Part three explains how the plays you've designed come together in a marketing campaign, and then the game begins.
The book's vivid examples are taken from the authors' decade-long experiences in marketing (both as marketing execs with Microsoft) and as venture capitalists. Also called in for illustration are studies from Henry Ford, Toyota, Marriott, and less well-known firms such as Pure Networks.—Poping Lin
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Steve Hooper
1. Getting Started
Part I. Choosing the Winning Play—Determining and Executing the Best Strategy for Your Situation
2. The Drag Race
3. The Platform Play
4. The Stealth Play
5. The Best-of-Both Play
6. The High-Low Play
7. Shifting Gears—Moving from Play to Play
Part II. The Terrain of Your Play—Mapping the Gaps and Opportunities in Your Market Playing Field
8. Mapping Overall Industry Gaps
9. Your Customer Playing Field
10. Your Competitive Playing Field
11. Assessing Your Own Capabilities
Part III. Running the Play as a Killer Campaign
12. Pulling the Campaign Team Together
13. The Campaign Brief
14. Campaign Deliverables
15. Conclusion and Call to Action