ISBN:  0975527800

The following review was contributed by:  NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures &CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

To Read Norm's Interview With the Author CLICK HERE

Torrents of titles dealing with the topic of effective marketing techniques has spawned a cottage industry of thousands of books, whose publishers rant that by purchasing their book you will invariably be led to the Promised Land.

I don’t doubt that most authors of marketing books often work extra hard to find new and creative perspectives on their subject. Unfortunately, however, most fail, as very often their approach is filled with a great deal of hype, but little useful content.

Now, along comes John M. Fox’s fresh and innovative approach with his manual Marketing Playbook: The Manual for Growing Organizations 102 of the Best Marketing Plays to Get Your Sales Team Across the Goal Line, where the author uses the metaphor of a football playbook to tutor his readers on how to develop an effective and winning marketing plan.

The manual organizes itself into 102 plays, each comprising one glossy page with full color images, wherein you have the following sections: a diagram, illustration or picture of the Play when correctly executed, next to the image you have the number and name of the Play, on the left hand side of the page you have the strategies and costs, while the center of the page consists of the Assignments and Coaching Points, and the bottom of the page indicates the Primary Receivers as types, their level, and who is the product or service best suited for.

In addition, Fox includes a value-added bonus by providing at the end of some of the pages a section called Extra Points, where you can download from the author’s website extra information pertaining to the Play. There is even a scoreboard that rates the Play’s strategic or tactical applicability.

For example, if we look at Play 35, Press Releases That Get Ink, we notice that the focus of the strategy is to get your news story in the press, what are the expected costs of a professional writer, how the marketing team and the PR agency should work together, and ends with vital coaching points.

By presenting the material in this way, devoid of technical jargon, verbiage and redundancy, fundamental principles are broken down into understandable messages that everyone can easily follow. Moreover, the book is as informative as it is fun, as the author has taken pains to be clear and concise, while keeping the tone light and approachable. Although, the author states in his notes that he has written the book from the first-person to company leaders, rookie employees and the self-employed will likewise benefit from its reading.

For those who wish to explore the various topics further, the author provides a bibliography of references, resources and additional reading that correspond to each of the Plays. There is even at the end of the manual a glossary index containing a listing of some familiar and unfamiliar terms the author uses in his presentations.