Customer Reviews

Marketer's Toolkit: The 10 Strategies You Need To Succeed (Harvard Business Essentials)

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There are many books in my library devoted to more specific areas of marketing, but this is hands-down my favorite for covering the basics. It provides the information in a simple and easy-to-use format, and also includes plenty of references for additional reading.

Chapter 1 covers the basics of business strategy, alignment of marketing strategy with business strategy, and explains the changes in the phases of the product or service life cycle.

Chapter 2 discusses marketing plan creation, elements of marketing mix, applying the mix to a target market, paths to customer, placement and promotion.

Chapter 3, my favorite due to its research focus, discusses formal and informal methods of market research, the research process, and methods for analyzing customer preferences. This chapter also stresses the importance of utilizing those individuals who work closely with clients for informal research. It also includes tips on making a marketing-oriented company's workforce more outward-looking, such as sending technical people to key conferences, having them continually scan the literature and industry news, and sending them on customer calls with sales reps.

Chapter 4 focuses on market segmentation, as well as the basics of multifactor, relevant and effective segmentation, targeting the right segments, and positioning the product or service in the minds of customers.

Chapter 5, Competitor Analysis, explains how to identify and size up competitors according to strengths and weaknesses, as well as how to understand the five forces that make markets attractive or unattractive.

Chapter 6 discusses brand differentiation, and explains how commodity products and services are differentiated, approaches to differentiation, and differentiation through branding.

Chapter 7 discusses "The Right Customers", and includes information on understanding how customers differ in economic value, how to focus customer acquisition and retention resources, identifying sources and causes of defection, and gaining a greater share of the wallet.

Chapter 8 is devoted to new product development. It discusses horizontal and vertical product line extensions, NPD process, the stage-gate system for go-no go decisions, and the important role of marketing in the development process.

Chapter 9 is devoted entirely to pricing, and includes helpful information on cost-plus pricing, pricing and the experience curve, pricing for "snob appeal", stealth price increases, price promotions, pricing and customer-perceived value, and pricing throughout the product life cycle.

Chapter 10 talks about integrated marketing communications, including the six steps of the purchase decision, key communication vehicles, the six "M"'s of marketing communications, and guidelines for coordination.

Chapter 11 delves into interactive marketing, and discusses online commerce, e-mail campaigns, and best practices for web-based merchandising.

Of special interest to companies doing business in multiple countries and cultures, Chapter 12 goes into "Marketing Across Borders". It covers standardized versus customized products, successes and failure among "world" products, and control of global marketing decisions.

Chapter 13 discusses the future of marketing. It goes into the importance of delivering on marketing promises, growing fragmentation of U.S. markets, accountability for results, and ethical marketing behavior.

My only (minor) criticism of this book is that, in spite of the prominence of the word "toolkit" in the title, the appendices include only 3 actual tools. In my opinion, the information provided in the above-described chapters is far more valuable than the tools.

I expected more advanced language and ideas from this book. The next revision of this book should maximize the text with more diagrams and models. This book can be read and studied in a couple of hours with the likelihood you won't pick up the book again.

Don't bother registering for Marketing 101. Instead, read this book. As part of the solid Harvard Business Essentials series, it serves as a wonderful introduction and overview of marketing in today's business environment. It provides all the marketing tools you'll need to build your marketing plan, differentiate your product, hammer away at your customers and position your brand. It also touches on pricing, utilizing the Internet and crafting the best media mix for your message. Those already in marketing might not find much new here, although this textbook serves as a cohesive, well-constructed blueprint. The subhead mentions 10 strategies, but the book has far more. We recommend it as an excellent introduction and resource to new managers and to those entering the field of marketing.

I think this book is intended for new managers to understand how marketing works within the organization. All topics and examples given are very simple and easy to comprehend. The book also provides a few graphs that help understand the subject better. This book is not for Marketing Professionals looking for advance subjects, practices or trends; as it contains material that they should know already. At the end of the book, there is a "For Further Reading" section which I think it provides good reference for future researches and studies in Marketing. Also, at the end of the book, in the appendix section, there are only three implementation tools provided as sample for the readers.

The book did not list "The 10 Strategies You Need to Succeed"; however I believe the book included more than ten strategic tips that managers should consider putting into practice in their organization. One of the tips that I considered very interesting and valuable was in reference to cost of acquiring, serving and retaining particular customers - good or bad customers. Luecke explains that some companies spend a lot of money in customers that buy very little and try to retain these low-value customers. He says that this creates confusion of loyalty with profitability and that companies should concentrate in focusing on the profitability each customer brings to the business within a period of time.

Overall, I think the book is a good book that includes very basic Marketing Strategies. I think some more graphs and more implementation tools would have helped more to the readers. I would recommend the book to new managers or any other manager that just wants to understand how Marketing works and learn about the least that companies should be doing when marketing their product or service. However, I would not recommend this book to already Marketing Professionals as this book would be too basic for them.

I am happy with what I got. The package arrived a little late, but that was O.K. It should have been cheaper though.

Book is good. Was in condition advertised. Received in a timely manner. Great book for those who know very little about marketing and advertising. Good book for Marketers who want to refresh their skills. If you're already experienced there is a lot of info in the book that you already know!

This book was really helpful for a non-marketing person. I have bought 3 copies now to pass around to other management. What I like is that it's not a book about the latest marketing trends, but a good overview of the basic concepts with enough information to start making informed choices. I neither expect nor desire to become a marketing specialist, but understanding strategies for pricing and identifying market segments helps our company at least cover the basics. The book suggests that marketing can be a mindset rather than a job title, and we have embraced it in that spirit while we look to hire and build a department. Obviously it's a nice read for management in a startup fast-growth company like mine, but maybe not needed for a more mature organization with an established marketing strategy and more experienced staff.