The Marketing High Ground : The Essential Playbook for B2B Marketing Practitioners Everywhere

Sales has their playbook. Now B2B marketers do too! This is the one guidebook each member of the marketing team should read and master.

The Marketing High Ground is about three things and how to do them well: building and evaluating personas, positioning statements, and messaging. Packed with practical and powerful advice, templates, and techniques this playbook is a valuable resource that guides marketers to dramatically improve their go-to-market programs and drive revenue.

There are a lot of marketing books out there that talk a good story. This one actually shows marketers how to make a real difference. This action-oriented show-and-tell book focuses on how to build and execute more effective integrated marketing campaigns. Gospe illustrates the path to the high ground through three key steps: 1) creating a targeted persona as a reflection of a real target market, 2) drafting compelling positioning statements that are truly unique when compared against competitive alternatives, and 3) telling your story through a well-honed set of relevant messages guaranteed to engage the persona and not waste their time. Taken together, these three best practices will put you in tune with your customers’ buying process. This book shows you how, with lots of examples, descriptions, and a prescription for success. Whether you work at a large enterprise, a start-up company, or a family run business, these best practices are essential for driving successful product launches and executing integrated marketing campaigns that drive sales.

J. Michael (Mike) Gospe, Jr. is an accomplished leader, marketing strategist and corporate executive who understands what it takes to market to today's B2B companies. He is co-founder of KickStart Alliance, a sales and marketing leadership consulting team where he drives integrated marketing and voice-of-the-customer programs, including Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meetings. He is author of "Marketing Campaign Development", and his writings have been put to use at companies like Adobe, AMD, Bluecoat, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Emerson, FedEx, HP, KPMG, Rackspace, RedHat, Symantec, and scores of others across three continents. Join Mike on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mikegospe Follow Mike on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikegospe