I recently met with a CEO who asked me “so what’s your usual playbook?” Wow. There are a lot of problems with that question and the person who asked it. First and foremost, any marketer who thinks they can create a playbook of tactics that will fit any given company should: (a) find a different career; (b) find an industry that hasn’t evolved in the last 10 years – hint: there isn’t one; or (c) work for someone who isn’t expecting much out of their marketing and sales teams.
Playbook marketing implies every situation is the same no matter the season, audience or product. In other words, marketing is a series of tactics with no need for a brain to create the appropriate strategy.
Companies who only hire demand generation professionals without balancing them with strategy are unwittingly falling into playbook marketing. If demand generation efforts aren’t put into context of unique product value and audience, the result is likely to be raw leads that may not equal the most likely buyers. Gathering a large number of these may actually slow the entire sales cycle. “Good conversations” with leads who aren’t the right target mean at best your sales team will have multiple calls with several layers of contacts before they find the right person. At worst, a large number of incoming, indiscriminate leads will distract your sales reps from closing deals.
Soon after Salesforce.com launched, Marc Benioff hired actors to protest in front of a Siebel conference. Siebel called the police and a marketing legend was born.
Clearly, this was not from a playbook, but it worked. I’m now occasionally asked if we should add protesters at a competitors user conference, as if it is now part of a standard playbook. Benioff’s protest worked because it was pure guerilla marketing. Most people hadn’t seen this before. It was attention grabbing because it was fresh, creative and spoke to the target audience.
Fortunately, this past week, I had two CEOs say “I’m willing to try anything if it will get results.” It’s not surprising that each helms a successful company. Their questions balance the need to be creative with the need to measure results. Creativity without measurement is a waste of time and budget. As more executives acknowledge this, I predict we will see marketing tactics continue to evolve. Although the new approach is likely to include digital, social and guerilla marketing, it will also include tactics that continue to deliver positive results such as SEO, analyst relations and surveys. The result will be continually improving marketing programs with improved ROI, and there is no playbook for that.
