• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, March 6, 2024

Using buzzwords can make you sound smart or in the know.  They can also make you sound outdated and unoriginal.  For example, when I ask my kids about their “drip,” they perk up because I am talking about their clothes -- but if I say that drip looks “dope,” they look at me like I have three heads.  These are slang terms, and they become buzzy in much the same way.

A few years back, marketers threw around the word “cohort” to sound smart when they were talking about testing and analytics.  A cohort was a group of users you followed through an entire journey rather than looking at the data stage-by-stage.  A cohort analysis gave you a better insight into the full customer journey vs. the step-by-step analysis that gave you a one-off view.

These days the buzzword I hear most often is “playbook.   A playbook refers to the plan you have for meeting your objectives.  You can have a playbook for anything, and saying you have one makes you sound smarter and more organized.  It sounds like you may actually know what you’re doing, rather than winging it.

If you have any level of experience, you probably do have a playbook, or a series of typical steps you follow to fulfill objective you are trying to achieve.  Me?  As soon as everyone started talking about playbooks, I got a new level of anxiety because I figured I needed to write one down.  If I hadn’t written it down, how could I be sure I have a playbook at all?

I realized I do have my own playbook after all. I also realized a playbook is meant to be flexible. A good marketer knows when to stick to the playbook and when to call an audible, throw it out the window, and work with the specific situation.

In fact, the sports analogy is the best way to think about a playbook.  The best coaches have a playbook, but when the defense is getting the better of them, they know to look at adjustments during halftime and do what works, regardless of what was in their original playbook.

Being a marketer, you start with your playbook for message and media, then you start looking at the data.  You determine what works, what doesn’t, and where to place your attention to maximize your return.  You may have hypothesized that search would be your foundation, but then be forced to go another way when you realized the competitive clutter in the paid search arena for your category.  You thought events would be your bread and butter, but quickly realized an event-based strategy is only as good as the people you have on the ground at events.

Building a marketing playbook is as much about what strategy and tactics you want to employ as it is in the discipline to know when to ditch your playbook and try something new.  What’s interesting is that when you become known for a playbook, it can actually be uncomfortable to abandon it -- but a great marketer knows when they are not doing the right things to achieve the objectives they’ve laid out.  A great marketer knows when you need to go off-script and do something different.

So, if you want to build a playbook, go right ahead.  I recommend you put your thoughts down on paper so you know what your typical plays would be.   Then, don’t be afraid to realize you may be running some outdated plays and it’s time to find a new way of doing things.  You just might surprise yourself and come out even better than in the past.