What lead generation and demand generation leaders including CMO’s and CSO’s can learn from the NFL this week……..

We read a fascinating breakdown this week by a writer for the Wall Street Journal that highlighted the unique and individual strategies and tactics of each NFL Team before the season kicks off. We couldn’t help but see so many out of the box strategies based upon personnel, key positions that people play for each team and how those correlated to what the team did vs. what they played according to theories. The interesting correlation to Marketing is how little we see position players doing what they are good at any more.   Oh but what a difference it was ten years ago.  A lot of prospects we talk to our running the same plays and same offense they did three to five years ago. The key difference is that now they use demand gen software and marketing automation to conduct the same strategies and are tasked with three times the amount of work and required experience and skills in vastly different skill sets.  Maybe were a bit naïve but we think the best marketers that will continue to excel will innovate and not follow the herd and do what they individual do extremely well.  Now keep in mind many consulting/analyst firms all try to teach the best practices that they analyze from their customers so of course it’s going to come out similar or formulaic. That is how they make money do this and yes they preach that you too will be successful unfortunately you need a fortune 100 budget to do that and not all of us have that!  What have we found very interesting about the article is the specific outcomes that each team came up with based upon the talent and how the strategy could apply to that talent. When has a best of breed sales and marketing organization built there plan around their team’s skill sets? We think it’s backwards right now in a majority of organizations. Here is what the consultants and analysts say that is formulaic and we think you should consider this.  So often we run into marketers that don’t like what they do or do what they like. Back to the NFL, very rarely does an NFL team put a position player into another position or have players that can play multiple positions like in High School or even College in some instances. So we challenge you to think about figuring out what to focus on with your position players on your team vs. following the herd on mass marketing playbooks by the “experts”.