Stop Following Marketing Playbooks and Start Exploring
The Myth of the Universal Marketing Playbook
The most dangerous assumption in early-stage marketing is that success can be replicated through rigid playbooks. Whilst frameworks provide valuable structure, the reality is that each market, customer base, and product requires unique exploration to unlock growth potential.
This challenge becomes particularly acute when marketing leaders transition between companies, expecting previous tactics to deliver similar results. The complexity deepens when considering that what drives explosive growth for one organisation may prove completely ineffective for another, even within the same industry.
Why the Explorer Mindset Transforms Early-Stage Marketing
Traditional marketing approaches treat the discipline as either a coaching function with predetermined plays or a mechanical process with repeatable systems. Both metaphors fail to capture the reality of early-stage marketing, where uncertainty dominates and market dynamics shift rapidly.
The explorer mindset recognises that successful early-stage marketing requires deep investigation into customer psychology, market readiness, and unique value propositions. This approach acknowledges that breakthrough growth comes from discovering what others have missed, not from executing what everyone already knows.
Russ Somers, VP of Marketing at Quantified, validates this approach through his experience across successful B2B SaaS companies including TrendKite (acquired by Cision) and Invodo (acquired by CoCreativ). Speaking on a recent episode of Spotlight on B2B Marketing, Russ confirmed: "I don't think we are sports coaches. I don't think we are mechanics. I think we are especially in the early stage explorers and I think we need to embrace that."
This perspective shift explains why identical tactics produce vastly different results across companies. PR and events—typically considered difficult to scale—might drive one company to acquisition, whilst aggressive outbound sales motions prove essential for another. The difference lies not in the tactics themselves, but in how well they align with customer behaviour and market dynamics.
The Customer Research Foundation
The explorer mindset demands intimate customer understanding before tactical execution. Too many marketing teams begin with channel strategies and campaign concepts, then struggle to achieve resonance with their intended audience. This backwards approach wastes resources and delays growth.
Effective exploration starts with comprehensive customer research, examining both existing clients and target prospects who haven't yet discovered the solution. These conversations reveal whether genuine pain points exist, how urgently customers seek solutions, and what messaging frameworks drive purchasing decisions.
The most valuable insights often emerge from prospects who fit the ideal customer profile but remain unaware of available solutions. These discussions provide unfiltered perspectives on market readiness, competitive positioning, and the language customers use to describe their challenges.
Strategic Frameworks Without Tactical Rigidity
Successful exploration requires structure without constraint. The most effective early-stage marketing leaders employ systematic frameworks for evaluating opportunities whilst maintaining flexibility to pursue unexpected discoveries.
Host Karen Lloyd observed during our discussion the crucial distinction between rigid playbooks and flexible frameworks, noting that "frameworks are great. Playbooks are different." This insight captures why successful early-stage marketers need structured thinking without prescriptive execution.
A practical approach involves mapping potential marketing activities across two dimensions: ease of execution and likelihood of effectiveness. This matrix allows teams to prioritise initiatives that offer the highest probability of success with available resources, whilst identifying longer-term opportunities that may require additional investment.
This framework thinking provides decision-making guidance without the rigidity that kills innovation. It acknowledges that early-stage companies rarely achieve statistical significance in their testing, making intelligent experimentation more valuable than rigorous scientific methodology.
Technology as an Exploration Accelerator
Modern marketing explorers have access to tools that dramatically accelerate discovery and execution. Artificial intelligence, in particular, offers unprecedented opportunities to scale research, content creation, and strategic analysis without expanding team size.
The key lies in treating technology as specialised team members rather than simple automation tools. By creating custom AI solutions tailored to specific marketing functions—from content development to market analysis—small teams can maintain strategic focus whilst ensuring tactical execution doesn't suffer.
As Russ affirms from his experience implementing customer-centric marketing approaches: "if you haven't talked to a customer today, it's probably time." Technology should amplify this customer-centric exploration rather than replace it.
The Competitive Advantage of Flexible Exploration
Companies that embrace the explorer mindset gain significant advantages over competitors following rigid playbooks. They adapt quickly to market feedback, discover unique positioning opportunities, and develop authentic customer relationships that drive sustainable growth.
This approach also enables more effective resource allocation. Rather than spreading efforts across predetermined channels, explorer-minded teams concentrate resources on activities that demonstrate genuine traction with their specific market.
The explorer mindset also fosters team resilience and adaptability. When marketing professionals understand their role as discovery-focused rather than execution-focused, they become more comfortable with uncertainty and more creative in problem-solving.
What can marketing leaders implement to build explorer capabilities within their teams?
Establish customer research as a core competency: Allocate at least 20% of team time to direct customer conversations, both with existing clients and target prospects, ensuring continuous refinement of market understanding and competitive positioning throughout the growth journey.
Develop systematic opportunity evaluation frameworks: Create structured approaches for assessing new marketing initiatives, such as impact-versus-difficulty matrices, that provide strategic guidance whilst preserving the flexibility necessary for market-specific adaptation and creative breakthrough thinking.
Prioritise adaptability and curiosity in hiring decisions: When building marketing teams, particularly for first marketing hires, focus on candidates who demonstrate exceptional learning agility and customer empathy over those with narrow specialisation in specific channels or technologies that may not align with your unique market dynamics.
Leverage technology to amplify human exploration: Deploy artificial intelligence and automation tools to handle routine content creation and data analysis tasks, freeing human marketers to focus on strategic customer research, creative problem-solving, and relationship building that drives sustainable competitive advantage.
Karen Lloyd, January 2026
About Karen Lloyd
As the founder and director behind our recruitment approach, I bring almost 30 years of unique expertise spanning both recruitment and marketing. Having placed my first candidate in 1996, I've since built 5 start-ups, served as a Board Director for 25 years, and developed recruitment strategies that work in competitive talent markets.
I'm also the host of "Spotlight on B2B Marketing", where I explore B2B marketing trends with industry leaders. My passion lies in helping global businesses grow their revenue-generating teams through strategic hiring and fractional CMO services.
About Armstrong Lloyd
Armstrong Lloyd goes above and beyond being a pure search firm - we partner with your business because we have all stood in your shoes as experienced hiring managers, marketing, and operational business leaders. We have a hidden network that goes beyond LinkedIn searches, adverts, or referrals from ex-colleagues to ensure you're getting the top 1% of talent.
Whether you need interim leadership, marketing team building, or executive search across the UK and beyond, the team at Armstrong Lloyd are here to ensure you reach your commercial business goals by building the best marketing team and strategy to give you a competitive advantage.
Ready to transform your marketing team? Let's talk about how we can help you hire the right talent at the right time.
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