Beware The Tick Box Swamp

In too many B2B organisations, the creation of Go Market artefacts such as Personas, Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), Sales playbooks, and demand models is driven by high levels of initial enthusiasm for the concept, which does not survive contact with operations. In effect, the work becomes a “tick box” exercise, where, if asked, we can say ‘we have one of those’, but not ‘we use one of those’. This unadopted content ends up in the expensive mess that I think of the “Tick Box Swamp.”

Tick Box Content

The Road to the Swamp is Paved with Good Intentions

Nobody intentionally sets out to do work that no one benefits from. Equally, few request such work to be done on their behalf. And yet, some organisations develop vast quantities of content that are never read or actively used.   But why should this be?   Here are some of the problems we’ve observed:

  • Tick Box Thinking: Content creation is based on an internal obligation. As such, it is disconnected from the business objectives or pain points that would make it worthwhile.
  • Production-Based Mindset: Marketing teams are often pressured to produce content at high volumes to meet campaign deadlines or fill sales portals, regardless of whether the materials will be used effectively.
  • Misalignment Between Functions: The lack of alignment between Sales, Marketing and Product teams results in materials that are disconnected from the needs of users.
  • Over-Engineering of Assets: Producing materials that are too exhaustive or detailed to be helpful.
  • Generic Content. Work that lacks the focus necessary to be helpful.

Personas: The Prime Offender

In my experience Personas are the classic example. They are meant to bring buying teams to life, but many organisations build persona libraries that are rarely referenced. If I ask, ‘How do you use the personas you have developed’? An uncomfortable silence is usually followed by a description of why they are not. In my experience, the reason they fail is that they were not designed to be actionable.

The Wider Problem: From ICPs to Playbooks

Beyond personas, other GTM artefacts suffer from similar fates. Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), Sales playbooks, and demand models are frequently created only to satisfy internal processes. However, without a focus on adoption and continuous improvement, they constitute more of a value leak than a value add for the business.

For example, organisations often pour significant resources into developing Sales playbooks. Yet, as with personas, these playbooks are underutilised. By failing to start small enough in scope to make adoption realistic, they are never updated with the feedback that would make them so effective.

Product-led organisations are also notorious for building substantial bills of materials (BOMs), filled with countless marketing, sales, and technical resources.

Time to Drain the Swamp

This mindset shift to get out of the swamp is for organisations to build (and test) fewer, more focused assets that are designed with user adoption in mind.

If early adopters get involved and provide feedback, the materials will improve and gain wider adoption. If the process of designing, building, testing, and reviewing is cross-functional, adoption rates will improve further.  The Swamp will start to drain.