The problem with best practices is that everyone's using them

Best practices are supposed to be the shortcut. The proven playbook. The thing that works. Someone figured it out, documented it, and now everyone can skip the hard thinking and go straight to execution.

The problem is that everyone did exactly that. And now every B2B company is running the same plays, using the same frameworks, following the same advice - and wondering why nothing stands out.

The gated ebook followed by a five-email nurture. The LinkedIn thought leadership carousel with the contrarian hook. The webinar with the panel and the Q&A. The ABM programme targeting the same accounts with the same intent data from the same providers. The lead scoring model weighted the same way it was weighted in every blog post that explained how to set up lead scoring.

None of this is wrong. All of it is average. Because when everyone follows the same playbook, the playbook produces the mean, not the edge. Best practices are a floor, not a ceiling. They tell you the minimum viable approach. They don't tell you what's going to make anyone care.

How best practices become background noise

A best practice starts as an insight. Someone tries something, it works, they share it. Others adopt it because it worked for the first person. Consultancies package it. Vendors build it into their platforms. Conference speakers present it as essential. Within a few years, it's the default - not because it's still the most effective approach, but because it's the safest.

This is the lifecycle of every marketing tactic that gets labelled "best practice." It was innovative when one company did it. It was effective when ten companies did it. It became invisible when a thousand companies did it. The buyer who received one gated ebook in 2016 paid attention. The buyer who receives fifteen a month in 2026 doesn't register any of them.

The tactic didn't stop working because it's bad. It stopped working because it's ubiquitous. The buyer can't distinguish between your nurture sequence and your competitor's because they're structurally identical - same cadence, same content types, same CTA progression. Best practices made them that way.

The safety trap

The real appeal of best practices isn't effectiveness - it's safety. Following the established playbook means never having to justify a risky decision. Nobody gets questioned for running a standard nurture. Nobody gets challenged for building a lead scoring model that matches the industry template. Nobody gets fired for doing what everyone else does.

Trying something different means taking a risk. What if it doesn't work? What if the numbers dip? What if leadership asks why you didn't follow the proven approach? The incentive structure in most marketing organizations actively punishes experimentation and rewards conformity. Do what works. Don't break things. Hit the numbers.

So the team follows the playbook, hits mediocre numbers consistently, and presents them as evidence that the approach is working. The approach is working - in the sense that it produces predictable, average results. It's not working in the sense that it differentiates the company, captures attention, or gives the buyer any reason to choose you over the fifteen other companies doing the exact same thing.

Safe marketing is invisible marketing. And invisible marketing is expensive - because you're paying the full cost of production for a fraction of the impact.

What happens when someone breaks the playbook

Every standout marketing moment in B2B comes from someone doing something the playbook didn't recommend.

The company that ungated all its content when everyone else was gating - and saw organic traffic double because AI and search engines could finally find their best work. The team that killed their nurture sequence and replaced it with a single, honest email from a real person - and saw reply rates triple. The brand that published a brutally honest comparison of their product against their top competitor - including where the competitor wins - and became the most trusted source in their category.

None of these were best practices when they happened. Some of them have since become best practices - which means they'll stop working soon too, as everyone copies the approach and it becomes the new default.

The pattern is consistent: the companies that break through are the ones willing to do something the rest of the industry considers risky, unproven, or counterintuitive. Not reckless - thoughtful experimentation that starts from understanding the buyer rather than following the template.

Best practices as a starting point, not a destination

The answer isn't to ignore best practices entirely. They exist for a reason - they represent accumulated knowledge about what generally works. A team that knows nothing about lead scoring is better off starting with the standard model than inventing one from scratch.

But the team that's still running the standard model two years later without questioning it, adapting it, or testing alternatives isn't being disciplined. They're being lazy. Best practices should be the foundation you build on, not the ceiling you operate under.

The questions worth asking about any best practice: does this still work in our specific context, for our specific buyer, in the current market? Is everyone else doing this - and if so, what would be different enough to stand out? What would we try if we weren't afraid of deviating from the norm?

Most teams never ask those questions because the playbook provides a comfortable answer. The comfortable answer is also the average answer. And the average answer, in a market where every competitor is following the same playbook, is the invisible answer.

The companies that win aren't following the playbook

They're writing their own. Not from arrogance - from understanding. They know their buyer well enough to know where the standard approach falls flat. They've tested enough to know which best practices actually work in their context and which ones are just inherited assumptions. They have leadership that tolerates short-term uncertainty in exchange for long-term differentiation.

The playbook will always be there for the teams that want safety. It'll produce the same results it always produces - consistent, predictable, and indistinguishable from everyone else.

The teams that want something better will have to put the playbook down and start thinking for themselves. That's uncomfortable. It's also the only path to marketing that anyone actually notices.