Any professional can get into a groove and follow the same routine of how they do things. This makes sense: It’s part standardizing processes for efficiency, and part “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”But communications professionals know that if their campaigns are going to rise above every other message coming at buyers and influencers across channels, “don’t fix it” is not the path to continued success or better results.The new standard in communications playbooks is to require PR pros and marketers to get out of their groove and mix things up.Experimentation and trying new tactics must be integrated into your communications planning process.However, just adding a field titled “What’s New” to your marketing and PR campaign brief may not supply the spark needed.In an environment of tight budgets, constrained execution windows and limited staff time, it may be hard to get into the mindset of exploring new channels and tactics. This article is here to help, outlining a few ways to inspire your colleagues – and yourself – to mix it up.1. Extend into adjacencies.A relatively easy way to take your program further is to add an activity or target an audience that’s similar to those activities and audiences already successfully deployed and reached.For instance, perhaps your social media promotions have performed particularly well. An adjacent tactic could be to add paid social, targeting specific job titles and driving them to the same landing page for download.While the cost in time and money is not zero, doing something new but close to actions you’ve already taken is not as complicated as powering up an entirely new activity.2. Do less.One danger of following a standard playbook is what I think of as “bringing a sledgehammer when a tack hammer will do.”Expending the same amount of precious marketing and communications resources on every project is not always optimal, and may divert energy from projects that really need extra juice.Does every new enhancement really require an identical level of promotion?Sure, you may need to take a deep breath before saying “this time we’ll be doing less of X to accomplish Y and Z” and your colleagues may think the latest new product feature deserves all the attention in the world.However, rather than supporting the latest feature with every paid and owned channel in the playbook, perhaps updating your client onboarding program will better target the users who will most benefit from and be most satisfied with the enhancement.Keep in mind that the most important thing about doing less is that it may help supply the resources to do more on your next campaign.

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