The digital marketing landscape is filled with a plethora of tools and technologies that can make decision making difficult for many marketers. From analytics to automation and programmatic advertising, marketers today are facing challenges of ensuring proper measurement, creating a strategy that aligns with both sales and the business, and creating meaningful connections with target customers.
The key to succeeding with your digital marketing efforts is to get focused on what matters most to your business and what’s actually going to move the needle. Here are a few ways you can transform your digital marketing today…
Less Is More
Do any of these statements sound familiar to you?
- “We should be on YouTube because there’s over 1B users on there.”
- “We have to also use Pinterest because there’s over 66M active users per month.”
- “Don’t forget Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email marketing, blogging, mobile, local events, and everything else too!”
You get the point. Whether you’re in charge of a marketing department, the CEO of a startup, or a small business owner, you already know that getting overwhelmed by all of these requests can get in the way of being productive. However, the most successful marketers and marketing campaigns have been the ones where you focus on doing less and yielding higher results before adding more to your plate.
Map out your marketing roadmap by understanding the following:
- Where are your existing/potential customer online?
- What type of conversations are they having? How can you participate in those conversations?
- What are the top three executions you will implement within a 90 day window?
- How will you eliminate the noise of being everywhere and become more specific about being at the right place at the right time?
- How will you get cultural buy-in? (Marketing isn’t just a one-man job; it requires an entire organization to be collaborative and participate).
- Nail down the top metrics you will need to track to show progress.
- Nail down a budget to work off of. Stop settling with “yeah if we see progress, we’ll spend more, but for now only spend this much.” Build a model around spend and potential ROI – that way, you’ll have a budget that will foster your efforts, not hinder them. By not doing this, you risk falling into the bucket of having high expectations with little ability to yield amazing results.
Break Down the Silos
Traditionally, there’s always been tension between the sales and marketing teams. The reason why this exists is because you still haven’t moved past the culture of making every team work in silos. The solution? Break down the silos and don’t allow for finger pointing.
Simple analogy: Just because you have a great quarterback doesn’t mean you’re always going to win football games. You have to make sure everyone works together – meaning, the offensive line is doing their job in keeping the quarterback safe allowing time for the play to take place; the coaches have to call the right plays and know how to use the team’s strengths against the opponent’s weaknesses, and so on.
Running a company shouldn’t be any different. In order for you to become profitable, all of players within the organization have to work together and have a team-oriented mindset. What this means is that you focus less on people’s deficits, but more on how their strengths can help push the company as a whole ahead.
Be Transparent
It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s also okay to talk about those mistakes – specifically, what you learned from them and how they will propel you to make the necessary changes to yield the best results possible.
Have a solid strategy to paint the bigger picture and use data to show people how far or close you are with moving towards achieving your objectives.
Here are a few things you can start doing now:
- Create a marketing dashboard that is accessible by everyone in the company to view at anytime if they are curious about what marketing is working on, the results, etc.
- Send out monthly updates that are high-level and include key metrics that you are tracking to show progress.
- Have weekly meetings with sales. Make sure you guys are always on the same page and able to be open about the challenges and successes both are having.
Final Thoughts
I’m sure some of you are saying, “Suttida, this stuff is sometimes easier said than done when working with a bunch of type-A personalities.” None of the above will take place overnight. It’s about making progress, not being perfect. Be communicative and make data one of the top priorities because it’ll help with decision making both in the short and longer-term.
Have comments or questions? Share them with me in the comments section or email me directly here: suttida@fastmarkit.com
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