Maintaining a Career in Marketing - Here's What you Need to Know
(Marketing)
Brian Wallace, Founder & President, NowSourcing
A marketer's work can be difficult in today's always-on, virtual environment. We live in a fast-paced culture, what was new last year is now old news. As someone in marketing, it is imperative to stay up to date on trends. If you find your marketing knowledge is outdated you should consider going back to school and furthering your education. With schooling comes costs - however, there are many financial resources for education out there and the knowledge you’ll gain will pay off in the long run.
If you are up to date on the trends and you’re looking for tips on streamlining your skills to achieve maximum success then this article is right for you. Here are a few tips to set yourself apart from your competition and reach your career goals.
1. Consider the customer's perspective
Marketers should take a mental approach, imagining and "seeing" into their customers' minds. They will be able to observe and perceive their own job in a new light if they make it a habit to actually see and feel what the customer goes through. This can help marketers create more engaging content, more customized marketing materials, and more appealing services. Stepping into a different zone (i.e., the client's thinking) can be a powerful and actionable creative activity.
2. Complete the most difficult jobs first
Marketers should prioritize the most important tasks and efforts first thing in the morning and reserve the less important tasks for later when their cognitive power is less. You can get the difficult, mentally taxing tasks out of the way so you may relax for the rest of the day. It's easy to become sidetracked or fall behind if you don't have a work method that works for you. Because everyone works in a different way, you must choose which working style is ideal for you to attain the best outcomes.
3. Pay attention to detail
Although marketers are naturally creative, they must embrace the cold, hard world of data analytics if they want to gain a deeper understanding of their target market. Marketers can utilize marketing data analytics tools to discover what their target audience is more likely to engage with, click on, watch, or subscribe to using objective data. They also enable marketers to do A/B split testing to see which efforts are more effective in accomplishing a given objective than others. Using data analytics, marketers may streamline their workflows and focus on actions that convert customers.
4. Scheduling time blocks
Account maintenance takes minimal time and ingenuity if done on a regular basis and by the same account manager. If you come across a project opportunity when keeping track of your accounts, don't pass it up. Projects and maintenance work should be scheduled separately; do not mix the two. As a result, as part of your maintenance, take the time to create thorough notes so that you can readily jump back in later. If the project you created for yourself has numerous tasks, make sure you leave yourself enough time to complete each milestone when you finally sit down to work on it. You will be more productive as a result of this separation of work and time management, especially when it comes to giving more strategic value to your clients.
5. Be aware of current trends
The most important habit a marketing expert should establish is understanding current trends and being able to translate them for your own brand or audience. Oftentimes marketers must put their preferences aside and recognize that their opinions won’t always be in line with the project. Market sentiment is in charge of everything.
In conclusion
Marketing professionals must not only develop a captivating brand image and message, but also learn how to modify marketing resources to a number of platforms and apply best practices to each of them. To keep up with the demands of the modern marketing business, professionals should consider furthering their education and adopting specific habits into their workflow.
About the Author: Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of NowSourcing, an industry leading infographic design agency in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s. Brian runs #LinkedInLocal events, hosts the Next Action Podcast, and has been named a Google Small Business Adviser for 2016-present. Follow Brian Wallace on Linked
