Tips for a Successful Year in Marketing

As we embark on a new year, full of opportunity and optimism, it’s in marketers’ best interest to explore new ideas and question old strategies. That is, after all, how change is made. However, most marketers may have more than just a couple of changes they would like to make in their overall strategy. How can you evolve and improve your marketing and still remain focused on budgets, return on investment and other important measurable objectives? Here’s a brief list of tips for building a successful year in marketing for any organization.

• Recognize the customer is king. How you communicate and treat your customer will have a greater impact on revenue than content. However, as a marketer it’s important to encourage customers who have had a great experience with your organization to share their story with other members of your online community. Reviews on professional directories, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn hold more weight with your prospective customers than your promotional content.
• Understand your buyers’ journey. Consider your potential customer’s thought process and what’s important to them. With a better understanding of how your customers are thinking, you can create content that is interesting and relevant to them based upon where they are in their lifecycle with your brand.
• Learn something new. Dr. Christopher Puto, Dean of the Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas, suggests:

Marketing fundamentals, such as meeting customer needs, effective positioning and messaging, and knowing the competition haven’t changed in decades. However, the technologies and data sources for tracking these are changing at warp speed. Failing to keep up is a certain recipe for falling behind, but today’s environment offers many more ways to stay abreast than in years past. Whether it’s attending a conference, participating in a seminar, enrolling in an online class, or attending an executive education program, there are more tools and resources than ever before to help you improve your competitive edge.

Do you have any tips you would like to contribute? Share them with me on Twitter @lllittlefield and join the conversation #ROImktg.