Want to become a better marketer? Here are 21 tips.
- A better marketer should use a personal voice, not a corporate one. Lose the corporate voice in your content. Speak like a human being.
- Make your content helpful, even giving away stuff you think you should get paid to share.
- Stay focused on a few critical strategic corporate initiatives, invest in them, go deep in enriching them, and make them invaluable to your audience.
- Work harder with your teammates in other departments or parts of the business to understand how you can help them if they need to align with the company’s overall objectives.
- Keep refining who you serve -whether you call it an ICP (ideal customer/client profile), a persona, or a target. Make sure you are marketing to the right audience.
- Test tactics and set up easy-to-follow metrics of success.
- Network with other marketers to borrow a tactical idea to try that seems novel in your industry. A better marketer who wants to learn is always sharing.
- Spend even more time with customers – even if you listen to a sales call or a follow-up customer service meeting. Look for unspoken truths.
- Organize the day to allow time for helpful interruptions – don’t be so rigid that you are overbooked.
- Get away from work at some point during the day to clear your head. It is a mistake to think that if you grind it out, you’ll be more successful. Sometimes the epiphany comes from a walk around the neighborhood.
- Ask for advice on a specific challenge from several senior people in the company. They’ll appreciate that you want their perspective and, the best ideas don’t always come from an experienced professional in your field.
- Become known as a generous helper and listener. Opportunities come to those who are open to possibilities.
- Challenge yourself to learn one new piece of software that could help you with your marketing career. Being a novice again allows you to see significant (or terrible) user experiences first-hand. What you learn may be a great lesson to improve your brand’s communications.
- Observe yourself changing – why did you switch brands, order something new, or sign up for a newsletter. Catch yourself being influence and examine why you did something different. It may offer clues for your effort to persuade customers, direct reports, or other stakeholders. Practicing self-awareness is a better marketer’s best teacher.
- Stop doing something you have done for years to allow room for something new. You may have gotten 90% of the value out of something you keep doing, and it could be time to let a recent activity into your world.
- Learn to not be afraid of silence. Sitting quietly – daydreaming, meditating, or just being is a powerful way to allow what is urgent and essential to emerging through all the noise.
- Sign up for some webinars or demos of new marketing automation or technology so that you can learn something new and perhaps gain a refreshed approach to problem-solving.
- Try something new like Lunchclub.ai to make connections with people who share some of your interests. Don’t have a plan –create a new friend, learn about their life and work, and offer to help them if you can.
- If you are working from home, consider working in different rooms during different parts of the day. I find my bright, colorful dining room a great office in the afternoon. In the morning, I like to sit in a comfortable chair in the living room. When you move to a new space, your energy shifts, as does your thinking.
- Take a mid-day break by watching a 15-minute Ted Talk on something you know nothing about. It can help you see a challenge anew.
- Be appreciative and offer thanks to people you work with or who are part of your daily life. Being grateful helps keep you anchored in your emotional intelligence by sensing, feeling, and showing warmth. The better marketer has a high EQ (emotional intelligence quotients).
Now, isn’t that better?
Looking for help to be a better marketer?
I can help. You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
