Just like a pro ball player, musician or accountant spends hours fine-tuning their forte; marketers too must practice and develop habits to become successful marketers. Your marketing habits can reveal what you and your company do well and where you can improve. After examination of business best practices and Inbound marketing methodology, we’ve identified seven habits we encourage all fresh produce marketers to consistently practice for not only your own professional development, but to also improve your company’s overall efforts.
1. Successful Marketers Set Goals
Identifying goals for any initiative helps marketers (1) evaluate whether that initiative truly supports their business and (2) stay focused on what they’re trying to accomplish throughout the process. Whether you’re launching a social media promotion or a new website, make sure your goals are SMART (strategic, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals. If you need help, try this Marketing Goals Template.
2. Successful Marketers Measure Success
Numbers tell stories. Successful marketers identify key metrics that will give them insights on past, present and future marketing endeavors. Did your website traffic increase over the last two months? Why or why not? What can you do to increase that traffic and drive momentum next month based on what happened last month? What types of content is your audience most interested in? What time do your emails get the most opens? Make a habit of measuring on a consistent basis and make sure you know why it happened it what it means in terms of achieving your goals. Check out our guide to Marketing Analytics for more help on this topic.
3. Successful Marketers Glean from Other Marketers
Just like it benefits a young professional to observe a seasoned mentor, it benefits a marketer to validate, sharpen and/or challenge their own approaches with the perspectives of others, especially in the same field. Some of our favorite marketing resources that we regularly follow include the Hubspot Blog, MarketingProfs, socialfresh and Seth Godin.
4. Successful Marketers Are Active Bloggers and Social Media Users
What better way to communicate with an audience than to meet them wherever they are in the virtual realm and have a conversation with them? Committing to both regular blog posting and having an active presence on social media not only boosts SEO, but it allows marketers to share their expertise, humanize their brand and hone their writing skills. Our Ultimate Social Media Toolkit will get you started!
5. Successful Marketers Are Master Content Creators
A successful marketer often looks for ways to offer their audience something of value in exchange for specific information. Publishing valuable and helpful content for your target audience positions a company as a valuable resource and keeps their audience coming back for more, which ultimately earns them as customers. Many companies already have great resources that can be repurposed into shared content. See our list of offers here!
6. Successful Marketers Know Their Audience
Seek to connect beyond a like, follow or pin. Do you know who is visiting your website? Where does your audience “hang out?” Which of your products is most popular among your targets? How are your products most commonly used? Whether it’s asking a question in social media posts or through online forms on a landing page, successful marketers learn all they can about their audience and adapt their strategies based on that information. The more appeal you have to your audience, the more likely you are to convert them into qualified leads and customers.
7. Successful Marketers Integrate Marketing Channels
From social media and websites to packaging and tradeshows, marketing tools and tactics should be integrated, or aligned to reinforce key messages and promotions. Integration is not necessarily a new strategy; it is the tactical execution of existing strategies. Successful marketers implement practices that support other practices.
Keep in mind that it’s important for marketers not to become set in their ways. A successful marketer remains committed to their best practices while leaving room for new practices that come with the ever changing landscape of marketing. Download our Intro to Inbound Marketing eBook for more best practices that will guide you on your way to becoming a successful marketer.
{{cta(‘3de60b2b-1bb3-4585-b10b-c5a1f259a5f1’)}}
