5 Resolutions for Digital Marketers in 2014
January is the time for New Year resolutions. The marketing team at PML decided we’d share some of our best ideas for New Year resolutions for digital marketers in 2014. The top five resolutions follow:
Resolution #1. Embrace Integrated Marketing. Look at your entire marketing effort and what is happening with your business results. Some of the smartest CEOs and marketers that we worked with in 2013 have started to make this shift. Instead of asking, “how is my SEO doing?” or “Is Social Media providing measurable results?”, the smartest marketers are recognizing that marketing your brand, product and service is a multi-touch process. It is the reason that Google has put so much effort into channel attribution.
Check out this graph to get a sense of how channel specific search terms like “Web Marketing”, “Direct Marketing” and even “Mobile Marketing” are being surpassed by the more inclusive “Digital marketing” (the blue line below).
Comparison of search volumes for digital marketing, web marketing, mobile marketing, direct mail (digital marketing is in blue)
The more you think of it as all part of an integrated marketing plan, the more effective you’ll be. It actually simplifies your big Key Performance Indicators too. Are your sales growing? Marketing probably had a lot to do with it.
Resolution #2. Enroll your team. The marketing-sales team divide is notorious for poor communication. Make 2014 the year when you break down those barriers! Enroll the sales and executive team as content experts. Interview them for great blog ideas. Teach your line workers your elevator pitch. Give them reasons to brag about your company on social media.
If everyone is rowing in the same direction, your team will be unstoppable.
Resolution #3 – Try something new. Do you run experiments (aka AB Testing) on a regular basis? If not, now is a good time to get started. Once a month, try a change on your home page or a popular landing page. Test out a new format on your email marketing. If you’ve never tried PPC, give it a shot. Maybe you want to test the waters with a new market niche. The beauty of trying something new is that you can learn from the successes AND the failures.
Resolution #4 Blog regularly. This is a popular personal resolution that can yield big results. HubSpot reports that companies that blog receive 55% more visitors than sites that don’t blog, on average. Do you have trouble getting started? Check out Julia Cameron’s work on morning pages as a way to loosen up.
Resolution #5 Stop the drama! Everyone has their pet projects. Everyone has their preference for colors, fonts, language. As humans, we naturally expect that everyone sees the world the way we do. Guess what? They don’t! In fact, its quite possible that your clients like something completely different then you do.
What to do? Take your emotions out of your marketing decisions. Make your decisions based on the actual results and not your preference. Run tests (see #3) and objectively try to understand what the data tells you. Do you know why something is different then you expected? Don’t guess. Find out the facts.
By the way, your marketing meetings will be far more productive if everyone doesn’t feel like they have to wince when they numbers aren’t good. Create a culture that is more focused on rolling up your sleeves to solve a problem vs. seeking out scape-goats.
What marketing resolutions have you made for 2014? We’d love to hear them. Share your comments below.
