22 things you can do to be a better marketer this year

Those blissful, blurry days between Christmas and New Year can be the perfect time to set up your year ahead… if you can manage to shake off the food coma and flick the switch on your brain’s ‘Out of Office’.?

This past week I had a little break, enjoyed (another) satisfying annihilation of the England cricket team, got my booster shot, and spent some time thinking about the year that was at Gathar. It's the last two I hope will pay dividends for months to come.

When you’re grinding through the day-to-day, it’s not easy to look up, step back, and reflect. Actually, it’s really hard. Especially in start-up world, your time as a marketer is always better spent planning, scheduling, analysing and reporting… right?

I’ve always found those times when I can get off the tools and into a retrospective headspace put a pep in my step when I bounce back into the office and reminds me why I genuinely love marketing: because we get to create real connections between people and our brand.

So, I did the thing. I asked myself the big questions: What’s working for us? What’s not? What’s missing? And the most important question of all: What’s happening in our customers’ worlds that can help us connect to them in a more meaningful way?

All my thinking, pondering and wondering has lead us here: 22 things you can do to be a better marketer and bring some of that New Year’s energy to your brand this year.?Let's do it.

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1. Give your database a cleanse

Show me a brand that doesn’t have a big, cold chunk of its database who opted in for some competition long ago, never to engage with a single eDM again. Give them one more chance to stay in touch, then purge away.?

2. Ask your community what they really, really want?

Interactive Stories with quizzes, polls, and Q&A boxes are always big engagement drivers (who’da thunk it – Instagram likes it when you use their features!) so use the tools and ask your audience what kind of content they want to see from you. Then create it.

3. Connect with likeminded brands

We need to be talking about the power of partnerships more. Genuine brand collaborations that align on shared values and a common customer want/need are just *chef’s kiss*. Check out Collabosaurus if you don’t know where to start.

4. Join communities – find your people

How many networking events did you make it to last year? Nothing beats a conversation IRL, but we’re the WFH people now. You can still talk shop, share your knowledge, and grab virtual coffees with new and interesting people through digital communities.

5. Look for inspo beyond your industry

When you were doing the networking-in-person thing, did you ever feel like you were chatting to the same people? Connecting with fellow SMEs (subject matter experts) is great, but stepping outside your circle can open up a whole world of new insights and inspiration.

6. Share what you know

Sharing your expertise is a great antidote to imposter syndrome. I have the benefit of working with a close-knit team who I'm constantly inviting in for a look behind the marketing curtain (sometimes against their will). Set up a Lunch & Learn, get on your soapbox and break down those silos between your teams by sharing what you know.

7. Be spam smart (and proactive on data privacy)

Can you believe the whole Facebook's #newsgate saga was less than 12 months ago? What a decade this past year has been. We have a responsibility as marketers regarding how we gather and use personal data, and this includes gaining active consent. Do the right thing. Don’t piss people off.

8. Refine your reporting

Chances are you’re running your December reports if you’re reading this in real-time. If the way you report is dragging you down, stop. Everyone likes different types of reports: snapshots, in-depth, pivot tables, etc. Ask your manager what they want to see. Ask them point blank: is this report valuable to you? If not, how can it be better?

9. Start planning for Christmas now! (Okay, maybe not now. But soon)

How does it get on top of us every single year? Put a reminder in your calendar right now to start planning for Christmas, or whatever occasion leads to a seasonal spike for your brand. Future you will thank you for it.?

10. Challenge the meetings beast

Humans love routine and we will roll on with the same, weekly, hour-long meetings, until they’re cancelled and we do a little desk dance. Know that you have permission to ask: "do we need WIP this week?" "am I needed for the full meeting?" or "can we knock this over in 15 minutes?"

11. Speak to your staff on the frontline

There’s no sales without marketing, no marketing without sales. We are two sides of the same coin and what we each do is inextricably linked. Make time to meet with your sales or customer care teams regularly. Their insights should absolutely influence your work.

12. Check up on your competitors

You start a new gig, whip up a competitor analysis matrix, and never look at it again. Sound familiar? Beyond looking at their performance, it’s always good to keep an eye on competitors in your space: their innovations, brand evolutions, and any newcomers.

13. Scrutinise your best performing pages

Google Analytics (see also: HubSpot) is a marketers’ best friend. You should be digging for insight gold in there every day. Look at your top performing pages and see what makes them so tasty, then try to replicate that special recipe across your other site pages.

14. Write more blogs

Google is still all-knowing and organic traffic is still worth its weight in gold, so do your research and write those blogs. Call them 'articles', if you hate the word blog. Just remember to write for the reader – not for the search engine. Keyword cramming is so 2012.

15. Bring it back to your customer

If you take away just one point from this list, let it be this one. It doesn’t matter what your product or service offering is if it doesn’t match your customers’ needs. What ?? Problem ??? Are ?? You ?? Solving ?? For ?? Them?

16. Batch your content creation

I spend 2 days planning, creating, and scheduling our social content for Gathar each month. I start with any topical events (World Cheese Day!), look back at our top performing social posts, check UGC, and make sure we have a spread of content that showcases the breadth of what we do.

17. Check those traffic spikes

Can you sense a theme here? We’re looking backwards to move forwards. Have a gander at your traffic from the past calendar year; what can you attribute any traffic spikes to? Targeted campaigns? Marketplace shifts? New product or feature launches? Find out.

18. Re-assess your channel mix

Doing things simply ‘because that’s the way we’ve always done it’ is wrong. That kind of thinking is the enemy of innovation. Are you wasting budget on channels that don’t produce tangible results? Do you have dormant social accounts? Trim the fat.

19. Subscribe, read, listen

I wish I was a podcast person, but I’m too much of a daydreamer and my mind wanders instantly. I do, however, love my email newsletters (shout out to Flux and Fast Company, in particular). All my newsletters automatically go into a folder in my inbox, which I read through either in the morning or at lunch.

20. Set some personal L&D goals

My #1 tip for becoming the best marketer you can be is investing time in your own development. It’s hard to fit L&D time in with everything else, so if you didn’t catch that webinar this week or complete that module on time just move the goalpost – don’t remove the goal.

21. Ask for feedback

Your brand asks for feedback from its customers and so should you. Ask for feedback from your manager, your peers, your clients, your agencies. Get specific about it: "do you have any feedback for me on how I managed Campaign X?" And give them a head’s up, if you can: "During our catch-up I’d love to hear your feedback on how you think I went with X."

22. Learn to listen. Really listen.

You've asked for the feedback, now be ready to hear it. Most people don't really listen; we're too busy thinking of the next thing we want to say and sometimes interrupt because we want to say our piece RIGHT NOW. But silence is golden, and active listening is something you can always work on.

It's an incredibly valuable skill I can guarantee will help you be not just a better marketer, but a better leader, colleague, and person. Even though you’re a pretty great person already.?