3 Steps to make you a better Marketer.

Marketing is hard. There's no doubting that at all. I have been working at Bluprint Global for the past two years in the Marketing team and I have faced many challenges along the way. I know two years doesn't seem like a long time and there will be many marketers out there with years and years of experience on me. However, I found that I have faced challenges that others haven't and learned lessons that you should over time, within only a few months. The reason for this is, I work in a startup. There are many reasons that working in a startup can be challenging, but If I had to pinpoint a few, they would be; resource can be low, strategies can be fast/forever changing and everybody sees everything (so don't mess up).

The Three Steps

The three steps that I have identified are simple to implement and they have made me a better marketer today. I want to share these steps and as simple as they are, if you get this right early, the faster you will progress.

Step 1: Don't be a Perfectionist

This is a tough step for people to take, and it's in at number 1, so I bet you're thinking number 2 and 3 must be really tough... well keep reading to find out, because I haven't planned that far ahead yet. So when I say don't be a perfectionist, you've really got to know when to draw the line.

For me, I always find that I'm 'waiting to build up a 2-month bank of content' or 'I can't start this blog unless I've got all 3 steps planned out'. This is just me being a perfectionist (not to be mistaken for a procrastinator). Often you will find that you will have an idea that is great, but you get carried away and try to predict the outcomes and what to do after you complete the first phase etc.

This can become counterintuitive, your best bet here is to start executing. Once you execute, you begin to see the pieces coming together, and suddenly, things that you have worried about, no longer become an issue, some things you haven't even considered may even become an issue, but this is good. If I had a project with 4 weeks to execute and I spent 2 weeks planning only to come across an unexpected issue by week 3, you can bet that the project will fall to pieces and more issues will come up due to being in panic mode. To avoid this, plan the basic structure, and encounter problems sooner rather than later so you can react calmly and move the project on more efficiently than you have before.

Step 2: Treat Every Fail as a Win

Take this title with a pinch of salt, this doesn't mean that if you're missing deadlines or not producing any content then you are winning. It means that despite the fact that you are producing content and hitting deadlines and cadences etc, you are still not seeing the results you wanted. It's easy to become disheartened when this happens.

It happened to me a few weeks ago when I set up a series of webinars expecting masses of people to flood for such knowledge... However, I was met with almost 80% fewer attendees than expected and I immediately felt as if the campaign was a failure. After taking time to reflect, I found the positives from the campaign. One was that I have now acquired data on what platforms I was getting the most engagement from the ads I put out. Another was that I can see where there were flaws in the content that didn't capture the attention of the audience and I could go on.

Setting time aside for reflection should be a part of your campaign plan. Embrace the failures as they come, learn from them and bank it in your marketing brain and leverage it for future efforts.

This post does a really good job of articulating the need for failure. https://bit.ly/FailureAnalogy

Step 3: Communicate

I cannot tell you the number of problems that I have faced/been a part of because of a lack of communication (working in silos). Not only is it frustrating as it is probably one of the easiest problems to avoid, but it's also massively embarrassing when you tell your manager/stakeholder that you haven't got something done because you just didn't ask. Trust me, I have lived this embarrassment and it's not good.

The best way to communicate is to over communicate. The way we now operate as a team is by holding daily huddles and weekly sprints. During these two meeting, we cover what we are doing in a week, problems that we are facing and what we are doing in a day. The sprint is a weekly meeting (roughly an hour long) in which we address what projects we have on and what we are going to do in a week to push them projects further along. The attendees have tasks assigned to them and agreed upon deadlines (communication). Off the back of this, we meet every morning at 8:30 for 15 minutes to go over what we tasks we are doing that day and air any barriers we might be facing, we never solve the problem there and then, we just make the person with the problem aware of who can fix it and they meet elsewhere to do so (super communication).

Try this in your team, start with the huddles and maybe build up to the sprints. It will allow you to execute more effectively and even allow you to take on more work without feeling overwhelmed.

In a nutshell

Don't wait for the perfect moment, it will never come and you won't be able to make progress. Execution is your best friend, you will find issues quicker and solve them faster, and more importantly, you have the satisfaction of content going out the door.

Be successful at failing. Although very cliche, you will learn so much more from failing, it's about what you do with the results that counts.

Communicate. Don't let something as little as not talking be the reason you don't get shit done. You are a team, each of you has a strength that compliments the person you work with, you just need to collaborate.

I haven't put this blog together for you to avoid any of these points that I have outlined, I have put it together hoping that you do face these issues. It's not about avoiding tough situations, it's about being able to identify them in yourselves or others early and having the knowledge to react to them appropriately.