The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers

Jeremy Connell-Waite Jeremy Connell-Waite

Jeremy Connell-Waite

Global Communications Designer ???????

发布日期: 2014年12月18日
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A couple of weeks ago, The Drum published rankings of influential marketers in the UK. I was lucky enough to be included ~ and since then, like many others on the list, I have been sent messages and DM's asking for advice ~ "What did you do to get on that list?... How did you become influential?... What should I do as a marketer...?".

Giving those questions some thought, I collected a few responses from other people on the list and came up with this list of habits. I have imaginatively named them "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Marketers" (sorry Stephen). Of course there are many more habits worthy of a mention, but let's not get too carried away...

For now, I hope you enjoy the seven that I chose and find the links helpful...

  1. Read
  2. Write
  3. Filter
  4. Listen
  5. Study
  6. Care
  7. Learn

Management consultant W. Edwards Deming once said,

It's not enough to do your best. You must know what to do and then do your best".

This advice seems as relevant today, as it was when Deming wrote it over 50 years ago. Especially for marketers. There seems to be a common misconception among marketers that the act of knowing what to do involves expensive educations, enterprise software licenses, costly research papers and being well connected to important people ~ either in big companies or in the valley. In order to be influential there are hoops we must jump through, when in actual fact the road to success isn't actually that difficult...

Successful people just do what unsuccessful people don't do". John C. Maxwell

Of course, education, connections and subscriptions are important and have their part to play in informing, connecting and equipping a successful marketer, but I believe that we are often too guilty of over looking the small things. The things that don't cost much apart from your time. And as we have been told several times through our lives, it's usually the small things that make the biggest difference...

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Marketers ~

1. Read

TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie explains in his superb book Start Something That Matters how he gave away most of his worldly possessions to go and live on a boat, but he kept his books because, in his words, "my books are my friends". I collect old books myself so I can understand the sentiment. (Some things were never intended to be viewed or enjoyed on a Kindle or iPad).

Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?" Albert Einstein

If you are unsure of where to start your own reading journey, I'd encourage you to start with some of these books ~ many of which have made it onto all-time best seller lists. Whether you prefer a hard copy, iBooks, Kindle or an audio book, the point is to find the time to read everyday. With all the incredible information and insights that we have available to us, it amazes me how few marketers find the time to stay up to date, or invest time (re)reading the classics. In my opinion, being well read is the quickest way to get ahead...

New Books (Published in 2014)

Classics (Must reads for any successful marketer)

2. Write

The most successful marketers write. On anything... Notebooks. Artist pads. Blogs. Press. Stories. Articles... But what many people miss is that successful marketers often don't write for other people, they write for themselves. But don't be mistaken, this is not a selfish act.

If you can't explain it simply enough, you don't understand it well enough". Albert Einstein

The process of writing down ones thoughts, particularly on a complicated issue, is one of the best ways of making sense of something (especially if that thought needs to be communicated effectively to others). Mark Twain said that we should "Use big ideas, small words as short sentences", which is one of the reasons I like (micro) blogging so much. It forces you to distill your idea, opinion or comment into something small and powerful. This post is a case in point ~ it's a lot easier to write 1000 words than 1000 characters!

Writing Platforms of Choice?

  • Ideapod (1,000 characters)
  • Twitter (284m very active users)
  • Medium (The quality Sunday paper of blogging platforms)
  • Tumblr (Not just cat gifs and porn)
  • Linkedin (Obviously)
  • Wordpress, Typepad and even Quora...

3. Filter

Many marketers are frustrated with listening to the buzz of social networks, engaging in conversations, twitter chats or forums, simply because there is too much noise. You may want to find new stuff and read interesting posts of value, but it's hard to find anything useful in even the smallest newsfeed. I struggle with this myself, but I've worked hard (especially on Twitter), to make sure that my newsfeed is always relevant, interesting and useful.

There is a lot of noise and for many people, it is incredibly hard to find anything of substance in a room full of chaos. Twitter (un-filter) is like walking into a packed bar at Christmas, where everyone is shouting at once, someone said to me yesterday. I couldn't agree more...

But being disengaged is not the answer. Far too few marketing professionals follow the advice that they give to their own clients; Filter the signal from the noise, put forth the effort to start conversations, and 'engage' with interesting or influential people and you'll be fine.

We don't have a big data problem, we have filter failure". Peter Shankman

The job of a highly successful marketer is to understand filters and use them well. Whether that means only looking at Twitter lists instead of reading your full newsfeed, using Flipboard or opting to use social listening tools like Radian6 or Hootsuite ~ set up the right filters and they will serve you well. Finding diamonds in mountains of coal is certainly a lot harder than it used to be, but the right filters make the diamonds seem even more valuable when you find them.

4. Listen

For the last few years, I have lived my life via dashboards. It goes with the territory for a digital marketer, but whether that dashboard is a social media tool, Lift, an app from a wearable, Salesforce or Strava ~ dashboards help you make good decisions (quickly), and then manage those decisions.

2015 will probably be the year that we start hearing a lot more about marketing technologists and I think this is great for one reason; Too many marketers view their trade as a purely creative one ~ "We're in the people business not the technology business", I have heard people say. (Serious people who should know better). Analysts on the other hand are all about the numbers, and sometimes don't feel like it is their role to understand behaviour or explore the impact that numbers have on building relationships.

Next year will be the year that we see the most significance shift in marketers realising that they need to understand numbers and people. They need to be skilled in art and science or as I like to say; we need to provide the science behind our storytelling.

You can't manage what you don't measure". W. Edwards Deming

Dashboards are the key to success here. In your personal life (fitbit, lift, fuelband, weight watchers) or your professional life (analytics, engagement, campaign management, productivity). So whether you use free tools or have access to enterprise tools, I encourage every marketer to become obsessed with dashboards if you are not already. And I don't mean go to the extreme and measure everything. Just because you can measure hundreds of things doesn't mean that you should.

Here's a sweet video of one of my favourite people Avinash Kaushik, talking about metrics and measurement ~

If you are customer facing and building a brand, I'd recommend finding a way to only measure the things that matter. You will no doubt have your favourite metrics, but if you are measuring more than 5 things on a daily basis, you should probably re-think your strategy. Many of the biggest companies I have worked with monitor these five areas.

For any customer facing marketer unsure of what to measure, these "5 W's" are a good place to start...

  1. Who (are your customers?) ~ Demographics
  2. What (are they saying?) ~ Topics & Keywords
  3. Why (are they saying these things?) ~ Trends
  4. Where (are they saying these things?) ~ Platforms
  5. When (did these conversations happen?) ~ Recency

And when you are making sense of these insights and measuring the results, highly successful marketers often split their reporting into these two areas (this the hard part that without dashboards and accurate data you will struggle);

  • How (did we perform?) ~ Will this work again? If so, when (and to which audiences?)
  • Outcomes (what were the results?) ~ ROI or Customer Satisfaction

5. Study

Some brands seem to spend their entire lives in survival mode fighting for market share or competing on price. Other brands are successful because they understand their audience and provide them with the content they want, when they want it.

In my experience, highly successful marketers study brands who stand for something larger than themselves. Significant brands. Brands like; Philips (improving the lives of 3 billion people by 2025), Volvo (no one will ever be killed or seriously injured in a Volvo by 2020), DonorsChoose (re-inventing charitable giving for schools) or Tesla (creating the car company of the future). Understanding why significant brands exist, and what they stand for is important stuff to know, so that you can apply it to the brands and organisations you work with.

I try to study a new piece of research or one new brand each day, and love learning something new about how they operate, launch new products or build deeper relationships with their communities. One of the most impressive things I have seen this year was when Mark Zuckerberg gave an impromptu Q&A at Tsinghua University in China ~ doing the whole session speaking in MANDARIN! He claims he's managed to learn the world's most complicated language with just one hour a day of study. He's got a Chinese wife (so that helps!), but it's an interesting to think where one hour of studying something new each day might take you...

Learn about some of the world's best brands here ~

6. Care

Not enough marketers care about other marketers. Our industry is pretty small and no matter who you work for, it's likely our paths will all cross on several occasions throughout our careers. I also believe that the world is plenty big enough for us to all be successful, and there is no need to be precious about our own intellectual property. Too many marketers are overly sensitive about sharing their processes, planning or products.

The more I give away the richer I seem to become". Bill Gates

One of the biggest differences I have noticed between good marketers and great marketers, is that the best ones share their knowledge. They blog more than usual. The publish more books. Even if they don't have a publisher, they self publish or release e-books and slideshares. (Brian Solis and Altimeter Group are great examples of this). They share good advice and best practise, they congratulate agencies on good campaigns, and they compliment community managers on well managed social strategies.

You can have anything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want". Zig Ziglar

Without any agenda, the best marketers care about other professionals and treat them as members of an exclusive community. A community that loves and supports each other, and wants its members to do well and succeed. Possibly the most important habit, I believe this is the key to being a truly successful (connected) marketer.

7. Learn

All of us, no matter what our position, experience or level of authority, have access to insights, industry data, research, case studies and strategic thinking, (often for FREE!), from many of the greatest minds in the industry.

Remember that scene from Good Will Hunting...

You don’t need a $150k MBA from Harvard, Stanford or Wharton to be the best at doing what you do. You don’t always need a clever strategist to tell you what you should be thinking. You don’t need an expensive subscription to a research archive in order to identify trends in your field. And you don’t need to buy expensive books to learn what, how and why the best brands in the world do what they do.

You dropped $150k for a college education that you could have got for $1.50 in lay charges at the public library”

I think it is a shame that many professionals in our industry could be insanely great marketers; if only they put forth the time (or effort) to learn from all the information that they have (for free) at their fingertips. There are many great blogs and sites that you can learn from everyday.

Insights are things you don't know. Should know. But can change". Eric Swayne

If you’re not sure where to start - maybe some of these sites and publications can help you on your way. (Flipboard is a great way of consolidating these all into an easy to read morning digest format if you have an iPad).

Of course there are hundreds of successful habits, and each one is highly personal. You will have ones that work for you, but these 7 work for me. There are no wrong answers, I just present this post as a simple call to action for us to raise our game a little.

I'd love to hear which habits have helped you become more successful; drop a note in the comments, or give me a shout on twitter @JeremyWaite.

Thanks for reading ~ Happy Holidays!

Judy Gombita

Public Relations, Communication Management, and Social Media Specialist at PR Conversations

9 年

Nicely done, Jeremy Waite, although I would say that a lot of what you describe (as best practices) relates more to public relations ("reputation, value and relationship building" management PR, not publicity) than marketing. But when it comes to corporate culture and values (and a focus on business goals), we are (or should be) all playing on the same team.....

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