6 New Years’ Resolutions for Marketers

6 New Years’ Resolutions for Marketers:from Wide Angle by Corey Mull
It’s January 9th, and chances are that some of you have already given up on your New Year’s resolutions. That’s OK – most people fail, January 1 is an arbitrary date, and most New Years resolutions are so vague as to be unactionable anyway.
So we’ll try to be different here. Here are six things that Marketing and individual marketers should be resolving to tackle in 2013 – along with example goals for each.
Focus. Our 2012 research for B2Cs told us something simple, yet revolutionary in today’s marketing environment: the marketers and marketing teams that focus unswervingly on goals related to business (not marketing) success are those that win.
Naturally, this should lead you to ask a few questions of your team: 1) are your goals truly related to the success or failure of your business? and 2) is your team single-minded in the pursuit of those goals? If not – it’s time to start driving that change, an admittedly difficult prospect in the chaotic consumer world.
Here’s what this might look like in practice: “Our team will focus on raising share of wallet with our core segments, and activities that don’t help with that are out.” Then be ruthless in excluding those activities that aren’t sure to lead to increased share of wallet.
Cull. Of course, the chaotic environment doesn’t just affect B2Cs. B2Bs last year told us that their number one problem was that their customers and prospects simply didn’t have time for them anymore: cost pressures have led to more independent research, and the staggering volume of information available to B2B buyers crowded out the content that B2B teams are increasingly producing.
The bad news? That content is the biggest part of the problem. Most B2B content marketing efforts are unfocused attempts to push suboptimal buying buttons, and the sheer volume of those attempts is crowding out content that can make a greater impact on the purchase decision.
So the imperative for B2B marketers this year is to cull content creation and limit it to those efforts aimed at disrupting customer buying criteria – taking the elements of a buying decision and turning them on their head in a way that favors your solution. A sample resolution? “We will only create content that changes how our customers think, rather than merely informing or entertaining them.”
Learn. The world of marketing is probably the fastest-moving of any corporate function; it’s imperative that everyone stay tuned in to cutting-edge thinking that helps them get their jobs done easier. In that spirit, we’ll recommend staying tuned to MLC’s 2013 webinar series (bookmark that page, check it weekly, and watch out for new additions in our weekly newsletter). Once a week or so, we run webinars featuring in-depth looks at our latest research and interviews with prominent practitioners and thinkers. We also have a monthly development series aimed at teaching new-to-role marketers the basics of the function.
Sample resolution: “I will attend one MLC webinar per month.” :)
Think globally. If you’re reading this, chances are you work for a large, multinational firm. And if you work for a large, multinational firm, we can nearly guarantee that you aren’t taking full advantage of the wealth of experience and opportunities a large, global footprint offers businesses like yours.
That’s why one key resolution for anyone working at a big company should be to take better advantage of global opportunities. Start the process by viewing and taking our diagnostic, the Anatomy of a Best-in-Class Global Marketing Organization.
Sample resolution: “We will build a knowledge-sharing system to ensure that best practices and ideas flow across all of our global teams.”
Think cross-functionally. Marketing often gets into trouble when working with other functions around the company. From finance to legal to IT, as Marketing’s scale increases, many members are finding that working with partners around the firm is the most difficult part of the job.
Too often these skirmishes can devolve into full-blown conflicts, something that could be easily resolved with a little communication and empathy. One of our best cases is all about expressing Marketing’s priorities in language the rest of the firm understands – check it out.
Sample resolution: “When we need something from IT, we won’t tell them why Marketing needs it – we’ll tell them why the firm, or better yet, IT needs it.”
Think holistically. We talk about this a little bit in another post this week, but it’s worth reiterating here. A lot of times, the complex world of marketing means we don’t have time to critically examine our assumptions. As Orwell put it, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle” – and we don’t make much time for that.
This year, resolve to think more broadly than small marketing metrics. See the forest for the trees.
Sample resolution: “Every time we spend money or allocate time, I’ll think of one thing that we’re not allocating our time to.”