Being able to identify your marketing goal and determining if you are running effective campaigns is an integral part of being a successful marketer. If your campaign is not moving the needle, then it is time to revamp or replace your current strategies.
That is why it is so important to be clear about what your marketing goals are. You can have all the clever tricks in the world, but without knowing what you want the effects that trick will get you are limited.
With no true aim, you will burn out quickly trying to achieve nothing more than having fun with marketing.
If this sounds like you, then it’s time to work on yourself as a marketer before you devote too much energy into achieving something that isn’t clearly defined.
Definition of term: Marketing strategist
A strategic thinker uses logical reasoning to determine the best course of action. They weigh up pros and cons of different alternatives and choose the option that seems most likely to succeed.
This could be choosing between two similar products or services, investing in a certain product over another, finding new ways to improve an old one, or creating and implementing a new strategy or tactic.
In other words, a strategic person thinks forward from here, not backwards from where things were earlier.
As a marketing strategist, you will need to know how to evaluate whether or not your current tactics are working and what you can do to make your messages more persuasive.
Being able to identify your strengths is one of the most important things for yourself as a marketer. You need to know who you are as a person, how you process information, and what types of messages appeal to you.
As you begin to develop marketing strategies, you will want to consider your strengths and which ones you have in previous experiences.
For example, if you are very organized, you may decide to be more creative with your advertising or messaging. Or maybe you’re good at writing content, so you could focus on creating and distributing that content.
Being a marketing strategist means staying informed, reading up on brands and industries that are in front of you and learning from what works for others. You will also need to hone your writing skills, as most marketers have to write promotional material or advertising messages to spread their brand’s message.
Reading is one of the best ways to do this. There are many free resources available via apps, online books, blogs and forums. People who are part of communities like these make content they feel people would want to read so why not take advantage of it?
By investing time into reading, you’ll find yourself spending less time looking through materials and more time creating yours!
Another way to stay motivated to read is by making a routine out of it. Create an hour every day where you read and learn. The easier you make it, the better.
There is no reason you should avoid any genre or type of book; anything can teach you something new. Just make sure you’re engaging with what you’re reading and that it is relevant to your career goals.
As mentioned before, being a marketing strategist means having people that work for you. You are responsible for their employment, so you need to make sure they are motivated to be part of your brand and company.
As a leader, you must establish trust with those under you in order to keep them working hard for you. Make sure they feel like they can succeed without much help or guidance from you, but instead, they will gain success because of their own talent.
This is not only important at the individual level, it is also important at the organizational level – if someone needs constant reassurance, how well can your organization function?
It takes time to develop trust, especially when there are changes made, which sometimes happen even due to external reasons (like budget cuts). This cannot always be avoided, but making an effort to relate to each other as individuals and proving yourself through action makes a difference.
Another way to create trust is by giving clear goals and assignments. When everyone knows what they should be doing and how they fit into the bigger picture, it creates motivation.
Being a successful marketer means being in close touch with others, and constantly looking for ways to connect or influence them.
This is not only important at the outset, but also as you advance in your career. You will undoubtedly meet people along the way who can help you achieve your goals.
Whether it’s getting an introduction to someone who could lead to new opportunities or offering advice that could aid their campaign – take notes!
And don’t forget about giving back too - developing relationships with other marketers is a great way to learn and strengthen your own brand.
Grow your circle of friends both internal (team members) and external (potential employers/colleagues). Your colleagues are like our second skin; we form strong bonds with some easily, while they may feel distant from those around them.
Become aware of these differences and work hard to resonate with everyone. This will create trust and collaboration, which are key success factors in today's marketing landscape.
As mentioned before, marketing strategists are professionals that develop and implement strategies to promote and market a product or service. With the explosion of technology today, there are never ending opportunities to use it for business.
With all this new technology, however, comes a problem: how do you know which one will work? You have to test them to see if they work and are effective!
That’s where having a background as an artist can help you. Artists create art because they know why they need to make it. They understand aesthetics and how to apply them to their medium.
Likewise, marketers need to understand why something works and doesn’t work to effectively convey that information to others.
As a marketing strategist, you would be doing just that- trying out different tools and techniques to see what works best for your company and its products.
As mentioned before, being a marketing strategist means knowing how to educate others about your product or service. This can be done through social media postings, blogs, advertisements, etc. Your business’s website is an important place to start as it represents what your company wants to convey about itself.
Your content should tell people something about you and your products or services while also establishing solid relationships with your followers. You want to connect with them so they will trust you more and look up to you.
The hardest part of becoming a marketer is figuring out who you are as person and company first. Once you have that down, creating engaging content becomes much easier.
As mentioned before, being able to come up with new ways to market your product or service is a great way to get into the marketing field. But what makes a strategy effective can be difficult to determine.
It’s hard to tell whether an approach has worked unless you have proof that it did. So how do you know if your tactic works?
You cannot! That is the part that many people get stuck on – coming up with new ideas. You will never know if they work until you try them!
The best way to ensure that you don’t waste your time trying ineffective approaches is to use theories and lessons learned to help you create your next successful campaign.
There are several theory-based methods to learn from when it comes to creating new campaigns. The two most common ones are called vanguard studies and systematic innovation.
Vanguard studies look at past successes in order to find out why those strategies succeeded where others failed. By studying these things, you can pick and choose which parts of the recipe you would like to replicate and add onto yours to make your own success story.
Systematic innovation does just the opposite. It looks at failures in order to figure out what caused them to fail and then uses that information to brainstorm new strategies to avoid such pitfalls.
This article will talk about both concepts in detail and how you can apply them to develop your own marketing strategies.
Being a marketing strategist means staying informed, developing your skills and learning new things consistently. This can be done through education, reading books, listening to lectures online or in person, attending workshops and seminars, and keeping up with trends in the field.
Education is one of the most important resources you can have as an aspiring marketer. The more education you have, the higher your career ceiling will be.
Most marketers start out with a bachelor’s degree before moving onto their master’s or PHD. Even if you don’t go straight into management positions, being able to display strong academic achievements will open many doors for you.
Having a social media degree or some sort of digital marketing certification also goes along way towards showing employers that you are engaged and aware of current technology.
If you are already working in marketing, take time during off-hours to learn something new. Or better yet, try exploring different areas of marketing such as analytics, creative design, advertising, etc.