5 Habits of Successful Digital Marketers
Nowadays, companies both large and small are focused on developing their brands. Branding is one of the most efficient marketing strategies because it gives a unique aspect to businesses and helps them stand out on the overcrowded market. In addition, brands form special kinds of relationships with their customers that fosters loyalty and engagement.
People say “we are what we repeatedly do”. In other words, it is not our daydreams and plans that define us, but rather our habits and what we do every day. We often look to successful individuals like Jeff Bezos to imitate the habits they possess, dreaming that somewhere along the path we’ll discover that we are more productive or motivated in our daily lives.
However, the ever-changing and dynamic nature of today’s digital marketing world requires from us that we don’t get caught up in the chaos of everyday tasks and goals, constantly watching our to-do lists, but rather concentrate on a sustainable routine, a ritual, or at the very least – key things that can ensure our digital marketer success.
Resisting the heat
Unless you’ve already experienced it, it is difficult to appreciate the pressure that comes with owning digital marketing for an enterprise. There are a lot of people counting on you to have the best possible strategy, and if things go south, you are the one who will take full responsibility. There is a need for a certain kind of personality to take this heat.
For instance, you will need to have healthy ways to manage your stress levels – with exercise, mindfulness, sleeping enough and on time(when you can), and eating healthy. Your moods and emotional reactions will often affect everyone around you, and if you’re nearing burnout, everyone around will too. This easily creates a toxic work environment.
Take your life as it comes – work when you must, but rest when you can. Or, at least you can look at your time off as something needed for work. In other words, rest for work.
Concentrate on networking
Marketing is, by itself, and extroverted kind of job. In this industry, networking is prevalent and is wanted rather than ignored. Although industry networking events may be a bit too time-consuming for some individuals, the strength of networking on LinkedIn for digital marketers should never be neglected.
Networking on LinkedIn pays off beyond just understanding who to approach or hire next. It’s a great tool to either throw out a question to the public in your feed and based on the type of your connections you can get some interesting answers. You can also directly reach out to the people that you’ve connected to for well-informed and accurate responses.
Maybe you aren’t sure about which metrics are more important, how to find a new feature on the platform or are stuck trying to decide between which tool to use for a particular purpose. Reaching out to someone far more experienced can help you with this.
Enjoy the adventure
Some of the most successful and well-known brands were built by adventurous digital marketers who weren’t afraid to roll the dice and take a risk or two. Although “risk” is definitely nothing trivial, it’s crucial to branch out and try new things in order to be the best digital marketer you can be.
Going for a freelance marketing career? No problem. Although the status quo reassures us, don’t be afraid to question the “natural order” of things and experiment with approaches that are innovative and definitely not a part of a tradition. For instance, if your company never tried Basecamp for project management, try incorporating it into your next campaign.
The habit of asking
This is almost obvious. Asking “Why” give your job a purpose. And yet, most digital marketers forget to do this. All the time. We spend our days putting out existing fires instead of trying to predict and resolve future ones. Checking to-do lists, receiving phone calls almost constantly and answering emails without the presence of mind to stop for one second and ask – “Why”?
Try incorporating into your daily routine to stop for a brief second, take a few deep breaths, and in that moment of clarity ask, “Why am I doing this”? If you can’t answer swiftly and clearly, you need to realize you have gone so far afield that you’ve forgotten what you were doing the first place. Start with some simple exercises for your own business:
- Why do we have social media?
- Why do we blog?
- Why do even exist as an organization?
- Why am I doing – whatever it is – today?
Utilizing the adequate tools
It is fundamental to utilize the proper tools to save both your sanity and time. Digital marketing tools such as Sniply can assist you in increasing traffic to a website or improving your conversion rate. While project management tools like Asana or Basecamp can help you manage and organize both your team and personal projects.
Use the benefits of automated marketing systems that enable you to scale your digital marketing efforts efficiently. If there’s a tool that can lessen the burden of time and money constraints or one which could dramatically improve your productivity rate – you may need to grab it with both of your hands.
In the end, learn to be patient. Patience is the virtue of the gods – only they have all the time in this world. Patience is more than a virtue. If your weapons in the digital marketing career are your smarts and hard work, then patience is the shield you use to protect your sanity of mind. It will also come in handy when waiting for the result of any digital marketing campaign. Although you need to be willing and able to innovate and try new stuff, it is also crucial to give each new initiative time to yield positive results.
Guest Poster – Elaine Bennett
Elaine Bennett is a digital marketing specialist focused on helping Australian startups and small businesses grow. Besides that, she’s a regular contributor for Bizzmark Blog and writes hands-on articles about business and marketing, as it allows her to reach even more entrepreneurs and help them on their business journey.