Content marketers: 10 habits for success
We get marketing-focused emails delivered to our inbox. We attend industry conferences to learn new skills and how to develop better marketing strategies. We join Meetups for networking and sharing tips and tricks.
We do all of these things to stay sharp and up to date on today’s best marketing practices and become more effective marketers.
I do think there are some great habits content marketers can adapt into their schedule to become more successful and skilled in digital marketing tactics.
If you’re looking for habits to pick up to become a better marketer, here are my picks for the top 10.
1. Read everything
Sign up for emails, read blogs, download ebooks or buy real books, or if push comes to shove listen to podcasts or watch videos – but take in as much information as you can! Make time every day to read and learn and think about how you can apply what you just read to your marketing strategy.
Often you’ll get insights into what’s working for others or why something isn’t working the way it should, as well as brainstorm some new tactics you can use in the future. Read up on what other marketers are sharing or reporting success on to get your creative juices flowing.
2. Stay up to date on trends
This is very similar to reading everything but focused on specific skills and techniques to make sure your brand is following the current standards and best practices. You wouldn’t go to a dentist that offers you a shot of whiskey before a root canal, so why would you as a content marketer advocate for outdated digital marketing practices?
By knowing the latest trends, you can make sure your brand is competitive in today’s ever-changing landscape and promote yourself as a leader for your marketing team.
3. Track everything
You can’t know if you’re a successful content marketer if you’re not evaluating your efforts and results. Successful content marketers report on their work and analyze what worked and what didn’t as well as plan for the next month or quarter to continue to improve.
Make time for self-evaluation and set your own goals for growth as a marketer outside of your 9-5 job. Analyze the data to determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie as a marketer and identify opportunities to grow, or even ways to share your strengths with your team, like an internal training.
4. Save inspirational pieces
See an ad that you want to emulate in the future? Love the design of an ebook? Save these pieces in an online drive or folder for when you’re feeling stuck on a project so you know you have a place to draw inspiration from or get the ideas going.
I’ll save screenshots, links to articles, and PDFs in my inspiration folder, and have sub-folders so I can find the piece I want faster instead of going down a rabbit hole of good marketing campaigns.
For emails, I love, love, love reallygoodemails.com and it’s my go-to when I’m working on a new campaign for a new brand.
5. Study your branding guidelines
Keep your messaging and branding on point and get it right every time by using your branding guidelines as your bible. Not only does this strengthen every piece of content by being on-brand but it also saves you and your team’s time from edits and feedback rounds so you can start working on your next project.
6. Watch your competition
Want to out-perform the competition? Then you better know what they’re doing! A competitive analysis can help you see what they’re publishing, meet their target audience, and potentially uncover opportunities your brand is missing.
Did they publish a good ebook? Why not cover similar topics in an interview with an industry influencer or host a webinar where you share your best practices or industry research on the same topic?
Knowing your competition can help you come up with better marketing campaigns and learn from their mistakes without making them yourself.
7. Check in with sales frequently
Sales and marketing, the business world’s version of the bickering couple. Neither department is successful without the other but both often think they’re #1.
To be a successful content marketer, you have to have a great relationship with your sales reps. You both need to trust each other and listen to each other’s ideas and know each other’s goals, and then work together to achieve them.
Have regularly scheduled meetings and check-ins with your sales team and invite them to provide input into your content marketing plan for the month, quarter, or year. They know your customers very well and can tell you what information customers are looking for and when – so you can make sure your content is timely and relevant.
8. Write daily
Have the discipline to devote time each day to writing. It’s an essential skill for any content marketer and only gets better with practice and can even help you overcome writer’s block.
Writing each day strengthens your creative muscle and you can practice different types of writing, too. Creative writing, journalistic writing, andSEO-focused writing like headlines and meta descriptions are just a few different types of writing you can do each day.
9. Understand KPIs
I already mentioned tracking everything and this one takes it a step further by truly understanding your KPIs and metrics. If you don’t know what a certain metric is really telling you, you can’t make informed decisions on what to change or test.
Content marketers have to be versed in website analytics, email analytics, and social media insights and be able to look at the data quickly and draw conclusions about what’s working, what isn’t, and how and why their audience is engaging with their content.
10. Cross-train
Learning skills outside your day-to-day responsibilities can help you grow as a professional and also help you bring new ideas and ways of thinking to the table with your regular projects. If you spend more time focused on blogging and ebooks, take a stab at ad copywriting or social media posts to learn how to write for different audiences and in different mediums.
What other habits do you think help make content marketers successful? Share your tips over on Twitter!
