2018 is only weeks away … and with it, the promise of a fresh start.
Yes, this is the moment of the New Year’s Resolution. While many of us will resolve to get fit, spend less money, or spend more time with friends and family, marketers have something else at the tops of their minds:
How can we do our jobs better?
In that spirit, we reached out to some of the leading marketing thinkers in the Greater Philadelphia region with the following question: “What is the biggest marketing lesson you learned in the past year, and how will it affect you going forward?”
Their answers (below) should provide some uber-nutritious food for thought in the year to come …
Peter Farrell / Director, Global Brand Strategy / TE Connectivity:
“There is a lot of sameness out there in terms of the tools, targeting capabilities and overall creative approach companies are using with their digital marketing efforts, such that it is becoming harder for people to tell one company from the next. As more companies chase the digital marketing dream it’s more important than ever to make sure your audience knows why your company matters.”
Chris Helle / Chief Marketing Officer / Premier Dental:
“With ever growing quantities of customer data and insights at our finger tips, one can lose sight of the importance of having a clear brand promise delivered to customers across all touchpoints. For 2018, we’ll have a relentless focus on every customer experience — from a website visit, to product performance, to a customer service call — each of which ladders up to authentically delivering the inspired solutions customers expect from our brand. As a result, we’re putting more emphasis on the ultimate metric — Net Promoter Score — to drive brand affinity and loyalty.”
Kayla McCause / Director of Strategic Growth & Development / Healthcare Building Solutions:
“Especially in a B2B professional services market, Marketing tends to be either ‘reactive’ (responding to an RFP solicitation) or ‘preemptive’ (e.g. social media posts with no merit/substance, just posting because ‘it’s what you’re supposed to do’). For that reason, we’re putting our focus on the entire client development cycle. For us, Marketing in 2018 will be a healthy blend of the proactive and reactive — content-driven, client-centric, and encompassing the entire sales cycle — from creating and building brand awareness; to an initial interaction; to responding to an RFP; to winning the project; to maintaining, nurturing, and growing the client throughout the rest of its relationship.”
Brett Walling / Director of Content & Media / RevZilla.com:
“My resolution? Stop worrying about production quality and start proof of concepting on a weekly basis. I’m lucky to work with an incredible group of video and editorial production pros … and over the last five years, we’ve earned a loyal audience and the reputation of producing the highest quality content available in our industry. But when it comes to concepting and testing, the high bar we’ve set for ourselves can trap us in a loop of stagnation. Our goal for 2018 is to stop worrying about whether it’s the most beautiful footage, and start shooting a little more from the hip. With the amount of content that hits the internet on any given day, we need to be spending more time producing new ideas for our audience to connect with.”
Kathy Meara / Director, Worldwide Customer Marketing / erwin, inc.:
“As a new carve-out corporation just completing our first full year in operation, the words NEVER ASSUME have never meant more to me. There will always be customers and prospects who are miseducated or undereducated. We answer, correct and educate across every platform and medium available to us, both online and in-person. What have I learned? It’s not enough. Database cleansing is a constant battle, as are SPAM filters. We’ll be addressing our cadence, consistency of message, and most importantly, the value of the content we send. Account based marketing and attention to detailed reporting should provide the insights we need to catapult us to that next level.”
Edward Harris / Chief Marketing Officer / Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board:
“My resolution is to raise the bar when it comes to creative content for social media. In 2018 people will spend more time on their phones than ever before, and leading organizations need to accept that the customer’s attention span has shifted from 15 seconds down to 8 seconds. Slowing down the ‘thumb speed’ of someone scrolling through their social media feed on their mobile device to see your content will be tough, but can be achieved when your creative content is unique and has a bold message that creates ‘stopping power.’ ”
Carolynn Costanzo / Manager of Online Marketing / Lasko Products:
“As a marketer in a new role, I am faced with the familiar onslaught of emails, phone calls, LinkedIn messages, etc., from various digital service providers and agencies, looking to engage with me and my company. They have some amazing solutions, but it’s easy to become overwhelmed and annoyed and just want to turn it all off. This information overload has forced me to think like a customer again. In addressing my own company’s objectives, I need to be more sensitive to reaching customers in ways that they want to be reached, and providing them information they actually want to consume. In this fresh new year that lies ahead, I will strive to deeply understand our customers and provide them more experiences that are tailored to their unique needs. If they feel good about their interactions with us, versus being overwhelmed and annoyed, perhaps we’ll gain their business and loyalty.”
Rich Smith / Chief Marketing Officer / Recovery Centers of America:
“I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions … nothing really changes on New Year’s Day. What I do believe is that your future can be forecast by your day-to-day actions, and any meaningful change must start with daily action to become habit forming. Our Company’s Mission is to Save 1,000,000 Lives — One Neighborhood at a time. The change that we are driving to in 2018 is to personalize our message and patient journey though automation, real-time analytics, and AI. We must treat our patients and their families as the unique individuals they are and solve their unique challenges. We are taking daily action to make this a reality.”
Elisa Rodgers / Director of Marketing / Reed Tech:
“My resolution is to accept the limitations of a small B2B marketing team while pushing our limits on what is possible to achieve for our brands. Accepting our limitations means we select only the highest ROI tactics, stay focused and avoid attractive distractions. Pushing our limits means leveraging every team member’s skillsets and ensuring we have the right vendors in place.”
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