September 25, 2023
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5 min read
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In the fast-paced world of marketing, success is often attributed to groundbreaking strategies and innovative techniques. However, as James Clear masterfully explains in his book Atomic Habits it's the small, repetitive actions that create lasting change. At BlueByrd, we've witnessed countless clients who've fallen into the trap of negative marketing habits, aimlessly spending their time and resources without a clear strategy. In this blog, we'll draw inspiration from Clear’s wisdom to delve into the significance of creating positive marketing habits while shedding light on the detrimental effects of negative ones.
While taking on a new role at BlueByrd, I have found myself more on Audible than ever before and really inspired by the business-focused books I’ve selected or have been recommended. It has transformed my mindset, practices, and consistency as a leader and marketer. Atomic Habits, specifically, has enabled me to take a closer look at the personal and professional habits that have the greatest impact on driving results, equipping me with invaluable insights for achieving success for our clients and BlueByrd.
James Clear emphasizes that building good habits is about making small, positive changes consistently over time. The same principle applies to marketing. Consistency in your marketing efforts, such as regular content creation, email campaigns, and social media engagement, can help you build a strong online presence and foster brand loyalty. These habits compound over time, leading to sustainable growth.
For example, we recently engaged a new social media client who was posting really great content. But they would only post every month or so, causing a consistent break in communication between them and their audience. This became a habit of theirs. They have a decent following that could have probably doubled last year if they had systematically been posting relevant content, engaging with their audience, and empowering their team to share it with their networks.
One of the key takeaways from Atomic Habits is the importance of setting clear goals. In marketing, having well-defined objectives is essential. Instead of aimlessly spending your marketing budget, develop a clear strategy that aligns with your business goals and objectives. Identify your target audience, create buyer personas, and tailor your messaging accordingly. This habit ensures that every marketing effort serves a purpose and drives results. In our marketing workshops, the first item on the agenda is always business goals and objectives discussing goals last year, today, and in 3-5 years. It’s different for every business, but usually includes revenue, EBITDA, customer count, market share, or website leads.
At BlueByrd, we take goals very seriously and track numbers weekly with clients through a marketing scorecard. This scorecard tracks things like brand impressions, leads, content downloads, website traffic, and social media engagement. Tracking these metrics and using them as a means to refine our habits enables consistency and clarity.
Implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) has been transformative in our approach to marketing at BlueByrd, primarily because it has helped us forge consistent habits by setting clear and concrete goals through the concept of “rocks" or quarterly goals. When creating a quarterly marketing rock for myself, it's not just about saying you will do something, but what that very specific action looks like when it’s complete. Rocks are also about contributing to the specific company goals, so I ask myself, “What marketing rock am I going to take on that is going to help us meet our company goals?” For example, we entered the Denver, CO market recently, so this is what it could look like:
Baseline Goal: Generate greater brand awareness
Marketing Rock: Generate 2K more brand impressions per month
Clear advocates for the concept of continuous improvement, and this applies perfectly to marketing. The digital landscape is constantly evolving, with new trends and technologies emerging regularly. A big one lately is the power of AI and how to use it effectively. Positive marketing habits involve staying updated with industry trends, experimenting with new strategies, and being open to change. By doing so, you'll stay ahead of the competition and maintain a dynamic marketing approach.
BlueByrd’s process is Discover > Strategize > Execute and then do it again, and again and again.
Once you begin to execute your marketing strategy you will start to see leading indicators that show whether it’s “working” or not. And most of the time, you will find that something wasn’t as you thought it was. The target audience was more video watchers than blog readers so you need to generate more video content. Hence the process of continuous learning and adaptation.
One common negative marketing habit we encounter with businesses we work with is aimless spending. This often involves allocating resources without a clear strategy or goal in mind, so you are just consistently gambling with different tactics. Such investments in random marketing channels can drain your budget without delivering measurable results. Clear's advice to focus on systems rather than goals applies here: develop a systematic approach to allocate resources wisely and track the effectiveness of each channel.
One of our clients had been spending nearly $400,000 annually towards conferences, sponsorships, and miscellaneous events, but when it came to measuring the return on investment (ROI) over the years, they were at a loss. This expenditure had unfortunately become a negative marketing habit, as they continued attending events even though a staggering 90% of their target audience wasn't in attendance.
The organizations hosting these events had come to expect our client's involvement, leading them to persist with this ineffective approach for three years without a single closed opportunity to show for it. When BlueByrd stepped in and diagnosed the issue, we promptly shifted their marketing strategy. We recommended reducing attendance at irrelevant events and instead identifying organizations where their target audience was genuinely present. We then orchestrated speaking engagements that aligned with their strategy, demonstrating a profound understanding of their audience's business and challenges. Within 3 months they were getting more direct phone calls and seeing more traffic on their website than ever before.
Not only is aimless spending harmful to your bottom line, but it also compounds the negative outcomes for your business. It leads to wasted resources, missed opportunities, and a lack of direction, ultimately hindering your ability to achieve your marketing goals and attain sustainable growth.
Many companies fall into the trap of believing that marketing is limited to ordering promotional items and attending tradeshows. While these activities can be valuable, they should complement a broader marketing strategy. Negative habits can lead to a myopic view of marketing, hindering a business's ability to adapt to changing market dynamics. To break free from this mindset, fully take the time to understand the function of marketing and sales and how to use it to your advantage.
Sales is fundamentally intertwined with marketing, as marketing serves as the engine that fuels demand generation for the business. The value of the marketing function lies in its ability to identify, attract, and engage potential customers, laying the groundwork for sales teams to convert those prospects into paying clients. Marketing should be harnessed to understand your audience, identify your key differentiations, value propositions, and messaging, and then effectively use that to generate brand awareness, establish credibility in the market, and provide the necessary leads and insights that empower sales teams to thrive and drive revenue growth.
My point is don’t waste “marketing” on just ordering the branded pens and making sure the booth gets delivered on time. While seemingly important, those items are administrative, and not marketing. If that is how you currently think of marketing, then start with understanding the value of positioning by checking out this blog.
Clear's book stresses the importance of tracking progress and holding oneself accountable for building positive habits. In marketing, the absence of measurement and analyzing data can be more than costly. If you're not measuring the success of your campaigns and analyzing the data, you won't know what's working and what isn't. Make it a habit to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your marketing activities and regularly assess your progress.
This goes back to the importance of a marketing scorecard. If over time you are tracking metrics and seeing a consistent drop in leads, go back to that time period and see what you were doing. You may have launched a campaign that didn’t resonate with your audience. This is usually because most companies don’t take the time to understand their audience properly. One of the best ways to truly understand your target market is to speak to them. Have you ever conducted voice of the customer research? This can tell you what is most valuable to your customer, why they buy, problems they are facing, exactly what was going on to make them finally pull the trigger after a long sales cycle, and what will retain them as customers. I go into this more in a former blog of mine about Reducing Customer Turnover.
To round third, in Atomic Habits, James Clear outlines the transformative power of small, positive actions repeated over time to help you achieve very specific and clear goals. A simple but very difficult concept. All you need is self-control and discipline, right? By applying this principle to your marketing efforts, you can create lasting change and drive consistent growth for your business. Avoid the negative marketing habits that lead to aimless spending and limited perspectives on marketing's potential. Instead, focus on cultivating habits that emphasize consistency, clear goals, continuous learning, and accountability. In doing so, you'll harness the atomic power of positive marketing habits to achieve the growth you're looking for. We would love the opportunity to hear what your business is doing today and discuss how impactful those efforts have been over time. Let’s chat!
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