Hi, Lauren Kaye here, with this week’s Content and Coffee. To celebrate President’s Day, I thought it would be inspirational to look at some of the qualities the strongest leaders in marketing have – and what we can do to join their ranks.
1. Have a solid plan
You can have all the great ideas in the world, but they won’t turn into marketing results if you don’t have a plan. And that’s something 54 percent of high-performance marketers understand, according to Percolate’s 2014 Senior Marketer Insights report.
And we all know, the best way to plan is to document your strategy.
2. Create infographics
Visuals are crucial for marketing strategies in 2014. That’s why 46 percent of the most successful marketers create infographics, versus 25 percent of low-performance teams that haven’t mastered visual content yet.
3. They produce videos
From 6-second Vines to 1-minute video blogs, the most successful marketers are producing original videos. Almost half of high-performance marketers create long-form videos (that are at 60 seconds or more) and 34 percent make short-form Vines and Instagram videos.
4. They look to the past when planning for the future
42 percent of the most successful marketers look at past data to inform their future plans, looking for insights about what topics appeal to their audiences. And at the same time, a shocking 34 percent of marketers rely on intuition to hone in on the right web content.
Do you think George Washington and Thomas Jefferson relied on their gut instincts? Maybe sometimes, but their plans also relied on trusted intel.
5. They have a distribution plan
A final trait to note is that highly successful marketers understand the importance of promoting their marketing assets. They know you have to distribute content, you can’t just produce resources and let them gather dust on your website.
Every great leader has good ideas, but the true test of their impact is in the results they produce. Happy Presidents Day, and happy content marketing.
