How to Make Marketing a Habit (Not an Afterthought) in 2021

Dec 16

As our team reflected on this year, a common observation of success surfaced -- consistency. When we align well with clients, we find we are receiving valuable feedback from their teams to keep our processes moving along in a timely manner. We find marketing efforts to feel fluid, with room for creative adjustments based on frequent collection of new data points. While many factors can lead to ineffective marketing, consistency can be attributed to great marketing.

Inconsistent marketing -- marketing that is approached as a side-project or one-time campaign rather than a consistent on-going strategy -- will almost always lead to subpar results. If you want to see real results, marketing can’t be an afterthought. It must be a habit that you consistently prioritize, work on, and improve all year, every year.

Here are a few reasons why you can’t ignore marketing and how to put a better focus on it in 2021 so you can see a marketing engine work and produce better results and more revenue for your organization.

Why Marketing Can’t Be an Afterthought

It can be easy to want to push marketing to the side. When resources shrink or even when things are going well, it can be easy to wonder if marketing is worth it. But the answer is always, yes, marketing is worth it.

Related: What Is Marketing, Anyway?

Marketing can’t be an afterthought because:

You can’t stop and start marketing. When you stop marketing, you lose the momentum you have built up. You will need to work even harder when you start up again. You can’t just turn marketing on and off when you want and expect to see results right away when you start up again.
There is no “standard marketing procedure.” There is no single marketing strategy or template that works for every brand. Good marketing requires looking closely at your unique market, brand, offerings, and audience to find the tactics that will work best for you. You can’t simply take one brand’s strategy and plug it in as your own and expect to see results.
You can’t set it and forget it. Marketing plans aren’t a one-time project. You can’t set up a marketing plan and let it run for years or even months without checking in to ensure that it’s doing what it is supposed to and delivering the highest possible return.

More goes into marketing than a lot of brands and people realize, which is why marketing can often be overlooked or undervalued. But, marketing can’t be an afterthought if you want your campaigns to be successful now and in the future.

6 Good Marketing Habits to Embrace

If you want your marketing to be successful, here are the habits you need to embrace to get your marketing on the right track in 2021.

1. Test, measure, adjust, and repeat.

Marketing isn’t a process you can launch once and then stand aside while it runs on its own. Marketing -- good marketing -- requires constant monitoring and interaction.

All of your marketing activities should be a constant evolution. All of your initiatives should include steps to:

Test
Mesure
Adjust
Repeat

2. Don’t treat any marketing initiative as a one-time project.

One common way that marketing becomes an afterthought is when marketers perceive projects to have a clear start and stop. You may think of an initiative like a website build as a one-time project that doesn’t need attention once it is completed, but every marketing project should be seen as on-going.

The test-measure-adjust-repeat process is something you should use on every marketing initiative. Nothing in your marketing toolkit should be ignored once it’s launched. For all projects, set dates to review performance, identify opportunities for improvements, and test new changes and updates.

3. Bring in other teams to get deeper insights.

Good marketing doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Good marketing is collaborative and incorporates feedback from multiple teams within an organization (as well as from customers and partners).

Your marketing team should never be cut off from the rest of the organization and left to make decisions based only on their experience and information. Schedule time to bring in other teams from your organization to gain insight and feedback on both your existing and upcoming marketing initiatives.

Make it a regular habit to talk to:

Sales
Product
Customer Service
Executives (To get ideas about the overall vision for the organization)

4. Pay attention to market shifts.

Marketing can’t stay the same forever because the market won’t stay the same forever. Changes in things you can’t control may force your team to need to make major marketing pivots.

Circumstances that can force you to change include:

Culture Shifts
Major World or Local Events (Umm, like a global pandemic!)
News About Your Brand
Consumer Interest
Introduction of New Brands, Products, or Services

Listen to the market and customers. Be a sponge for feedback, and listen to how needs have shifted. Make changes to your messaging and/or channels based on what you learn.

5. Get an expert opinion.

When you launch an initiative internally, you may consider it a success simply because it is done. For example, you may have launched your website or went live with a set of Facebook ads. But marketing isn’t a race to check things off your do-to list. Completion isn’t the goal. Results are.

While your team might be able to get things done, you want to make sure they are done properly. For that, you may need to get an expert opinion.

There are a lot of pieces that go into a marketing strategy, and a lot of skill sets are needed. Your team might not have all of the skills needed to successfully execute every tactic. Don’t shy away from delegating to the experts when needed to ensure that your initiatives are primed to drive the highest results.

6. Don’t get complacent.

When sales are good, it can be easy to want to put the brakes on marketing. If things are going well, you may want to pull back and save resources. But, this is a mistake.

Remain consistent. Keep working on new ideas. And, don’t halt your efforts because you see results. It’s likely that your marketing is working and that is why you see results.

Check the data, and keep moving forward to iterate, improve, and produce even better returns.

Create Better Marketing Habits in 2021

Marketing should never be an afterthought, but too often, brands push it to the wayside when things are going well or going badly. This mistake could cost even more time and resources in the long run.

In 2021, make marketing a habit -- a good habit -- by following solid best practices, and if you need help, SpotOn Digital is here to help.

Contact SpotOn to see how we can help you outline strategies and goals to make your marketing more effective now and in the future.

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Amanda Sanz