By Rex Hammock, CEO
I’ve spent almost 30 years helping marketers use media and content to build long-term relationships with their customers or members. Over the course of three decades, I’ve learned that what marketers do in the final 60 days of the year can often determine their success for the following year.
While using the final days of 2017 for planning and developing a strategy is important, you should also use these last two months to develop a framework to help you understand the role your product or service plays in the lives or work of the people in your marketplace.
This understanding will not only serve as a solid foundation for your strategy, but it will help you be more flexible when new challenges or opportunities appear throughout the year. The needs of your customers may change. Marketplace conditions may change. If you are truly serving customers and not merely following a strict plan, you can help give them the flexibility to shift their strategy if needed.
Use this time to think beyond the products or services you provide. Use it to consider challenges your customers or members have beyond your current solutions. Great marketers are constantly looking for new ways to serve their customers. They are rarely obsessed with the latest marketing gizmo and more often obsessed with meeting their customers’ needs.
In addition to year-end planning and budget development, great marketers use this time to envision the journey their customers or members are taking with their product.
Are you using the next 60 days to develop ways to serve your customers or members? Your answer will determine your success in 2018.
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