A Year of TrackMaven Marketing
On December 3rd, 2012, I was thrown into the deep end. It was my first day as TrackMaven’s Marketing Maven, employee number three and the first business hire.
But, me saying that I was thrown into the deep end has zero negativity or malice behind it. Yet, boy did water get in some uncomfortable places because part of the year I was flailing and splashing about from task to task. Sometimes I forgot to breathe or I sucked in water, but I’m incredibly thankful and inspired by what I experienced those last few weeks in 2012 and the entire year of 2013. The list could be endless on the things I have learned, but here is a recap of the most important things.
Grind It Out
I didn’t realize during the beginning of the year I was building and helping TrackMaven’s marketing grow, instead, I was just working as hard as I could.
Writing, researching, asking, reaching out, emailing, analyzing — all forms of marketing that you just need to churn out constantly in order to produce those nuggets of gold. There will always be that marketing grind, especially at first, but as you learn what makes certain marketing successes spark the grind eases up. There was this huge grey area as to what TrackMaven’s marketing could become, yet one of the first lessons I’ve come to learn is that you just have to grind it out and go.
Write until your fingers fall off, read until you know everything about a subject, analyze all parts of data until your vision becomes blurry because marketing takes a lot of grind to make things work and to even become the slightest bit successful. Sometimes you’ll be knee deep in marketing sludge trying to find what is making the overall machine work. But, trust me though — it pays off.
Prioritize Then Perform
My to-do list has a strong resemblance to Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in terms of sheer size. Except, the novel ends and my to-do list never does. There is an endless array of channels that I need to monitor, track, benchmark, create, and improve on a daily basis for TrackMaven. Being “busy” is always an understatement and my to-do list is never fully crossed off at any given moment. Just like a fish needs water to breathe, I have to get things in order otherwise I face drowning in all of my tasks. With that being said, marketing requires you to prioritize and then perform.
Marketers have so many channels, sources, and data to keep track of while improving, having a real-time focus, and being proactive. Over the last year, in order for my marketing efforts to stay productive I have to prioritize each task and then perform them. Things change, plans fall through, I have to say “no,” but bucketing things based on priority level has made my job easier.
Track Everything
Why is this important? Will it add value and resonate with our audience? What will drive success? Where are these leads coming from? What is happening!?
All questions that I have to answer every day and if I can’t answer them…marketing is in big trouble. For any marketing campaign at TrackMaven I have to be aware of all of the moving pieces and what touch points a lead will come in at. The number one thing I have to accomplish before I launch any campaign is how I’m going to track it to then help answer those questions.
I’ve learned throughout the year tools and data to strengthen our own tracking. And it’s a lot of work to implement these processes, but it provides me a clear picture of TrackMaven’s overall marketing landscape. By tracking everything, and I really mean everything, I can see what levers I need to pull or let up on in order to secure the best and most qualified leads. I have then been able to adjust certain actions or put more energy early on into what has the most impact.
No fluffy marketing here, except Maven, and at the end of the day if I can’t track it, then it doesn’t exist.
Voice
Blog posts, white papers, ebooks, webinars, emails, social media channels — marketing owns and carries out the brand’s voice. This is my favorite part of TrackMaven because it’s something that I’ve been closely developing over the course of the year. The creation was a process of trial and error, there was an identity crisis at one point, and things got a little hairy, but it was something that took a little more time to form.
Setting clear objectives and understanding who our audience is helped to identify a clear pathway to how I should connect with other marketers. The ruffs, quirk, and dog puns juxtaposed next to the informative, data-driven, and helpfulness, TrackMaven’s voice is different and it’s something that I’m proud of.
Honestly, what other enterprise marketing platform barks at you on Twitter?
Marketing Matters
“Oh, all you have to do is send some tweets out.” “You only have to write a blog post.” “Marketing, do we really need that?” I received or overheard some of these comments and to be honest, it’s pretty disheartening because I know marketing is so much more than what people perceive it to be.
From the product to the culture, marketing connects to all of these parts of the business at any given moment. Marketing isn’t an easy job, as mentioned above there is a lot of grind and pressure to make sure the brand or company is always growing. It’s blood that runs through the veins, helps to power the muscles, and makes a heart beat.
There’s this huge disconnect between marketers and people with other job functions who think that marketing is just fluffy. Maybe it’s because marketing has a lot to do that it gets lost in the shuffle or people simply do not understand the power of marketing, but I’ve grown a thicker skin and a little more compassion to it all. At TrackMaven, we work with marketers every day. I’ve seen their hard work, relate to them about their challenges, and I try to connect how TrackMaven can help them excel. Despite the some scrutiny (justified or not), marketing matters. A lot.
In 2014…
So many things have changed and grown in the last year. I’m now the Lead Marketing Maven and I was wearing some different caps over the year, but now mainly just the marketing one. I have my marketing strokes down, but I’m quite far from being an olympic swimmer — I still have a lot to learn. TrackMaven has expanded and grown, but there’s still so much more to be done and accomplished — I can’t wait to see what we meet in 2014. In 2013, some great things happened, but it doesn’t even begin to cover what’s in store this year.
Follow along everything TrackMaven Marketing related with me @sabelharris or everything TrackMaven related @TrackMaven. (Oh, did I mention that we are hiring? ;) Interested in marketing opportunities? Give me a shout — sabel@trackmaven.com)
This is an ongoing series of posts that started with Laura and her post “A Year of TrackMaven Design.” Read her post here.
Sabel Harris leads the marketing at TrackMaven. When she's not marketing, she's probably listening to some pop music or drinking too much coffee. (Funny thing, she does this while marketing too). Tweet or email her, unless, she's eating, she'll respond in record timing. See more of Sabel's posts
