A Marketer's’ First Measure of Success

“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care”
― Theodore Roosevelt

Customer Satisfaction. It is now, and should always have been the marketers’ first measure of success, as it is the most important principle of marketing a business successfully.

Marketing has now entered the "age of the customer", where customers have more information, choices, and power than ever before. The “customer experience”, the culmination of all brand and customer interactions, now matters more than
anything.
When customers interact with a brand, they expect consistency. They expect their interactions across any channel to be the same. This demonstrates to them that the company that they are dealing with really knows and understands them. They develop a "connection" and loyalty to that company.

Marketing teams have shifted their mindset and tactics from marketing at customers, to focusing on creating a cohesive customer journey, from beginning to end. If we truly put customers at the center of our thinking, we connect the heart of the business to the heart of the consumer, and that is the connection that is resilient and hard to break . It is the connection marketers and customers pursue.

image courtesy of http://www.foresee.com

In 2016, as Digital Media is declared "the King", the "customer experience" is considered the crown jewel of marketing, and both are now shaping the pace for the profession. Predictive intelligence tools such as Salesforce are making it easier for marketers to track customer behavior and use insights to create highly personalized interactions. By collecting customer data in real time, these marketers apply what they know about individuals to tailor the customer experience.

To ensure success in the future, companies must redirect all tactics, both internal
and external towards customer satisfaction. They should implement corporate wide regulations in all units and departments to align in the same vision, creating the ultimate customer experience.

*Data derived from State of Marketing Report, 2016, Trends and insights from nearly 4,000
marketing leaders worldwide

Mission Impossible: Hiring a Super(wo)man Marketing Person

Trying to catch up with today’s developments in Social Media Technology and Networking is extremely time-consuming. It is a fulltime job to be an expert in all the relevant social media groups and be active in them.

But, in order to be a relevant candidate for a marketing job, you simply do not have a choice – you are asked to be social media-savvy.
During my job search, I encountered multiple requests for not only classic multitasking skills that every passionate marketing professional  should have,  but also to be able to write marketing content, preferably technical content, and have broad experience in social media.

Be honest, who has time to do all of this?

Anyone who is or has been working in the marketing field has experienced at some point during his/her career that regardless how much fun it might be, it’s also extremely time consuming. It requires not only an "eye for detail", but also ongoing creating and posting of fresh content. In short, it requires talent and takes up a lot of time.
It means that employers expect their marketers to catch up with emails, special projects, budget discussions and event arrangements, to write articles, press releases and any other publishable text in addition to be active in all kinds of social networking groups.
But writing (and I mean writing an interesting article that is read from beginning to the end!)  requires skills which a "classic-called" marketing person was never trained for, is not being trained for and most likely will never get trained for.
For all those companies who wish to employ a "super-marketing" person who claims to have all of these skills, please adjust your expectations.

Writing is a skill and requires aptitude, a state-of-mind and lots of time, a condition which is generally a luxury in a so-called standard working atmosphere. The same applies to the social media.
So do yourself a favor. To get the best results with the best talent, start outsourcing! Get dedicated people whose expertise is to write your articles for you, publish them on all the relevant social media and groups. You will not only get high quality, but also make your marketing team happier!

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