5 Personal organization skills for digital marketing managers

 

One could say that I have come a long way in the digital marketing field, from modest beginnings in learning what exactly is AdWords to managing a big group of people. Although it was (and still is) great experience working in digital marketing – there are some things that I have noticed from during that experience.

Every online marketer must have a certain personal skill set. No matter if he is a beginner or experienced digital marketing manager. Some of these skills are pretty obvious and some of you could say that I am not writing anything new. But, if that is the case – why do I see so many people (even with +20 years of experience in business) that are lacking those skills?

It is very simple. Constantly try to improve those skills – and your clients, your superiors and your colleagues will have a very positive image about you. They will consider you a type of person on which they can rely on.

So, without any special order, the self-organization skills are:

1. Focus
2. Accuracy
3. Planning
4. Punctuality
5. Coordination

Focus

To be focused is maybe one of the most important skills and also a very hard one to stick to. Today life, private and professional, is more and more accelerated (filled?) every single day. We have made our lives that way. And, if you are working in “online” – you are bound to have difficulties to remain focused.

Focus or Follow One Course Until Successful - one of important skills for digital marketing manager! Click To Tweet

Thing is that working time for marketing managers is often very blurred. Often it is not 8 or 9-hour working day but 12-hour working day! Also, when working, the surrounding is full of small distractions (and even big ones) so it is sometimes very difficult to keep the focus on you obligation/project.

But, there are small tricks to try to be more focused. Some of them are:

• remove your mobile phone. Put it in your drawer, or put it on silent mode. Whatever you do – do not look at it at least for 30 minutes. After some time, try increasing the time to 45 minutes.
• do not look at your social profiles. Even if you are thinking “just one look for a sec won’t hurt” because you will be losing time, and focus, quicker then you can say “I would like hard boiled eggs” on Klingon language.
• think about and set up small goals for your obligation/project. Then focus on achieving one small goal after another. This is sometimes easier to do than thinking about “big” task you have beforehand.
• short breaks can be a lifesaver sometimes. Try to have a small break after 45 minutes of working. During this time try to get up from your chair and walk around. Ask your colleagues about something work-related. Who knows, maybe you will get some fresh ideas.

 

It is very hard to regain focus once you have lost it. Try not to lose it in first place. Click To Tweet

 

Accuracy

Accuracy is very important in digital marketing. In today world we have more and more data for which we must go thru and check. We must be certain that every single action that we make on our marketing campaigns is going to have a positive outcome.

And to increase our sureness (in positive outcome), we find those pieces of evidence from past data we are going thru every single day (week). In essence – we are finding evidence that will support our theory about what will actually work in our digital marketing efforts.

And, do we need to say how much is important to be accurate as possible in doing this? As we are more accurate in reading “past” data – we are more accurate in predicting the outcome of our future efforts.

And, this is why I am continually perplexed when seeing marketing managers throwing phrases like “our ROI was anywhere from 30-70%” or “we have brought around 40-50% new users on your website”… Well, which percent is it? This can mean the difference between doing a good job and doing a bad job.

 

Today, we are having different statistical tools that can show you very exact numbers. Use them as much as you can and learn from that results. Look at what is working and what is not working in your strategy. And then decide in which way to proceed.

As marketing manager be accurate in using “past” data because it can mean the difference between future positive or negative ROI.

 

Planning

This is very closely related to focus. Because, everybody needs to plan their future tasks, or fail-safe possibilities if first plan doesn’t succeed. Again, this is very strongly related to the way of today living where everything is “fast”.

So, to be a one step in front of your competitors you always need to plan ahead. In marketing efforts that closely translates to having a plan for “a”, “b” and, sometimes, “c” possibilities.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. - Alan Lakein Click To Tweet

Let us say that you have made a certain marketing plan. In that plan, you are predicting that marketing efforts will bring an additional rise in ROI by 25%. And, you are very confident in that numbers because you have very accurately triple-checked past data and all other available data when making that prediction.

But, halfway thru your campaign – the results are showing a decline in ROI by 25%. What will you do? First, you need to have plan “a” which is just in case if something like this happens. It can be anything from pausing low-importance campaigns to activating “all-or-nothing” campaigns, and so on.

Plan “b” can consist of looking and analysing what actually went wrong. Checking all settings, did everyone did their supposed job, is everything measuring correctly, and so on… If you have found some of those things that are not done correctly it is now time to implement them as they should be implemented from start.

Also, you always need to check if your competitors have started their campaigns at the same time as yours. Maybe their creative or offer is better than yours and their campaign is influencing the results of your campaigns.

But, if you didn’t find anything wrong with your active campaigns, or competitors didn’t have any new campaign at same time – it is time to implement plan “c”. Plan “c” is totally new plan of digital marketing. You are starting from scratch because, maybe, your first plan was just not good enough.

Do not forget: Your goal is to make successful digital marketing campaigns. But, every marketing campaign must have some goal. Identifying that goal requires some form of planning.

 

Punctuality

Punctuality is, in my opinion, one of the most important characteristics of a self-organized person. Every marketing manager needs to be punctual. He needs to give that impression that any task that he is in charge of will be done in time.

We can say that punctuality vouches for a person credibility, trustworthiness and his level of commitment towards a completion of any task. But, sometimes it is very hard to predict what time will be needed to complete certain obligation or task.

There is a neat trick to it. When you decide on needed time – just add 20% more time to it. Because you never know what obstacles will emerge when working on a certain task. Even if you finish before the expected time it can show that you are working very good job & that you are not letting anything to mess with your focus.

In other words, we can say that from your punctuality can arise a sense of responsibility in others about you. If you are doing every single task on time (or before expected time) you are sending a message that you are a good worker, good planner about your tasks, that you are focused on the task before you, and – most important, that you can be trusted to get the job done.

 

Coordination

For any group or team, to function properly, there must be a minimum level of coordination between all elements of that group (or people in a team). For marketing managers that means that he, or she, needs to synchronize all aspects of marketing activity.

The manager is responsible to synchronize workflow and tasks of all his colleagues in his team. That means all tasks about analytics, tasks about planning marketing activities, task about creating marketing creatives, task about tracking results and so on.

The best teams are often the ones in which level of coordination is at very high levels. Click To Tweet

The best way to do this is actually to “guide” and not to “control”. For example, I have seen some of the managers who tried to control everything (and I mean “everything”) – the members of this team were unhappy and unwilling to do any creative work. They were just doing “…whatever she said to do, no matter if I think this is wrong or there is some better way.”

The trick is to teach your team members what to do (and how). But, also, to tell them if they want something to add to “process” or decide some other way in resolving individual “tasks” – they can do it freely. And then, all what they have done (and still doing) needs to be checked.

If there are some problems then tell your team members to fix those problems. Only if they do not know how or they can not do it – you do it yourself (but try to show them how you did it).

Marketing manager needs to coordinate the delegation of individual tasks between team members, but also needs to have constant insights in everything that those team members are doing. Not to forget that coordination is also related to coordinating all elements of digital marketing campaigns, not just team members.

For marketing manager to successfully synchronize all those parts he needs to have good planning and monitoring skills. But, also to be good at organizing all aspects in a way for everything to functions flawlessly.

This is maybe the most important skill of them all. In more simpler words: Marketing manager must do ongoing tracking of all activities, must have ongoing communication with all team members, must recognize all good & bad ongoing results on time and according to them make decisions that must ensure (greater) chance of achieving a set goal.