3 Habits Every Marketers Needs to Try This Year for 30 Days Straight

The fantastic book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear changed my life! I still remember the dreamlike beach of Ko Poda in Krabi, Thailand, where I dived into it.. The book’s key insight was no novelty to me, but James’s storytelling somehow convinced me to try the following. To build a habit, you need to do something for 30 days straight, and then it becomes a part of you. What habits can you build as a marketer to be a better version of yourself?

Here are three ideas:

• Read a (different) opinion about your area of expertise — I know; we are all busy, we are all swamped in emails and Powerpoint decks, but those who exceed tomorrow are the ones who slowly build their insights in this knowledge economy. Read a blog, follow someone smart on Twitter (like Seth Godin), subscribe to a magazine (could be Harvard Business Review or The Economist — I know it’s not free, but nothing is), select a website (could be The Drum or Marketing Week), or even a Marketing book and read at least 10 minutes every single day. Augment your coffee break with a marketing read, and you will start making better knowledge connections.
• Talk to a Customer or at least observe them — I know; it’s difficult to talk to consumers in a social distancing world, but when was the last time you’ve been to the store and observed consumers without being creepy. When did you search for your brand on Twitter or Reddit and learn the reactions? When did you last ask yourself a question and answered not from your vantage point but the consumer vantage point? Remember, you are not the consumer. It would be best if you “talked” to them daily.
• Learn your Customer’s Media consumption habits — we love our Social Media streams, our YouTube accounts, and our TV bundles. When was the last time you glanced over the usage behavior stats for your target audiences? How much time your customers spend on TikTok, and how much time they watch TV? The numbers from 2015 are different from today, so why not challenge your media agency to show you the data. “Show me the data…daily!”

I challenge you to pick up one of the three ideas or anything else you have always wanted to do and challenge yourself to do it for 30 days in a row. You will discover how the practice slowly grows on you and how it becomes you. And you develop into a better version of yourself.

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Originally published on my Engineering Marketing blog — find it at http://sorinp.com on October 22, 2020.