actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

I’m still recuperating from Content Marketing World.

It wasn’t just the non-stop activities and amazing people. (Even as a die-hard New Yorker, I thought there were a lot of people!)

On the way home, I met my husband in Chicago for a weekend with family and friends. (Yes, I know that Chicago is west of Cleveland and New York is east of Cleveland.) If you visit Chicago, don’t miss the deep dish pizza!

It’s September and I’m ready for the end of 2016 marketing push and 2017 marketing budget season. The combination means that marketers are extremely busy.

Chris Penn (who’s one really smart marketing guy with data and tech chops!) dubbed this final period, the marketing sprint!  He bases this on his examination of search data.

• For B2C marketers—the fall focuses on the all important holiday season. Penn found that Week 38 (or September 19, 2016) is where the search term, “gift ideas” reaches its first inflection point.
• For B2B marketers—the fall focuses on making your sales numbers. Penn estimates that there are less than 75 days left.

Based on my experience working for both B2C and B2B companies, it’s a good idea to have a few easy-to-implement marketing promotions to help you at the last minute. There’s always something beyond your control that requires that you drive additional sales without burning through your email list.

I suggest you get some pizza for a cross-organizational lunch to brainstorm how to drive additional sales. To maximize the size of the list, give people time to write their own ideas. Then vet the ideas together. This time together helps you generate new ideas and builds connections at the same time.

BTW, if you’re dreading budget season because it means numbers, here’s how to create a sales budget. (It’s one of our favorite articles!)

I’d like to know the following:

• What is your biggest marketing challenge for the remainder of 2016?
• What are you doing to ensure that you don’t have an end-of-year shortfall?

Just hit return and let me know what’s on your mind.

Also, if you’re a blogger, I’d appreciate it if you took Andy Crestodina’s blogger survey. It’s 11 quick questions.

As a marketer, you can see how Andy used his first blogger survey and the related case study.  What data point can you check or verify?

Happy Marketing,
Heidi.

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