actionable marketing guide

Happy Belated Groundhog Day!

Beyond the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, it’s probably the only weather holiday that gets media attention especially by weather broadcasters. (I should know I did consulting for Accuweather located in nearby State College, PA.)

For those of you outside of the US, Groundhog Day is when Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog, emerges from his burrow in Pennsylvania. If he sees his shadow there will be another 6 weeks of winter and if he doesn’t there will be an early spring. Please don't ask me what a groundhog is.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I watched a BBC series on Science Fiction. It explores science fiction from the perspective of filmmakers, actors and writers. (Another fun fact: I sold science fiction novels and merchandise when I was at Bertelsmann.)

During one show, Groundhog Day was mentioned as a form of time travel because Bill Murray’s character was forced to keep reliving the same day again and again and again.

As marketers, I wonder whether we’d all want to be time travelers so that we could go back in time to create promotions that yielded maximum results since we’d know how to improve them based on what actually happened. Unfortunately, like the Michael J. Fox character in Back To The Future, we wouldn't be able to change history.

More to the point, it’s February. So the big question is: How are your 2018 marketing plans going?

If you’re like me, your marketing plans evolve through the year. You change them to adapt to your results to-date and the environment.

While I strongly believe you should regularly monitor your marketing results and make changes based on what’s working and what’s not, I also believe that it’s critical to have a documented plan.

The act of committing your strategy in writing and sharing it with others forces you to hold yourself accountable. Based on Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs research on content marketing, marketers who have a documented strategy consistently outperform those who don’t.

In fact, in one of his recent CMI posts, Joe Pulizzi outlined how he set his personal goals.

My point is that you need to push yourself to achieve the best you can. To accomplish this, it helps to write your goals down.

To get your content marketing, blogging and other writing on track to succeed this year, take the time to do annual content planning. If you need marketing support for this, you can still get Gini Dietrich’s The Communicator’s Playbook.

Before you tell me that you don’t have time to complete the assignments looming in front of you, take a deep breathe. Realize that not planning is probably what got you in the predicament in the first place.

Don’t let the fact that the calendar says February keep you from doing great things this year.

On a personal level, recent research shows that niners (people in their last year before a big birthday) tend to commit to big projects.

While we’re on the subject of content creation, please join me at SMMW18 where I’m talking at 1:30pm on Friday, March 2^nd on how to keep generating quality content ideas.

If you’ve had enough of the winter blues, San Diego in February is beautiful and sunny.

Happy marketing,
Heidi.

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

Content Idea Generation: 3 Super Easy Steps

How To Write Results-Oriented Content Series Even If You Have Writer’s Block

Content Marketing Optimization: The Ultimate Guide

Bold Brand 2.0 – Book Interview

​​​​​​​Chip and Dan Heath have a new book out, The Power Of Moments. Although the book is still in my reading stack, I found Chip’s interview with Wharton enlightening. I loved the point about hotels missing the opportunity to create memorable moments. The question is how do you make your brand memorable in a good way???

• Get the inside scoop from 8 pros on How To Do Content Curation Like A Pro in a guest post written by Heidi Cohen for Content Marketing Institute. To be honest, even I learned a lot from these colleagues.

• Jaime Netzer listed Heidi Cohen first in his SpredFast.com post, 10 Top Marketing Influencers to Follow in 2018. Wow! Thanks Jaime.

• Heidi Cohen was included in Brian Sutter's post, The 50 Most Influential People in Small Business Marketing published on AllBusiness.com.

• Paul Lentz used the Actionable Marketing Guide as a great example in his Buzzsumo post: Using Social Sharing Buttons To Drive Engagement: How To Do It Right.​​​​​