Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash Early in your career, especially if you are in marketing, it can be difficult to quantify ROI. However, if you have a marketing budget, chances are you will be asked to report on spend. Here's a super simple framework on how to approach measuring something like this:
1. Make a Plan. Do not expend energy on a project without developing some way of tracking the performance of it. HubSpot is a great tool to do this, as it gives you detailed analytics on web pages, email campaigns, blogs, and even social media messages. That's just one tool, though: for hosting events, measure registrations and attendees. If you publish a blog, measure page views or leads generated. Launch a podcast? Look at number of downloads. Figure out how you want to measure your initiative, and bonus points if you can put a number to attribute to success. (i.e., I am going to aim for 10k podcast downloads before the end of the year) 2. Execute. This may sound obvious, but sometimes you can spend all your time planning and talking about what you COULD do without actually...doing anything. Even if it's something small to get started or to run a test, make sure you actually make something happen. It shows initiative, and regardless of success or failure, I guarantee you will learn something from it. 3. Report on Results. Whatever you planned to measure, create a report of results. Did it perform how you expected? Why or why not? What did you learn to apply for next time? This will give you guidance for your next campaign, where you'll tweak your plan and start over again. Reporting on everything also is a good practice to get into as it will be easy to reference when needed (and you will need to report on performance eventually, whether at the end of the quarter or the year), but serve as a helpful way to update your resumé The Bottom Line Draft a plan, execute the campaign, then record your results. Share them with your boss (or the broader team, like colleagues or even the CEO). Not only does this quantify the value you bring to the organization, but can serve as valuable fodder for building up your LinkedIn profile or resumé. For more tips, checkout this LinkedIn article I wrote a while back on how to be a rockstar at work based on a lecture I gave at Tufts University.
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Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash I only really learned about this skill after having a solid amount of work experience, but you need to understand how to manage people in order to effectively get things done within an organization.
I recommend reading the book “How to Make Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie as a start. It’s an oldie, but it’s all about how investing in people, their backgrounds, their stories, makes them feel valued and more apt to work together with you to reach your goals. Whether you are a sole contributor or have a team underneath you, you need to be able to motivate people to help you accomplish your objectives. Because regardless of your title, there is very little chance that you will be operating in a vacuum. Get to know everyone in the organization, especially once you first start. On your first day, introduce yourself, ask your manager to sketch out an org chart and briefly share who does what. Take them out for coffee—you’ll be amazed how much you will learn and how helpful they will be when you need help. With my marketing hat on, I know I have gotten great content ideas and inspiration from talking to people in different departments. This exposure gives you fresh perspective in how your company operates within its different divisions. Joint projects are a great way to show initiative, build your relationships, and demonstrate how you are able to collaborate to making your (their) vision a reality. Photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash This may initially sound counterintuitive with the whole go-go-go, “Lean In” thing, but hear me out.
I know that I am a pretty anxious creature: in general, I think it’s fair to say that many working women know what we want and we want it NOW. What I’m arguing is that operating at 100 mph at all times is not sustainable. You are surely on the track for burnout at that speed. What I propose instead is that you resolve yourself to a practice of patience: know that you are building the foundation for something successful in the future. And like anything worth working towards in life, that takes time: which sometimes means we have to wait longer than we’d like to. But rushing towards your goals isn’t natural, and patience isn’t really talked about as something valuable. Does anyone really WANT to become workaholic? Do you have an impatient coworker or boss, and are they fun to be around? Just like children can’t rush growing up, getting to your end goal will happen exactly when it needs to: and you need to accept that it may not be today. That’s not to say you can’t have steady determination to reach your goals. Those who struggle with patience can be tempted to give up on something because they don’t want to wait. The delays working women deal with on a daily basis are very discouraging and frustrating. They lead to even more anxiety because many times these delays are out of our control. I want to challenge you to face your delays with patience. Build up your skills, put in the work to take yourself to the next level, and pick your battles. If you have the patience, resolve, grit and persistence to hold out for the right time, you’ll have less resistance and make more progress. Patience is an asset, and for working moms like myself, our patience is tested on a daily basis, and my capacity for patience has grown exponentially since I became a mother. So try not to sweat the small stuff, as you have a bigger picture in mind. Stay the course, continue to show up and work towards growth but don’t rush to get there. |
AuthorI'm a motivated, self-starting marketer and working mom looking to make a difference in the world - one story at a time. Interviewing?Let's get you set up for success!
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