Online Dialogue partner and strategist Maurice Beerthuyzen has for NIMA Magazine Q3 wrote an article with seven tips you can start working on right away after the summer.

Seven tips you can start working on right away after summer

We are in the middle of summer. For many people, that means time for vacation and reflection. Perhaps for that one book or to think back on the conferences we attended as marketers in April and May.

If you attended one of those many marketing conferences, you may have started your summer vacation with a certain sense of unease. After all, everyone was shouting: marketing is going to change! Prepare yourself, in fact you are already too late!

Now I don't wish you restlessness on vacation, but summon that feeling of restlessness, after you've traded shorts and bathing slippers for suit and brogues again, especially. After all, it's time for a change. To get you started, here are seven things you can do as a marketer right after the vacations:

1. Play it nice

For starters, let's be a little nicer to each other. You will achieve more within your company with a positive approach. Work on your network inside and outside your company in a positive way and you'll achieve your goals faster. Of course, this first tip is a giveaway; right after the vacations, you'll be a little nicer to your colleagues anyway.

2. Tear down the walls between departments

Many projects or initiatives do not become a success because we as a company think too much in boxes, or silos. Battles within companies often arise from lack of a common denominator. We do not recognize the common strategy of the company. We need to get rid of these silos quickly. Channels, product groups or departments are not important. Put your customer first. That's all that matters.

3. Go for your existing customers

Focusing on your customer means good news. That's because you then focus on what you already have, rather than what you want to get. Make your existing customers happy(er). Is much more fun, and not insignificantly, much cheaper.

4. Become a geek and make friends with ICT and your data analyst

Actually a combination of point one and two. We grumble a lot at ICT. They don't understand your needs. They don't work fast enough and are always too expensive. ICT professionals, on the other hand, do not understand those fickle marketers. Indeed, ICT professionals need to communicate better and understand marketing. But marketers will be more ‘geeky’ need to become. Getting more savvy about technology and numbers.

5. Make sure everyone understands search and social

Search and social are now reserved for the happy few, but even an educator must SEO into its texts. The most frequently asked questions, tracked by customer service and published on the website, must be provided with the keywords that, we marketers, want us as a company to be found on. In addition, every piece of content must become not only findable but also shareable. Every piece of content will soon be twitterable. That becomes, nay is, the most effective way to share content quickly.

6. Always be testing, optimize is a state of mind

The days when we made decisions as marketers based on gut feeling are truly over. Not only is it based on business cases expected to make decisions based on numbers, we also now see in practice that customer behavior is much harder to fathom, than you might have thought. Have you ever seen the website http://whichtestwon.com/ visited? Take a few tests and you'll quickly realize that the ways of web visitors are often inscrutable.

7. Become available via mobile as well

Mobile is becoming increasingly important. It's the toy your customers spend the most time with. Yet mobile is still an understudy. Is it often still in the pilot and project sphere. While mobile also deserves a mature approach. Don't make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse. Mobile has its own features and benefits. Specific local and place-based functionalities work through mobile like no other.

Over the next few years, your role within the company will change. As a marketer, you will become the hub of the company. Several specific areas of expertise are becoming more and more intertwined. Marketing, communication, information and customer service are working together more and more closely. As a marketer, you become the expert who captivates customers based on relevant data, but also connects the internal organization. Not an easy job but a huge and particularly fun challenge. Isn't that a particularly pleasant prospect, just before your vacation?

Originally published in NIMA Magazine Q3 and on August 14, 2012 at Trimmed.com