In any job, it’s important to establish a reputation of reliability and performance. Your first few months are a vital period to make a strong impression—especially in the volatile world of digital marketing.
But even if you step into a new digital position and start improving things right away, it’s not always easy to immediately prove it. The real-time responsiveness of digital has trained us to expect instant gratification in the form of results. But some essential aspects of digital marketing, like SEO, are long-term strategies that can take months to really start building momentum. And sometimes you’re limited by the nature of your industry—long sales cycles, for instance.
How can you show to your coworkers and supervisors that you’re driving results early on at your new position? As digital marketing recruiters, we recommend these strategies to demonstrate the impact you’re making right away and give them an idea of what to expect from you in the future.
Pick Low-Hanging Fruit First
Many facets of digital marketing are virtually never-ending and require a long period of time to accumulate meaningful analytics. But others can be compartmentalized and executed to completion so that they’re effectively finished forever, like marking off a checklist.
For instance, it might take weeks or months to show how your email messaging strategy is improving conversions. But if you complete the transition of your emails to responsive designs, that’s a tangible and demonstrably valuable objective that you’ve executed.
Look for other opportunities to solve blatant problems or create assets that you can accomplish in a short period of time and will have permanent and obvious value. For instance:
- Identify broken or outdated code on your web properties and fix it.
- Complete a digital competitive analysis of your market.
- Check the security of your sites and close any holes it might have.
- Update messaging and processes across all your channels to match with proven best practices.
Show Powerful Metrics
At the end of the day, ROI is the only metric that really matters in marketing. But you’ll be hard-pressed to show immediate payoff from all of your work. When you don’t have the hard data that proves a return, leverage other metrics that can be closely tied to it in the short term. Focus on showing an increase in leads or a decrease in lead acquisition cost. For instance:
- Increases in engagement on social: clicks, shares, comments, interactions.
- Improvements in email deliverability, open/click through rates, etc.
- Decreased cost per click in search advertising.
- Better traffic, time-on-site, and bounce rates for your web properties.
Even if you can’t definitively claim that these changes are immediately driving better ROI, you at least have a strong claim that you’re on the right path.
Predict the Future
Keep an eye on trends in digital and anticipate how they will affect the industry you’re working in. Become a digital oracle and forecast coming changes—then take necessary steps to take advantage of new opportunities or avoid potential pitfalls.
Be strategic with your projections. You don’t want to become the digital marketer “crying wolf” and developing a reputation for wild guesses. But if your claims consistently do come true and you’re able to react accordingly, you’ll be seen as a pioneer and marketing seer.
Market Your Marketing
You know how to market your product to consumers online. In the same way, you must be able to market your personal results to your supervisor. Not everyone will share your intense digital knowledge and experience, so you’ll have to be able to communicate your value in meaningful and compelling ways.
Convert Statistics into Information
Just because that endless spreadsheet is a goldmine of data for you doesn’t mean others will see anything other than a block of numbers. When reporting, tease out the most important data and convert it into information useful even to those without a digital background. Compare your performance to the company’s previous results, industry benchmarks, and your eventual goals.
Marry Creativity and Technicality
Find ways to illustrate your progress. Side-by-side comparisons, timelines, charts, checklists and more make compelling ways to add context and make your accomplishments more meaningful. Be consistent and use a standard, flexible reporting template that’s reliable and user-friendly.