Every marketing professional knows how rapidly the landscape of promotions changes. In the last decade, the number of ads that are digital versus physical have increased dramatically. As technology advances and people’s priorities change, marketing methods shift.
The pandemic had a huge impact on the marketing industry. First, people began staying at home more and spending more time online.
Many jobs become remote and remain at least hybrid-remote to this day. We’re socializing online more frequently and naturally shopping digitally as well.
As a marketing professional, it’s vital to be able to pivot easily. Whether you have to adapt to changing priorities due a pandemic, new technological advances that change the way people shop or even client priorities, you must be able to keep a growth mindset and learn new techniques if you want to remain competitive.
Why Is It Important to Promote a Growth Mindset
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are around 347,000 advertising, promotions and marketing managers in the country. The industry grows about 10% per year, which is a bit faster than the average amongst all professions.
Although some areas do have a labor shortage in marketing, others do not. Staying on top of your game ensures you make the highest wages possible and secure your dream position. Even if you run your own agency, you want to land big contracts with notable names.
The best way to stay on top of your game is to develop a growth mindset. Ideally, you’ll look for ways to improve your skills consistently. The quality of your work and your fresh ideas is what will make you stand out from the competition.
Here are the reasons it’s vital to harness the power of a growth mindset:
1. Overcome Obstacles
When you have a growth mindset, you don’t bump up against a wall and give up. Instead, you look for ways to solve problems.
Did you just land a new client in a technical industry you know nothing about? No problem with a growth mindset. You’ll simply dig in and learn everything you can.
People with a growth mindset are good at:
- Asking questions
- Viewing basic concepts
- Researching what others have done
- Following up with more questions
- Trying things out
Some concepts may be so complex that you’ll only understand the bare minimum without a degree. However, when you have a growth mindset, you’ll make connections that allow you to turn to them to ensure you’re hitting all the right points. You’ll learn as you go, because you won’t be afraid to jump in and try something new.
2. Learn Modern Skills
Technology changes so rapidly that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with. As a marketer, you should be looking for new opportunities to get the word out such as tapping into virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in your promotions.
You may need to help your team transition to remote work due to changes from the pandemic. How well you adapt to those changes and can use digital technology to train your hybrid or fully remote workers will make or break your marketing agency.
You’ll also be open to learning new things and digging into online courses, workshops and any type of training that adds to your list of skills in a productive way.
3. Land Big Clients
A growth mindset is one that reaches for big challenges. You’ll want to break big tasks down, such as landing that corporate client that will take your business to the next level.
Take these steps to reach beyond the type of customers you thought you could serve:
- List your dream clients
- Ask what their current marketing team offers that you don’t
- Seek to develop those skills
- Present your new skills to the company
- Keep touching base and sending them more thoughts
- Attend conferences where you can make the right connections
- Use Six Degrees of Separation to figure out mutual friends
- Dive into your first project and get feedback
If you follow a growth mindset, you should knock your first project with the big client out of the park. They’ll be interested in working with you again and may even refer you to other medium and large companies.
4. Embrace What’s Hot
Pay attention to the hottest trends in marketing. What do you notice the big agencies doing? What do statistics show is currently popular? Read widely in your niche.
For example, 81% of marketers feel videos boost their effectiveness. How can you incorporate videos into what you’re already doing? Do you need any additional training to excel in video marketing?
Consider not just what’s popular but what’s effective. There isn’t much point in learning how to implement a hot trend if it isn’t garnering results for others.
5. See New Opportunities
With a growth mindset, you’ll learn to see the opportunities in various activities. For example, if you’re a rather shy person, you might dread networking. Yet, you know it’s important to associate with other business owners to gain new clients.
You might see that there is a local Dale Carnegie course opening up and one of the skills is learning how to better communicate and come out of your shell.
Before having a growth mindset, you might have considered it was too much effort or time to go to the class. With a growth mindset, you’ll sign up for the course and complete it.
You might get invited to a friend’s party where you know a few CEOs will gather. Making connections with them can enhance your marketing agency.
However, you also hate parties. With a growth mindset, you’ll figure out how to get the most from the party, celebrate your friend and still honor your own tendencies to be an introvert.
Learning to see new opportunities doesn’t mean you have to change who you are at the core. It simply means you find ways to adapt and make the most of every experience.
6. Add New Abilities
With any career, adding new abilities to your resume helps you make more money. It doesn’t matter if you’re working for a company, an agency or yourself, you should add the skills that make sense to bring you more revenue.
One of the top things you can add that will improve your earning potential is how to develop software. Imagine that a client wants you to build them a website and an app to match. You have no idea how to create an app.
Harnessing a growth mindset allows you to seek out the needed coding skills to create whatever your client needs. You’ll become their go-to person for all things digital marketing.
For example, software engineering pays as much as $100,000 per year. The more specialized your skills, the more money you can demand.
7. Improve Self-Esteem
When you have a growth mindset, your self-esteem will improve. You’ll grow curious instead of defensive. You have to look at feedback as a way to learn about yourself and what skills you need to improve.
A negative comment doesn’t have to cut you to the core. You aren’t only a marketing professional–that is only what you do for a living.
So, if someone says they hate your logo design, try to find out why. Use every criticism to improve what you do or how you handle your clients.
8. Analyze Data
What is the meaning of data analytics and how can it help your marketing work? As a promotional expert, you must become familiar with gathering data from multiple sources, figuring out how the pieces fit together and knowing how to use them to reach new audiences.
The better you understand and break down data, the more refined your target audience will be. As an analysis expert, you’ll bring important insights to the marketing team they can’t get anywhere else.
You can also save your company money as you’ll know exactly who to promote your ads to and can refine campaigns to reach just the right people for a smaller investment.
9. Ask for Feedback
Don’t just learn how to accept criticism but seek it out. The more you know about your strengths and weaknesses, the better you’ll become.
Talk to your boss about how you can improve. Ask your co-workers if there is anywhere you aren’t pulling your weight. Ask the CEO of your business what skills the team needs and doesn’t have yet.
If you run your own marketing agency or freelance, get some outside analysis to see where you might improve. You might be surprised to find you need skills in supporting areas more than in marketing.
For example, you might need to improve your bookkeeping skills or have a better work/life balance.
How Do You Handle Failure?
A growth mindset makes failures seem less intense. How you handle a mistake or a big bomb of a failure will determine how successful you are moving forward.
You can either pick up the pieces, do an analysis of what went wrong, invest in learning new skills and fix it, or you can curl up in a ball and cry. Which action do you think brings the most success?
Those with a growth mindset see mistakes as learning opportunities to get better. Spend time setting goals and achieving them and you’ll thrive as a marketer and in life.
About the Author!
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
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