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What do marketers do on a daily basis depends on what their specific role is. For example, a designer on a marketing team spends their day differently from a content marketer or a growth marketing strategist. But at the end of the day, all those roles spend their day doing a mix of the following:
Strategy
Virtually all marketing tasks start with a strategy. Hopefully, it’s even the right strategy and a good one. But at the end of the day, it is hard, if not impossible, to do anything without understanding why it needs to be done.
For example, when somebody says: “We need a blog post on topic xyz NOW.” The question should be: “What’s the problem we are trying to solve?” Maybe a blog post is the best way to solve that problem, or maybe there’s another solution that’s better. Or maybe it’s a blog post on topic abc instead. Bosses shouldn’t take questions as challenges but as ways for teams to understand and determine the best solution and how they create it. They might also interface with a marketing growth agency for strategy or implementation help.
Before they ever start writing or creating any content, any content creator should determine the point and purpose of that content and how it fits into the bigger picture. In other words: what is the strategy of what we’re doing here?
Analysis
Depending on the role, the analysis might not be a daily task, but it should be a task from time to time. Most marketers also shouldn’t let this become the only daily task, which can lead to analysis paralysis unless they are the actual Analyst on the team, of course.
For example, content creators should look at whether or not what they’re doing is having an impact. Growth marketers certainly need to look at their campaigns and if they’re performing. Even creative designers need to see whether the designs are working or not. And everyone can always analyze the workflow and whether or not it’s efficient and effective enough.
The doing
Some roles have to focus more of their time on the actual doing of things, period. Now let’s remind ourselves that this is not a warehouse of the early 1900s, but a content creator needs to spend time creating content. A designer needs to spend time designing.
So teams need to make sure that and days days days aren’t filled with meeting after meeting that prevent us from doing necessary tasks.
Evaluation of new trends and tools
It’s also worthwhile to keep an eye on evolving trends. Should we try YouTube Shorts, for example? How is artificial intelligence impacting our business? For example, I saw articles on AI that some companies let writers go because they are planning on AI to do those jobs. Then I saw another article that says AI content companies are currently losing money because of the computing power needed. So who knows if AI content creation will actually be cheaper than human creation. If nothing else, AI content creation isn’t of the same quality as what a good writer can produce.
Regardless, somebody has to keep an eye on what new trends or software are worth using and which ones aren’t.
Read next: AI disclaimer needed? Should you point out that content is produced by AI?
Collaboration
But some meetings – the right amount of them, with the right people, and at the right times – are wonderful ways to collaborate. It’s also possible when teams are geographically dispersed.
When we ask ourselves what do marketers do on a daily basis, the one thing that certainly needs to be in there is collaboration. That could happen on the team, with external subject matter experts and internal stakeholders.
But collaboration of some kind is needed to be creative and to create the best experiences for our customers and potential customers.
Reflection
Reflection – informal and formal- is another crucial aspect of what helps marketers be successful. It’s not just about sitting there and typing as many words as possible or launching as many email campaigns as possible. But it’s also about reflecting on what’s working and what could use an evolution.
Some might argue that this is the same as analysis and they are closely related. But the difference here is that sometimes reflection doesn’t look like you’re doing anything. Still, you’re thinking about what the analysis showed you or what the user behavior indicates.
Read next: Follow this checklist to update content that already exists
Final thoughts
Understanding some of the daily marketing tasks can help us reevaluate what we’re already doing in marketing. In addition, what marketers do daily is also an important question when you decide whether or not marketing is a good career for you.
And, of course, keep in mind that the specific tasks certainly evolve as well with new technology solutions entering the workflow, new company needs, and even preferences of how teams like to work.