What marketers should do on Day 1 (and every day)

Earlier this year, we held an awesome event on building a marketing foundation poised for growth.

We had a few laughs, we ate some pizza, we played giant Scrabble, but most importantly we learned a whole heck of a lot from our four esteemed panel members. Representing the best of the best from companies of all shapes and sizes, we got all sorts of delicious nuggets of information and ideas.

So…where do I start?

It’s Day One, and your to-do list is already a mile long. You’re trying to get a handle on everything, from setting up your corporate blog to making sure you have clear buyer personas, so how do you prioritize what to do first?

• Take time to be quiet: Read what’s already out there. What is your competition doing? What are influencers you admire doing? Before you make noise, take time to listen and absorb.
• Establish the corporate voice: You have your CEO, the board, your PR agency…all sorts of personalities that influence your message. Find one voice that’s consistent across all channels.
• Learn your customers: You won’t be able to prioritize what you need to do that day/week/month/quarter unless you know what is important to your buyers.

What should I do every day?

Our panelists ran the spectrum, from a global scale (Datto and Crimson Hexagon) to smaller organizations (VentureApp and Romulus Capital). Regardless of the size of your company, here are three must-dos from our panel:

• Talk to a customer: They are your most important feedback sources. Don’t neglect them.
• Articulate your value: You can’t reach customers if you can’t articulate your value. Practice your elevator pitch and practice some more. Call your friends, call your mom, talk to them and see if they can understand what you do.
• Create content: A solid backlog of content pushing your keywords and company name means stronger SEO. The sooner you start, the better.
• Throwing in my own two cents, I’ll add read the news and check in on influencers on Twitter. You have to stay in the know. For the good of yourself, your company, your clients, you’ll all be better for it.

What would you add to the list? For more tools of the trade, stay tuned for future events and check out tips from our knowledge center.

This article originally appeared on the Metis Communications blog.