Lofty, unattainable, stress-inducing New Year’s Resolutions are so 2023. Let’s talk about real-deal professional intentions for the year ahead. Who’s with us?
To kick-start this new-year momentum, the Aamplify team (virtually) gathered to swap productivity hacks, officially rate the B2B best practices we swear by and discuss how to prioritise professional growth. Here’s what we came up with and what’s on our collective to-do list this year.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20, so save yourself the overtime hours and learn from our mistakes learnings. We asked the team to share an organisational hack that’s significantly impacted their day-to-day productivity or something they wish they’d implemented in their workflow sooner.
With a whopping 83% of organisations worldwide setting AI as a top priority for their business in 2024, the payoff is clear. AI knowledge is quickly becoming an expectation of employees and agencies; work smarter, not harder.
Here are 5 clever ways to leverage AI as a marketer, as aggregated by HubSpot:
We’re predicting this to be one of the top trending productivity topics of the year. Building a second brain acknowledges that humans cannot absorb, process and store all the information surrounding us daily — we need some backup. It’s essentially outsourcing additional memory for ourselves, which is pretty awesome.
The second brain approach has been a game changer for our Platform Specialist Jasmin, who admits, “I wish I had learned about and created a 'second brain' system earlier (mine is in Notion.so), where I meticulously organise and store information, ideas, and knowledge. It helps track progress, manage client expectations, and ensure I don’t miss crucial details.”
Let’s be honest; it's not a task anyone particularly looks forward to, but one that you’ll be eternally grateful you did. This particular task is elusive because no two people share the exact needs, preferences or workflows, so it can be a bit of trial and error or improvement as you go.
Our Community Manager Paul is first to admit, “Boring, I know, but I rebuilt my filing system last year based on what I'd learnt from working with a client, and it's done wonders in making it simpler to create workflows, find what's important to clients and keep on top of projects across all my client's work.”
So get stoked to build a meticulous system perfectly tailored to your needs. Paul promises you’ll thank yourself later.
Best practices are dubbed such for good reason; it’s simply the best way. Full stop. Here’s a taste of our secret sauce for B2B marketing success.
Think of niche marketing like spearfishing versus more traditional methods of casting a wide net.
Succinctly explained by HubSpot, “Designed to attract a specific subset of customers, a niche marketing strategy considers the narrow category into which your business falls. It focuses on a small group of buyers instead of the broader market. A niche marketing strategy helps you stand out from the competition, attract people who can't resist buying and boost productivity.”
While it can take more time and effort to hone into these precious niche markets, the resulting brand loyalty is priceless.
When it comes to the user journey, personalisation is the priority. For example, in email marketing, a recent statistic shows that 72% of consumers exclusively engage with personalised messaging. Wow.
It’s all about delivering the right message to the right people at the right time, and the key to this formula working for you is a comprehensive, up-to-date CRM system.
Despite best intentions, CRMs can become messy. So, we’ve created some handy guides for whipping yours into shape for the new year.
Start with Marie Kondo Your HubSpot CRM Data: Part 1, then move right along to Part 2 for the deep clean.
With at least half of Kiwis having the option to work remotely, we have to find new ways to unlock the power of teamwork in the workplace. Enter the concept of digital collaboration.
As described by the business experts at Deloitte, “Digital collaboration uses technology to help unlock the capacity and knowledge of every employee in the organisation in order to improve productivity, stimulate innovation and enhance agility. Tools such as Workplace, Slack, and Google G-suite and solutions from companies such as Basecamp, Trello and Asana provide engaging platforms for knowledge sharing, goal alignment and task management to support collaborative team-centric work.”
But even with these systems in place, have you ever been mid-project thinking how helpful it would be to have [insert co-worker’s name here] weigh in? Then, didn’t bother because everyone was busy, and you didn’t want to slow the process down?
Deloitte also found that when their employees collaborated, they worked 15% faster, 73% did better work, 60% were more innovative, and 56% felt more satisfied. Plus, on the interpersonal level, employee teamwork can help develop a sense of community, strengthen professional relationships and improve company culture.
Extra credit reading: Coursera has created this helpful list of strategies to increase workplace collaboration and help get the brainstorming ball rolling.
The thing standing between us and our professional growth goals is most often time. Finding that time within a workweek to focus on continued learning and development can be challenging, but prioritising it benefits both the employee and the organisation.
Surveys show that people who work for companies that invest in resources for learning are 83% more likely to feel happier in their jobs. Plus, the company will benefit from new skills brought into the organisation.
How can you make this feasible with an already busy schedule? Enter time blocking.
Time blocking is a time management strategy that accounts for every minute of your work day, clearly showing where your time is going. This approach can be wildly helpful in taking back minutes and hours within your workday and actively scheduling time towards those professional goals.
The organisational wizards at Asana have put together an approachable guide to getting started with time blocking. Begin by slotting in 10 minutes to give it a read.
Lastly, and most importantly, give yourself permission to listen to your instincts, think outside the box, and squash any sneaky inklings of imposter syndrome from the get-go. We wish you all a wonderfully productive year ahead, filled with brilliant campaigns, dazzling KPIs and plentiful collaboration.
If you’re in the B2B space, we would love to grab a virtual coffee to chat about your year ahead and how Aamplify can support your business goals. Get in touch with us here.
Before the first day, you might also consider leaving a note on your new hire.
