Look Out The Window
I believe one of the key roles that any marketing and communications professional needs to play is representing the view from outside the four walls of the company. I think people on the agency side fulfill this role rather naturally, but it's also an crucial role for those of us on the client side.
What do I mean, exactly? My former colleague Leah Holzman had a great expression for this idea that I use to this day -- you need to "look out the window." If you only focus on what your business needs, you will have a much harder time moving your message into the marketplace. That's because the people you need to leverage to spread the word -- journalists, clients, conference organizers -- don't care about your business. They care about their audiences and their business objectives.
Some of this is about business empathy -- the ability to think about the needs and wants of the people you interact with instead of only focusing on your own needs and wants. But it's also about a few specific habits that can help you fulfill your role to look out the window:
1. Read a lot. You need to read as much as you can within your industry, but get beyond that, too. My regular media diet includes the NYT, the WSJ, the New Yorker, AVC, Feld Thoughts, and Seth Godin. I also pick stuff up from my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds.
2. Share what you learn. Part of your role of "looking out the window" is to point out the view to others in your organization. When you see a story on a trend that is related to your business, but in a slightly off-beat way, send that around. I'm not talking about the really obvious stuff -- people should pick that up on their own. But, for example, I recently shared two stories -- one from Morning Edition and another from AdAge -- about the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as the new place where marketers learn about consumer trends. This isn't directly related to our business -- we sell email intelligence solutions to marketers. But it's indirectly related and gives a sense of what some of our clients and prospects are thinking about.
3. GOOTO (Get Out Of The Office). If you spend all your time talking to people inside your organization it's hard to figure out what matters to people outside your organization. If you are in PR you should have a natural role in speaking with media, a great source of outside information. But anyone in marketing should be talking to clients, prospects, partners and prominent people within your industry.
What your your tricks for "looking out the window"?