Start now, start on the right path to value creation: People have been making New Year’s resolutions for nearly 4,000 years, according to the history books, the first recorded celebrations honoring the coming of a New Year were held in Babylon. 

The 11 day festivities included promises Babylonians made in order to get on the right side of their gods.  While the celebrations and timing have evolved, the tradition of making resolutions continues. 

So much so, that Google created a program to map New Year’s Resolutions from around the world. But despite the fact that we continue to make resolutions, less than half of us are still sticking to our resolutions by mid-year and only about 8% of us actually succeed in achieving our resolutions.

Many of us make personal resolutions, with the most common being to lose weight, get organized, spend less/save more, stay fit and healthy, quite smoking and so on.  And quite a few of us make career-related resolutions, such as earn a raise or promotion or reduce stress. 

As a marketer, being able to quantify results and acquiring new knowledge and skills are among the top five ways we can secure a promotion. Two common causes of work stress are the pressure to perform to meet rising expectations and pressure to work at constantly optimum levels.

Experts such as Shawnice Meador, director of career management and leadership development at MBA@UNC, say one of the most important steps for achieving a resolution is to have an action plan.

If earning that promotion or reducing stress are on your resolution list, we’ve compiled 12 Marketing Resolutions (one for each month), along with resources that will help you meet the increased expectation to prove the value of marketing, create a performance-driven marketing organization, quantify your results, and increase your knowledge and skills related to performance management and measurement.

And ultimately, reduce stress.  Each week this month, we’ll suggest three resolutions.  You may already have achieved some of these. If so, start with the first one you and your marketing team need to address.  If all of these fall on your “need to do list”, start with one and work your way toward 12!

Marketing Resolution 1: Resolve to serve as a value creator

Best-in-Class marketers who have cracked the code when it comes to the ability to demonstrate their value, impact, and contribution to the C-Suite, serve as value creators. Value creators market and offer decisions that create value for both customers and shareholders.

Marketing Resolution 2: Resolve to act as a change agent

Implementing marketing performance management and measurement initiatives is hard.  For many organizations it is a change.  And few of us enthusiastically embrace change. You may even face resistance from your own leadership team when it comes to implementing the changes needed to succeed at improving marketing performance management capabilities.  So before you get too far down the path, you and your team may first need to understand change management and take on the role of change agent.

Marketing Resolution 3: Resolve to create a performance driven culture

Expectations and pressure on marketing to generate value by capturing market share, increasing customer lifetime value, and growing customer equity has become the norm. Creating a performance-driven marketing organization will help you meet these expectations.

Laura Patterson is president and co-founder of VisionEdge Marketing, Inc., a recognized leader in enabling organizations to leverage data and analytics to facilitate marketing accountability. Laura’s newest book, Marketing Metrics in Action: Creating a Performance-Driven Marketing Organization (Racom: www.racombooks.com ), is a useful primer for improving marketing measurement and performance. Visit: www.visionedgemarketing.com       

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