The Importance of Industry Updates
I’m going to talk about two different kinds of industry updates here: Digital Marketing updates (our industry) and Client Industry updates (their industry).
Digital Marketing Industry Updates
In the fast-paced, ever-changing digital marketing industry, it’s important to stay up-to-date with what’s happening. I’ve delivered plenty of industry updates that have evolved into a larger strategy or test. When proposing a new strategy or planning a test it is important for your client to know why you are doing what you’re doing. If your client has a better understanding of what you’re doing, they are less likely to push back when you’re making your proposal to shift gears.
Client Industry Updates
As if keeping up with digital marketing isn’t enough, being on top of your clients’ industry is equally important. Going the extra mile for your client and letting them know you’ve got their back will go a long way. Not to mention, big changes in your clients’ industry can also have an impact on strategy. Imagine that your client’s industry goes through a major change in terms of what can and cannot be on a website for legal reasons and you don’t know about it. Then you make a recommendation and your client doesn’t fully understand the rules either and your recommendation gets implemented. Next thing you know, the CMO and the client legal team are joining your call to ask why you’d make such a recommendation…Doesn’t sound fun, right? Keep reading.
4 Ways to Find Industry Updates
There are plenty of ways to stay up-to-date in all sorts of industries. So I’m going to share how I stay on top of industry updates without spending hours and hours and hours of searching and boring reading.
Subscribe to Blogs &/or Newsletters
- Having a blog on a website is pretty common practice anymore. By subscribing to your clients’ blogs/newsletters and their competitors’ blogs/newsletters you can get the latest industry news straight to your inbox! I highly recommend setting up folders and filters to keep everything in one place. This works for keeping up-to-date on digital marketing (subscribe to digital marketing blogs/newsletters) and for clients (subscribe to your clients’ and their competitors’ blogs/newsletters). For you digital marketers, let me help you get started!
Feedly & RSS Feeds
- Feedly is an awesome tool to getting all of your industry news in once place. Feedly has a mobile app as well as a traditional website. With Feedly, you can create different feeds for different industries. My Feedly has an SEO feed, a general digital marketing feed, and a feed for each of my clients. Feedly updates daily, so I’m always getting the most recent news.
Google Alerts
- Google Alerts is a great way to stay on top of trending news. With Google Alerts you can set up alerts for brand mentions, industry terms, competitor brand mentions, and basically anything you would want to keep a pulse on. From there, you can set up how frequently you’d like to receive updates and the time of day you actually get it in your inbox (I recommend weekly, otherwise your inbox gets flooded).
Google Trends
- Google Trends is another great way to stay on top of trending news. With Google Trends you can set up alerts for target search terms, brand, competitors and basically anything you would want to keep a pulse on. Much like Google Alerts, you can set up how frequently you’d like to receive updates and the time of day you actually get it in your inbox (I recommend weekly, otherwise your inbox gets flooded).
You!
- That’s right! You! Did you recently run a test and see some solid results? Share it! Did you find a trend in data across a specific industry? You guessed - share that $h!t!
Frequency for Sending Industry Updates
So finding time to find industry updates on top of your already busy workload seems like a pain; I get it. But now that you understand how important industry updates can be to pivoting strategy, finding new opportunities, and fostering a good relationship with your clients, set aside an hour 2 days a week to read through your blog subscriptions, your Feedly (I read mine daily), and your alerts. Alternatively, you can set aside 30 minutes every morning or evening to read through everything you need. You may not always find something worth sharing, but you will always know what’s going on. When you DO find something worth sharing, spend ~30 minutes to write up a summary and how it impacts your client (or if it’s just an FYI).
Final Thoughts:
Stay informed, share it with your clients, keep learning.
