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When it comes to marketing, the most successful companies view it as an investment, not an expense. Why? Because when marketing is implemented efficiently (with a plan, driven by goals and with quantifiable metrics established), profound ROI isn’t just possible, it’s almost a given.

If you’re a business owner or marketing professional, you know that achieving a positive return on investment is a must. These 3 not-so-little letters may haunt your dreams if you’re not doing a great job creating it, or, may be the reason your company is enjoying tremendous growth and the perks associated with it. But it takes money to make money and the thought of spending without a guaranteed outcome can make even the most confident people skeptical.

Successful companies are able see the forest through the trees and devote a budget to marketing and advertising. It’s that simple. Have there been successful companies who forged the path to success totally grassroots guerilla style? Perhaps yes, however the majority of companies you likely admire (B2B, B2C, local, national or global) have actual, dedicated and growing marketing budgets.

So for marketing success in 2016, you first must commit to making an actual marketing investment. That means money, but if you’re not working with a marketing agency, it also means time. Once you’ve made the commitment, and the subsequent investment, it’s even more critical to not waste a penny of that budget or a moment of your time. A marketing plan prevents both.

Here are 10 marketing plan must-haves and must-dos to maximize your opportunity for marketing ROI:

1) Analyze your audience

Yes it’s Marketing 101…but are you doing it? Many businesses overlook that an authentic focus on who is actual buying from you is the key to success. Do you have buyer personas? How well do you know your target market’s pain points and habits? Knowing your audience is critical to establishing a mutually beneficial relationship between you and them, and relationships are what get your prospects to become happy, returning customers.

You should have detailed profiles for your key customer types, and know things like their challenges, pains, favorite information resources, and needs. And remember – personas shouldn’t be based on a few guesses, but instead historical interactions and research. Three words: Don’t just guess.

2) Revise your SEO keywords and phrases

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has changed over the years, and has become an increasingly complex tactic that requires research and constant testing. While SEO may not be as keyword-focused as it once was, keywords are still a tremendously important component of a successful SEO strategy.

Your keyword strategy should incorporate short-tail (generalized) terminology backed by an extensive list of long-tail (targeted) phrases. Keep in mind, the keywords and phrases your prospects are using may not be the keywords your business is using internally; if you’re not optimizing your content for the customers’ language or incorporating their common questions, concerns, and challenges (in their own words), your SEO will fail.

3) Create an editorial calendar for your blogs

People like consistency, and an inconsistent blog can be mind boggling, not to mention annoying. After all, if you can’t consistently write and post blogs, what does that say about your ability to consistently deliver as a business?

Your editorial calendar should include blog topics that address your prospects’ and customers’ pain points, and revolve around your SEO keywords and phrases (see step 2 above). And just a heads up – your editorial calendar may not be annual. Consider quarterly updates to ensure your blogs have plenty of time to be developed, but are still relevant.

4) Align your sales and marketing strategies

Are you producing content that is actually in line with the needs of your sales team? Your sales team has a pulse on what prospects and customers are actually saying and they’re often the best channel for identifying and translating the needs and desires of your audience.

They can provide you with the exact questions and pain points that need to be addressed – aka content gold. If you’re going to be blogging (see step 3) and creating content (which has to be a component of any successful modern marketing plan), doesn’t it just make sense to develop content that helps your sales team close more business?

5) Perform a monthly review of your metrics and KPIs

Do you know what your metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are? If not, you’ll want to define these ASAP. If you can’t measure the success of your marketing initiatives, your plan won’t be very successful (or maybe it will be the best plan ever, but you’ll have no way of knowing for sure). At the minimum, you’ll want to know how your website is behaving and performing: traffic by source, conversion rates by offer, and bounce rates.

Your KPIs, on the other hand, are the metrics directly related to your business goals. Have an ecommerce site, and want to sell more? Your KPIs may include average order size (or value) and customer retention rate. If you really want to get sophisticated, you can begin measuring your customer lifetime value, and start predicting future success.

6) Update your website

Website revisions shouldn’t occur only during a full site redesign or when your address changes. Your site should be constantly reviewed and updated to ensure it’s relevant and optimized. Focus areas should include SEO, images, layout, conversion points, forms, videos, interactivity, UX features and of course, your actual content.

7) Incorporate Call-to-Actions

Every page on your website should include a call-to-action (CTA), and every CTA should be monitored and optimized to improve the conversion rate. This process should be done regularly – as in every day – so start scheduling time to review your CTAs. Don’t forget – conversion points that resonate for visitors in any stage of the buyer’s journey are necessary on your website so this step goes beyond options to Contact Us, Schedule a Consultation or Request Pricing.

8) Complete a comprehensive SEO evaluation of your website

We realize SEO was already discussed but with a topic this critical for marketing success, we’ve given it ample focus. If your SEO strategy is based on the SEO rules of 10, 5, or even 1 year ago, this step is especially important.

The best SEO advice we can give you is to follow best practices. Make sure your content and metadata relate, keywords are implemented, site structure is highly usable by a human as well as easily crawlable and indexable by a search engine, and that you’re producing quality content to name a very few. SEO can be a beast to tackle, and requires the expertise to improve rankings without violating best practices (which may result in a severe drop in search rankings).

9) Document your sales process

Is the current process repeatable and scalable (you do plan on growing right?)? Is the process uniform across every member of the sales team? If not, why? As discussed in Step 4, marketing and sales alignment should be a marketing plan priority and a disorganized, undocumented sales process works against not towards that goal.

10) Complete your marketing calendar for the year

You didn’t think we’d only recommend a calendar for your blogs, did you? Build out your holistic marketing calendar for the year. This calendar will help you prepare and stay focused on activities like trade shows you’ll be attending, webinars you’ll be conducting, digital campaigns you’ll be launching, and print ads that need distributing – and (as detailed more in our full 2016 planning checklist) how you’ll quantify them.

Whether you’re implementing a digital marketing strategy, a more traditionally-based one or, our recommended approach of a fully integrated marketing strategy, ROI is best produced when multiple channels are leveraged. Trying to plan and keep track of all these channels and the activities for each one without a calendar is like trying to win the Super Bowl without a playbook, team practice and post-game footage reviews. Bad, bad, bad idea.

Tying it all together

You can walk away from this blog right now with a 10-point action plan for marketing success and ROI this year. Get excited!  But don’t forget to also download our complete 2016 Marketing Plan Checklist for 10 additional priorities your full marketing plan should consider. If you do just these 10 things you’re headed down the right path, but actioning all 20 tips is the stuff ROI dreams are made of. So go ahead…we double dog dare you!

Take a minute to think about the best mentor you’ve ever had.

This doesn’t have to be someone at work, although it certainly could be. But mentors come in all shapes and sizes: It can be your manager, a colleague, a parent, a friend, a coach, a college professor … anyone who’s been a particularly excellent advisor at some point in your life.

Now, think of what made them stand out to you. Was it the example they set? That you felt like they really understood your communication style, your working style, or your goals? That they seemed to always point you to the right resources or give you the right advice when you needed it?

At some point in your life (and, if you’re lucky, many times), you’re going to find yourself playing the role of a mentor to someone, somewhere. It can be both exciting, and a little confusing. What exactly does it mean to be someone’s mentor, and how can you really stand out in the role?

Let’s touch on what a mentor is, including the three main types of mentors: peer mentors, career mentors, and life mentors. Then, we’ll go through 12 tips for being an amazing mentor.

What Does It Mean to Be a Mentor?

At its core, being a mentor is being a trusted advisor. It can mean a lot of different things, but it all boils down to making yourself available to support and advise someone when they need it, delivering that support in a way that makes sense to them, and always, always keeping that person’s best interests in mind.

A mentor/mentee relationship can last for years, or it can last one coffee date. When you mentor someone long-term, you really get to know and understand their personality, learning style, and goals, which can set you up to offer richer, more relevant advice over time. 

But mentorship doesn’t have to be long-term. It can also be a one-off or short-term relationship, like when someone needs help working through a specific problem — such as a career transition or a problem with a coworker or manager. 

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Venture Capitalist Anthony T. Khan wrote about three types of mentors. Let’s explore each one below.

Peer Mentors

This one is more of an apprenticeship than a mentorship. Whether someone is onboarding in a new job or simply at the early stages of their career, they may benefit from having a peer mentor working at their same company to help them settle in to their new job and climb the learning curve faster. A peer mentor focuses on helping with specific skills, working toward specific goals, and basic organization practices for how to get things done.

Career Mentors

When most people think of mentorship, they’re thinking about career mentorship. Career mentors are senior to their mentees at the same company or a former company. Their purpose is to serve as a career advisor and advocate, and to help reinforce how a mentee’s job contributions fit into their long-term career goals, and perhaps even how they fit into the bigger picture of the company’s goals.

Some companies have career mentorship programs built right into their people development strategy. This seems to work best when it’s not a bureaucratic system, but instead more of a volunteer system where existing employees volunteer to mentor newer employees. “It should be something people know is embraced as part of the ethos of a firm,” writes Khan.

Life Mentors

A life mentor is usually someone outside of their mentee’s workplace. This person can serve as an objective sounding board when that person finds themselves faced with a difficult career challenge or is considering changing jobs. Khan writes that life mentors shouldn’t replace a peer or career mentor, but “they are there to impart career wisdom.”

Chances are, you’ll be more than one of these types of mentors for multiple people, and you may have a few mentees at a time. There are a few pieces of advice that hold true regardless of the type of mentorship you find yourself in. Here are 12 tips on how to be an amazing mentor.

12 Ways to Be an Amazing Mentor

1) Approach each mentorship differently.

While you can do your best to categorize a mentor/mentee relationship, every one is unique. When you first start out, it’s important to take the time to assess your own style and readiness, and think about what kind of commitment you can and want to make.

Rebecca Corliss, who leads team development and culture for HubSpot’s marketing team, recommends asking yourself and reflecting on the questions on this list that are relevant to you:

• What kind of manager style do you naturally have/want?
• What expectations will you set in regards to your style and how best to work with you? 
• How will you know when your mentee is successful?
• How will you communicate what success looks like to him/her?
• What do you hope your mentee’s development looks like over the course of your mentorship?
• How can you segment out his/her experience into phases to get to that point?
• How will you use one-on-one time?
• How will you explain your expectations for one-on-one meetings (if applicable) so you’re on the same page?

2) Set expectations together in the very beginning.

Once you’ve reflected on the questions from #1, both you and your mentee will find it helpful to sit down and go over expectations — especially if you’re just getting to know each other.

For example, let’s say an alum from your alma mater sends you a cold email asking what it’s like to work at your company. You might be wondering if they asked you that because they want to work for your company, or whether they’re just curious about what a company in your industry is like. Understanding exactly where they’re coming from is going to help drive your discussion in the direction that’s helpful for both of you. If your company isn’t hiring or you aren’t comfortable helping them get a job, for instance, then you’ll want to set those expectations early.

3) Take a genuine interest in your mentee as a person.

A mentor/mentee relationship is a very personal one. You can give mediocre advice without really knowing a person, but to stand out as an amazing mentor, you’re really going to have to get to know your mentee on a personal level.

You probably have some of the more career-oriented questions down: what their working style is, their dream job, goals for their current job, and so on and so forth. But what about the stuff that makes them … them? Getting to know your mentee on a deeper level will help you build a strong relationship, and it’ll also help you understand who they are as a person, their likes and dislikes, how they interact with others, and so on.

So if your mentee tells you they had a great weekend, don’t just move on with the program. Ask them what they did, whom they did it with, or what their relationship is like with those people.

One great way to get to know someone? Become an active listener. This is easier said than done: It means making a conscious effort to really, truly pay attention to what your mentee is saying, instead of thinking about what you’re going to say next. You might worry that you need to come up with something helpful right away, when in fact, the best thing you can do for your mentee is to listen closely to what they’re saying, ask open questions to dig deeper, and act as a sounding board.

Which brings me to my next tip …

4) Know when to wait before giving advice.

When you’re mentoring someone, you might feel pressured to give them advice straight away. But not all feedback is helpful feedback, and giving unhelpful — or unwelcome — feedback can be detrimental to your relationship. An amazing mentor knows how to determine whether or not a situation lends itself to off-the-cuff feedback or really thoughtful feedback.

Corliss calls this “hitting the pause button.”

“A good mentor knows when to hit ‘pause’ during a conversation,” she told me. “Once in a while, a conversation might catch us off guard. For example, maybe someone raises an HR issue or a serious problem with an employee. Maybe someone says something that makes you mad or upset. If you don’t have the right information, experience or emotional state to react to a scenario properly, hit ‘pause.’ That will give you a chance to get more information, talk to your resources, and come back with a clear and valuable response.”

What might that look like in a real conversation? “Thanks for sharing this with me. I’m going to take some time and give this some serious thought before we continue. It’s important to me that I’m giving you the best possible solution. Why don’t we continue talking about it [tomorrow/next week/next time we meet]? I’ll book some time.”

5) Improve your emotional intelligence.

Being emotionally intelligent is a big part of being an amazing mentor. Any time you become a mentor for someone, you’ll find yourself getting to know their unique personality, their wants and needs, the experiences that have shaped them, and how they deal with different situations.

The best mentors know how to unlock this information by asking the right questions, reading their mentee’s body language, being open-minded, and even acknowledging and controlling their own emotions. (Read this blog post for tips on becoming more emotionally intelligent.)

6) Don’t assume anything about your mentee — ask.

It’s easy to fall into stereotypes or not see a situation from another person’s perspective. But great mentors recognize that it’s their responsibility to break through common assumptions by asking questions and digging deeper. This is especially true if you’re mentoring someone who’s in the early stages of their career, or if the two of you are just getting to know each other and they aren’t sure how transparent to be.

For example, let’s say you’re mentoring someone who’s having trouble getting through to their manager. Instead of launching into a story about a time you had communication issues with a manager of yours, spend time asking questions that draw out the important details of their problem. Ask your mentee detailed questions about their relationship with their manager. Don’t assume you understand their working style simply based off of the conversations you’ve had with them, as they probably work and communicate differently with their manager than they do with you.

Only once you’ve gotten an honest background on a problem can you share helpful, relevant feedback — without making decisions for your mentee. That’s up to them.

7) Be really forthcoming about mistakes you’ve made.

Being open to sharing your own mistakes and failures is one of the best gifts a mentor can give. Not only is it helpful information for problem-solving purposes, but it also helps build trust, gives them permission to share their own mistakes, and strengthens the relationship overall.

“Junior people don’t always feel comfortable owning up to a mistake or admitting that they’re struggling in a certain area,” says Emma Brudner, who manages HubSpot’s Sales Blog. “If you cop to your failures and struggles, you make it okay for them to chime in and help them share with you.”

Leslie Ye, who writes for HubSpot’s Sales Blog, agrees. She suggests reflecting on the problems you faced and what has tripped you up at the same point in your career that your mentee is in. “Hearing how someone else approached a challenge is always helpful for someone going through it for the first time,” she says. “Even if you don’t solve problems the same way as your mentee, it’s always useful to hear multiple perspectives.”

8) Celebrate their achievements.

Because people often look for or call upon a mentor to help them with tough situations, many mentorship conversations revolve around the negative stuff. When you take the time to highlight and even celebrate your mentee’s successes and achievements, you’re not just balancing out the mood of those conversations — you’re also building your mentee’s confidence, reinforcing good behavior, and keeping them focused and motivated. Depending on the relationship, mentees might also be seeking approval from their mentors — and acknowledging their success is a way to satisfy that psychological need for recognition.

How you go about celebrating their achievements is entirely up to you. For example, if you’re a peer mentor helping onboard a new employee, you may choose to publicly acknowledge them either by sharing their success with their team or even just with their manager. 

9) Give more than you ask for.

I believe in the principle of “what goes around, comes around.” I like to think about my mentors who’ve gone out of their way to meet me for coffee, give me feedback on job choices, point me to resources, and so on. The best mentors I’ve had have selflessly offered their time and wisdom to me — and I’m sure the best mentors you’ve had have done the same. Think about the impact they’ve had on your career, and offer the same to your mentees.

“Give more than you ask for,” is how Ye puts it. “Most mentees inherently have less to offer because they’re typically younger and less experienced. It can be hard to ask for help if you feel like you’re a burden on someone else. Giving advice or help freely — and making it clear you’re happy to do so — is a huge help to easing those anxieties.”

10) Seek out classes or projects related to skills your mentee wants to develop.

Great mentors look for situations — and some even create situations — where their mentees can get involved to learn some of the skills they’ve been hoping to learn. It doesn’t matter how much or how little experience you have in your mentee’s current or desired job or industry — you can still give them helpful resources to succeed.

It can be anything from connecting them with someone with experience in their dream job or industry, or sending them a website to a conference or class they might want to sign up for. Take note of the areas in which your mentee wants to grow, and always be looking for opportunities to point them in the right direction.

If you work at the same company as your mentee and have some involvement in their experience, Corliss suggests introducing new projects to them over time as a way to build a strong foundation.

“First, start with something that gives context,” she says. “This could be something that requires research and is genuinely valuable. Then, hand off something small that you normally do for your intern or mentee to own, like a weekly email, or a blog post. This will help your mentee learn how to develop ownership over something, including how to execute and reach a goal on his or her own. Then, build upon that foundation.”

11) Solve for the long-term.

Work with your mentee as if you’ll be their mentor forever. That mindset will make it easier for you to give them long-term guidance, which will help them make decisions that outlive their time with you.

This is particularly important if you work at the same company as your mentee because it’ll help them make a larger impact at your company. “Giving [them] a lot of ownership may leave a gap when they leave, but why limit the impact your intern can have in order to solver for an easier transition out?” says Corliss. “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never have loved at all. “

12) Lead by example.

Last, but certainly not least, be a positive role model. Your mentee can learn a whole lot from you by simply observing how you behave. They’ll pick up information about your “ethics, values, and standards; style, beliefs, and attitudes; methods and procedures,” writes E. Wayne Hart for Forbes. “They are likely to follow your lead, adapt your approach to their own style, and build confidence through their affiliation with you. As a mentor, you need to be keenly aware of your own behavior.”

At the end of the day, being a great mentor takes practice and patience. The more you work with a given mentee, the more you’ll learn a lot about them: their communication style, how they process feedback, how they go about pursuing their goals. At the same time, you’ll learn a lot about yourself: how effectively you can explain ideas in a way others can understand, how well you’re able to control your emotions, whether you’re able to provide a vision that motivates others, and so on.

In the end, being a mentor will likely be as rewarding an experience for you as it will be for your mentees. 

What tips do you have for being a great mentor? Share them with us in the comments.

As education marketers, you’re more than a collateral factory for the Admissions department. But do they know that?

Sometimes it seems a great divide separates Marketing and Admissions. Many schools experience this interdepartmental tension, which slows down the recruitment process. Admissions complains about lead quality. While Admissions’ inconsistent follow-up on leads frustrates Marketing. This makes handing off leads a chore instead of a routine process.

Yet when Marketing and Admissions work as partners, they share greater visibility.  They see how all their combined activities interrelate and support their institution’s enrollment goals. When that happens, both student enrollment and mutual professional respect increase. 

Imagine what it would be like if both departments worked together as a team. Together you’re stronger — navigating the delicate and complicated journey from recruitment to enrollment. To help you create that partnership with Admissions, here are our three best tips:

1) Create a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to Establish an Enrollment Partnership

A smooth hand-off process starts long before getting any leads. Start by creating an SLA with Admissions. SLAs, common in service organizations, ensures your school meets its obligations to its prospective students. At HubSpot, we encourage our clients to create SLAs between Marketing and Sales. It spells out each department’s roles and obligations in their lead generation and conversion process. The same idea applies to finding prospective students and converting them into enrolled students.

An effective SLA also defines goals and success metrics that Marketing and Admissions must meet. Crafting the SLA together takes

Agreement on critical terms, especially what makes up an “Admissions Qualified Lead (AQL).” These are the criteria that define when a lead is ready to hand-off. When you agree, complaints of bad leads go away. Consider some of these criteria to include:

• What demographic, expressed interests, and behavior triggers qualify a lead?
• Does it take a volume of actions, say downloading many pieces of content?
• Are there any “rocket to the top” actions that trigger an AQL, say scheduling a campus tour?
• Clarifying any criteria that will send an AQL back to Marketing. For instance, a lead met the formal AQL triggering criteria. But Admissions can see this lead isn’t quite ready to speak with them. It takes patience and observation to help Admissions define what they see. Only then can you translate those criteria into an SLA. 
• Defining what actions and results are expected of each person in the process.
• Drawing a direct connection between Marketing’s lead generation goals and Admissions’ enrollment goals.
• Enjoying the teamwork inspired by having shared goals

The first metric, often set by a group of stakeholders, is your enrollment goal. The rest of your goals fall into place from there. For example, you have an idea of how many students you need to accept to reach your enrollment number. Based on that, calculate how many leads you need in your contact database. Finally, how many prospects at open houses and visiting your website will you need to get enough leads?  When you both agree on these numbers, you’re working as partners, instead of adversaries.

Working together also means clear and regular communications on both sides. Check-in meetings help make that easy (more in tip #3). 

The SLA may include a Marketing goal of attracting a specified number of people to open houses. Of those prospects, a certain number should become leads, and admissions then commits to touching each AQL a certain number of times. For example:  Admissions sends X emails and makes Y phone calls over a certain period of time.

Below you’ll find in-depth guidance on what metrics to include in your SLA and how to calculate them. The template uses sales terminology. You’ll want to change it to fit the metrics and terms your school uses.

Speaking of templates….

2) Use a Consistent Strategy and Templates to Streamline the Lead Hand-off Process

Don’t fumble here. The goals and action steps on each side of the house are clear in the SLA. The hand-off process must run smoothly so it doesn’t become the weak link.

Outline this process with Admissions, step-by-step:

• What triggering criteria turn a lead an AQL? This is part of your SLA.
• How does Marketing notify Admissions of new AQLs? Ditto for Admissions sending leads back to Marketing? Is it a spreadsheet report? An email? Is the information automatically synced between databases, or manually sent?
• What information is included in the report about the AQL? Besides contact information, what about content consumed, program web pages they’ve visited. Have they looked at financial aid information, or not? Should the “Return to Marketing” report include the reason why, how many times admissions made contact, etc.?
• How often is a hand-off report sent? Is it a weekly or daily spreadsheet listing all AQLs? Or are emails about a specific prospect sent immediately once a prospect becomes an AQL?
• Who gets these reports? Who allocates responsibility for specific AQLs to the person in Admissions accountable for follow-up?

Besides documenting the hand-off process, create templates to track and communicate necessary information. If you both agree to hand-off individual AQLs via email – develop a formal email template. Same for emails that Admissions should use when they return a lead to you. Using marketing automation simplifies this with workflows. A workflow’s rules can automatically:

1. Extract the correct information
2. Place it in the appropriate email
3. Send it to the right person
4. At whatever frequency you define  

3) Have an Ongoing and Open Feedback Loop to Foster Communication and Success

An SLA only works when there’s mutual monitoring and accountability. Hold regular SLA meetings to review where everyone’s metrics stand against the goals.

At the meeting, discuss why you’re ahead, or behind, on your numbers. It’s also a good time to clear up any blips before they become full-blown issues. If Admissions thinks too many prospects on the last report weren’t qualified — resolve the problem. Are the workflow rules parsing the data correctly? Do the AQL criteria need tweaking?

• Use it to address higher-level issues, such as:
• Why has there been poor attendance at open houses?
• Website traffic to the admissions page has dropped, what’s going on?
• Has traffic to Admissions’ page gone down?
• Have downloads of the “Admission Checklist and Deadlines” content jumped?
• Dissect the reasons and build on the strengths you identify for future successes.

Decide how often to meet. A monthly meeting could focus on higher-level, more strategic topics. Use weekly meetings for tactical issues. Whatever the schedule is, make sure both departments treat it as a priority.

Conclusion

You’re both responsible for meeting your school’s enrollment goals. Work together to set underlying goals, clarify mutual responsibilities and tasks, and establish a clear hand-off process.This will help you connect the work of both departments, improving both efficiency and effectiveness. It leverages your combined resources in the smartest way possible, while also showcasing the value Marketing brings to the process. Most important, it ensures you’re seen as an indispensable, valued partner in the enrollment process.