Think you’re a rockstar marketer? Let’s find out. Scan the list below and add up your total, multiply it by 2 and add a % at the end – that’s your rockstar score.
Everything that’s left is your marketing bucket list.
In no particular order (how lazy of me) …
- Get a difficult phrase to rank #1 in Google (i.e. not some random niche that anyone could rank well for)
- Get more than 100 comments on a blog post that you wrote
- Break the 1,000 retweet barrier for a single blog post
- Design an infographic – all by yourself
- Write an eBook
- Write a real book!
- Create a lead capture landing page to build a list of leads (you might want to give away the eBook you just wrote in exchange for email addresses)
- Set up an editorial calendar for content marketing
- Get a perfect AdWords Quality Score of 10, by crafting a beautiful ad and a perfectly matched landing page
- Set up a WordPress blog (sorry Drupal and Joomla, but I think you’re lame)
- Write a guest post on a big important site/blog (a collection of guest post writing tips here). As for where to write, I’d recommend SEOmoz, Smashing Magazine and Unbounce ;) as good places. Tip: make it your absolute very best work.
- Get 10,000 followers on Twitter without following more than 1,000
- Try a 5-second test with a total stranger to see if your homepage messaging is clear and concise
- Get enough RSS subscribers to your blog to be proud enough to show the number (I’d suggest > 1,000)
- Get your blog ranked in the top 150 of the Advertising Age Power 150 (this is not easy)
- Hit the 1,000 unique visitors per day milestone for your website/blog (unpaid organic search traffic)
- Make an eBook or whitepaper go viral by using a social exchange tool like PayWithATweet or CloudFlood. Read this case study on making an eBook go viral to see how it works.
- Run an online contest that requires social actions as part of the entry process (example of requiring a tweet to enter a contest. Note: the contest is over)
- Get asked to speak at a conference
- Actually speak at a conference (i.e. say yes) – I know Rand and Rick will needle me for this one
- Have the conference pay your expenses when you speak (including the bar tab)
- Get a stalker on Twitter (not a good thing – but it’s probably an indicator of your status)
- Run a webinar
- Get people to guest post on your blog
- Write a blog post (told you it wasn’t in any particular order) – you’ll be surprised at how many people haven’t ever written a blog post
- Run a PPC campaign
- Create a Facebook page for your business
- Get 5,000 people to “Like” your business on Facebook
- Write a list post (like the one you’re reading now). Tip: have a brainstorm to get as many ideas as you can for your list post then jam it out in an all-nighter (example: 101 Landing Page Optimization Tips).
- Go your whole career without referring to yourself as a “Guru”
- Run an A/B test
- Keep running A/B test’s until you actually get a conversion lift
- Use hashtags incorrectly in your Tweets to construct memorable or entertaining statements. e.g. #NotGonnaLieHoneyBadgersAreTotallyBadass
- Drunk tweet
- Regret drunk tweeting
- Delete your tweets because you regretted drunk tweeting (#FAILING can be a valuable lesson)
- Build a retention path for your customers and implement an email marketing “drip campaign” for it
- Use guerrilla marketing tactics to spread your message (doing some kind of branded trickery outside a conference so you don’t have to pay to attend)
- Run a successful affiliate program
- Get your company reviewed in a top blog like TechCrunch (nudge nudge Michael Arrington)
- Facilitate a co-marketing initiative to acquire new customers from a company whose customers closely align with your own
- Make a custom and useful 404 error page that can draw lost visitors back into your sales funnel. And throw in some humor to placate them a little.
- Do enough link building to give your website a Page Rank of 6
- Set up goals and funnels in Google Analytics to be able to report on conversion rates
- Be capable of answering c-suite questions such as: Which inbound channels are performing best? What’s our conversion rate?
- Increase your conversion rate of website visitors to signups by 10%
- Have a blogathon: write and publish 1 post to your blog every day for a month
- Create a marketing calendar: Mondays for SEO, Tuesdays for Content Marketing, Wednesdays for Conversion Rate Optimization, Thursdays for Email Marketing and Friday for Anlytics etc. And stick to it.
- Every time you hire a marketer for your team: give them this list as a task
- Do something else. Who wants to be a marketer their whole life?
What’s Your Rockstar Marketer Score?
Remember to count the ones you’ve done. Multiply it by 2 and you have your percentage.
For the record I’m at 68% … I’ve done 34/50.
» Share your Rockstar Marketer Score on Twitter! «
(You’ll be able to add your score in after you click the link)
Comments:
Nik Pasic (@NikPasic)
50% on the dot! 25/50 and surprisingly I got quite a few of the harder ones and haven’t gotten to some of the easier ones.
Oli Gardner
Nice. Yeah, there are a few in there that are low hanging fruit, and some that could take years to accomplish or randomly stumble upon.
Nik Pasic (@NikPasic)
Well your Noob Guide to Online Marketing does inspire me to create an infographic which’ll help me tick off one more, though I am curious… how long did that take yo?
Oli Gardner
It took me a loooong time. I’m a fairly slow designer, and it grew in scope and aesthetic over time. I came at it on and off over a couple of months (including the accompanying 14,000 word blog post). Worth every minute though – it’s been shared over 11,000 times from various sources since I first posted it on SEOmoz.
Nik Pasic (@NikPasic)
I’m sure you got a nice influx of twitter followers, RSS subscribers and the like… and I’m sure it would have led to more clients too.
Well, I’ll try to scratch off #47 off the list in August and hopefully follow that up with an infographic soon enough.
FYI, this is fast becoming one of my favorite blogs.
Oli Gardner
Thanks Nik, appreciate it.
#47 is a great thing to shoot for (and use #8 to help you manage it).
Nik Pasic (@nikpasic)
#8 is done and #47 is on the way! – http://www.nikpasic.com/the-blog/past-and-future/
Adele Tiblier
Not a bad start with 27/50… still a long way to go. I’ll be sure to share the infographic (currently in the works) upon my completion; which should TOTALLY count for double points.
Great post!
Oli Gardner
Nice! Definitely share your infographic. If it’s good enough, then maybe it would be okay to take the extra point away from the Twitter stalker :)
Kristi Hines
Wow, I sure have a long way to go! :)
Oli Gardner
That means you added up your score! Care to share? :)
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Jason Acidre
#4 is already on my to-do list this year, but I guess that list of mine will be adding more after seeing this list. Damn, I would love to experience #21. Enjoyed this post Oli, I think it’s my first time to read and enjoy something that is not so serious about online marketing these past few months.
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[…] to @oligardner of @Unbounce who wrote a brilliant (as far as I’m concerned) article on 50 things every marketer should do before they die. Being both a sucker for check lists and a score whore, after checking off a cool 25 out of the 50 […]
Ann H. Shea
Whoops, I don’t know whether to be motivated, humbled, or hope on a boat as a stowaway to some remote island and live off land crabs and coconut milk and chuck the whole thing. Very funny AND useful ideas. Thanks for being an out-of-the-box thinker and dedicating your efforts in the blog to share. Rarely do I find a blog that I deem something I KNOW I want to return to (I avoid blog RSS feeds like the plague because I’m on a formula of 68% sign-up for white papers + ebooks x 28% trying to be socialable and engaged on twitter [ – 4 hours/week trying to find guest bloggers or write blog posts divided by 1 hour learning about which WP plug-ins I need to have, update or remove]…math anxiety to the extreme. Glad to meet you, Oli, you’re a bright spot.
Oli Gardner
Haha, I’m glad you liked it Ann.
And yes, that’s some serious math and RSS anxiety! :)
Hope you come back soon.
Cheers
Oli
Redmill Marketing | Rob Seymour
Uh – oh, seems I have a LOT of catching up to do. Making about 20 of the 50 here I think. Way ahead of you on the drunk tweeting though.
Oli Gardner
I’m definitely getting better at the drunk tweeting, but I m working at 3am – so you never know.
Vince Kernaghan
Love your work Oli, your contributions to the marketing community are pure gold. On item #17, is it really CloudFront.com, or did you mean to refer to CloudFlood.com?
Vince Kernaghan
Hi Oli – your contributions to the marketing community are incredible. We can’t thank you enough – your time investment alone is incredible and the quality of your info makes it all super valuable and useful.
On #17, is it really CloudFront.com or should it be CloudFlood.com?
Oli Gardner
Yes, good catch. Updated.
Thanks Vince!
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Jennifer Fontaine
Thanks for making me feel like a bum Oli! I better get crackin’.
Oli Gardner
Haha – what was your score? Please share :)
Jennifer Fontaine
I got 26 out of 50, but would like to point out that I am not mainly an online marketer and my business is developing overall strategy for brick and mortar businesses. There are a lot of things I do that are not on this list. (Yes, pointing this out to make myself feel better.) This is a great list though, there are something things I should do.
Bibiana
I’m on 32%. I had the drunk tweet package done a long time ago.
Oli Gardner
Yeah, that’s a nice little trifecta you can roll out in a day :)
Thanks for sharing your score Bibiana.
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TechMD
lets see, im 27 now, and if i accomplish 1 of these a year, ill be marketing king at 77! hmm.. maybe i should follow #50 closer than anything.
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MA Computer Repair
I’d love to get through a quarter of these!