How To Fail Forward In Digital Marketing

As I sat at the HubSpot conference last week wondering how I ended up at biggest inbound marketing conference in the country, I heard a voice say, “If failure is not an option, then success is not an option!”

And it came to me: that’s how I got here. I failed! (That voice, by the way, was Seth Godin, and his presentation at Inbound 2013 was remarkable.) But it made me realize that the reason I’m the Vice President of Sales for a phenomenal company like DigitalRelevance is that I failed.

But I didn’t just fail: I failed up. By trying new things, taking risks and not being afraid to go out on a limb, I was able to give each of my previous positions the passion and effort necessary to make those companies successful. Failure can take many forms—and when it opens the door to new opportunities, it can be precious.

Failing your way to success

Let’s face it: Google forces marketers to fail, which means you consistently have new opportunities to succeed. That’s what DigitalRelevance has done. Slingshot SEO is one of the top SEO companies in the country. So, why create a new brand? Because it’s time. Google has changed the game and success in search isn’t about SEO anymore.

Yeah, I said it. It’s about content. It’s about helping others solve problems. Our CEO, Jeremy Dearringer, knows that to be successful in the digital future, we must be digitally relevant to online communities as they search to solve problems, have fun, buy something, share their thoughts. That’s where we are going and, as VP of Sales, that’s my responsibility at DigitalRelevance.

The danger of complacency

Complacency is that desire to not change so that you do not fail. In his best-selling book Good to Great , Jim Collins says it better: “Good is the enemy of great.” And so, after a few short months in digital marketing, I see two groups. On one side, there’s the younger, energetic and willing-to-learn marketers that are thirsting for knowledge and wanting to establish their brand.

On the other side, I see more experienced marketers who grew up with different mediums now trying to navigate all the changes in the marketplace and trying to keep up with technology, big data, revenue objectives and ROI. So, digital marketing is an industry full of people who need to fail and not settle for being good. It’s an industry that will absolutely kick you in the ass if you do not make the decision today to reject complacency and be willing to change on a daily basis.

This is an absolutely phenomenal time to be in digital marketing. So much going on, so many opportunities for failure, so many opportunities for greatness. I encourage you to jump in, fail, don’t accept complacency, listen to thought leaders, have an opinion and make a difference. Now, get back to failing!

Image credit: Sixth Lie

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/fail-forward-digital-marketing-0597320?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fail-forward-digital-marketing