I hope reading the preceding 16 chapters was enlightening, thought-provoking, and challenged you to think differently about your marketing effort, no matter where you fit in the organizational structure. Almost every marketer I know perpetually exists in the trenches of execution, and rarely has (or makes) the time to ask why in any proportion compared to how often they consider how. Breaking this cycle could be the single most important takeaway from all these words, and that's my challenge to every reader. Your long-term success won't truly be measured on whether you sent 10 or 12 campaigns this month. The litmus test is more revenue and happier customers.

Every year, I speak at approximately 50 events around the world focused on both new prospects and existing customers, and almost every marketer who attends reports feeling recharged. This is the benefit of being in a room of your peers; the room is full of people who do exactly what you do and who can discuss their own methods and approaches. So find time to network and meet up with other digital marketers in your own town. It serves the dual purpose of getting you off the execution treadmill for an afternoon, and can have an eye-opening effect on your tactics. Just like those one-day events, I trust each of you will take three to four tactics away from this reading, and will implement them in the coming months.

I'll leave you with five very specific takeaways as we wrap up this book:

1. Get started: Choose whatever catch phrase you like (everything starts with now; the most difficult step in every journey is the first; ad nauseam) but know there's only one real litmus test after reading this book: Did you implement change? Did you build a new automated program to reach a segment of prospects ready to buy? Will you commit to sharpening your segmentation models to find your least active customers and develop compelling content to win them back? Have you laid out your “next-six” strategy as we discussed in Chapter 5?

   I often talk with our customers about “great being the enemy of good.” Don't wait for the perfect customer-buying moment, or until you get one more marketing headcount to get started. Start now and start simply. You can improve your tactics and strategies over time, but erring on the side of action is how you should be thinking right now. Execute on improvements you have direct control over, and be building out a plan around those that require bigger efforts or more organizational coordination. The key is to act.

2. Be relentless: Many of the most successful marketers I work with experiment like mad within a constrained subset of their marketing. They nail their top-line approach for key automated programs like cart abandon or inactive users, and begin almost immediately at the beginning of the queue. They might have eight automated programs that are refreshed and rethought every three to six months, and two more added each quarter.

   If this degree of effort seems unachievable, remember that the more you embrace automation and behaviors, the more set-and- forget your marketing becomes. It frees you of the how shackles and allows you to spend increasingly more time on the why. Initially, you might have to work 25 percent harder, but know that you're making epic progress—both in revenue and customer satisfaction. By approaching your effort with maximum flexibility and an underlying dedication to testing and improvement, your performance will only improve over time.

3. Focus on revenue: One of the hallmarks I look for when hiring managers or specialists is an understanding of the bigger picture beyond simply executing great marketing programs. An improvement in email click rates or the percentage of complete records in the database are important interim metrics, but they don't hold a candle to increasing revenue. Sure those actions improve your opportunity to drive more revenue, but by themselves they don't fund another headcount or buy more paid media to drive awareness of your solutions.

   So even if you're the newest person on the marketing team, an unrelenting focus on tracking and reporting on revenue lift is critical. At the highest levels of your executive management, that's virtually all they care about. Don't be fooled into grading your own effort on a vanity metric like email-open percentage; the question for every marketer should be how are you contributing to revenue.

4. Lead the conversation: Specifically because marketing is undergoing this behavioral-driven transition from batch to highly personalized, the power and spheres of influence are changing rapidly. Today, your business partners likely come to you every fall when planning for the next fiscal year and outline which products or services will be featured in the marketing. Then, you lay out an annualized calendar. Unfortunately, marketing is too often the order taker and most businesses I see up close could change radically in the space of 12 months.

   When we think and act more deeply—and drive our organization to do the same—we earn the right to take a larger role in the planning process. So instead of waiting for the business to ask for a campaign, we're in a position to isolate specific audience subsets that would benefit from a specialized message or offer and proactively start that conversation with the business. The market reality is that the CMO now controls as much (or more) of the technology budget as the CIO does, and that contributes to this reset of roles as well. Marketing is now at the big-kids' table. Make sure you're thinking and acting like you belong there.

5. Push your team: For anyone who has direct reports, the challenge to improve your marketing substantially takes on another whole degree of difficulty. It's not just a matter of you executing differently, you have to convince, coordinate, and motivate the staff. There are lots of management styles out there, but I find it most effective to combine intense mentoring with elevating expectations.

   Simply riding herd on your staff without an absolute commitment to mentoring its youngest members often results in a sweatshop mentality that's counterproductive at best—and alienating to your best employees at its worst. Be prepared to spend time explaining, teaching, and reviewing performance with your direct reports. At the same time, constantly challenge them to improve their performance. Again, there are many methodologies here, but the key is to find one that works well with your personal style. Annual goal planning, some degree of external training, and a recognition program of some sort are all tactics that should be included in your approach.

So let's call this the end of the rah-rah speech. I've given you many tactics and strategies to consider in migrating your marketing effort to be more behavioral. The ball's now squarely in your court. Which two tactics will you have live this month? What relationships will you build to enable holistic improvement over the next 12 months?

If you act, I have succeeded with this book. If you move on to the next title without substantial improvement, I have failed. And failing sucks, so get down to business, my marketing compadres!