Manifesting dreams: it’s a topic tackled by motivational speakers, CEOs of startups, mystics, education professionals, marketing managers and beyond. How does something go from one great big idea to one great big success?
In 1979, researchers conducted a study to find the secret ingredient. The test population was the group of MBA graduate students at Harvard. Each student was asked a simple question about his or her future. “Have you set clear goals, written them down, and made plans to accomplish them?”
84% of the Ivy League respondents did not have a plan to speak of. 13% said that they had clear goals and plans, but they were not recorded anywhere. A meager 3% said that yes, 
they had clear goals and plans, and they were written down on paper.
Ten years later, those respondents were interviewed once more. The 13% who reported unwritten goals were earning double the amount of the respondents who had no goals. And what about the teeny-tiny 3% who had clear, recorded goals? They were earning ten times as much as all of the other 97% combined.
A 2015 study run by the Content Marketing Institute echoes the same sentiments. They concluded that, “If you want to be more effective at content marketing(CM), document your strategy.”
In their pool of B2B Marketers, only 32% of respondents who had a verbal strategy without something on paper rated themselves highly in terms of CM effectiveness. 60% of those who had a documented strategy reported content strategy effectiveness. (Read the full report here: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2015_B2B_Research.pdf)
Nobody is promising a one-stop shop for greatness. But, if it’s true that having goals in mind is good, but writing them down is even better, then it’s wise for marketing managers to find a pen and put it to paper.
The concept of sales and marketing alignment is continuing to develop as a universal strategy. Are you effectively harnessing CM for sales enablement success? Tell us how you're achieving your success.
