As you can imagine, there are some bigger things i want to write about. So much is happening in the industry right now. Big and small, I plan to cover as much of it as I can.

But I also don’t quite have the words or insights on some of those yet to start writing.

In the meantime, I want to talk about something that I do have the words for. Something that I have admired in other marketers, have attempted to master for myself, but have mostly failed at despite it being something that’s immensely valuable.

The Balance
In marketing, you always need to be on top of what’s coming. Sometimes it’s a matter of trends in the industry, sometimes it’s just a matter of weather or dates on a calendar.

And we also need to have good ideas to capitalize on those moments.

So being, it’s little wonder why marketers are very much forward-looking, creative people.

But so much of what we do depends on what has already happened. Things like:

• Not making the same mistakes twice when we mess up
• Making sure what we learned from that split test actually gets applied to the next campaign
• Remembering what worked last time and not trying to reinvent the wheel
• Ensuring that a change on the website actually gets measured and compared before/after to know if you should keep or abandon it

That list could go on and on and on. But there-in lies the problem.

Two Challenges
Two, in fact.

First, we’re such forward-looking people it may not be our natural inclination to constantly looking back and keeping that actively swimming around some corner of our brains.

Second, this backward-looking skill doesn’t require the creative problem solving we love and are good at. It’s much more like accounting than art. And like anything we don’t enjoy, it can be hard to stay on top of it.

So why am I writing about it?

Remember, Solve, Share
There are three reasons.

First, so we can remember it. And take just a moment of self reflection to grade ourselves on how we are doing with our own metrics and ability to build on the past rather than to repeat it.

Second, so we can hopefully take this moment to also try to better solve this problem. Maybe that’s a matter of delegating it to someone who is good at this sort of thing or simply delegating the act of remembering to do it to a recurring calendar invite.

Third, so you can share what’s worked. Seriously, I’d love to hear from you if you have struggled with this and what you’ve done to solve. Partly because I’d like to share those lessons, but partly because I’d love to learn how others handle this.

Marketing is fun, it’s creative, it’s exciting.

We can’t only look back, but if that creativity isn’t guided by lessons and results and winners from the past, we can spin our wheels much more than we should.

If you’ve got some ideas for how you’ve successfully recorded (and remembered) lessons, stayed on top of metrics, etc., I’d love to hear – contact@slopefillers.com – just shoot me an email.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.