5 Daily Disciplines of Successful Marketing Leaders Work smarter in order to achieve long-term growth as a marketing professional.

The most successful marketing leaders don't have more hours in the day than the rest of us. By emulating some of the daily disciplines of the most successful marketing leaders, you can improve productivity, earnings and the mythical balance between your career and your personal life.

1. Aggregating relevant news feeds.

Digital marketing executives must be agile and prepared to modify strategy and approach. One of the most important daily disciplines that all marketing leaders enjoy is perusing an organized news feed. Do you ever wonder why executives seem to be commenting immediately about issues that impact their business or industry? That is because they make it a practice to be informed daily.

There is the potential to be overwhelmed by news sources and frustrated by the processing of picking through items that have no value to your business. Setting up feed readers to aggregate content based on keywords and filters helps to reduce the content noise, and helps leading executives know the most critical details that may have an impact on their industry. The Feedly app is one resource that helps organize actionable content for busy marketing executives.

2. Email management.

Did you know that some of the most successful marketing executives check their emails at scheduled intervals of the day? It may sound ludicrous to some, who feel the need to respond to an email the minute it arrives in their inbox, but the interruption can actually have a negative impact on performance.

Related: 11 Tweaks to Your Daily Routine Will Make Your Day More Productive

Email filters are the secret to prioritizing important communications, without sabotaging your daily productivity. We all have leadership and emails that have top priority, in terms of response times. Add those senders to folder for immediate viewing. Other email filters can be established by keyword and filtered through to administrative staff for prompt response, on your behalf. Tame your inbox the way that successful CEO's do, and optimize your time.

Check out "Top Tips to Manage Your Inbox" for step-by-step instructions on setting up folders and email rules in iOS and Gmail.

3. Delegation and outsourcing.

Your commitment to excellence is what contributes to a successful career in marketing leadership. However, that drive for perfection and performance can lead many executives down a path of "do it yourself" rather than trusting key staff or service providers. We know that it can be difficult to find staff or contract professionals that you can trust with routine activities that are essential to your marketing strategy, which is why it is not uncommon to see brilliant brand strategists stretched too thinly.

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The investment that you make in sourcing a solid team is one that elevates your performance. Entry-level staff, when suitably trained, can free your time substantially, allowing for higher-level strategic planning. The most successful marketing professionals have mastered the ability to delegate, and see it as an essential aspect to their own personal performance.

4. Daily learning.

Do you consider yourself to be a life-long learner? The industry of digital marketing pivots on a monthly basis, depending on changes to algorithms, legal policy and legislation, as well as the introduction of new software and productivity tools. Daily analysis and gleaning what other successful brand leaders in your niche are doing is key to constantly evolving your understanding of the brand ecosystem and a source of inspiration and ideas for creative marketing rollout.

Marketers that have not grasped digital marketing can find themselves unemployed quickly. Webinars, conferences and online learning are essential. While social media and content strategy emerged as two new tools in the marketing mix, they have quickly grown to become the most important aspect of branding and search engine marketing. Age doesn't matter; remaining coachable throughout your career with a hunger to learn daily is what differentiates unemployable marketers from thought leaders and influential executive professionals.

5. Scheduling downtime.

Anyone who is employed within the field of digital marketing knows that balancing business and activities of normal life can be a challenge, particularly in high-volume periods. If you are launching a start-up, we also know that the concept of a vacation or even a coffee break can be laughable at the best of times.

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While the general consensus may be that a period of rest may be a "waste of time" scientific research indicates otherwise. In fact, even a short break can improve your focus and performance exponentially, making you more concise and productive. Top performing marketing executives take scheduled breaks to recharge, regroup and reorganize their thinking. Does it look like Richard Branson ever denies himself a good vacation? We rest our case.

Replace the "work hard; play hard" mantra with "work smarter" to achieve long-term growth as a marketing professional. Invest in organizing your team, your productivity tools and your daily schedule to succeed.