You’ve worked very hard to become a good marketer but you really want to take your work to the next level and become truly great. Being great requires effort, commitment and an understanding of what it takes to move beyond good to great. Let’s assume you know your audience, have a well-defined niche and you’re a good marketer now. To move from good to great, you’ll need to have the following qualities.

Be Authentic and Real

To be truly authentic you need to know who you are and what you stand for. Let other people do themselves and you do you. You’re unique as a marketer so once you find your voice, don’t change it – just do more of it. Be more authentic more often.

Demonstrate Honesty

Stick to what you say you’ll do in order to demonstrate your honesty. If you send a customer a headline that is deceiving, word gets around, and you won’t be seen as honest or trustworthy. Show how honest you are by not misleading your customers and potential customers.

Be Above Board and Ethical

Ensure that any product, service, or content that you promote is ethical. Remember that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical. Ethics go far beyond legality. While most of the time something that is not ethical will also be illegal, the reverse is not true. Ethics for each business person and business entity will vary depending on their values and beliefs. What’s important is that you walk the talk and practice what you preach.

Stay Informed about Your Niche

A great marketer will also stay highly informed about their industry. Staying up-to-date on the news, hot topics, trends, laws and information regarding your industry at all times. The more informed you are, the more you can stay ahead of coming trends and killer technologies, creating a situation where you are a major thought leader within your industry.

Always Be Empathetic to Your Clients

A great marketer cares about their customers. A great marketer has passion about their products and/or services because of what they do for their customer. They strive to understand the audience more every day and to demonstrate the care they have for them in their actions, products and services.

Be a Savvy Business Person

A great marketer is able to look at things from different angles to come up with useful products and services as well as interesting and compelling campaigns. Someone who is savvy knows how to listen to their customer and create a product based on what they learn, as well as turn it on its ear to create something amazing and new.

A Great Marketer Is Always Prepared

A great marketer is always prepared for changes in the industry and knowledgeable about what their customers want and need to solve their problems. A great marketer is ready for the traffic from a new campaign or publicity in order to avoid crashes and other technical problems.

Finally, a great marketer is focused on always improving. They check their metrics, study the numbers, and run A/B testing on every new campaign, seeking to always improve and become better.