With less than a year to go to the London Olympics, those of us based in that city are now being thrown a daily feast of news items, connected marketing and several marketing rules and regulations. Occasionally there’s even a connection to something sporting.

Never missing the chance to equate our core business with topical items here’s our list of events that your business should be taking part in to make sure it’s always a marketing front-runner.

Creativity 100m: For CEOs, creativity is now one of  the most important business drivers. For those in any doubt, creative does not equal ‘wild and wacky’. It’s about instilling optimal creative thinking and innovation at all points. That’s why I’ve suggested creativity as the sprint. Just as the winner of the 100m gets the ‘world’s fastest man’ title, you need to aim for the world’s most creative company label.

Social Marathon: A subject we’ve mentioned before, but to echo many a football manager (if you’ll forgive my sporting mixes), getting social media right is a marathon, not a sprint. Businesses are still hoping that the introduction of some elements of social media into their marketing mix will have an instant result, but it’s far more longterm than that. The best social campaigns are down to long-term listening and permanent engagement: that’s how you’ll see returns in terms of customer loyalty and upturn in revenues. So recognise that you need to pace your social media and work out the best routes to always stay ahead of the pack but ensure you last the distance.

Synchronised Marketing: Multiple channels, which increase daily, need careful planning and co-ordination. When should each element of the mix be introduced, what should be the balance and how should it be measured. A sudden upsurge of activity in the wrong area could throw all your efforts out.  A marketing director now is a choreographer making sure that the right channel enters the mix at the right time and that the audience is there to appreciate it.

Mobile Hurdles: SMS campaigns, apps, QR codes, mobile data capture, location-based services  - there’s so many aspects that fit the customer on the move scenario that it’s difficult for the average marketing team to clear all of them. As always with the best marketing services, it’s about understanding the needs of the customer. If simple SMS with a discount code is effective then do it before investing in an expensive app. But if an app, especially one that’s great value, is going to improve your customer service and interaction then make sure you can jump that hurdle.

Technology gymnastics: Never has the marketer needed to understand technology more. A platform for development, the way to automate campaign management and delivery, automated segmentation, profiling, customer calculations, lead scoring, the list is endless and requires the marketer to employ both sides of the brain and keep abreast of technologies. So as with the best gymnasts, now the marketer needs to be very agile, nimble and able to cross the floor from the marketing to the tech corner in the most delightful of movements.

Shot-budget: An event that is seeing increasing numbers of participants as world economies still struggle and businesses look for savings everywhere. Of course to be successful in this event you need to show real marketing muscle to make up for the lack of marketing dollars. And the best way to do that is to make use of 12,000 heavyweight creatives and brief the Exchange.

Oh and as brands everywhere seek to make the most of their Olympic opportunities why not tell us what your business is doing to tie their marketing to 2012?