While businesses can never have complete control of their brand, they absolutely have the opportunity—and obligation—to work to manage and influence how their brand is perceived. Part of that journey starts with some basic market research. You need to understand how you’re currently perceived before you can start planning to get to where you want to be. Continue reading “Evaluating Your Brand? One Key Question to Ask Your Target Market”
Category: Brand Management
If Your Content Isn’t Working in Concert, It Isn’t Working!
Despite talk about multichannel and omnichannel marketing, the reality is that content creation and dissemination are often still siloed within organizations. That can lead not only to conflicting messages, but potentially negative brand impacts. Ideally, every consumer experience with an organization-regardless of how large it is-should be aligned and seamless. Messaging should be consistent in terms of content and quality. Clearly, that’s not an easy outcome to achieve, particularly between seemingly disparate parts of an organization (for instance, billing and HR). But what about between marketing and sales-two parts of most organizations that are outward-facing? Wouldn’t it seem logical to assume that their messaging would be aligned and consistent? Continue reading “If Your Content Isn’t Working in Concert, It Isn’t Working!”
Why You Should Build Your Brand Based on Reality—Not Advertising Campaigns
Marketers are understandably concerned about building and protecting strong brands. An Economist article from a few years ago discusses the power of brands. “Brands account for more than 30% of the stock market value of companies in the S&P 500 index, reckons Millward Brown, a market-research company. Everyone knows that a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt costs more than a polo shirt; Coke without the logo is just cola.”
But, brand-building efforts are sometimes misguided– Continue reading “Why You Should Build Your Brand Based on Reality—Not Advertising Campaigns”
Toward a Broader Understanding of Brand
Most businesspeople and students of marketing would probably agree with the statement that your brand is important. Yet, despite this importance, the concept of a brand isn’t always easy to grasp. Part of that problem is because a brand is made of so many components that it needs to be considered very broadly.
In an article for Forbes titled “Your Brand Isn’t What You Think It Is,” author Ty Kiisel points out that most people don’t truly understand what a brand is. Kiisel writes: “I think most people would agree (although there are still some holdouts), your brand is not your logo or your colors. Of course the colors you choose and the way you present your name to the world is considered part of your brand, but it’s not the most important part. Your brand isn’t what you say you are either.” This is true … but what is your brand? Continue reading “Toward a Broader Understanding of Brand”
Social Media: Not Just For Sales; Another Area of Big Value
Social media is a powerful marketing tool for any business. Business and marketing professionals are particularly drawn to the extensive reach of social media and its potential for driving droves of new customers through their virtual doors. However—and this may surprise you—social media marketers shouldn’t be focused exclusively on bringing in new business.
A recent article on the American Marketing Association (AMA) website by Lawrence Crosby looked at the effectiveness of social media marketing on another important measure of marketing success— Continue reading “Social Media: Not Just For Sales; Another Area of Big Value”
The Softer Side of Brand Analysis
We’ve written multiple posts on how to evaluate your brand, the fact that your brand is largely out of your control because it’s defined by your audience, and how to effectively manage your brand. Brands are subjective and live in the minds of your consumer, or business, audience. It can be tough to quantify the strength or weakness of a brand, which can be endlessly frustrating for numbers-driven marketers and business owners. Continue reading “The Softer Side of Brand Analysis”
Your Website and Your Employer Brand
Since the dawn of the Internet Age, businesses have been quick to see the benefit of a company website to attract customers; however, a company website, like any communication channel, should be thought of in the context of all of an organization’s stakeholders. This includes business partners and potential business partners, as well as employees and – the focus of this blog post – potential employees. Continue reading “Your Website and Your Employer Brand”
Why It Pays to Be “You,” Rather Than “Me,” Focused
By now, most business owners and business professionals have accepted the value that social media can have in helping to raise awareness, create preference and drive traffic to websites and to brick-and-mortar establishments. But, unfortunately, not all are communicating effectively through these channels.
We often see two common missteps, which we try to advise clients against doing: Continue reading “Why It Pays to Be “You,” Rather Than “Me,” Focused”
Beyond Bribery: Building Customer Relationships Through Engagement
It’s hard to overstate the importance of brand loyalty. Marketers know how difficult it can be to win new customers. Once you have brought a new consumer into the fold, it’s important to take steps to ensure that they will not only keep coming back, but that they will also refer others to you. Continue reading “Beyond Bribery: Building Customer Relationships Through Engagement”
Strategic Communications’ Marketing Predictions for 2017
A year ago, we m
ade some predictions for the marketing trends we expected to see in 2016, and we feel we did well enough to give it another shot for 2017. Here are some of the trends we expect to see this year. Continue reading “Strategic Communications’ Marketing Predictions for 2017”