Strategic Communications Archives

How to Respond Effectively to Negative Advertising

For many businesses, connecting with and selling to a target market can be challenging enough on its own. But, when a competitor jumps into the mix and badmouths your product, service or entire company, an entirely new front opens up. Consider a local grocer watching TV when an ad comes on from a competitor discussing how the local grocer’s produce is not as fresh as the competitor’s and that its product selection is less expansive. Many marketers and business owners struggle with how to respond. Do you ignore the attack? Do you hit back? Continue reading “How to Respond Effectively to Negative Advertising”

How Often, and When, Should You Post on Social Media?

At Strategic Communications, we are strong advocates for social media marketing. The challenge faced by many businesses — particularly smaller organizations without a sophisticated marketing department with the ability to conduct focused market research — is that it’s not always easy to tell how those efforts contribute to growing revenue. Consequently, it’s hard to know just how much social media marketing to do.

We feel strongly that some presence is generally better than no presence. However, what is the marginal benefit of posting five tweets per day instead of four? Continue reading “How Often, and When, Should You Post on Social Media?”

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”

6 Steps and 6 Days to an Effective Content Strategy: Day 2

Jazz Jones is hoping to build business for her leadership development coaching for healthcare professionals. She’s clarified her goals and objectives and is ready for Step 2: Continue reading “6 Steps and 6 Days to an Effective Content Strategy: Day 2”

Driving Valuable Backlinks Through Exceptional Contributed Content

As a strategic marketing company, we have promoted the importance of marketing for any business loudly and often. At the same time, we understand that small businesses are often operating on razor-thin margins (if they’re even in the black at all) and may not have substantial cash reserves on hand to fund an aggressive marketing campaign. Fortunately, a large war chest is by no means a necessity in successful marketing. Continue reading “Driving Valuable Backlinks Through Exceptional Contributed Content”

In Marketing—Of Any Kind—It Pays to Be Consistent!

What do your Facebook page, your primary business website, your Twitter feed and your direct mailing materials have in common? Hopefully it’s a lot of things, and not just the fact that they are part of your content marketing and branding strategies . Although these are all different media, it’s important to make sure that your branding standards are both consistent across all social channels, and in alignment with your corporate website and overall branding guidelines. Continue reading “In Marketing—Of Any Kind—It Pays to Be Consistent!”

Blending Old and New Media for Advertising Success

Native advertising Native ads—ads that reside seamlessly within content, giving the appearance of editorial material—have become increasingly prevalent as consumer adoption of mobile technology has skyrocketed. These ads can take many forms, and marketers are always in search of the next new thing that will enable them to cut through the clutter to deliver an experience that not only will be different, but also will resonate with their audiences and, ultimately, drive sales. At least that’s the goal. Continue reading “Blending Old and New Media for Advertising Success”

Putting the “Strategic” Into Strategic Content Marketing

The Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) 2015 reports on B2B and B2C (business-to-consumer) content marketing trends reveal some important disconnects among demand, effectiveness, and satisfaction with results. For instance, while 86% of B2B respondents indicate that they are using content marketing, only 38% say that their efforts are effective. While 83% say they have a content marketing strategy, only 35% have a documented strategy. That’s a problem. Continue reading “Putting the “Strategic” Into Strategic Content Marketing”

Blogs: A Natural Starting Point for Content Marketing

At Strategic Communications, blogging is a big part of what we do, both for ourselves and for our clients. A robust, well-managed blog is a key element of any content creation strategy. As we’ve discussed in the past, quality content is a must when driving traffic to your site. Blogs are a great vehicle for this.

Obviously, part of implementing an effective blogging strategy require developing quality content for the blog. Assuming you’ve got quality content, your blog posts can serve as a great starting point for repurposing content across a variety of channels. Here are some of the things that we do to leverage the value of our, and our clients’ blog content: Continue reading “Blogs: A Natural Starting Point for Content Marketing”

Direct Mail Part I: The Big Benefits of Traditional Direct Mail Marketing

In the age of social media, search engine optimization and email, it might sound crazy to suggest anyone think of including direct mail in their marketing strategy, but that’s just what we’re about to suggest. And, yes, by mail we mean paper mail delivered by a United States postal worker. Continue reading “Direct Mail Part I: The Big Benefits of Traditional Direct Mail Marketing”