May 2021 - Stevens & Tate Marketing

How to Improve Brand Recognition in 2021

May 31, 2021/in Articles, Brand Development, Brand Positioning, Directors /by Mark Beebe

Developing your brand is essential to your ability to attract new leads and convert new customers. The more recognizable your brand becomes, the easier it will become to generate brand trust and to build your audience. For instance, if a consumer is searching for a specific solution and they find two or three options, one of which is from a brand they recognize, they will typically gravitate towards that brand. As such, recognizability is crucial. With that in mind, the following are five ways that you can improve brand recognition this year:

1. Identify Your Target Audience

If you can’t recognize who your audience is, you can’t expect them to recognize your brand. All of your branding strategies and decisions depend on who you’re trying to reach. A company’s worth is highly reliant on whether or not they provide solutions that meet the needs or solve the problems of its customers. If you’re targeting people who have no need for your solutions, then those who do are going to be confused about your brand. The more you understand who your audience is, the more likely you’ll be able to build a brand that they will be able to recognize.

2. Develop A Clear Brand Message

You need to be clear about what your objectives are as a brand. This includes your mission, your vision, and your purpose. Think about how Apple’s message is about innovation and creating technology that’s not only user-friendly but essential to a creative and independent lifestyle. This message is clear because Apple has developed and promoted its message since the 1980s. If your message isn’t clear, consumers become confused. An unclear message can send the wrong message, thereby hurting your brand’s recognizability.

3. Build Your Brand Identity

Your brand identity involves a lot of different elements. The most obvious is the logo. If your brand becomes strong enough, a unique logo can be recognized even if your company name isn’t part of it. Take for example Nike’s swoosh. Everybody knows that the swoosh is Nike even if their name doesn’t accompany the logo. Although the visual connection of the logo is important, it’s not the only component of your brand identity. The tone of voice you use in your content, the reputation you have, and the brand storytelling you use to deliver your message are all vital to building a strong brand identity.

Here are 5 additional reasons why brand marketing works.

4. Maintain Branding Consistency

Consistency is key to making your brand recognizable. If your message varies from one platform to another, people are going to get confused about who you are. For example, if you run a clothing company and you position yourself as a luxury clothing brand on Instagram but then promote affordable shoe wear on Facebook, people won’t know what you are or who you’re targeting, making it more difficult to recognize your brand.

Additionally, the aesthetic of your brand and the tone of voice should be consistent over all channels. Use the same colors and logos on every platform. Do not change the tone of your brand to try and fit the channel you’re using. If you use an excited, informal tone on one channel, don’t use a formal, level-headed tone on the other. If you switch tones, people won’t recognize that you’re the same brand using both channels. Consistency across all of your marketing efforts is essential to building a strong brand that’s recognizable across all channels.

5. Develop And Implement A Long-Term Marketing Strategy

Even if you’ve spent a lot of time crafting your brand, you still need to build awareness to boost recognizability. This is where your marketing efforts come into play. You need to figure out where and when you can reach your target audience, as well as what marketing efforts will help to effectively deliver your message and spread brand awareness. Such efforts will not succeed overnight — you need to develop a comprehensive long-term branding strategy to successfully boost your brand recognition.

Building your brand is crucial to your company’s success. Even if your brand has been established for some time, brand development should never stop. You should always look for ways to increase brand awareness, and improving brand recognition is necessary to do just that. As such, you should consider implementing these effective strategies to improve brand recognition in 2021.

Food Retail is Dying to a Millennial Mind

Food Retail Marketing to Millennials

May 27, 2021/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Directors /by Mark Beebe

In 2021, food brands should be targeting Millennials with their advertisements, however the traditional media avenues are not as effective in reaching this younger generation of consumers.

Millennials consume advertisements through technology because it is so integrated into their lives, with 81 percent using televisions, 76 percent using laptops, 40 percent iPhones, and 48 percent using desktop computers. Read more

Perfect Your Inbound Marketing Strategy With Lead Nurturing

May 27, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nuturing /by Dan Gartlan

When it comes to marketing, many businesses focus on trying to attract as big of an audience as possible. The more awareness you generate, the more potential customers you’ll have, after all. However, it’s crucial that you don’t skip a step when it comes to generating leads. Just because your marketing efforts have successfully attracted new leads doesn’t mean that they’ll automatically convert into sales. Most of the leads you generate will need to be nurtured before they’ll convert into customers. As such, no inbound marketing campaign is going to be complete if you don’t implement a comprehensive lead nurturing strategy.

What Is Lead Nurturing?

People who discover your brand are going to be doing so at various points of the sales funnel. Everyone is going to be in a different place. For instance, some leads will be in the awareness stage, which means that they are still doing research about their problem. Others may be in the consideration stage, which means that they are looking for solutions to their problem. Then there are those that are in the decision stage, which means that they are comparing solutions from various brands and are in the process of making a purchasing decision.

Lead nurturing is all about meeting the needs of your leads. The goal is to present them with the information and guidance that they need to move through the sales funnel. However, lead nurturing is also about building a relationship through your marketing and communication efforts that not only educates leads and builds trust with your brand, thereby creating a connection that lasts beyond the first sale.

Lead nurturing is an important aspect of marketing. Read more here.

The Benefits Of Lead Nurturing

It’s not just about moving your leads through the sales funnel so that you can close a sale. The following are a few of the additional benefits of a strong lead nurturing strategy:

Increase ROI of marketing efforts – Leads that are nurtured are more likely to make a purchase. As such, your marketing efforts are going to result in a greater return if you implement a lead nurturing strategy.
Build brand authority – By presenting content that addresses the needs of your leads at every stage of the sales funnel, you’ll establish yourself as a brand authority, which will boost your brand reputation and trust.
Generate loyalty – Customers that were nurtured throughout the sales process are going to have a deeper connection with your brand than those that weren’t. As such, they’ll be more likely to remain loyal and may even refer your business to others as a result.

Ways To Nurture Your Leads

The following are a few tips on how you can successfully nurture your leads through the sales funnel:

Develop buyer personas – Your leads all have different needs and motivations. To be able to build relationships with your leads, you will need to understand who your audience is. Develop buyer personas so that you can target every part of your audience.
Create high-quality content – Avoid over-promotional content. Instead, focus on creating content that educates your leads. Make sure that you create content that not only addresses every stage of the sales funnel, but that also targets each one of your buyer personas.
Personalize emails – Email marketing is a great way to nurture your leads since it allows you to directly send them content that can nurture them. However, it’s essential that you make sure your emails are relevant. You can do this by personalizing them. For instance, segment your email list using the information you’ve gathered on every lead (such as the data provided in your opt-in forms and from their purchasing history).
Use email drip campaigns – Email drip campaigns can nurture leads that you’ve captured over a specific period of time. They are designed to slowly nurture leads through the sales funnel by sending emails over a few weeks to encourage leads to make a purchase.
Implement lead scoring – Using a lead scoring tool allows you to track at which point in the sales funnel your leads are. This is incredibly useful as it gives you the opportunity to engage your leads at the right time so that you can successfully nurture them through to the next stage.

Implement A Lead Nurturing Strategy Today

Effective lead nurturing is the best way to increase your chances of converting new leads into customers. It’s also important to note that it is essential to building long-term relationships with your customers. The more time and effort you put into developing leads, the more likely they’ll be to return as repeat customers.

Out of Home Advertising for Post Pandemic Consumers

May 25, 2021/in Articles, Blog, Directors /by Mark Beebe

The success of digital marketing has been noted for some time now. Every business has some sort of digital marketing strategy. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, digital marketing became even more effective than ever before. People were essentially trapped inside for more than a year, which means they spend significantly more time online. As a result, they became easier to reach via digital marketing efforts. However, as the pandemic comes to an end, cities will eventually begin opening back up. Knowing this, it’s critical that you begin planning an out-of-home advertising strategy.

What Is Out Of Home Advertising?

Out of home advertising refers to any advertisements posted outside, where countless people will see it. The more people walk or drive by out-of-home ads, the more exposure your brand receives. Obviously, out-of-home advertising was nowhere near as effective during the pandemic as it once was since everybody stayed inside. There are lots of examples of out-of-home advertising — billboards are one of the most common types. Billboards also include murals, posters, and junior posters. Billboards can be both paper and digital as well.

Is Newspaper Marketing still Valid?

The Benefits Of Out Of Home Advertising

In-home advertising, such as digital marketing, TV commercials, radio ads, and the like, are often preferred by businesses (especially smaller to mid-sized businesses). However, you should strongly consider out-of-home advertising as well. While the pandemic undoubtedly hurt the relevance of out-of-home ads, people will be looking to get out and about post-pandemic. As cities open up and people make an effort to spend more time outside, there will be more opportunities to reach them using out-of-home advertising. If that’s not reason enough to begin planning an out of home advertising strategy, consider the following benefits:

Outdoor advertising will be seen – Any person walking, biking, or driving by an outdoor ad, will see it.

Outdoor ads can increase brand exposure – If you put your ads in the right locations, you can reach a larger audience.

For instance, placing your outdoor ad in a location that has a lot of pedestrian traffic will ensure that it’s seen by a lot of people.

Outdoor ads can help bolster digital marketing efforts – Studies have shown that 46 percent of people will perform a search online after seeing an out-of-home ad.

Planning For Out Of Home Advertising

When it comes to successful out-of-home advertising, it’s crucial that you know your audience. If you know who you’re trying to reach, then you can determine where the best place to reach them is. For example, if you’re advertising a high-end luxury product, placing a poster for it at a bus stop in a lower-income neighborhood doesn’t make much sense. Instead, it would be more effective if you put it up in an area of town where there are multiple luxury stores in operation. This way, the customers of those stores will see your ad.

In addition to understanding the audience you’re trying to reach, you will also need to figure out the best placement

for your ads. An ad displayed on the side of a building where it’s difficult for nearby pedestrians to see is going to be ineffectual. You’ll want to make sure you know where the ad is going to be placed and where it will be visible.

Finally, the message is very important. Just because people see your ad as they walk by doesn’t mean that they will remember it. Make the messaging and branding clear. Try to make the ad as memorable as possible. People who see clever or memorable ads while they are waiting in traffic will often share them on social media.

Take Advantage Of Post Pandemic Out Of Home Advertising

As the pandemic nears the end, consumers are going to be making up for lost time by going out, whether they’ll be heading into the city on a night out, going to the park, or traveling to see friends and relatives that they haven’t seen for a long time. Knowing this, there is going to be a huge opportunity to reach a bigger audience using out-of-home advertising.

public relations inbound marketing efforts

How a Strong Public Relations (PR) Strategy Can Benefit Your Inbound Marketing Efforts

May 24, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Public Relations /by Dan Gartlan

Inbound marketing focuses heavily on increasing brand awareness and building brand trust. As such, people sometimes confuse inbound marketing strategies with public relations (PR) strategies. After all, public relations is about maintaining the integrity of your brand. However, they are actually different from one another — although they do depend heavily on each other for success. The following is a breakdown of the differences between inbound marketing and PR and how they can work together.

The Difference Between Inbound Marketing And Public Relations

Inbound marketing is a multi-faceted strategy that consists of a range of tactics for promoting products and services as well as for educating consumers. The ultimate goal of inbound marketing is to attract and convert more leads in order to generate more customers. The goal of PR isn’t to generate and convert leads and customers. The goal of PR is to maintain and improve the public perception of your brand. Basically, a good PR strategy will help you build a favorable reputation. Unlike inbound, PR focuses as much on targeting shareholders and employees as it does on potential and existing consumers or clients.

How Good PR Can Benefit Your Inbound Marketing Campaign

Trust is vital to your ability to convert new leads. The more brand trust you generate, the easier it becomes to close new sales. As such, a good PR strategy can supplement your inbound strategy. When it comes to PR, it’s not just about putting out good publicity and improving your reputation — it’s also about preventing a bad reputation.

PR requires that you get on top of situations that can damage your rep. For instance, if customers are leaving bad feedback on your social media pages, you can’t just ignore it or it will hurt your public perception. As part of a successful PR strategy, you would address poor feedback. Show that your brand cares about the experience of its customers. In fact, if you handle such feedback effectively, you could even turn it into a win that actually boosts your brand trust.

PR also includes publishing notices about new products and services, or about upcoming events. These announcements double as promotional content for your business. This can pique the interest of your target audience, thereby bolstering your inbound marketing capabilities.

Improving your inbound marketing strategies can be difficult, even during a pandemic. Read more here.

Public Relations (PR) Strategies That Can Boost Your Inbound Marketing Success

The following are a few of the public relations (PR) strategies that can go a long way towards improving your inbound marketing efforts:

Publish high-quality content – PR is a form of content creation. As such, you’ll want to make sure that whenever you release a press release. Make sure it is well written, properly optimized, and targeting a specific audience. Your PR content can double as inbound content, after all.
Focus on executives – Putting a face on your brand can help improve brand trust. As such, use your executives for interviews and quotes when releasing new PR content. Doing so can also help establish the people behind your brand as thought leaders, thereby increasing brand authority.
Promote award wins – When your company or the people in your company win industry awards, be sure to announce those wins. Such content will showcase your company’s expertise, which will improve your reputation as well as your authority and trust.
Publish press releases – Your press releases can help drive new leads to your inbound marketing or sales assets (as long as those press releases are of high quality).

Implement A PR Strategy As A Part Of Your Inbound Marketing Efforts Today

A good PR strategy can help you control the public perception of your brand, thereby ensuring that you maintain a good reputation. Such a reputation is vital to building brand trust and, as such, can help to bolster your inbound marketing efforts.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

Fostering a Better Client-Agency Relationship to Grow Your Business

May 20, 2021/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

There are many benefits to working with a professional marketing agency, no matter how big your business is. A marketing agency can help develop, execute, monitor, and analyze your marketing strategy, thereby assisting in the growth of your company. As a direct result, you’ll also reduce the amount of time, money, and resources you need to throw at your marketing efforts, allowing you to focus on other business-related tasks instead.

However, it’s critical that you build a close working relationship with your agency. You’re entrusting them with your company’s future success, after all. You’ll want to make sure that they’re tailoring your strategy to meet your company’s needs. Keep in mind that a strong relationship is one that both sides work to develop. As such, the following are a few important elements of a successful client-agency relationship that you should be aware of:

1. Clear Expectations for the Client-Agency Relationship

An agency needs to know exactly what you’re expecting from them, both in terms of what services they are providing and what metrics you’re expecting them to achieve. If you don’t lay out your expectations from the get-go, then they won’t know whether they’re on the right track. You should establish milestones and standards. On top of that, make it clear that you expect clear communication and transparency so that if there are any issues, the agency will share them with you and explain their course of action. Otherwise, they may just go at it alone without your input.

Read more to learn about the importance of hiring an advertisement agency.

2. Open Communication

Any relationship, whether in the business world or not, relies on open communication to work. Make yourself available to the agency if they ever have questions or if there are ever any issues. Request the same of them. You’ll want to be able to reach your team leader with ease if there is anything you want to discuss or if you have any questions that need answering. It’s a good idea to have points of contact in place so that both sides know who to reach.

By demonstrating that you expect clear communication, you’ll also make the agency more comfortable in knowing that they can reach out when needed. There are many businesses that will just leave the agency to their own devices and who won’t want to be bothered. Additionally, some agencies may operate in the same way. However, this is a poor way to manage what should be a long-term relationship.

3. Transparency

An agency needs to understand what you’re looking to achieve with your marketing, both in terms of short-term and long-term goals. It also helps to understand what your business goals are so that your marketing strategy can reflect that. If you withhold information such as this, it will be more difficult for the agency to tailor your strategy to your specific needs. In fact, monitoring and evaluating marketing performance will become much more difficult as a result.

4. Honest Feedback in the Client-Agency Relationship

Establish from the outset that you expect the agency to provide feedback when needed. This way, if you’re not providing the information that your marketing team needs or you’re not getting back to them quickly enough, they will actually let you know. As a result of straightforward feedback, you can not only strengthen your relationship over time, you can keep it from deteriorating (which will only hurt your marketing efforts). The same goes for your side: if the agency’s marketing efforts are not meeting expectations, you need to let them know. You may even want to consider implementing a mutual evaluation at specific dates.

5. True Partnership

Don’t think of an agency as a service provider. Instead, think of them as a partner. After all, their success relies on your success. If you go into the relationship with the idea that you’re partners, you’ll be much more likely to find yourself on the same page as the agency you’re working with. By treating the relationship as a partnership, the agency will have greater success meeting your company’s specific needs.

These are the factors that contribute to a strong relationship between a business and a marketing agency. It’s important that if you outsource your marketing to an agency that they make an effort to develop a trusting relationship with you; however, remember that a good relationship depends on both sides. As such, you need to meet them halfway for the partnership to be a fruitful one. Here at Stevens & Tate, we pride ourselves in not just the work we do, but the relationships that we build with all of our clients.

The Importance of Visual Aids in Senior Living Marketing

May 17, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Senior Living, Senior Living Marketing /by Terry Becker

While senior citizens are not the only audience that senior living facilities market to, it can’t be denied that they make up a massive percentage of their audience. As such, to grow and succeed, you must market to this part of your audience. It’s also important to note that different parts of your audience will react differently to various marketing efforts. When it comes to senior living marketing, we can’t overstate how important it is to use visual aids. Visual aids can greatly improve your ability to communicate with senior citizens, especially when you consider how effective they are in their daily use.

Senior Citizens Understand Visual Cues Better Than Verbal Cues

Verbal communication tends to become more difficult as a person ages. Many healthcare providers understand that effective verbal communication requires the addition of visual cues. There are many reasons for this. Some senior citizens are simply hard of hearing, making verbal communication more difficult. Some have difficulty understanding the main message due to memory issues or other problems. Visual cues can be used to enforce a message or tone.

In real-world conversations, visual cues can include smiling, using eye contact, nodding, and using hand gestures. These visual cues also show that you’re engaged, which will make them more engaged.

Read more here to learn about how to market to senior citizens.

How To Use Visual Aids To Market To Senior Citizens

Reading long walls of text can bring up a lot of challenges for senior citizens. They may have some difficulty following along due to memory issues or simply because they aren’t familiar with some of the terminology or slang being used (which is why it’s so important to write with your audience in mind). Fortunately, you can make it a lot easier to get your message across through the use of visual aids. The following are a few examples of how visual aids can be effectively used:

Photographs That Evoke Emotions – Photographs are a great way to relay the tone of an article to your audience. For instance, an article about senior living facilities can be informative, but a picture of actual residents enjoying those activities will have a much greater impact. Just remember to use real photographs. Stock photos often look fake and can end up hurting your trust.
Infographics That Break Down The Numbers – If you’re trying to reinforce a message using statistics, your readers can quickly get lost in all of the numbers. Support content that relies on stats or numbers using infographics. Infographics help make it easy for readers to better understand the numbers and their context in a less overwhelming way. When creating infographics, make sure the numbers and words are big enough for people with eyesight issues to see.

How to Optimize Senior Living Marketing Using Visual Aids

Use Colors That Aren’t Overwhelming – Many senior citizens can’t navigate websites and pages like younger generations. As such, use color in a way that helps guide their eyes to where you want them to look. Additionally, don’t overwhelm your pages with color, stick to one or two complementary colors that reflect your brand.
Use Slideshows That Are Easy To Follow – Because longer articles can be more difficult for an older audience to follow, slideshows are a fantastic way to make your points easier to digest. Each slide can focus on one point and use its own visual aid. As such, a slideshow is also more engaging for senior audiences.
Use Videos That Are Engaging – Video content is a much more effective way to deliver information to your senior audience. Not only will having a personality on screen be more engaging and relatable, but your audience will have an easier time understanding your message. Not to mention that they won’t have to strain to read anything. Eye contact and hand gestures within the video can help enhance the engagement of the senior citizen.

Use Visual Aids To Strengthen Your Senior Living Marketing Efforts

Visual aids can go a long way towards getting your message across to a senior audience as well as to help evoke emotions. However, having visual aids isn’t going to be enough to sell your message or convey certain emotions. You need to use visual aids smartly and in a way that’s impactful. Senior audiences may have some trouble with their eyesight or may have some memory limitations, but that doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent – don’t make the mistake of dumbing your senior living marketing efforts down. Senior citizens are nothing if not smart and won’t take kindly to marketing efforts that offend them.

Why Hiring a Marketing Agency is Right for You

May 12, 2021/in Articles, Blog, Directors /by Dan Gartlan

Success depends on marketing. It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, you cannot survive or grow unless you market your brand. Marketing does require a lot of time and effort to do effectively. Unfortunately, few businesses have the resources needed to maintain an in-house marketing team. It’s why many of them rely heavily on outsourcing to a professional marketing agency. The following are a few reasons why you should strongly consider working with a reputable marketing agency:

A Marketing Agency Is Less Expensive

At first glance, the monthly rate of a marketing agency might seem expensive. In fact, many companies make the mistake of thinking it’s an unnecessary expense, especially if they think they can handle their marketing needs on their own. However, when you add up the costs of running a successful in-house marketing team, you’ll realize that it’s much more expensive than outsourcing to a marketing agency.

A comprehensive marketing strategy requires a lot of different skill sets. You’ll need marketing managers, strategists, researchers, analysts, copywriters, social media managers, SEO specialists, web designers, graphic designers, and more. Each one of these specialists costs a significant amount of money to hire full-time. The costs of hiring a marketing agency for a year are often less than hiring just one full-time marketing specialist.

Access To High-End Technology

Because a marketing agency is focused solely on marketing, the majority of their investments are going to be in the technology needed to stay on top of the latest tech and trends. As a result, when you work with a marketing agency, you’ll have access to all of the latest marketing tools, many of which can cost an arm and a leg to purchase or subscribe to yourself.

Access To An Experienced And Knowledgeable Team

Trying to put together an in-house marketing team can be very difficult in part because you’ll need to know who to hire. If you get stuck with someone who lacks the necessary experience or skills, it can hinder your marketing efforts. A marketing agency makes sure that it hires only the most qualified marketers out there. This means that you can be safe in the knowledge that your team has the experience and skills needed to help implement an effective marketing strategy.

Scale Marketing Needs With Ease

One of the biggest challenges businesses face is attempting to scale their marketing efforts to keep up with their company’s growth. If you find that you suddenly need more personnel to keep up with the demand of your business, you’ll have to go through the hiring process. This process can take a long time. Not to mention that the marketers you hire will have to be onboarded. When working with an agency, you’ll never have to worry about your marketing team falling behind. An agency will be able to scale your needs by simply adjusting your strategy and assigning more of their marketers to your team when needed.

Obtain A Fresh Perspective

Even if you have an in-house marketing team, one of the things that can hinder your team is the fact that their perspective of your brand can grow scale. Being able to stand back and look at the overall picture can be difficult sometimes. A marketing agency will be able to do this since they have an outsider perspective. Their experience working on other strategies and campaigns can also bring valuable insight to your team.

Learn More Why an Agency is Right For You

Compliment Your Existing Personnel

Even if you have in-house marketing personnel, working with a marketing agency can be hugely beneficial. Most smaller to mid-sized businesses won’t have a full-fledged marketing department. This means that the marketing personnel they do have are often forced to wear multiple hats. This can result in them becoming overworked and overwhelmed, thereby hurting their job performance.

By working with a marketing agency, you can ensure that the marketing personnel you do have in-house can focus on their core responsibilities. The marketing agency can provide the personnel needed to fill in the gaps, thereby complementing your existing team.

Having a team of experienced, professional marketers to help promote your business is a must. While you may not be able to afford an in-house team, attempting to leave the marketing strategy up to a handful of individuals at your company is not a good idea — especially if they have multiple job responsibilities. Instead, you should strongly consider outsourcing your marketing efforts to a reputable marketing agency. A good marketing agency will work closely with your business to develop, execute, and monitor a marketing strategy that works for you.

The Website Redesign Process- Why Content Comes First?

May 10, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Website Design, Website Growth Driven Design /by Debbie Szwast

The decision to redesign a website marks a major milestone in the growth of a business. It is a time to boost the brand image, refresh the look and content of the website, and update all the product listings and sales offers. Interestingly enough, although refreshing your website content is often ignored during the website redesign process, it should actually be near the top of the list.

Why Should You Refresh the Copy on Your Redesigned Website?

Copying over existing content from an old website to a new one seems like a good way to save money. However, it can actually end up costing you more in the long run. Instead refreshing your website will benefit your company in the following ways:

Your refreshed copy will give your new website a different layout, complete with latest in website design. Trying to force outdated content from an old web page onto your new site is not the best use of your time and resources.
Your refreshed website will reflect your current branding and product mix. More than likely, the focus of your business has changed since your last website redesign. You want your website to reflect this growth.
Your refreshed content on your new website will rank higher on search engines because it will be current and optimized. If your old content is not ranking well, copying it over to your new website is pointless. In fact, search engines could see it as duplicate content, which will pull your rankings even lower.
You’ll give your customers the new, relevant content they crave. Fresh and consistent content will attract more visitors to your website as well as increase customer loyalty.

[Read More: Essential Website Optimization Techniques To Increase Visitors

How Does Copy Fit Into the Website Redesign Process?

With so much riding on your website redesign, you need to make sure to hire the best people for the job. A copywriter is a critical member of the team who brings a specific skill set to the project. A good copywriter should be able to present a company’s benefits and key selling points. They should also understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization and know how to develop copy that search engines will love.

Developing copy begins in the earliest stages of website redesign. The site map, developed during the design phase, organizes each page on the site and identifies the content needed for each page. This is where the copywriter’s job comes in.

While the website designer works on wire frames, the copywriter begins developing content. Eventually, the two come together, marrying the design elements of the website with the copy contained within. This stage gives the team the ability to see how well the new design showcases the content, and vice versa.

After design approval, production begins. This is when the copywriter develops final copy and applies it to the new web page at the appropriate time. Although refreshing your new website’s copy may take work, it will pay off soon enough and give you a leg up on the competition.

What Is The Difference? – CRM vs. Marketing Automation Strategy

May 7, 2021/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Dan Gartlan

Building a relationship with each customer is essential in today’s business world. Without that relationship, you simply aren’t going to have the sales needed to remain profitable. That is why both CRM (customer relationship marketing) and marketing automation strategies focus on building that relationship.

Understanding how these strategies and systems complement one another helps businesses market and sell to their target audiences effectively.

The Critical Customer Relationship

Even with so much being done online these days, customers still want a relationship with the companies they do business with. They want to feel that a company understands their needs and that the company will address them.

How a business addresses the critical customer relationship will mark its success or its failure. Companies need to build and nurture this relationship. They do this by collecting critical data that helps them address their customers’ needs and challenges.

Learn More: How to Create Content for Each Sale Funnel Stage

The Top of the Sales Funnel

The strategies you use at the top of the sales funnel are going to be different from the strategies you use at the bottom. And these strategy approaches define the differences between CRM and marketing automation strategies.

At the top of the sales funnel, you are capturing leads wherever they come from. They can be people with a casual interest in your product or they can be seriously in the market and just starting the research process. The problem is, there is no real way to know which category the lead falls into. This is where marketing automation and nurturing comes into play.

With marketing automation, your strategies are capturing key pieces of information and using them to nurture a lead further into the sales funnel. This could include contact information like name, email address, phone number, company name, and company size; number of visits to the website and which pages are of particular interest, or which premiums they choose.

Each piece of information gathered about a lead brings critical insight into where they are in the sales cycle. Downloading details about a particular product, for example, is a sign of interest in that product or, at least, that product group. This can trigger the marketing automation system to send targeted emails or special offers.

The Bottom of the Sales Funnel

At a designated point in the sales funnel, a lead moves from the marketing side to the sales side. This is when the data gathered indicates the lead is moving towards making a purchase decision. This is where the CRM system comes into play.

That data gathered in a CRM allows your sales force to nurture the lead into closing the sale. It offers a picture of what the customer wants and their history with the company. Your sales team can use it to schedule calls with the lead or to set dates for follow-up.

The good news these days is that there are a growing number of systems which offer both types of functionality. That way, you can leverage both CRM and marketing automation strategies without worry about one system getting out of sync.