brand development

How To Drive Brand Awareness

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Awareness, as we alluded to in our first article Using The Right Media Mix During Each Stage Of The Buyer’s Journeys, is a two way street. On the one hand your potential buyers become aware they have a problem that needs a solution, and on the other you as a marketer must boost brand awareness in order for them to find you, your content, and consequentially your products or services.

Let’s explore what is brand awareness is?

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness refers to the extent to which consumers are familiar with and recognize a brand. It measures how readily a brand comes to mind and how well consumers understand what the brand represents. In other words, how well do they identify with your brand name, its characteristics, your logo, or other things that strongly correlate to the products or services you offer. And while many major corporations have a significant hold on their respective markets with their branding, how can you as a marketer drive brand awareness? Let’s take a look.

How To Drive Brand Awareness?

Keywords and SEO

Your blog is the destination you want all prospective buyers to land on during their awareness stage, and keywords and SEO may as well be the road map to get them there. Getting found through search is the cornerstone of inbound.

As a matter of fact, the top 3 search results typically get 50% of the clicks which is exactly why you should strive to get your search results to the top of search engines. The search engine optimization game; however, is more of a marathon than a sprint and instant results likely won’t see your brand become the cream of the crop in the long run.

Correctly keywording your blog posts and your site as a whole will improve your company’s overall credibility which will in turn create trust between your brand and your site’s visitors. Additionally, SEO gives you a quantifiable, trackable avenue for your marketing by helping you see real data from your search results. For more on the nitty gritty of how SEO can boost your brand awareness, check out our blog post for how to optimize website for great results.

Keywords themselves will only get you so far, so let’s take a look at how to tie your target keywords into meaningful content via blogs.

Also Read: How Your SEO Benefits From A Long Term Strategy

Blogging

brand awareness

For small and large businesses alike, driving brand awareness starts with a healthy group of focused, educational content pieces in the form of your brand’s blog. Any successful blog starts by finding a topic that people are interested in. Add in a few internal links, some CTAs, and you’re mostly good to go. Here are a few of expert tips to have a successful blog:

  • Proper Formatting – The meat of your blog is its content, so format it in a way that makes sense and helps your posts flow. Break the content up into short paragraphs for easier reading and intersperse some relevant offers and promotions throughout the body.
  • Attractive Titles – Titles should accurately and attractively reflect the body of the blog post. Keep your titles between 50 and 60 characters for search engines.
  • Pretty Pictures – Add some relevant pictures to your post to make it more eye-catching. Be sure to alt text the pictures in your blogs to help boost SEO.
  • Links and CTAs – Internal links help keep users on your page and help them take in more of your expertise. CTAs help convert visitors to leads through well-designed landing pages with offers as the end result for the user.
  • Consistency is Key – Regular blog posts with fresh content will keep your subscribers coming back to your brand. Start with one quality blog per week then expand as you feel comfortable.

While these tips are great foundational resources for your blog, tying them to your keywords is crucial to getting found organically via search engines. Once you’ve found a long tail keyword or group of keywords that work for your blog, it’s important to use those words naturally (generally 3-5 times) throughout the body of each blog post. Also, link similarly keyworded content to the keywords you use and connect the web of your websites SEO.

Social Media

The final piece to brand awareness as it pertains to your buyer’s journey is social media. While social media is the last piece of the awareness puzzle we’re mentioning, it may very well be the first place your buyers land when seeking information to solve their problem.

Social media sites are some of the most indexed by search engines on the entire world wide web. With hundreds of millions of posts daily by businesses and individuals alike, social media is a crucial hub of activity for your content and your buyers. In all likelihood, ceteris paribus, your brand’s social media sites will be scrolled and indexed before your brand’s blog or website which makes brand awareness through social media all the more critical.

Posting on social media is an art and a skill that can be honed by knowing your buyer personas, what social media platforms they use, and what your goals for social media are especially as it relates to driving B2B sales. Tailoring your messages within those confines will make sure that the things you’re publishing are on point, relevant, and capable of converting interested parties into leads. Lead conversion in social media means attaching a meaningful CTA or offer to each of your posts to give your potential buyers the chance of becoming more aware of your brand through offers.

Also Read: When Are the Best Times to Post On Social Media?

Next: Lead Nurturing During the Consideration Stage

In our next article we’ll move further down your sales funnel as we examine what happens during the consideration stage of your buyer’s journey including leveraging drip emails, marketing automation, and remarketing to move your buyers into the decision making stage.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

smart goal examples for marketing

SMART Goal Examples That Will Make You a Better Marketer

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When creating your inbound marketing strategy, it’s important that you set smart goals for marketing as part of your planning process. Without smart goals, you won’t be able to judge the performance of your inbound marketing tactics. This means you’ll have no idea whether your money is being put to good use. When you have goals in place, you can make adjustments to underperforming tactics. However, one of the mistakes many brands make is to set goals that are vague or too broad, such as “increasing brand awareness” or “building brand authority.” This article will talk about good smart and examples that are helpful in marketing. 

What Are Smart Goals?

SMART goals are goals that are (S)pecific, (M)easureable, (A)ttainable, (R)elevant, and (T)ime-bound. They are clearly defined goals that are realistic, quantifiable, and focused. By implementing these goals, you’ll know exactly what kind of results you’re aiming for and how to accomplish them. The following is a more detailed breakdown of SMART goals:

  • Specific goals – Specific goals are metrics that you want to improve, such as leads or visitors.
  • Measurable goals – To track the progress you’re making, you need to quantify your goals. For example, a type of event increased the number of visitors to your site by 20 percent.
  • Attainable goals – It’s important that your goal is something that’s actually possible. For example, doubling the number of visitors to your site in one month is probably unrealistic. Increasing your visitors by 10 percent may not be, especially if you managed to increase your visitors by 5 percent the previous month.
  • Relevant goals – Make sure that reaching the goals you’ve set will actually have an impact. For example, hitting your goal to increase your website traffic by 10 percent may not mean much if you have a high bounce rate or if none of these visitors are converting.
  • Time-bound goals – Set a deadline to meet your goals so that there’s some pressure to actually accomplish them.

Examples Of How Smart Goals Should Align With Your Business Goals

SMART Goal Examples

The following are a few SMART goal examples for marketing to give you an idea of how you can implement SMART goals in your marketing strategy:

  • Bring in more web traffic – Increasing web traffic is a very general goal. The SMART goal version of this might be to increase web traffic by 10 percent within one month. This includes the use of SEO, social engagement and content marketing to increase lead generation.SMART goals for email marketing
  • Increase email subscribers – Email marketing is an excellent way to nurture leads. A SMART goal version could be to increase your email subscribers by 20 percent within one month using your Facebook ad budget on blog posts that have previously captured the most email subscribers.
  • Gather a webinar audience – If you are planning a webinar, then you can use a SMART goal to help measure its success. Let’s say you’ve already collected 100 signups within two weeks. The seminar is scheduled in one month. Your SMART goal might be to double your signups for your webinar by the webinar date through social, email, and blog promotion in order to close more sales.

These are a few SMART goal examples in marketing. These SMART goal examples take some very basic marketing goals and make them more actionable and measurable. The use of SMART goals in marketing can really help you get the most out of your marketing dollars. This is because you can use the results (whether you end up meeting your goals or not) to set future goals that may be more realistic and impactful.

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High Quality Backlink2

The Importance of Earning High Quality Backlinks

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One of the major goals of an inbound marketing campaign is to be found online. There are many tactics that you can implement in order to achieve this. One such tactic is through link building, especially high-quality backlinks. Link building refers to getting other websites to link to your content.

The more high quality backlinks that you earn to your website, the more traffic you’ll receive. Because of the nature of high-quality backlinks, there’s a good chance that this traffic will consist of high-quality leads. Because of this, you should try to earn as many high-quality backlinks as possible.

High-Quality Backlinks Benefits

There are two major benefits of high-quality backlinks. The first is that a website that links to your content is doing so to provide its audience with a quality source that they think will benefit them. This means that your content will be exposed to an audience that is likely going to be relevant to your brand. Backlinks from websites with particularly big audiences are going to result in a lot of web traffic to your site as well, which can result in more potential leads.

The second benefit of earning high-quality backlinks is that they indicate to Google that your content is of high quality. After all, a reputable website wouldn’t send its audience to your page if the content wasn’t helpful or relevant. As such, Google factors the number of high-quality backlinks that your content earns into its page rankings. This means that the more high-quality backlinks you earn, the higher your page is probably going to appear on their SERP. As a result, you’ll gain more exposure and more organic web traffic.

Also Read: Content Marketing Misconceptions

How to Earn High-Quality BacklinksHigh Quality Backlink2

Earning high-quality backlinks might seem like a matter of luck. After all, you have no control over whether another website decides to link to your content. However, this isn’t necessarily true. There are several ways that you can increase the chances of being linked to. The following are a few tips on how you can earn more high-quality backlinks:

  • Create high-quality content – The first thing that’s required to earn backlinks is to have content worth linking to. This means that you should focus on creating high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience and that is helpful or informative in some way. Be sure to get your content out there too by promoting it. For example, link your content to your social channels and add social share buttons so your readers can help expose it to more people. The more exposure the content is, the more likely it is that another website will stumble onto it and link to it.
  • Optimize your content for SEO – The higher your content ranks on Google’s SERP, the more likely it is that another website will find your content when doing research for their own blog content. If they end up referencing your content, they will link back to it.
  • Build your brand authority – The more brand authority you have, the more you’ll be trusted as an expert in your field. As a result, websites will be more willing to link to your content as a valid source that they can use to strengthen whatever argument they’re making or information they’re providing in their own content.
  • Build relationships with influencers – Find the influencers within your industry on social media and begin building relationships with them. Once they know you exist, they may link to your content. Not only can you earn backlinks this way, but the additional exposure can result in more backlinks in the near future.

Also Read: The Power of an Influencer Marketing Strategy: How and Why It Works

  • Write guest blog posts – When you write a guest blog post on another website, that website will link your guest post back to your own blog. This means that you’re automatically earning backlinks for every guest post your write.

Also read: Blog Vs. Vlog: Why Your Business Should Begin Vlogging

  • Link to other websites – Link your content to other high-quality websites. Doing this can result in them returning the favor.

How Businesses Can Use a Blog To Strengthen Their Online Marketing Efforts

The thing about backlinks is that they only help in SEO if they come from a reputable website. A low-quality website isn’t going to send you a whole lot of traffic, after all. Additionally, Google will evaluate where your backlinks are coming from to ensure that they are from a reputable source. The reason they do this is because websites would try to trick Google into providing high page rankings. They did this by buying backlinks from websites that sold them, known as link farms. This was a common blackhat tactic that is now very difficult to get away with. If you buy backlinks, Google will penalize you by either lowering your page ranking. Or they’ll kick your page off of their SERP.

Understanding why backlinks are important, the importance of earning them should be a key tactic in SEO that everyone invests in. Doing so can help to increase the exposure of your brand and your content. Help bring in traffic from other websites, and help boost your SEO rankings, thereby attracting more organic traffic from Google.

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B2B vs B2C Marketing Automation

Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing Automation

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Marketing automation offers a company the chance to centralize most of its marketing activities into a single software platform and to automate it to an extent. This centralization appeals to both B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) companies. However, there is a difference between B2B and B2C marketing automation due to fundamental differences between the two groups.

Why Is Marketing Automation Between B2B and B2C Different?

Effective marketing addresses each customer’s individual goals and needs. This remains true whether the customer is B2B or B2C. Because these groups have differing goals and needs, the way you market to them has to be different. As a result, the following differences remain when you use marketing automation:

  • The marketing focus differs:

    • With B2B, the focus is on generating leads and keeping their subscribers engaged throughout the longer sales cycle.
    • With B2C the focus is on building the brand.

  • The tactics used are different:

    • B2B marketing delivers content that positions the company as an industry leader, while nurturing the lead in the sales process.
    • B2C marketing is about the customer journey and making data-driven recommendations for products or services.

  • The tone of the messages is different:

    • B2B messages are to targeted groups at different stages of the sales cycle.
    • B2C messages are more personal and highly relevant to the individual.

Also Read: Top 5 Benefits Of Marketing Automation

Difference Between B2B vs B2C Marketing Automation

With all the differences between B2B vs B2C Marketing Automation, it’s easy to see why their marketing automation needs differ as well.

  • Communication channels. While both B2B and B2C businesses rely on email for marketing, the B2C use other channels as well. Text messaging, push notifications and retargeting are just a few examples. The B2C marketing automation solution needs to handle these additional channels.
  • Data used. B2B consumers are businesses that have specific needs. Marketing data for this group would include approximate company size, industry, point of contact and specific needs. B2C consumers are individuals with specific tastes. Marketing data for this group includes age, gender, purchase history and frequently visited product categories.
  • Features needed. B2B companies need help with nurturing their leads through the sales cycle. They want features like lead scoring and integration with their CRM system. B2C companies want to retain the customers they get, so they want features like reputation management, retargeting and retention marketing.
  • Marketing focus. B2B marketing focuses building the one-on-one relationship. B2C is more about building the brand and building mass appeal.
  • Pricing. B2B automation is priced based on the number of contacts managed within the system. B2C automation is priced based on the volume of data. It is not uncommon for B2B automation to have only 100 contacts in the system while B2C has thousands.

Also Read: Differences Between B2C and B2B Email Marketing

The differing approaches of B2B and B2C marketing lead to their different marketing automation solutions. Trying to substitute one strategy for the other is difficult, due to different features and pricing structures. If you need help finding the right solution for your business, contact us at Stevens-Tate.

25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

call to action phrases

Powerful Call-to-Action Phrases to Increase Clicks

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Are you looking to increase your conversion rate? Call to action phrases are an essential part of the conversion process, but what kinds of CTAs should you put on your website? CTAs should be simple yet effective and catch the attention of your visitors.

The formula for a successful CTA page title consists of combining such sales buzzwords as “free,” “discount,” “offer,” “gift,” and “guarantee,” with action-oriented words like “click,” “download,” “request,” and “send.” Putting together a strand of words to entice clicks sometimes doesn’t get the job done, though. Therefore, as a marketer, think of what strikes you as a buyer: emotion.

Humans are oddly emotional creatures and are the only ones who tie those emotions to money. Hence making many of their purchases subject to the emotions invoked by marketing which is exactly why call to action phrases are so important. This isn’t a secret to marketers either, but leveraging that knowledge and coupling it with your brand’s content can be a little tricky.

 

The Best Call to Action Phrase Building Tips

CTAs can be as simple as “click here” and “download now,” but can have an infinitely more powerful meaning by adding a few simple words and giving the reader the benefit of what they are getting from the offer.

  1. Include a possessive determiner such as “your.” The possessive aspect of the CTA makes the reader feel as though that piece of content or your offer is already theirs to be had and in their back pocket.
  2. Briefly outline the benefit of the content. Add what your website visitor gets from clicking your CTA. This almost acts as a miniature landing page. For example, instead of saying “click here” use a phrase like “click here for your free white paper.”
  3. Use action words and urgency to encourage clicks. “Limited downloads,” “limited time,” and words such as “now” and “quickly” will enhance the sense of urgency for your users to click on your brand’s CTAs.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

Actionable CTA Phrases

Actionable CTAs leverage words like “now,” “here,” “click,” etc. Meanwhile, using an action word to draw the reader into the CTA gives them that emotional sense of action and satisfies that human demand for immediate satisfaction. Getting content “now” versus “get it in a week” will drive more clicks onto your good CTA Phrases.

Call to Action Buttons

Keeping in mind some of the tips above, let’s take a look at how using actionable words can make a simple CTA far more powerful. We’ve bolded some of those key terms, but have a little fun. Remove some of the bolded items and see what that does to the phrase. Keep in mind that you can insert any content type or offer in the brackets to fit your brand. Here are a few examples of actionable CTAs:

  • Download Your [Content] Now
  • Click Here for Your Free [Content]
  • Join Now and [Get 30 Days Free]
  • Download Your Free [Content] Here
  • Start Getting Your Free [Content] by Clicking Here Now
  • Click Here for Details About the Best [Service/Product] for Your Company

Also Read: 5 Types of Landing Pages To Increase Your Lead Conversion Rate

Urgent CTA Phrases

For most of us, the essence of time can very well be the thing that either helps us make a decision or turns our “eventually” into never. Your buyers are the same way, and giving them a little nudge into a sense of urgency. This can be just what they need to click your CTA, capitalize on your content, and ultimately buy what you’ve got up for offer. Adding some personal touches (in the right context) can further drive that sense of urgency for your buyer.

Limited-time offers, limited-time discounts, first-time buyer discounts, and limited supply all tend to push buyers a little closer to the buy button in their shopping cart. This can be a great way to improve your CTAs. In the case of content and CTAs where the downloads themselves are free, your prospective buyer has virtually nothing to lose. Here are a few urgent CTA phrases that are sure to light the proverbial fire under your buyer and increase clicks:

  • Download Your [Content] While Supplies Last
  • Act Quickly Limited Downloads Available
  • Hurry, This Free [Content] Offer Expires Soon
  • Secure Your Spot Today! Limited Spots Available
  • Only X Days Remaining to [Sign Up, Download, Attend]
  • Take Advantage of this Limited [Content] Today Only
  • I Urge You to Download this Limited Time Offer

Want to attract more leads? Also Read about Attraction Marketing!

Exclusive CTA Phrases

Adding urgency to a call to action phrase can sometimes seem a little pushy, especially to some C-level managers and business owners. Meanwhile, another equally crafty way to make your CTAs appealing to your target audience is: exclusivity. Exclusive offers give readers the feeling that they are a part of or at least offered a deal that no one else is in on.

We see these sorts of lead-generation tactics across multiple retail platforms. These deals are both confined to time and exclusive to members only. Whether or not your particular brand is a retailer or not we, as consumers, have been trained to jump on those exclusive offers available only to the elite. This can work with your best Call to Action Phrases as well. Here are some useful exclusive CTA phrases:

  • Join Our Mailing List and Get Exclusive Content
  • This Offer is Only For Our Subscribers
  • Sign Up for Exclusive Offers only Available to Subscribers
  • Request an Invitation to [Join, Sign Up, Get Content]
  • This [Content, Offer] is Only Available to [Subscribers, Members]
  • Download Now for Exclusive Access

Responsive CTA Phrases

Naturally, every call to action keyword should aim to generate a response from your target buyer. While practically any of the CTA phrases we’ve outlined could be categorized as either “actionable” or “responsive,” we think it’s best to separate the two. Actionable CTAs lead users towards a specific action, such as clicking, downloading, subscribing, etc. At the same time, responsive CTAs invoke a sense of two-way conversation.

With that said, the CTA phrases below will elicit a response from your potential lead: think feedback, a reply, or a point of contact. These types of CTA phrases should hopefully open up a dialogue between you and your potential buyer and allow them to start the conversation. Here are a few examples of responsive CTAs:

  • Talk to One of Our Experts About…
  • Get a Free Consultation and Talk About Your Business Goals
  • We’d Like to Hear from You: Talk to a Specialist Today
  • Let Us Know What You Think
  • Contact Us Today
  • Contact Me
  • Don’t Hesitate to Get in Touch With Us

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Craft Your Own CTA Phrases

As we’ve mentioned, the sky really is the limit to crafting attractive content-focused best Call To Action phrases. Experimenting with them is one of the great ways inbound marketing can help marketers learn more about their tactics. What’s important to keep in mind is that your buyer is the focus of any CTA or piece of content you craft. Without a doubt, targeting those CTAs is crucial for the success of your content initiatives.

25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

Media Mix Marketing

Media Mix Marketing: What Is It and What Are the Benefits?

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The marketing world is dynamic. New marketing tactics and trends constantly change how businesses market themselves. Consequently, marketers have embraced media mix marketing. Statistics show a 14% growth rate in digital marketing budget spending between 2020 and 2021 across industries. Besides, forecasts show a digital marketing annual growth rate of 9% from 2020 to 2026.

These figures encompass a mix of media marketing strategies available today. Businesses no longer rely on a single media marketing tactic to achieve their objectives. They can leverage a media mix marketing strategy for more versatility and visibility than traditional marketing methods.

What is Media Mix Marketing?

Media mix marketing is a crucial part of business marketing and advertising. It combines all the channels a company can use to achieve its marketing goals and boost the branding message. It entails both online and offline media, such as the following:

  • The business’ website and social media channels
  • Email marketing
  • TV ads
  • Radio ads
  • Newspapers
  • Billboards
  • Direct mail

Leveraging a marketing media mix is a practical and effective way of reaching a wider audience. Besides, a media mix enables a brand to try new things confidently. For example, you may have tried to promote your brand through digital displays and seen results.

However, you may be interested in trying TV ads to test the response while keeping a safety net. Digital advertising isn’t static, so you must evolve your strategy to keep up with the competition.

Benefits of a Media Mix Marketing

One benefit of media mix marketing is enabling you to deliver the right marketing message to your audience. For example, if you want to target a broad market across the country, a media mix of national newspapers, television, and radio may be the right fit.

To reach a specific group of decision-makers, a mix of media marketing might include specialists’ magazines or exhibitions specifically for that target audience. Direct mail or a briefing session could be more effective for a smaller target audience of decision-makers.

Better Returns on Investment (ROI)

A compelling media mix can improve your business ROI while enabling you to test new campaigns. It prevents you from putting all your marketing or advertising budget in one place or relying on one method to reach a broad audience.

You can determine the best-performing method and invest more to balance out the underperforming ones for a better ROI. You can decide whether to optimize or eliminate ineffective marketing methods depending on the outcome.

Creates a Strong Brand Message

When you consistently use a combination of media channels to promote your company, you enhance your chances of creating a consistent brand. Sharing your brand logo, colors, message, and tone across different media platforms makes it easier for people to recognize it.

Better Understanding of Market Trends

As you try to mix different marketing techniques, you gain a better understanding of what other brands are doing in the market. You also learn how different channels affect your business and how trends keep changing with time. Creating new marketing strategies that work best for your brand is easy with this knowledge.

Improved Planning Through Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics provides more insights into what the future of an organization’s marketing efforts looks like. Combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning, you can account for many variables, such as seasonality, industry trends, and the impact of advertising.

The data enables you to predict the effectiveness of campaigns for a clearer view of what to expect from your mixed media marketing strategy. It becomes easier to anticipate customers’ needs and desires for more personalized campaigns.

How to Choose the Best Media Mix?

When choosing a media mix, remember that the goal is to establish suitable communication channels to improve your customer base and sales. That is only achievable by paying attention to the following components of a marketing media mix:

  • People: Carefully consider the audience you want to reach with your messaging through your media mix. Do you want to reinforce a specific message to your existing customers or test a new market segment? Your marketing objectives can largely influence your decision.
  • Product: What do you intend to sell or market through your chosen channels? How effectively can you demonstrate what it offers through your preferred medium to fill a market gap?
  • Place: Place is the location where customers can purchase your product or service. While this may be a physical store, your mix of media marketing may comprise your social media platforms and website as the place where customers can buy.
  • Price: As you mix your media marketing channels, you can quickly determine the price in several ways, including factoring in the cost of the media mix. Remember to include other expenses like labor and distribution.

Ultimately, getting your media mix right requires carefully thinking through the strategies based on your budget, brand, product, audience, unique selling proposition, and in-house skills. Some tips to help you along the way are the following:

  • Consider your primary marketing goals
  • Think through the marketing funnel as different channels are effective at various points of the buyer persona journey.
  • Invest heavily in tracking and analytics to gauge the impact of each marketing channel.
  • Ensure you monitor the same metrics across the various marketing channels.
  • Validate the lessons you pick along the way by optimizing your media mix.
  • Analyze your target audience based on their pain points, location, demographics, and preferences.
  • Harmonize your mixed media marketing channels to boost your ROI.

Getting Started with Your Media Mix Marketing Strategy

With 84% of media planners already leveraging a media mix marketing and getting positive results, there’s no reason you shouldn’t do the same to boost your brand. Determining the best mix may be an uphill task, but not impossible. Analytics tools are available to help you improve and fine-tune the mix. Once you establish how changes in the blend affect the results, you can reallocate your budget to enhance the mix for better marketing performance.

Conclusion:

In today’s fast-paced and highly competitive marketplace, leveraging a well-planned media mix is no longer optional—it’s essential. By combining various media channels strategically, businesses can amplify their reach, enhance message resonance, and build stronger connections with diverse audience segments.

50 powerful call to action phrases

The Use of Inbound Marketing in the Manufacturing Industry

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When it comes to B2C marketing, inbound marketing has long surpassed traditional marketing as the most popular way to advertise a business. However, many businesses, especially manufacturers, still assume that traditional marketing is the best way to go when it comes to B2B. This is no longer true. In fact, there are some real benefits when it comes to inbound marketing for manufacturers that you will want to take advantage of.

What is Inbound Marketing?

The big difference between inbound marketing and traditional marketing (which would include TV commercials, print ads, direct mail, etc.), is that inbound marketing is essentially done online and focuses on positioning your company to be found by other businesses. For example, instead of sending out a pamphlet highlighting your manufacturing capabilities, you would publish content relevant to the manufacturing industry (and whatever niche within that industry you occupy) online. This content lives online from that moment on, giving visitors the chance to find it at any point.

Inbound marketing involves using a variety of strategies (such as creating a user-friendly website, producing high-quality content, using SEO, engaging on social media) that makes it easy for your target audience to find you online and to do a majority of the research about your company and services on their own. This is different than traditional marketing, which involves finding your audience and directly advertising to them.

How Can You Keep Up With the Future of Inbound Marketing?

The Benefits of Inbound Marketing for Manufacturers

The following are four reasons why you should strongly consider implementing an inbound marketing strategy for your manufacturing business:

1) Businesses are doing research online first

Around 70 percent of buyers will do research about manufacturers online before they make the decision to reach out to a potential partner. For example, maybe a buyer is looking for a PCB (printed circuit board) assembly manufacturer for their electronic products. They will probably begin researching PCB assemblies by looking for general information online. This will lead to them to a variety of blogs with informative content that they can read at their own time. Content that strikes them as particularly helpful will stand out, and they will do more research into the manufacturer that published that content. If you do not have an online presence, then you’re missing out on buyers like these. A good inbound marketing strategy will help position yourself online to be found by buyers who are doing research.

Also Read: Why Inbound Marketing Solutions Are Integral To Your Success

2) Inbound marketing provides long-term results

As you build your online presence through inbound marketing techniques, you’ll have the opportunity to nurture many potential leads over the long term. For example, let’s say you’re a PCB manufacturer. You have a blog on which you regularly produce PCB-related content (such as, for instance, the benefits of flexible circuits). There may be leads out there who read your content regularly and have done so for years. They may build their own PCBs in-house and a change in strategy has resulted in them deciding to outsource its build. At that point, they’ll be familiar with your site and will be more likely to reach out to you. Traditional advertising doesn’t have such a long-term impact. 

3) What worked once won’t always work

You may have had a lot of success with traditional marketing methods–and you may continue having success with those efforts. However, if you expect to grow your business, then you’ll want to expand your customer base, which means that you shouldn’t limit your advertising efforts. Otherwise, the day might come where your traditional marketing efforts aren’t as effective as they once were, and you’ll be left scrambling to implement an inbound strategy.

Also Read: Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

4) Find out what your audience needs

Unlike traditional advertising, inbound marketing allows you to engage directly with your target audience, making it easier to develop relationships, receive feedback, and discover the needs of your leads.

As you can see, there are many benefits to inbound marketing for manufacturers. By implementing an inbound marketing strategy in your advertising efforts, you can position your company for marketing success well into the future.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers
b2b marketing strategy

5 Storytelling Techniques You Should Use For Your Marketing Efforts

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When it comes to any type of marketing effort, engaging your audience is of utmost importance. Keeping your audience interested is probably the biggest challenge. If they lose interest, they’ll become difficult to convert. To ensure that your audience remains engaged, you need to use the power of brand storytelling for your marketing efforts.

Why is Storytelling Crucial to Marketing?

Consuming information without context is rarely interesting or engaging. Think about how it felt to go to school and study for tests. Few students actually enjoy doing this. On the other hand, almost everyone enjoys watching TV shows or going to the movies. The reason is simple: if information is presented using storytelling, it becomes more enjoyable and easier to retain.

Think about it this way: let’s say you’re talking to a friend. Your friend is explaining how they just bought a new blender and they’re going over all of its features. Sounds boring, right? That’s because it is. However, what if they explained how they had to go on a diet because their doctor told them they were on the brink of having a heart attack? What if a friend recommended that they begin making healthy juices and smoothies? What if their original blender exploded everywhere the first time they tried to use it?

At this point, you’re invested in their story and you’re interested in how their new blender solved their problem. This is because they kept you engaged using storytelling instead of just dumping information with no context into your lap. And that’s how marketing works as well.

5 Storytelling Techniques for Marketing

digital storytelling

There are many different storytelling techniques you can use to boost your marketing efforts. Here are five techniques that you should be sure to implement to boost your storytelling capabilities:

1. Always put your audience first

To truly engage your audience, you need to make sure that you understand their perspective. If they don’t feel like your content is tailored specifically to them, they’ll feel disinterested and tune out. As such, the protagonist in your story needs to either be them or represent them. Your story should revolve around their pain points. To ensure that you create content using their perspective, you’ll need to develop buyer personas.

2. Use traditional story structure

If you want to build a better story, consider doing what Hollywood films do: they stick to traditional storytelling structures. Such stories include a beginning, middle, and end. In the beginning, the character is introduced along with the inciting incident (the problem that needs to be solved). Their journey towards solving the problem and the struggles they face in doing so is detailed in the middle. In the end, there’s a climax and resolution.

Using traditional story structure is smart because people are familiar with it — and most importantly, they’re comfortable with it.

3. Make sure the conflict is clear

Any good story needs to have conflict. This is especially true for your marketing stories. The best way to ensure that there’s enough conflict is by making sure that the stakes are high enough. The protagonist must be facing a seemingly impossible challenge, and only with hard work will they be able to triumph at the end. For example, let’s say that one of your buyer personas wants to lose weight. They’ve been told by their doctor that they have to lose weight immediately or they risk health issues, making the stakes high.

4. Keep the format in mind

Writing for the page is much different than writing for video. People read things differently than they say them. Don’t write your content the way you speak as it will likely come off as unprofessional. On the other hand, don’t write the dialogue for a video the way you’d write a blog post because it won’t sound natural.

Effective storytelling is dependent on the voice and one being used, so be sure to keep the format you’re using in mind.

5. Pacing is essential

Pacing is arguably the most important element of a successful story. Poor pacing can make your story uninteresting even if it contains all the elements of a traditional story structure.

Make sure your story is always moving at a steady pace. For example, if you’re writing a 1,000-word case study about one of your products, then the inciting incident should be explained in the first paragraph. If it doesn’t show up until halfway through, odds are you’ll have lost a substantial number of readers because they’ve lost patience and nothing has happened story-wise until that point.

Use Storytelling Techniques to Engage Your Audience storytelling

 

To deliver your brand’s message to your target audience, you will need to be able to engage them on a personal level and keep them interested. The best way to do this is by using these five tried and true storytelling techniques.

 

Also Read: 5 Storytelling Techniques You Should Avoid

Learn To Use Social Media To Find New Leads
Website Redesign Process

Website Redesign Tips

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Once you’ve decided to redesign your website so that your business can remain competitive, you’ll want professional website redesign tips to help ensure that your new website design will be effective. Without one, your site is likely going to continue having some of the same problems it currently has. Redesigning your website without a plan is basically like doing temporary repairs and hoping that they will hold up.

Website Redesign Questions to Ask

If you’re looking to figure out what you need to change, you’ll want to start by asking yourself key questions about your current website design. The following questions will help you understand where your current website’s issues lie and how your website can be improved with Website Redesign.

What do you think needs work on your website?

If you’ve identified the need for a website redesign, then you should have some idea of what areas of your current website need work. However, you should still go through your entire site to see if you can pick up on anything that you think needs to be addressed. Pay attention to:

  • How long pages take to load
  • How easy it is to navigate
  • Whether your links are working
  • If visitors are engaging with your content
  • Whether your content is outdated
  • What kind of impression you have of the site’s look

Also Read: How Your Web Page Speed Effects Your SEO and Google Ads Performance

What do visitors think about your website?

Your visitors often have a better perspective on how functional your site is to use than you do. In fact, some of the best website redesign tips you can get are from your visitors. Pay attention to some of the common questions that your visitors are asking concerning your website. You can also look at what your visitors are searching for most in your search bar. For example, if they are searching for your contact information, then your contact page may not be as easy to find as it should be.

Read More Articles: Why Your Website Redesign Would Benefit From An Inbound Marketing Strategy

What is your website’s main goal?

You should have one main goal, whether it’s generating sales, increasing brand authority, converting leads or spreading brand awareness. This goal will help guide you when it comes to making your website design choices and will give you something to benchmark your site’s results against.

What are your competitors’ websites like?

One way to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t is by taking a look at the competition. Spend some time going through one of your competitor’s websites. It’s often easier to judge another website objectively than it is to do so your own. You’re likely to notice that your more successful competitors have the more effective website designs. Take note of some of the things you like about their site as well, such as the layout, features or some of the pages they have that you might not.

How often do you update your website?

You should be updating your website regularly, even if it’s just to post weekly blog content. If you’re not, it could be because your current website is just too difficult to update. Fortunately, there are content management systems (CMS) available that makes it easy for anyone to update a website, whether they are technically proficient or not.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, a successful website redesign requires careful planning and consideration. By taking the time to ask yourself the right website redesign questions, such as those outlined above, you can ensure that your new website meets the needs of your business and your visitors. By investing in a well-designed and user-friendly website, you can set your business up for long-term success.

Looking for additional information on how to rebuild your website? Please click here!

30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips

integrated marketing solutions

The Importance of Hiring an Integrated Marketing Agency

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There are hundreds of tactics you can use to advertise your business, whether you’re using inbound or outbound marketing. As a result, it can take a long time and a lot of effort to create and execute a successful marketing strategy — especially if you want long-term results. It’s why many companies will work with a marketing agency instead of trying to do it themselves.

However, you’ll find that most marketing agencies focus on specific types of advertising. For example, some agencies focus on direct marketing, while others focus on building websites. If you want to work with a single agency that can handle all of your marketing needs, then you should consider working with an integrated marketing agency.

What is Integrated Marketing?

Integrated Marketing Agency

Integrated marketing is the practice of making sure all of your marketing efforts are aligned to deliver the same core message. It’s an overarching strategy that uses various channels to reach people at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Integrated marketing allows businesses to deliver a consistent message across different mediums, including print and digital media.

For example, a company might use a TV commercial to draw attention to its new website. For this to work, the message conveyed on the TV ad must be consistent with the messaging on the website. If the tagline or logo on the commercial is even slightly different than what’s on your website, it will confuse people.

What is an Integrated Marketing Agency?

Integrated marketing agencies use a holistic approach to marketing. They can address all the advertising needs that a company might have. Basically, it means that they can do everything you need as far as marketing goes so that you don’t have to hire multiple agencies. For example, they can help:

  • Build your brand and design branding elements.
  • Develop a traditional outbound marketing strategy.
  • Develop an inbound marketing strategy.
  • Create your inbound and outbound marketing materials (from print ads to your website)
  • Develop a public relations (PR) strategy to engage with your target audience across many channels.

What are the Benefits of an Integrated Marketing Agency?

Integrated Marketing Agency

There are many benefits to working with an integrated marketing agency instead of an agency that has more specific focuses (such as an agency that only produces commercial videos). The following are a few of the primary benefits of using an integrated marketing agency:

1. A more cost-effective marketing solution

Hiring multiple agencies to address different parts of your marketing strategy can be expensive. An integrated marketing agency can take care of all your marketing needs, making it a more cost-effective option.

2. A more cohesive long-term marketing plan

Because an integrated marketing agency is experienced in every facet of marketing, they can audit your existing strategy. Additionally, they will consider your company’s needs and audience to develop a more unified long-term marketing strategy.

3. More personalized services

Most agencies use a general blueprint to implement their solutions. As such, their marketing efforts follow a guideline or template for every one of their clients. Integrated marketing agencies customize their marketing solutions to the specific needs of the clients they’re working with. Futhermore they will take a unified approach that will result in a comprehensive and unique marketing strategy.

4. Branding consistency across all channels

If you lack branding consistency (for example, if your messaging and tone is different from one channel to the next), it will hurt your brand identity. Consequently, people will get confused about who you are and what you offer.

An integrated marketing agency can help develop a unique branding strategy so that your business will have a consistent message across all channels. By using integrated marketing, you’ll ensure that your brand identity remains consistent.

5. A better understanding of the buyer’s journey

Integrated marketing agencies are experienced with both traditional and digital marketing. As a result, they have a greater understanding of the buyer’s journey and how to reach customers at every stage of their journey.

6. More effective cross-channel marketing campaigns

Marketing campaigns that function separately won’t be nearly as effective as if they were designed to work together. Integrated marketing agencies are more capable of creating cross-channel marketing campaigns designed to achieve a shared goal.

Our Integrated Marketing Solutions

Here at Stevens & Tate, we offer integrated marketing solutions tailor-made to your company’s needs. Not only do we take into account your business and your customers, but we also take into account your budget. With that in mind, the following are some of the integrated marketing solutions that we offer:

  • Storybranding:

We can help develop your brand and brand story by identifying competitive advantages and mission statement. We can also create a slogan and tagline, identify your value propositions, and develop your message and story.

  • Marketing strategy:

We develop a comprehensive marketing strategy by implementing a meticulous process. This process includes a thorough consultation, SWOT analysis, budget evaluation, marketing plan development and execution, communications strategy, and messaging approach.

  • Research:

We perform thorough market research to help build your marketing strategy. This research includes competitive market analysis, brand audits, target audience segmentation, website analytics, customer experience research, and more.

  • SEO and social:

We can develop comprehensive social media and SEO strategies to increase brand awareness and authority. We use various tactics, including blogging, content creation, social media campaigns, PPC ads, engagement strategies, and organic search marketing.

  • Public relations:

We offer a wide variety of reputation management services integrated with your overall marketing strategy. These services include press release writing, product launch advertising, online syndication, and marketing promotions. We can also improve your reputation via thought leadership, content marketing, media relations, and more.

  • Customer experience:

We develop various strategies to help improve your customer experience. We can help with package design, brand development, contests, promotions, pricing structures, and more.

  • Digital marketing tactics:

We can plan and execute digital marketing efforts as part of your ongoing marketing strategy. These efforts may include SEO, video production, PPC advertising, social media advertising, mobile and web app implementation, content creation, and more.

  • Traditional Advertising:

In addition to digital marketing, we can also help develop a traditional advertising campaign integrated with the rest of your marketing efforts. Some of the traditional advertising services we offer include print ad design, radio scripts and audio production, photography, logo development, video production, sales brochures, and more.

Improve Your Long-Term Marketing Using Integrated Marketing Solutions

To create an effective cross-channel marketing campaign, you need integrated marketing solutions. Moreover, integrated marketing is the best way to strengthen your brand, grow your business, and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry over the long term.

Find out more about the integrated marketing solutions we offer by contacting us to request a free marketing consultation at Stevens & Tate today.

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