b2b marketing strategy

Integrating Story Branding With Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Marketers have realized that their audiences’ attention spans are getting shorter by the day. In an effort to get it back, they resort to anything to engage them: humor, sex, etc. However, it is one thing to get involved in a commercial and another to get involved in a brand. Successful brands market by forging a deeper emotional connection using story branding which is a part of attraction marketing.

In a technique called The Hero’s Quest, they create a story with a hero, a conflict, and a resolution. The hero has a certain drive like love that leads him to action past certain barriers and eventual conquest. Generating emotional connection with the story is what sells. To be successful in B2B marketing strategy, make your brand the hero of your own story.

Where story branding and marketing integrate:

Distinction

Consumers have vast amounts of choice today but are drawn to the one they can relate to. Distinction is vital in any marketing strategy. A good, realistic brand story enhances a brand’s overall presence regardless of its competitive position in the industry. The right perception hits the audiences’ emotional quotient, tipping it in your favor. Wrapping up your brand in a more meaningful story context further adds value to it. To fellow businesses, buying your product will mean getting higher utility compared to the others in the competition.

Humanizing your brand

A successful B2B marketing strategy is one that humanizes your brand. A brand story cannot be underestimated in doing the job. Individual experiences like those of Steve Jobs, when fed into a company message, go a long way in personalizing and even achieving celebrity like status for your brand. You can use employee or your founder experience for this. Although you cannot have complete control of your story, a little positive twist helps to strengthen it by making it more interesting. Your marketing strategy is even boosted further as a result. A story should be a corporate persuasion tool that leads your audience to you.

Read more on 4 Strategies For Improving Your B2B Customer Experience.

Emotion is more compelling than a straight fact

In spoken word, good oratory skills are regarded highly and can be more compelling when they involve more emotion than fact. Arousing an audiences’ emotion can create big turnaround in your brand path. The Royal navy for example, uses stories to boost confidence and productivity where it is expected of the military to have a tough, factual approach to communication. That B2B cannot use warm and emotive storytelling is not a true rationale. Make your story more willingly received and memorable to achieve greater marketing success.

Interplay

There is a two way exchange between telling a story and marketing success. Story branding strengthens your business whereas a good, stronger business performance reinforces your story. Similarly, poor performance becomes part of your brand story just as easily. A B2B marketing strategy can be shaped but success will always depended on perception. Story branding is one way of building this perception.

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

targeted marketing

3 Ways To Use Targeted Marketing To Reach Qualified Prospects

Imagine, if you will, walking out of a model home and before you know it…you see an ad for a builder just down the street appear on your cell phone. You think to yourself, “Hmmm…coincidence?” It’s not. With targeted marketing, you can pinpoint potential customers down to an address where they have visited.

Targeted marketing is nothing new. Agencies and companies have been doing it for years. First through direct mail, then via email, using data points such as zip code, gender, household income, marital status, and age. But now, we have the ability to narrow our scope even more to truly reach those most qualified to purchase.

Niche Marketing Through Social Media

Recently, a new client came to Stevens & Tate needing to attract more students to its private school. We discovered several factors that determined whether parents chose to send their children to this school. They could afford it. It was close to their home or work. And it provided the type of education they wanted for their child. To reach this very specific audience, we advertised on social media. Social media sites such as Facebook gather a great deal of information about their users from information the users provide themselves. These sites also monitor behavior patterns. As a result, we were able to do niche marketing, advertising to select neighborhoods around the school and in local employment corridors. And we focused our message on the benefits this private education offered. After the first month, the school recorded an increase in attendees to the parent information sessions.

Learn more about Effective Marketing Strategies For A Changing Economy.

Targeted Marketing On Radio? Yes.

One of Stevens & Tate’s clients needed to build ticket sales for its classical music concerts. After researching the prior season’s data, we discovered that the majority of concertgoers came from a 20-minute or less drive of the venue. So we incorporated online radio into the media mix to aim our message at those who would have an affinity for the brand. The beauty of this targeted marketing plan was that we could reach listeners with a preference for classical music. We were able to narrow down our audience not only to those who lived in a specified geographic area but also to those who exhibited classical music listening habits. The result was a 25 percent increase in year-over-year show attendance.

Hyperlocal Marketing Pinpoints Your Audience

For a Chicagoland homebuilder with a new property in the city, we wanted to reach home shoppers living near the neighborhood as well as those holding certain job titles. Rather than choose a medium to advertise on, we chose a very small group of people to reach out to. Using a digital hyperlocal marketing campaign, we were able to serve ads to a very niche market segment—including those who had recently used a home finder app. We served ads to these individuals multiple times via multiple vehicles including desktop, mobile and in-app ads; emails; social media newsfeeds; and native content based on online search history. Since launching the program, sales at the community have increased 50 percent.

These are just a few examples of the power of a targeted marketing campaign. And new digital technologies are being unveiled all the time. At Stevens & Tate, we partner with multiple media sources to devise just the right targeted marketing campaign for each of our clients. If you are looking for an agency that can help you move from a shotgun to a rifle approach to marketing, contact Stevens & Tate and see if we are a fit.

Free Marketing Consultation

marketing automation software

Top Key Benefits of Marketing Automation vs. Email Marketing

It is a common misconception that marketing automation and email marketing are essentially the same thing. In email marketing, you build an email list and then start sending out emails to market your business. You get statistics back showing how many people opened the email and which ones clicked through to your offer. While the information that email marketing is important, it pales in comparison to the features and benefits of marketing automation.

How Marketing Automation Benefits Your Business

Email marketing systems have a very limited scope when compared to marketing automation systems. The email systems allow you to send mass emails out to your marketing list. Then, you get reports on how well the emails worked. But, that’s really all there is to it.

A marketing automation system gives you those same features and so much more.

With an email marketing system, you have to build your landing pages and web forms in a completely different system. In contrast, you can build both within a marketing automation system. This built-in integration makes building your marketing campaign much simpler. Plus, it gives you automatic reporting that is not available with an email marketing system.

Automatic marketing systems allow you to directly integrate your email marketing with other types of marketing for your business such as direct mail and social media. This streamlines your marketing efforts and allows you to do much more without the need to replicate efforts in multiple systems.

Read More: The Benefits of Marketing Automation For Senior Living Communities

A powerful benefit of marketing automation is the power it gives you over your lead information. The software helps you avoid duplication of leads. It also helps normalize the data, making your marketing even easier. The software allows you to score leads based on any number of criteria. You can also recycle and nurture leads throughout the sales process.

The marketing automation software provides reporting on the impact of each marketing effort on your company’s revenue. It allows you to monitor website activity and even tracks IP addresses from anonymous website traffic. It can integrate various data directories to help fill in contact information.

With the data gathered and synthesized in the marketing automation system, you can provide your sales team with qualified leads who are ready to make the purchase decision. This will drastically reduce the amount of time spent talking to leads who are not at that critical point. It will also simultaneously focus your sales team’s efforts and improve your sales numbers.

Using the information provided by the marketing automation system, you can build multi-stage marketing campaigns across any number of channels with ease, You no longer need multiple tools to get the job done. This means you can get things done faster and make adjustments as needed.

These are not benefits you can get with limited email marketing software.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Marketing Automation

If you are ready to bring your business to the next level of marketing, you need to bring the benefits of marketing automation into your company. Give us a call here at the Stevens-Tate team.

Free Marketing Consultation

website redesign process

Do You Need to Redesign Your Website?

If your website has sat untouched for more than a few years, then there’s a good chance that it might be in need of an overhaul. Your website should be continually bringing in new leads, increasing your brand awareness and establishing your brand authority. If your website isn’t currently doing these things, then you’re not only limiting your ability to grow; you’re also helping your competitors as a direct result.

Signs you need a website redesign

If you’re wondering if you need a website redesign, then you’ll want to look for specific signs that show your website is in need of improvements. The following are some major signs that your website could benefit from being redesigned:

Your brand has undergone change

It’s not uncommon for a company to undergo a change in branding. This can happen if the company changes ownership or has changed direction; for example, to concentrate on a more niche market or to target a different audience. If your brand has changed, your website needs to reflect this. Keep in mind that your brand identity consists of much more than just your offerings or your logo. It’s your company’s narrative. Brand storytelling is how you get your audience to connect with you and to relate to you. Because of this, it needs to be prevalent throughout your site.

Your website ranks poorly

Every website receives rankings from Google. These rankings determine your site’s exposure on Google’s search engine results pages (SERP). Google uses its rankings to ensure that its users are provided with search results that are relevant and of high quality. The higher your ranking is, the more exposure you’ll have to people searching for topics relevant to your site. If your site ranks poorly, it means that you’re getting little exposure. This will also limit how much traffic your website will receive. Your redesign needs to implement the best practices of search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure a strong ranking.

Here are ten ways to use Google Trends to increase your SEO

Your website user-experience needs improvement 

Some of the factors that influence your website’s user-experience include how long it takes your webpages to load and how easy your site is to navigate. If your pages take too long to load or your visitors don’t know how to find what they are looking for, they’re likely to leave. Additionally, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s going to affect the way that your site is displayed on mobile devices. A lack of mobile optimization makes it difficult for mobile users to browse through your site.

Your website could improve its conversion rate 

If the ratio of purchases and opt-ins to your number of visitors is lower than you would like it to be, then there’s likely an issue with how your site is addressing each stage of the sales funnel. Your website should nurture visitors at every stage, whether they are looking for information about your company or product or whether they are ready to make a purchase. You should also have calls-to-action that are relevant to each page and that help drive your leads to convert.

Your website could use an updated look 

Aesthetics matter. The look of your website is going to leave a big first impression on your visitors. Consider the look of some of the websites you use on a regular basis. Today’s websites have generally moved to a cleaner and more elegant look.

You don’t regularly update your website

Your website generates all kinds of useful data you can leverage to improve your website’s design and adjust your marketing strategies. By implementing a growth-driven design model, you can continually update your website based on your website data, which you can gather using analytics. This will also allow you to focus your resources on areas where it will benefit your brand the most and to adjust strategies that aren’t working.

Want more resources on how to redesign your website? Click here!

  25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

marketing agency partner

4 Tips to Lead An Agency Review to Find New Marketing Agency

Do you know if it’s time to start looking for a new marketing agency? These three questions will help you understand if your team is working for you; and if not, how to look for a new agency partner.

Are you getting the results you need? Most clients and agencies set goals at the beginning of their relationship or at the start of a new campaign. For example, you may agree that success is measured by an increase in website visits and conversions, a certain number of on-site traffic or customers per store, more social media interactions and engagement, or incremental sales. If your goals are not being achieved and your marketing agency is not proactively seeking new ways to help you reach them, it may be time for a change. Read more

advertising agency

Top 5 Reasons of Proof That Brand Marketing Works

I hear these three words every month, DOES MARKETING WORK? I can give you five reasons that support the answer of “absolutely”. Brand Marketing is as powerful as being number one or number three.

Reason 1) If you are a woman, what lipstick do you wear? What Shampoo do you use? What brand Jeans do you own? Women spend an average of $15,000 on makeup in their lifetimes. Beauty manufacturers spent $2.2 billion on advertising last year. Marketers allocated most of their ad spend to TV (42%) and print (54%). So what makes you buy the brand you purchased? Whatever your answer, it stems from marketing. The formula to penetrate into your mind is a complex one. But you have been brainwashed whether you accept it or not.

Reason 2) Typically, if you are of age, you are driving your car. Why are you a BMW or Volkswagen driver? Does not every brand have some sort of emotional and intellectual connection with you? What are your thoughts on a Mercedes Benz driver? The reason you have these thoughts are because of this fact:

  • General Motors spent 3.5 billion on advertising last year
  • Ford Motors spent 2.7 billion on advertising last year
  • Fiat Chrysler Automobiles spent 2.2 billion on advertising last year

Automakers sold almost 18 million vehicles. Do you think they would do all this advertising if it didn’t work? Marketing is the driving force to give you a lasting impression when it comes time to purchase your next car. You probably already know what vehicle represents who you are. Brand loyalty is also a big piece of the advertising puzzle and they spend millions to keep you coming back.

Reason 3) You’re hooked on some television shows? Why is that? How did you find out about them? The advertising to capture an audience of a certain demographics has become easier with all the analytical data thats accessible. You may of picked a show just because you liked that actor or actress. They too are a brand. I want to focus on one show and one show only, NFL Programming. NFL are branding machines. They encourage Fantasy Football, they can charge up to $600,000 for a .30 spot on Sunday Night Football, they have begun to market to women and they have the best branded show in the history of shows, the Super Bowl. Why then are they losing shares at the end of 2016?

Factors for decline:

  • The Chicago Cubs win
  • Donald Trumps Election (this took shares away from everyone)
  • Deflate-gate debacle
  • Stand on Domestic Violence
  • The respect of the American Flag

Americans are standing up for what they believe in. Colin Kaepernicks kneeling at the American Flag has still left Colin a free agent who is not signed. He is not liked and this is linked to the NFL. The NFL needed to take a stance and speak out on the issues pertaining to this behavior. They remained quiet and seeing how that impacted them must be painful. How smart proof is your company? New factors always pop up and how you address them might mean your brand lives on, or dies over time. Don’t get me wrong, the NFL will bounce back since they have a great cash surplus. They just signed a deal with Amazon for the rights to Thursday Night Football. Now that is re-inventing yourself while keeping your brand.

They do have the strictest guidelines when it comes to using their brand. I respect them for protecting their assets, for making counterfeiters go to jail, and great product placement with partnerships. Who else could have every football team on a BudLight can? But always remember your demographics. NFL might just have lost that reality when they don’t take a stand on players actions. Never take your eye off the ball.

Learn more on Defining Your True Brand Story and Bringing it to Life Online.

Reason 4)  The grocery store is a subject of brands. I want to focus on just beer. How is it that Bud Light leads the beer division. If you drink beer, you have a favorite. The reason might be image or taste. But you tried other beers because of marketing. If you say no to this idea, how did you hear about the other beers in the first place? If your answer is friends, that is also marketing. Word of mouth marketing is still the most powerful marketing this century. And your friends received the marketing somehow. Alcohol ads have increased 400% over the last 40 years. The industry spends around 89% of its advertising dollars on television, according to research done by Citigroup. Bud Light spent 85 million dollars on TV ad placements in 2014. Today Anheuser-Busch spends 1.68 billion in all advertising spends. They have averaged 1.4 billion over the last decade. It’s the reason they have 48% of the beer market. How else would a company stay above the rest in the highly competitive beer category?

Reason 5)  Fast Food. McDonalds has a value of 88 billion and next on the list is Starbucks with 43 billion. To understand this slightly better, Burger King has a value of 3.6 billion. A huge wide difference. So why the separation you may ask? McDonalds spent 5.9 billion on advertising in the United States alone. Burger King spent 255 million on advertising, which has contributed to the separation of these two brands. Marketing obviously works or McDonalds would not continue this spending trend for over a decade. I do wonder, if Burger King had good marketing and spent what McDonalds spends, if they would jump over Starbucks? Product is still king. There is a connection of why Coca-Cola and Bud Light are both the most valuable soft drink and beer brands in the World. Marketing, and marketing dollars allocated.

Those are five samples of how creative marketing builds brands to lead a nation. Marketing + Strategy + Creative + Execution = A powerful formula for elevating your product or brand. I will agree that all samples above have unlimited budgets. My point to this blog was to simply support the concept that you are a victim of marketing and strong marketers seem to rise above the competition. What is your company doing to rise above?

Learn The StoryBranding Process

brand marketing strategy

5 Examples To Improve Brand Marketing Strategy Using Amazon Alexa

Amazon’s Echo is a voice-controlled home device that uses Alexa technology. Such devices are providing marketers new and exciting platforms to improve brand marketing strategy by better connecting with their customers and fans. Companies are using the voice-enabled platform to offer more creative and frequently updated content to their users. Learn from these brands that have timely adopted the new concepts of digital marketing and integrated artificial intelligence into their brand marketing strategy to listen to your customers’ needs and generate audio content that develops and fosters effective relationships.

1.    Digiday

You must be familiar with Digiday, a renowned portal for information on digital marketing industry. In just ninety seconds you can know the top marketing news while drinking your morning coffee, and through a human voice not a robotic one. Moreover, users can request Alexa to stream music through Spotify or order a ride through Uber.

2.    Giant Spoon

As a leading communications and market strategy agency, Giant Spoon distributes its personal content in innovative ways. It is fun and lighthearted and tends to capture the overall feel of this company.For instance, if you ask the company for brainstorming help, you may get a snarky response like: We are currently low on ideas, hire an influencer. This could be a good ice breaker before you start a meeting.

As voice has become the new frontier for many interactive experiences, a platform like Alexa provides brands a big opportunity to play differently in a new and exciting environment on a revolutionary canvas to enhance their brand marketing strategy.brand marketing strategy

3.    Web Analytics

If you want to evaluate your brand marketing strategy, analytics is must. If you want to know how your new marketing campaign is going,rather than accessing and going through Google Analytics reports, simply ask Alexa and it will pull the numbers and details for you. You can use both granular and broad queries to stay updated on real-time traffic data.

Are you a marketer? Here is an article with some helpful tips for Google Analytics

4.    The American Heart Association

Using Alexa you can ask AHA how you can perform CPR to get a step-by-stepwalkthrough, or know the important warning signs of a heart attack or stroke. This is another example of how you can provide value or benefits to your audience through a voice-enabled platform.

5.    GoodNes

Nestlé has introduced Amazon Alexa customers to a unique and convenient visual and voice browsing experience with the launch of its GoodNes skill for Alexa. With an Alexa device, consumers can now improve their cooking experience using voice instructions as well as a visual guide that lets users see and hear recipe steps in the paired web browser. It also provides them access to valuable nutritional information, fun facts, ingredients, and useful how-to videos especially designed to help them learn new cooking recipes and techniques.

You can find the GoodNes voice-assisted skill in the Alexa store. Once you enable the skill, you can link your account with your email to get a link to the unique visual guide. This visual guide is fully compatible with Safari and Chrome web browsers on laptops, tablets, and desktop computers.

17 SEO MYTHS YOU SHOULD LEAVE BEHIND
marketing make or break

Developing A Brand Marketing Strategy By Determining Your Company’s Make Or Break

In today’s improving business environment, company leaders need to focus on their big picture “make or break” to grow topline revenue. Marketing once again has emerged as an essential tool to distinguish a brand—staying top of mind with consumers is critical to success. And leaders who recognize the benefits of marketing are poised to grow their companies.

As a CEO or CMO, one of the most valuable things you, along with your leadership team, can do is determine your company’s marketing make or break. A make or break is the one thing that must be done extraordinarily well to achieve your company’s vision.

The marketing makes or break for a senior living or retirement community, for example, could be to communicate to the adult children of the elderly to ensure high engagement with the decision makers and bolster referrals. For a resort, it might be to market to corporate and event planners to drive meetings and weekday bookings to decrease vacancy. A manufacturer may want to target its messaging to appeal to C-level finance personnel, while a hospital’s marketing make or break could be to attract top doctors.

Step 1: Quantify Your Objectives

The first step in determining your company’s marketing make or break is to understand your marketing vision and objectives. It essential they be believable, measurable and obtainable. Look at what you want, what your product is, and what category you fall under. Then set quantifiable goals, describe exactly what you want, and put value to it.

Step 2: Commit To The Process

The most successful leaders drive their marketing make or break at the detail level. As a CEO or CMO, you must commit to leading and coaching; however, the best ROI comes with cooperation from all staff members, so empower them. Hold the team accountable and set clear expectations. Move forward daily, not quarterly, so that everyone can react and adjust as needed.

Your entire team must believe in the benefits of marketing and commit to the process, as well. One of the most important assignments you can give your staff is to establish future indicators—trackable results that indicate efforts are moving forward toward a goal. P&Ls look back. Actions create results. Measure activities that lead to revenue and growth. Activities, future indicators and results all funnel down to achieve your goals.

[Read About How The Right Lead Nurturing Strategy Can Help You Stay Top Of Mind]

Step 3: Get Engaged

Lead your sales and marketing efforts by strengthening your knowledge in these areas—attend sales meetings and actively coach through storytelling. Outline the benefits of marketing specifically for your organization. Do not delegate leadership in this area to a direct report, even at the highest level.

At the same time, you must be able to make decisions and have control with little time invested. Others must be inspired to take ownership of the various strategies. Streamline the process and provide incentives to keep your team engaged and on track.

Step 4: Update Your Competitive Advantages

Marketing messages have evolved as more and more companies invest in understanding their brand’s position in the marketplace today. Challenge yourself and examine your competitive advantages. If they are out of date, address it, develop new language and test them on loyal customers.

One way to uncover powerful insights about your unique selling propositions is through a Competitive Advantages Discovery. This agency-led collaborative workshop engages a core group within an organization for a deep dive into each participant’s view of the company—both strengths and weaknesses. As a team, agency and client gain perspective on what sets the company and its products apart from the competition.

inbound outbound

4 Solid Tips For Marketing To Millennials

Millennials make up about 25% of the US population and spend around $600 billion cumulatively each year. With this tremendous spending power, this generation is worth your time and attention. It’s important to present content that is relevant, innovative, interesting, and sharable—and that is in the right environment to reach them—tailored to the location, device and time of day. Here are a few key points to consider when targeting these consumers: Read more

first party cookies

Marketing Strategy Using Old Mediums

Billboards

Advertisers pay between 1.1 million and 4 million annually for a Times Square Billboard. The average Times Square visit lasts 81 minutes and of that time, eight minutes will be spent looking at advertising billboards. 300,000 people walk through Times Square every day. On busy days, the number jumps to 480,000. So you can expect some 1.5 million impressions daily. Of those daily visitors, 243,358 will post something about their visit to a social media channel. Facebook leads the charge with 135,000 and Instagram is slightly behind with 102,000. Snapchat and Twitter follow with just under 100,000 for a combined effort. Yes this is digital but its using the principle of different marketing strategies from old mediums.

Coke has been advertising in Times Square for 97 years. Its new billboard is the worlds first 3-D robotic sign. It is structured with more than 1,500 LED screens, its content is programmed by time of day. The sign is 42’ in width and 68’ in height. It weighs in at 240,000 lbs. Took four years to design and test the sign and took 35 engineers to make it happen.

With all this said, do you think that having a sign that 300,000 people see each day, is worth it? Are you ready to spend 4 million? Coke believes its a core strategy to its marketing efforts. What could you be doing to get just a 1/3 of eyeballs looking at your brand or product?

5 Reasons of Proof that Brand Marketing Works 

Television

Moving away from Billboards and into television, GEICO spends over a billion dollars each year. Second to GEICO is State Farm which spends HALF of GEICOs budget. Why in the world would GEICO spend that much each year? Believe it or not GEICO has been losing money for the last four years, but Warren Buffet’s thought was “don’t let up”. In 2016 indicated that GEICO grew written premium revenue 12.5 percent to $26.3 billion, and earned premium rose 12.2 percent. So is really spending 1 billion to make 25 billion plus, a stretch? Anyone would do it, right? No way. It’s a gamble and if you look at how you are holding back your marketing budget, you are not willing to take the same gamble. You are doing it right now!

Radio

So lets say you are a frugal spender but a trade show here and there is not pulling in the numbers you need it to. Let me introduce you to radio. Radio is the leading reach platform: 93% of us listen to AM/FM radio over the airwaves, which is higher than TV viewership (89%), PC use (50%), smartphone use (83%), and tablet use (37%)

  • 271 million Americans 6+ listen to the radio each week;
  • 67 million Millennials use radio each week;
  • Audiences are becoming more diverse with 42 million Hispanic listeners and 32 million Black listeners in March 2017; and
  • Digital radio listenership has increased dramatically from 12% of Americans 12+ listening weekly in 2007 to 53% in 2017.

Maybe this vehicle is the right one for your product or branding efforts, or maybe its in the mix. It’s reasonably priced and given the demographics, could launch your business into greatness.

I am sorry to say that there is no clear formula for money spent vs consumer awareness and every business is different. Its like saying you want hardwood floors put into your home. I could ask 20 questions after that idea such as 1) what type of wood, 2) what stain 3) how many coats of stain 4) what width 5) what kind of varnish 6) do you want your trim replaced at the same time and so on…The choices are endless and it can be the same for your marketing efforts.

However, there are so many ways to promote your brand, but you must be willing to invest in yourself. Hire an agency that understands all the platforms because just “going digital” isn’t alway the right choice.

Learn To Use Social Media To Find New Leads