Utilizing PR Tools When Growing Your Company’s Brand Recognition

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Public relation is vital for a successful business marketing campaign. While marketing involves multiple bits and pieces, public relations ensure your target audience is receptive to your marketing messages by establishing higher brand recognition.

Successful public relations strategies can boost customer trust and convert potential customers into loyal followers. However, it’s critical to understand how PR works and how you can execute a successful campaign.

Define Your Value Proposition

Building an irresistible brand requires a unique value proposition that resonates with existing and potential customers. A value proposition defines your business and differentiates it from competitors.

The USP should focus on the target market, solutions to customer problems and overall benefits of your offer compared to the competition. Typically, brainstorming the answers reveals a pattern that helps you fine-tune the value proposition. The process requires diverse input to ensure the USP is unique and appealing.

Also, every business must formalize the offer in a mission and vision statement. While the documents may seem simple, organizations should strive to create a clear picture of their ideal brand. It can be hard to develop and cultivate a positive brand image without formal documents communicating your unique value proposition.

A refined value proposition helps you develop appropriate messages to promote to potential customers. Once you have a unique message, you can earn important media initiatives and boost brand recognition.

Establish Industry Thought Leadership to Gain Trust

Getting involved in your industry is critical for any business. You can start by identifying the media outlets and social media platforms your target audience uses and establish yourself as an industry expert. This way, media outlets, and journalists will want to tell your story.

Regardless of the size of your business, you can build brand recognition by dominating the news in your industry. In addition, it’s important to identify media outlets covering your industry and reach out when you have newsworthy announcements.

Getting your business featured in a popular industry trend can boost brand recognition even when multinational corporates dominate the landscape. For instance, a small financial organization can level the playing ground by securing consistent appearances in the media.

In addition, using public relations strategies to publish featured content can elevate your brand. However, scanty appearances may not be effective, so you may need to partner with a PR company to ensure consistent results.

collaborationCollaborate With Media Outlets

Building brand awareness requires positioning your company in front of your target audience. The digital landscape has made it easier to identify markets and effective media outlets for your campaigns. You can build a list of niche publications and media outlets focusing on your target audience.

And since PR is about relations, ensure your company introduction is attractive. Whether you want to appear in digital media or traditional advertising, ensure your offer is captivating to dominate the media.

Reporters get numerous pitches and story suggestions. Whenever your correspondent is interested in your story, act quickly by scheduling an interview or providing supporting information.

The goal is to establish your reputation as a media-friendly company that embraces reporters. Most media professionals are under enormous pressure to deliver results amidst resource cuts. Therefore, demonstrating your friendliness and collaboration traits can go a long way.

When a story has a high potential of creating brand awareness and benefiting your audience, make it easy and interesting to cover. Besides targeting the pitch to appropriate contacts, establishing great media relationships can help improve your PR strategy outcomes.

Studies show that 76% of journalists prefer brand press releases, and 57% want to get expert sources and data. Also, most journalists will quickly cover a brand story with multimedia.

Ensuring outstanding media collaboration means embracing targeted outreach with concise pitches. In addition, provide data and sources to back up new information.

Use Unique Stories to Highlight Your Brand’s Strengths

Your audience loves current and unique stories. Similarly, media outlets embrace timely stories with a unique twist told to the right audience.

Every business has a positive story about how its offers connect to the consumer and the pain points they serve. Therefore, focus on your brand’s users and find opportunities to craft stories highlighting your business and its solutions.

Regardless of the content, strive to educate your audience by contributing informative content on local press and websites. In addition, you can host a special event and shed light on trends and issues affecting your industry.

Alternatively, community activity sponsorships can be cost-effective opportunities for attracting attention from local media outlets. When you choose your media outlets well, experiential marketing and other events can boost your brand reputation over time.

Bottom Line

Successful PR programs may not be an overnight sensation, but long-term commitment can complement other marketing initiatives and ensure higher brand recognition. Since branding is critical in marketing, incorporating PR in your strategy can help your business establish industry authority and deeper customer connections.

brand awareness

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.

Brand awareness deals, in large part, with how familiar your customers are with your brand. 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.

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.

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.

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

Generation X Matters: How to Tell Your Brand Story to Them

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Generation X, often referred to as the middle child, is the generation sandwiched between the baby boomers and the millennials. And just like the middle child, they often feel forgotten, especially when it comes to marketing. However, this generation has impressive buying power and are essential to consider when determining how to tell your brand story.

Generation X are now in their late 30’s to early 50’s, and are the generation that remembers a time before the technological, and specifically the digital, revolution. On the whole, however, Xers were young enough when it happened to have embraced the change and made technology work for them. They have a foot in both camps and are just as at home with print media, as they are with blogs, Facebook and YouTube.

Why is Generation X Important?

While, relatively speaking, Generation X is a small customer segment in comparison to baby boomers and millennials, they have immense buying power, which should not be overlooked. However, marketers are confused about how to reach a generation that has one foot in the past, and the other firmly in touch with digital technology and change. Research has shown that 62% of this generation still read print media, while at the same time 60% use a Smartphone on a daily basis.

Despite the difficulties of appealing to this generation, they are ignored at your own risk; after all, they account for over 30% of consumer spending, and not only are they buying for themselves, but many still have financial responsibility for their children as well. They are also extremely brand loyal, once they find a brand that is worthy of that loyalty.

Creating Consistency is Key

Given all of this, consistency is vital in your brand storytelling, not only within your story but also across the platforms through which you tell that story. However, generation Xer’s are also busy, often juggling children, careers, and responsibility for older family members. So, your story and your brand need to be instantly recognizable, and easily digestible. Short snippets of information combined with audiovisual formats make your story memorable and accessible. Generation X is not shy of technology, so utilizing channels such as YouTube, along with approaches such as email marketing, is vital if you are to get your brand’s story across in a meaningful way.

While busy juggling their many commitments, creating the lifestyle they want remains of paramount importance to this generation. They work hard and expect their money to work hard on their behalf, especially as there are few guarantees when they hit retirement. They respond well to offers, especially coupons that offer what they want at a price that is well within their budget. However, they are wary of trying new, untested companies, so when choosing how to tell your brand story, you need to develop trust from the very start.

Got tips? Sure we do! Check out these six tips on email marketing.

Hearing the Voice of Generation X

Generation X has strong opinions, is generally worldly-wise, and drawn to companies that are ethical, and which promote ethical goods and services. These need to form part of your brand story if you are to begin to build the trust of this generation. However, you also need to show that you value your customer, as well as the planet.

Excellent customer service is essential to Generation X. They need to feel valued and respected by your company and your brand. If they do not, you will know very quickly. This generation, more than any other, is not afraid to take the time to say what they think, and they expect you to listen. So, your story needs to focus on the customer and show that not only do you accept and listen to feedback but also that you act on it. That means that while the fundamentals of your story – your ethos, mission, and goals – may not change, how you achieve these needs to be tweaked to adapt to the changing needs of this generation.

Learn The StoryBranding Process

brand storytelling examples

How To Create A Brand Story

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Storytelling is an ancient art form, which has scientifically been proven to aid memory, making it the ideal vehicle for promoting products and creating successful branding. Learning how to tell your brand story begins with understanding the role of characters.

At the heart of the story lays the characters. It is through your characters that you connect with your customers. If your story does not have believable characters, then your potential customers will not connect with you, find your branding believable, or create an emotional connection with your story.

Starting with Archetypes

Your brand persona reflects your customers understanding of your brand’s behaviors and values. The persona must appear human and exhibit traits that the customer recognizes, such as courage, persistence, and imagination. They need to be able to create an emotional connection with your persona. Your story’s characters play a vital role in shaping this relationship.

super heroFor your brand story to be compelling, it needs strong, well-drawn, and quickly recognized characters, which your customers can relate to and see themselves in. To achieve this, you need to begin with archetypes. Hero, villain, mentor, caregiver; these are archetypes that are easily recognizable and relatable to. They are found in all stories throughout history, from Ancient Greek classics to modern fantasy tales. However, an archetype on its own is two-dimensional, so it needs to be personalized to make it believable.

Developing a Believable Persona through Relatable Characters

Your characters must grow from these archetypes. Otherwise, they will remain flat and hold no emotional connection with the customer. Achieving this involves creating credible stories for your characters without losing consistency. This enables the customer to see them as multi-dimensional.

Through those character stories, you develop your brand persona’s attributes. The attributes your persona portrays will be the ones your customer associates with your company, so these need to be chosen carefully. You might want to consider qualities such as courage, decisiveness, determination, work ethic, honesty, flexibility, responsibility, and curiosity.

An example of good brand storytelling and excellent character creation is Guinness. Consider the company’s latest campaign with the guys that have turned their backs on the gang culture of Compton, and are instead saving horses. The archetypes are good versus evil, but the characters stories make them relatable and give an overall caring, yet brand persona for Guinness.

How do you bring your brand story to life, even when it’s online? Check out this article to learn more. 

Creating a Relatable Persona

As well as being believable, your brand persona must be relatable. If your target customer group is young women, then having a brand persona that your audience consider to be a middle-aged businessman is not going to make your brand relatable. If your customers cannot relate, then they will not feel connected to your brand and are unlikely to believe your promises, mission statement, or aims. You need to know who it is you want to connect with before you even begin to develop your persona.

The customer may never see any of this directly, but they will instinctively know if you have not considered these elements as it will show in the consistency–or lack thereof–of your brand storytelling. If you are unsure of the importance of characters in how to tell your brand story and create your brand persona, go back to your favorite work of fiction and imagine that work without the attention to detail that has been poured into each character.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business

brand loyalty

The Brand Loyalty Of Generation X

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Consumers like certain brands. They develop a trust that the brand’s products are of the right quality and a good value. That trust, along with other positive emotions, causes consumers to develop brand loyalty, where they tend to buy certain products from particular brands now and into the future. How brand loyalty works depends on many factors, age and status in life being two.

It is critical to understand how a particular generation develops brand loyalty. The insights gained by this understanding make marketing to the generation in question much easier. Let’s look at Generation X for example.

What Makes Generation X (Gen X) Unique?

Generation X is usually defined as those born between 1965 and 1980. This generation sits between the much larger Baby Boomer and Millennial generations. Because they are smaller than those two generations, many marketers forget they exist.

Members of Generation X straddle a critical divide. They remember times when Internet access wasn’t the norm. They grew up with a more traditional business model. However, they also came of age at the beginning of the Internet revolution. They have adapted quite well, using the Internet in many of the same ways their younger Millennial siblings do. By straddling this critical divide, Gen X feels comfortable in both traditional and digital marketing.

How To Develop Content To Build Customer Loyalty 

Opinions of Gen X vary greatly. As Gen X came of age, they were called slackers, loners, and apathetic. However, as Gen X emerged into adulthood, the descriptions changed. They are often called independent, dedicated, savvy, and innovative. Many of this generation grew up as “latchkey” kids, coming home to an empty house because both parents worked.

Because they came of age during a time of high unemployment and a stagnant economy, Generation X tends to be skeptical and cautious, with a bit of cynicism thrown in. They also look for lower price, high-value options that are convenient.

Generation X and Brand Loyalty

In June 2015, CrowdTwist conducted an online survey of just over 1200 North American consumers between the ages of 18 and 69. Approximately 1/3 of the people who participated in the survey were part of Generation X. The results of this survey provided critical insights into how Generation X develops brand loyalty and how brands can retain that loyalty.

Due to this generation’s built in skepticism, brands have to work to gain their loyalty. High quality products and excellent customer services are two components that members of Generation X value. They also want brands that are authentic and trustworthy. They must be relevant and stay relevant. Brands must prove they have value. Marketing pitches and overt salesy advertising are two things that turn members of Gen X against certain products.

The good news is that Gen X tends to stick with the brands they love. Almost 50% of Gen X survey participants indicated they are extremely loyal or quite loyal to their favorite brands. Only 14.6% said they are quite willing or moderately willing to try new brands.

Takeaways

If you are targeting Generation X, you need to understand what it values if you want to develop brand loyalty with this age group. They can be cynical, skeptical and cautious. That requires a company to prove their authenticity and relevance. Gen X wants high value, cost effective options. They expect good quality products at affordable prices. They also love it when these deals are easy to find and easy to purchase.

Once your brand earns the loyalty of a Gen X member, that person is likely to remain a loyal customer for years to come.

Learn The StoryBranding Process

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 call-to-actions 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,” “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. As a marketer, think of what strikes you as a buyer: emotion.

Humans are oddly emotional creatures and are the only ones that 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.

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 Call to Action Phrases

Actionable CTAs leverage words like “now,” “here,” “click,” etc. Actionable CTAs use an action word to draw the reader into the CTA which 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 certainly drive more clicks onto your CTAs.

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

5 Types of Landing Pages To Increase Your Lead Conversion Rate

Urgent Call to Action 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 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 and can be great ways 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 call to action 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 learn more about how to attract more leads? Click here to learn about Attraction Marketing!

Exclusive Call to Action Phrases

Adding urgency to a call to action phrase can sometimes seem a little pushy, especially to some C-level managers and business owners, but there is another equally crafty way to make your CTAs appealing to your target audience: 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 sort of lead generation tactics across multiple retail platforms where 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 CTAs 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 Call to Action Phrases

Naturally, every call to action you create should have an overall goal of generating a response from your target buyer and while practically any of these CTA phrases we’ve outlined could be categorized as either “actionable” or “responsive” we think that it’s best to separate the two factions. Actionable CTAs lead users towards a specific action such as clicking, downloading, subscribing, etc. whereas 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 give them an opportunity 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

Free Marketing Consultation

For more attraction marketing resources, click here.

Craft Your Own CTA Phrases

As we’ve mentioned, the sky really is the limit to crafting attractive content-focused CTA phrases and 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, and without a doubt, targeting those CTAs is crucial for the success of your content initiatives.

25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales

how to tell your brand story

How To Tell Your Brand Story Using Personas

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When considering how to tell your brand story, you must think of the role of the audience as well as that of the storyteller. Stories create wonder, excitement, and engagement in the world they create. Through storytelling, your business can engage with its audience on a much more emotional level. Connecting with your key audience is vital, and can be achieved through the creation of buyer personas.

What Is a Buyer Persona?

A buyer persona is a fictional character that represents the behaviors, goals, and needs of your current and potential customers. Once you know who they are, the problems they are facing, and what they want from life, you can begin to see how to tell your brand story in a way that reaches them and provides the answers they are looking for. The more thoroughly the buyer persona is fleshed out, the more focused your brand storytelling can be, and, consequently, the more effective.

Where to Start with Your Buyer Persona

As with any storytelling element, you start with what you know. Who are your current customers? What age group do they fall into? What gender are they? This information can be gleaned from login details, email lists, and customer feedback. If you make use of social media platforms, the data your customers share publicly provides a wealth of knowledge. You will find that specific characteristics are more common than others, providing you with the basis for your persona. It is essential, however, to create more than one persona, or you could have too narrow a view of your potential audience.

Using Your Brand Story To Reach Millennials In Business

Putting the Flesh on the Bones

how to tell your brand story

Once you have these details, you can begin to ask further questions that allow you to fill in the gaps and create fleshed out individuals. Give your buyer persona a name, age, and gender. Determine their marital status and flesh out the details of their immediate family. Don’t forget to consider their level and type of education, as well as how long they have been out of school. All of this is important because how you approach a single millennial will differ significantly from how you tell your story to a married member of generation X with a mortgage and a family.

Give your personas a career, responsibilities, and challenges. How do you think they approach these elements in their life? How do these aspects affect their levels of trust, loyalty, and their approach to taking risks? These are again all crucial elements in how you tell your brand story and what image of your company you create.

Don’t forget to consider their social life as well. Your buyer personas need to be as human as possible. As well as helping you to create a connection between the audience and the story, this helps you understand where they spend their disposable income, and what you can do to redirect more of that spending towards your brand.

If you are ever unsure of the next step to take with how to tell your brand story through a buyer persona, just imagine a conversation between them and your brand persona. If it is a long pleasant conversation that finds solutions and answers questions, then you are on the right track. If it ends in an argument or, even worse, still silence, you probably have to revisit your brand storytelling strategy from the top.

Learn The StoryBranding Process

Creating a Brand with Social Listening and What Tools To Use

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Social media marketing is an important part of reaching today’s modern era customers. Setting up social media accounts that prioritize providing good content can be challenging. In order for your brand to stick out, you need to learn what your customers are looking for and how to provide them with that content. This is referred to as social listening. Those who have social listening strategies worked into their social media marketing gain an edge over their competitors.

Social listening plays a key role in growing your business and increasing your company’s brand trust with its customers. The good news is that the cost to operate social media channels and create engaging content is often right at your fingertips. If you are looking for ways in which you can handle all the comments, likes, and messages on your platforms fear not because we have a strategy for you.

The below content contains ways in which you can learn about social listening as well as tools you can use to make the process easier.

What is Social listening?

Social listening is all about looking into your industry’s trends, comments, and content in order to gain insights into your brand experience. Social listening is critical for understanding how your customer feels about your brand which is commonly referred to as social media sentiment. Correctly using Social Listening is one of the most valuable ways to increase brand trust and create a loyal customer base. One good example of social listening is Netflix promoting a DIY sock that pauses the TV show. Netflix looked at what people were talking about on social media through comments, posts, and stories which lead to this creative invention.

Social Listening Tools.

Keeping up with the constant change in social trends can be difficult. Thankfully, there are many different tools and programs that can help brands keep up with trends.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a premium service that helps brands and companies monitor data and trends on all social media platforms you are active on. Sprout Social can also be useful for identifying social media goals that your brand can create based on the data. While Sprout Social is an excellent service and can help greatly with social media needs, they are more costly than some of the other social listening tools mentioned below.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a marketer’s dream program. Whether it be for creating inbound content, social media uploads, or advanced automation HubSpot knows what tools a marketer needs. HubSpot has features that allow you to keep track of all social media posts, interactions, and total social media leads. 

Learn more about social media campaigns here!

One of the big perks of HubSpot is the ability to easily work together with the sales team to use social media interactions as a step to making a sale. Furthermore, Hubspot is a free-to-use platform which makes it a must-have.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a service that allows users to view and interact with their social media followers in an easy and convenient way. The dashboard that Hootsuite is able to keep track of all social media interactions whether it be messages, comments, likes, or mentions without having to leave the service.

In addition, Hootsuite provides top-notch analytics and reports from all social media accounts in use. This, along with the convenient dashboard, makes Hootsuite a premium service that competes with the likes of sprout social. Therefore the cost of the service is noticeably different than free services.

Buffer

Buffer is one of the more friendly tools on this list. Buffer allows users to “buffer” social media posts on many accounts. The UI for the service is very clean and not as complicated as some other services. Buffer can also respond to comments across many platforms. There is a free version available to use, however, the service will be lacking some features. 

SEMrush

SEMrush is different from many of the other services mentioned above. SEMrush is well known for its keyword research and online ranking data. Furthermore, the ability to manage social media accounts makes SEMrush a valuable service to have. Want to manage all your social media accounts in one place? SEMrush has you covered. You can also use many of the SEO tools and keyword tools to help monitor your social media accounts.

Social listening can be a tricky process to run. Keeping up with so many accounts and followers is no easy task. Thanks to services like SEMrush, Buffer, HubSpot, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social, Marketers are able to keep up with demand. Now it’s time for you to take the wheel, are you ready?

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

Client-Agency Relationship

6 Reasons Why You Should Attend a Conference

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There are hundreds of manufacturing conferences that are held every year around the country. As the owner of a manufacturing business, it would do you a lot of good to attend just one of these conferences. Unfortunately, many business owners don’t take the time to attend any of them. There’s a chance that you may not have gone because you simply weren’t aware that these conferences were being held. It’s more likely that you’re afraid that they won’t be worth your time. As a business owner, time is precious. You don’t want to waste what time you have traveling to and from a conference that may have nothing new to offer. If this is your line of thinking, then you should strongly reconsider. The following are six significant reasons why you should attend a conference:

1. Find New Prospects

Building relationships with existing clients shouldn’t be your only goal. You’ll find that conferences are attended by many prospects as well. They may be looking to educate themselves about the industry before they even choose a manufacturer to work with. This allows them to make a more informed decision. As such, these conferences are a great opportunity to introduce yourself to potential prospects, thereby giving you a better chance at closing new customers.

2. Build Relationships With Existing Clients

There’s a very good chance that you’ll run into existing clients at one of these conferences. Clients often attend a conference in order to better educate themselves about the industry. Doing so gives them the confidence that they’re investing their money responsibly. They also use these conferences as a way to network. By showing up as well, you’ll be able to interact with existing clients and to build your relationships with them. Not only is it a great opportunity to re-engage, but they’ll also see that you’re making the effort to improve your business. This, in turn, helps to build trust in your brand, which will improve your chances of turning them into brand evangelists.

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3. Meet Experts And Influencers

Networking with clients and potential clients is important, but those aren’t the only people worth meeting at these manufacturing conferences. You will also listen to and meet numerous experts and influencers within your field. Building relationships with these people can be incredibly beneficial as well. For example, experts can provide you with advice that can help you solve issues that your company is currently having. Influencers can be key in helping you find new customers or discovering new markets that your company could enter.

4. Learn New Approaches And Ideas

Attending conferences isn’t just about networking (although it’s an excellent opportunity to do so), it’s also about learning. Most conferences will schedule a list of speakers from throughout the industry. They will also hold numerous workshops that you can participate in. It’s a great way to better educate yourself about your industry and to learn about new approaches and ideas about the manufacturing process, your business strategy, or your marketing strategy, to name a few potential subjects. As a business owner, you should always be looking for ways that you can improve your company. Knowledge is power when it comes to not just surviving in the industry, but succeeding in it.

5. Stay Updated On New Trends

Staying up to date on all the latest trends within the manufacturing industry can be a real challenge in itself. Not only do you need to keep up to date with the latest technologies, tools, and strategies, but you need to figure out which are worth implementing. Conferences are a great way to learn about the latest trends. For example, new manufacturing technology may be presented at the conference you can learn about. Additionally, going to a conference is a good way to learn about the trends that are actually worth following, thereby giving you a better idea as to whether they will benefit your company.

6. Speak About Your Own Business

Conferences give you the chance to speak publicly about your business. This can help to generate interest in what you’re doing, thereby building your brand name and reputation. However, it also provides you with practice pitching your company and its services. Refining this skill will come in handy whenever you’re speaking with prospects in the future.

These are six reasons why you should attend a conference. Attending a manufacturing conference can not only help to educate you about different aspects of the industry, but it can also help you stay up to date on the latest trends as well as to network with hundreds — if not thousands — of people within your industry that are worth knowing.

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7 Package Design Tips for Creating a Strong Brand

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There are a lot of factors that go into creating a strong brand. One factor that shouldn’t be overlooked is the packaging design of your products. Not only should the design of your packaging properly reflect everything you want to say about your product, but it should also make it recognizable as being part of your brand. When someone looks at the packaging of a product, even if it’s just a quick glance, you’ll want them to recognize it as an offering from your business, after all. The following are a few packaging design tips that will help with creating a strong brand:

1. Consider Form And Function

The look of your product’s packaging is certainly important–consumers are going to judge a book by its cover when it comes to most products, and for a good reason, the quality of a product’s packaging will reflect the quality of the product in most people’s minds. If you can’t put effort into your product’s packaging, how do they know you put any effort into the product itself? Of course, the packaging needs to be functional as well. It should keep the product safe and intact. If the packaging is completely based on helping the product look good but isn’t functional, it will hurt your packaging design instead of helping it.

2. Be Clear and Concise

A brief glance at your product’s packaging should tell the consumer everything they need to know about the brand behind the product, what the product is, and what the product does. If they have to stop and inspect the package in order to figure out what it’s for, you’re in trouble. Make sure the content you display on your packaging is clear and concise. Don’t clutter your packaging with images and text, as this will only overwhelm the consumer and make it more difficult for them to figure out your product.

3. Be Honest And Authentic

Don’t lie about your product by making outlandish claims on the packaging or by displaying images of the product that don’t accurately represent what’s inside the package. This will only hurt your long-term success. It’s important to be authentic as well. Although authenticity is something that’s difficult to define, it’s about sticking to your strengths and not trying to position your product or brand as something it’s not in an attempt to draw attention.

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4. Use Colors Consistently

Consumers will associate the colors you use on your packaging with your brand, which is why you won’t want to stray far from the colors you use in your official branding. Try to stick to just two to three main colors for your packaging to prevent it from looking messy as well.

 

5. Choose Fonts Carefully

The fonts you choose should be in line with your overall brand. This means that if you use more minimal fonts and designs for your logo, website, and more, then using lavish cursive fonts for your packaging may not be the best idea. Additionally, don’t use more than two (three max) types of fonts. Too many fonts will make your packaging look cluttered. Two fonts that compliment one another will make your package design look more cohesive.

6. Consider Your Competition

Take a look at what your competitors are doing with their packaging. This can give you a good idea of what’s working. It can also ensure that you don’t create packaging that’s too similar to your competition. You want your product to stand out from other products, after all.package design

7. Keep Product Extension In Mind

You may add more products to the same product line, so you’ll want to make sure that your packaging has a flexible design so that you can reuse it with some minor alterations (such as a different color but the same overall design) for any new products in the same line that you release.

One of the elements you’ll want to focus on when implementing a strategy for creating a strong brand is the packaging you design for your products. Be sure to keep these package design tips in mind, and you’ll likely see more success in creating a strong brand.

30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips