Directors Archives - Page 2 of 51 - Stevens & Tate Marketing

Using Your Brand Story To Reach Millennials In Business

September 5, 2024/in Articles, Brand Development, Directors, Storybranding /by Dan Gartlan

Millennials are the largest generation in the workforce today and they’re taking on important leadership and decision-making roles. In fact, nearly half of all B2B researchers are Millennials.

As a group, Millennials change jobs much more frequently than previous generations. So every six months, you may find yourself having to reintroduce your brand to a whole new group of buyers.

How do you convey your brand’s core values and competitive advantages in the best light to reach this younger generation of buyers?

In order to connect your brand with today’s prospects and customers, make storytelling a part of your content creation and messaging. Effective storytelling not only captivates Millennials but also strengthens Brand Development by conveying your brand’s values in a compelling and meaningful manner.

Stories Are Memorable

A good story creates lasting impressions of your brand. Stories distinguish your brand from the competition, and consumers are going to remember emotion, characters, and conflict from a story longer than they will remember facts about your product or service.

To put it simply, if you tell a good story that emphasizes who your brand is and what your brand believes in, people will remember it.

Stories Are Easy To Understand

Brand stories are effective, because they inform in a format that readers already know and understand. Stories are made up of three basic components: beginning, middle and end. When developing a brand story, think about those components in terms of the past, present and the future. The past highlights the challenge or the problem that your brand set out to solve. The present showcases how you solve that challenge. And the future demonstrates your success and suggests continuation of that success moving forward.

Click here to learn what brand development is and how it works.

Stories Create Trust

Millennials are more likely to connect with a brand when they believe in that brand’s core values. When Millennials are researching a purchase, they are looking at dozens of different companies, each time wondering, “Why should I buy from you?” If you engage those buyers, and answer that question with a story that is built around your core values, then you’ve built an emotional connection and the trust of that customer.

Stories Show Your Brand’s Personality

Is your brand fun and quirky? Serious? Hip? Thought provoking? Innovative? Intellectual? Dedicated? Whatever it is, your story should reflect that.

Your story should highlight your personality and showcase what is different and unique about your brand. It should demonstrate your values and what motivates and inspires you. This will bring your brand to life and create a human element that allows customers to develop an emotional connection to your brand through effective Brand Communication.

Stories Are Sharable

Strong brand stories will spread through social media. Enhancing your story with visuals and videos will expand the reach of your story and make it even easier for others to share.

Current research shows that 62 percent of Millennials are more likely to buy if a brand engages them online. Sharing your brand story will help build relationships between your brand and the growing group of Millennial buyers.

How to Use Color Psychology in Marketing

September 3, 2024/in Articles, Color Psychology, Directors, Media, Visual Marketing /by Terry Becker

When it comes to building your brand, don’t underestimate the importance of color. The colors you choose are crucial to your brand identity. Just think about some of the most famous brands out there and the colors associated with them, such as Nike and black, Starbucks and green, and Target and red, just to name a few. The colors you choose will always be associated with your brand, which is why you need to choose them carefully (and why they need to remain consistent across all of your branding efforts). One of the most important things to keep in mind is that color isn’t just an aesthetic choice, it’s a psychological one too.

The Power of Color: How to Use Psychology in Marketing

Using Color Intentionally

There are two primary ways to use color in your marketing efforts. The first is to make certain marketing elements stand out. For instance, adding a colored call-to-action button at the end of a blog post instead of using regular anchor text. If the button stands out from the background, it will immediately draw the eye of the reader so that they don’t miss out on your CTA.

The colors you choose for your website’s background and text is crucial as well. Not only does it impact the overall aesthetic of your website (which is important as it reflects on your company’s professionalism), but it also affects the ease of use. If you use two colors that are too similar (such as yellow text on an orange background) it becomes incredibly difficult for visitors to navigate your site. Your color choices should provide enough contrast so that foreground elements stand out from the background.

Finally, don’t overuse color. For example, choosing to use five different colors throughout your home page will create visual clutter that will overwhelm visitors. It works better if you choose no more than two colors that combine to create visual balance.

What Every Creative Advertising Agency Needs To Know To Endure The Digital Transformation

Using Color Psychology

Different colors elicit different feelings. By using certain colors, you can engage your audience by making them subconsciously feel a different way. Most successful brands choose their colors based on this idea. Take for example McDonald’s. As everyone knows, they use two colors: red and yellow. They complement one another aesthetically and are chosen for their psychological meaning. Red is often associated with friendliness, while yellow is associated with happiness, both of which are emotions McDonald’s embraced as a major part of their brand voice. Red also happens to be a very stimulating color that’s meant to trigger feelings of hunger. Combined, they attract attention from hungry customers.

Also Read: The Strategic Difference Between Branding and Marketing and How They Work Together

Color Breakdowns

All colors have some sort of effect on the psychology of consumers. With that in mind, the following are a few of the different colors you could use in your branding and the psychological meaning behind them:

Orange – Orange is associated with physical comfort, motivation, and positivity. Payless Shoes and Home Depot use orange as their primary color for these reasons.
Green – Green represents harmony, peace, health, and growth. Financial institutions use green to promote growth (of wealth), while many health products and stores use green to promote health (such as Whole Foods).
Blue – Blue is closely linked to trust and dependability. Many technology companies use blue to promote the idea that their products are dependable, such as Dell, GM, and Honda. Companies like Facebook and All-State also use blue to promote trust.

Brown – Brown is used to create feelings of trust and security. It’s why UPS prominently uses the color for everything, including their uniforms and trucks.
Purple – Purple is associated with luxury and royalty, which is why brands that promote their products as luxurious use purple, such as Cadbury, Hallmark, and Louis Vuitton.
Pink – Pink represents compassion, love, and empathy. Pepto-Bismol and Victoria’s Secret both use pink to this effect for different reasons.

Choose Your Colors Wisely To Improve Your Marketing Efforts

As you can see, the use of color is incredibly important to your marketing efforts. Not only do your color choices affect the aesthetic of your website (as well as its ease of use), they are also vital to defining your visual identity. As such, be sure to choose your colors carefully as they will have a psychological impact on your audience.

5 Ways To Optimize Your Social Media

August 30, 2024/in Articles, Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

Social media is constantly changing and evolving, so it is crucial for even the most successful brands to reevaluate their strategy from time to time to keep up. Social media helps with attraction marketing. Use these strategies to optimize your social media and to make sure that your brand is constantly staying on top.

Top 5 Ways for Social Media Optimization

1. Tailor to your audience

What’s Trending in Marketing for August 2024

August 29, 2024/in Articles, Brand Development, Directors, News & Insights, Trending /by marketing intern

Welcome to our August 2024 edition of “What’s Trending,” where we bring you the most relevant marketing trends and insights. Stay informed and ahead of the game with our curated collection of marketing trends and reports in summer 2024.

Noteworthy Marketing Trends and News

Increase in Subscriptions

Subscription-based services have been becoming more and more common lately, and are expected to continue to grow in popularity. These services provide companies with recurring revenue. Subscription-based services also increase customer value, and can be used to incentivize higher engagement. Consumers especially value subscription offers that are tailored to customer preferences. Read more.

Lowe’s is Rebranding

Lowe’s is rebranding. The home improvement retailer is now calling its retail media network “Lowe’s Media Network.” They will be launching four new channels this year: direct mail for install services, in-store audio, paid search, and email. Lowe’s will also be expanding placements on their app. Read more.

Skin Care Pop-Up Event (With A Bus)

Neutrogena is hosting a Boost Bus pop-up event on August 31st and September 1st in Toronto. People will have the opportunity to talk with skincare experts to learn about skin vitality, protecting the skin, and hydration. The event will have games and prizes in addition to product samples. Read more.

Improving Your Marketing Program

6 Tips for Improving Brand Communication

Brand communication is how your company communicates with their current and future customers. Good brand communication builds and maintains brand loyalty among customers in addition to setting your company apart from the competition. It is a core aspect of a company’s strategy and is important to the company’s success. Click here to learn six tips for improving your company’s brand communication.

5 Ways to Improve Your Display Ads

Display advertising is a kind of online advertising that uses copy, images, and other visual elements. They come in many different formats like banner ads, video ads, interactive ads, and more. The benefits of display ads include brand awareness, visual appeal, performance tracking, and targeting capabilities. Click here to learn five ways to improve your display ads.

The Website Redesign Process- Why Content Comes First?

Redesigning a website is a time to boost the brand image, refresh the look and content of the website, and update all the product listings and sales offers. Learn why copy should be refreshed on your new and improved website, and how to do it. Read more.

Recent Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends

Say Goodbye to Third-Party Cookies

Due to their users’ concerns about data privacy and protection, Google is currently phasing out third-party cookies. This will be finished in 2025. Being able to use third-party cookies to track user behavior across sites has allowed for audience segmentation and the use of targeted ads. To keep gathering consumer data without third-party cookies, offer rewards to users who give you their information and keep utilizing first-party cookies. Read more.

User-Generated Content

Consumers’ desire for authenticity on social media platforms has given rise to user-generated content. Many customers do not trust advertisements, but they trust content made by real people. In the past five years, search engine interest for “user generated content” has increased by 200%. Read more.

Ethics and Sustainability

Your product or service alone is no longer enough. Today’s consumers care about the values of the brand selling that product or service, particularly the values that pertain to social and environmental responsibilities. This has prompted brands to partake in and showcase ethical and sustainable practices. Read more.

Extreme Personalization

The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is allowing marketers to tailor digital experiences to individual consumers better than ever before. This personalization through AI will allow marketers to give consumers inclusive experiences. AI can also assist marketers in understanding their audiences and delivering content to consumers in local languages. Read more.

6 Tips for Improving Brand Communication

August 27, 2024/in Articles, Brand Development, Directors /by Dan Gartlan

Brand communication is how your company communicates with their current and future customers. It influences customer relationships and shapes how the brand is perceived. Good brand communication can build and maintain brand loyalty among customers. It can also set your company apart from the competition. A good brand communication strategy will showcase your brand’s personality and your unique value propositions in addition to highlighting what it is that makes your products/services distinguishable from those of your competitors. It’s easy to see why good brand communication is important to a company’s success. Here are 6 tips for improving your company’s brand communication.

1. Focus Your Messaging On Benefits:

Consumers choose to buy products/services that will positively impact their life. Use testimonials or real-world situations that showcase other customers experiencing positive results. This allows potential buyers to envision themselves enjoying your product/service. Tell your customers how your product/service will help or benefit them rather than just listing off information about it. This will more effectively convince them to choose your product/service over your competition’s alternative. Many products/services offer similar features, but the way those features translate into tangible benefits for the consumer can set your product/service apart. Explaining how your product/service uniquely meets customer needs provides a convincing reason for customers to choose your product/service over those of your competitors. Making this differentiation is especially effective in crowded markets where there are a multitude of available options.

2. Keep It Consistent:

Visual branding elements help create the specific feeling and experience you’re trying to evoke from your brand. Keep your visual branding elements consistent across your social media posts, website, and all brand communication to increase brand recognition and build a cohesive brand identity. Visual branding elements include your logo, typography, imagery, color scheme, and more. Brand recognition can increase by 80% when you use a signature color. Having your visual branding differ across brand communication can confuse customers and look sloppy and unprofessional. The lack of cohesion can make it more difficult for customers to develop a distinct and lasting impression of your brand. It can also weaken your brand’s credibility.

Conversely, uniform visual branding elements create a sense of familiarity among customers. It also fosters trust and increases brand recognition. In order to maintain consistency when it comes to visual branding elements, you should create and follow a brand style guide that includes your logo, typography, imagery, color scheme, and any other necessary specifications. Doing so will make sure that your external partners, as well as your own team members, produce consistent visual branding elements to represent your brand.

3. Strategically Select Distribution Methods:

Brand communication will do you no good if it is not distributed properly. When distributing brand communication (emails, posts, etc.), it is important to consider two things. One is the best way to distribute the content itself. The medium you utilize for disseminating your brand communication should align with the kind of content you are sharing. Social media should be used for sharing visual content, LinkedIn is best for sharing professional content, etc. Match your content to the appropriate platform to guarantee that your message is delivered in the most effective manner.

The other important thing to consider is the best way to distribute the brand communication based on who it is for. Understanding your audience is necessary to select the best distribution methods, as different demographics have different preferences receiving brand communication. For example, the best way for your brand to communicate with Baby Boomers is different from the best way to communicate with Gen Z.

4. Use Images With Real People:

What would make you want to buy a bag of chips more, a picture of a bag of chips or a picture of someone with a huge smile on their face while eating some of the yummy chips? Images that feature real people create an emotional connection with your audience. They also help your potential customers picture themselves using your product/service. To show consumers that your product will make their life better, show them pictures of people enjoying your product rather than a picture of just the product. An additional reason to use images that feature real people is that it makes customers more likely to perceive your brand as trustworthy, which fosters a stronger brand connection.

5. Pay Attention To Your Headlines:

Make your headlines compelling and clear in order to catch your audience’s attention. The ideal headline length is approximately 6-8 words. Headlines that are too short can be vague and confusing. Headlines that are too long are often skimmed over by readers, or ignored all together. A headline that is too long and packs in too much information also leaves nothing for the subheadline to do. This brings us to our next point.

6. Pay Attention To Your Subheadlines:

A subheadline should support the headline, and include details that expand on it. Again, do not go overboard with the length. If your subheadline is too long, you risk overwhelming your readers, causing them to skip over it entirely. The ideal headline length is approximately 10-30 words. This range keeps the text readable while also allowing you to provide details. Remember to avoid redundancy. Your subheadline should expand on your headline, not repeat it.

Brand communication is a core aspect of a company’s strategy. It influences customer relationships, shapes how the brand is perceived, and sets the company apart from their competition. Use the 6 above tips to improve your company’s brand communication.

5 Ways to Improve Your Display Ads

August 23, 2024/in Articles, Digital Media, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

Display advertising is a kind of online advertising that uses copy, images, and other visual elements. The terms “display ads” and “banner ads” are often used interchangeably because display ads usually were banner ads back in the day. Currently, however, display ads can come in many different formats in addition to banner ads, like video ads, interactive ads, and more. The benefits of display ads include brand awareness, visual appeal, performance tracking, and targeting capabilities.

Brand awareness: display ads expose customers to brand messages and visual elements across many touchpoints, building brand awareness.

Visual appeal: display ads can capture attention more effectively than text-based ads alone because they feature graphics and images.

Performance tracking: display ad’s performance metrics allow advertisers to monitor clicks, impressions, and conversions.

Targeting capabilities: display ad’s targeting options allow advertisers to reach different audience segments with messaging tailored to them.

Now that you know their benefits, here are 5 ways your company can improve their display ads:

1. Make sure that the copy is readable:

In order for your display ad to be effective, your audience must be able to understand what it is trying to communicate. Therefore, all copy used in your display ad must be easy to read. Readability can be affected by font, size, and color. Some easy to read fonts are Arial, Georgia, and Helvetica. Your text should be large enough that it can easily be read on various screen sizes. Vary your font size to create a hierarchy of information. The headline should be the largest, the body text should be the smallest, and the subheadline should be in between those two sizes. The color of your copy should contrast with its background color so the copy stands out and is easy to read. Use color combinations that are visually appealing, and avoid using bright colors that are hard to read.

2. Keep things simple:

The average human attention span is 8.25 seconds. That’s not a lot of time, so your display ads need to be simple in order to quickly catch your viewer’s attention. Make sure you’re not cramming too much information into your display ad. You should also avoid adding an excess of design elements. Finally, only use one image in your display ad to keep it clean and simple.

3. Use your logo when possible:

Including your logo in display ads will improve brand recall and recognition. It will also help maintain overall brand consistency. Remember to not place your logo over an image, and make sure that your logo is cropped correctly. A logo that is too big can overwhelm the display ad, but a logo that is too small can be difficult to see. Therefore, it is important to size your logo so that it is visible without diminishing the display ad’s overall design. Position your logo so that it does not cover any important elements of the display ad, and make sure that the logo integrates smoothly with the display ad’s layout and design.

4. Create urgency for your offer:

Your display ad’s call-to-action (CTA) is what will make people click on your ad. Ensure that your audience will act fast by creating a sense of urgency for your offer. Whether your offer is only available for a limited time or if there is only a limited amount of product in stock, try to include that in your display ad. Doing so will increase the likelihood of your display ad getting clicked on. To incorporate a limited-time offer into your display ad, you can include a countdown timer or use deadline phrases like “only for a limited time” or “offer ends soon.” To incorporate a product/service’s limited availability into your ad, you can include a count of how many products/services are left or use a statement like “almost gone.”

5. Use keywords:

Choosing the correct keywords will make sure that the Display Network shows your ad to the proper audience(s). You should select between 5 and 20 keywords that are related to what you are advertising in your display ad. These keywords should be related to the websites that your customers frequently visit or use.

By making sure that the copy is readable, keeping things simple, using your logo when possible, creating urgency for your offer, and using keywords, you can significantly improve your display ads.

Effective Inbound Marketing Strategies

August 20, 2024/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Successful inbound marketing depends on your ability to engage your leads and to nurture them through their buyer’s journeys. However, you’re going to have to attract leads first. Because technology keeps evolving and the way that people use the Internet keeps changing, it’s vital that you continuously update your inbound marketing strategies so that you can continue to attract high-quality leads.

Top Inbound Marketing Strategies

With that in mind, the following are a few inbound marketing strategies you should consider implementing this year:

1. Focus On Optimizing Your Content For Featured Snippets

Although you can still attract a lot of high-quality leads by ranking first through third on Google’s SERP, it’s no longer the first thing that users see. Instead, the first thing that appears on Google’s SERP is their featured snippets. Websites listed in featured snippets tend to get a boost in organic traffic since searches often click on the website links listed on the snippets.

Learn More about Google’s SERPs

2. Develop Relationships With Micro-Influencers

Social media influencers have massive followings. This means that if they highlight your brand on their channels, it could significantly increase your company’s exposure. However, such social media influencers tend to have broad audiences, which means many of their followers may not fall within your target audience. On top of that, it can be difficult for a small to a mid-sized company to get the attention of such an influencer, much less to convince them to promote your business.

Instead, you should consider finding micro-influencers. These are influencers with smaller audiences that focus on more niche subjects. You’ll have a better chance of building a relationship with a micro-influencer — and their audience will probably have greater overlap with your target audience as well.

3. Create Short Video Content

Although long-form video content is certainly effective, it tends to work better as an engagement tool rather than an attraction tool. Short-form video content does really well on social media especially. People are more likely to watch through the entire video and share it with others on their social channels if it’s on the shorter side. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok also focus on short video content, and those sites have skyrocketed in popularity over the years.

4. Consider Using Progressive Forms

Potential leads are often discouraged from converting through opt-in forms if there are too many questions. If they feel like the offer isn’t worth the information they have to give up, they’ll just leave your site without converting. You can solve this issue by using progressive forms. Progressive forms require that leads fill out a new form every time they download a new resource instead of asking for one form to be filled out upfront. The advantage of doing this is that you can just ask for a couple of details each time so that it doesn’t feel like they’re providing that much information to you.

5. Optimize For Voice Search

Voice assistants, such as Siri and Alexa, have drastically increased the number of voice searches performed over the past few years. While text-based searches are still the most popular way to perform a search online, voice searches continue to increase. In 2019, a third of the U.S. population used voice search. As such, you may want to begin optimizing for voice search. You can do this by adding a voice search snippet to your blog posts. You can also begin writing content in a more direct and conversational way.

6. Optimize Your Website For Mobile Use

There are now billions of smartphone users in the world today. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile use, it’s going to hurt your search rankings. Additionally, mobile users who do stumble onto your site are going to have all kinds of trouble navigating it. This is because a site not optimized for mobile use won’t display correctly on smaller screen sizes.

7. Adjust Your Content Strategy Around The Use Of Clusters

Topic clusters are a more organized way to create content. Essentially, you create a pillar page on a certain topic, then create separate pages (such as blog posts) that cover related subtopics. These pages are then all linked to your pillar page, creating a cluster of content. The reason this is so effective is that it leads to a higher number of internal links. As such, visitors have an easier time navigating through relevant content, while search engines have an easier time identifying context, which can lead to boosted rankings and more organic traffic.

Finding new ways to attract your target audience is critical to your inbound marketing efforts. Because people change the ways that they use the web as they adapt to new technology, it’s important that you continually revisit your inbound strategies. As such, consider implementing some of these inbound marketing strategies to attract new leads in 2021.

The Website Redesign Process- Why Content Comes First?

August 16, 2024/in Articles, Directors, Website Design, Website Growth Driven Design /by Debbie Szwast

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

Why Should You Refresh the Copy on Your Redesigned Website?

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

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

How Does Copy Fit Into the Website Redesign Process?

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

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

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

Also Read: Do You Need to Redesign Your Website

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

Why Hiring a Marketing Agency is Right for You

August 13, 2024/in Articles, Blog, Directors /by Dan Gartlan

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

Why Hiring a Marketing Agency?

The following are a few reasons why you should strongly consider working with a reputable marketing agency:

1. A Marketing Agency Is Less Expensive

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

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

2. Access To High-End Technology

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

3. Access To An Experienced And Knowledgeable Team

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

4. Scale Marketing Needs With Ease

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

5. Obtain A Fresh Perspective

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

Read More: Five Reasons To Hire An Advertising Agency Versus Staffing In-House

6. Compliment Your Existing Personnel

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

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

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

Inbound VS Outbound Marketing: What’s Better for You?

August 9, 2024/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Outbound Marketing /by Dan Gartlan

Your marketing strategy is not something that you should take lightly. After all, the success of your business, whether it’s big or small, is going to depend on your ability to generate customers. Without effective marketing, it’s going to be very difficult to grow your audience, not to mention your customer base. However, if you do just a little bit of research, you’ll quickly find that there are two main types of marketing: inbound marketing and outbound marketing. The question is, which should you use for your business?

Inbound VS Outbound Marketing

What Is Outbound Marketing?

Outbound marketing is the more traditional form of marketing. The main strategy of an outbound marketing campaign is to get your company’s message to an audience that consists of potential customers. For instance, running commercials on TV or radio, placing ads in magazines or newspapers, or putting up billboards outside. These are all forms of outbound marketing. The idea is that people who need your product or service are, hopefully, exposed to your ads and will come to you as a result.

Benefits Of Outbound Marketing

Reach potential customers who were not aware of your brand
Successful outbound marketing can boost short-term sales

Drawbacks Of Outbound Marketing

Most outbound marketing tactics are expensive
Targeting a broader audience will usually result in a lower ROI
May reach potential customers who aren’t ready to buy
Forcing message onto the audience, which can put them off

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Whereas outbound marketing involves forcing a message to an audience, inbound marketing focuses on putting your business in the position to be found by your audience on their own time. Most inbound marketing efforts are digital. For example, setting up a website and a social presence, writing content aimed at your target audience, and optimizing your content for SEO (search engine optimization). The idea is to make your brand easy for potential customers to find or stumble upon when searching for relevant information online. Once found, you can then nurture them through the sales funnel at their own convenience.

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

Benefits Of Inbound Marketing

Higher ROI. Your marketing efforts live forever (unlike outbound marketing), which means they can continue to see results in the future.
You can reach more people. Billions of people use the Internet, giving you potential access to a much greater audience.
Inbound marketing allows you to target specific buyer personas with greater ease, leading to better results.
Inbound marketing is much more affordable.

Drawbacks Of Inbound Marketing

You won’t see overnight results. Inbound marketing requires a lot of long-term effort.

What Type Of Marketing Should You Choose?

Inbound VS Outbound Marketing are different from each other but you should choose one as per your business requirement. Which type of marketing better suits your business is going to depend on various factors, such as what your budget is and what your goals are (are the more short-term or long-term?). However, as a smaller to mid-sized business, inbound marketing is going to be your best bet. It’s much more affordable and allows you to steadily grow your business over the long term. But that doesn’t mean that you should ignore outbound marketing. Outbound can still be incredibly effective, despite the fact that some mistakenly think that it has become obsolete with the advent of inbound.

Outbound marketing tactics can still be incredibly useful. There’s a reason why businesses still run large ad campaigns in magazines or on TV. There’s a reason why it’s so expensive to run a commercial in a 30-second slot during the Super Bowl. That reason is that outbound marketing still works. It’s a great way to increase brand exposure if you know what you’re doing.

Even if you don’t have a massive budget to work with, outbound marketing can still be effective, especially if used in conjunction with your inbound marketing strategy. After all, you can use outbound to market your online presence. For example, you can put your website or social media handles up at the end of your commercials, on your print ads, or on your billboards. You can even put QR codes on your print ads that people can scan with their smartphones.

The primary reason why advertising your inbound efforts on your outbound efforts is so effective is that most people are using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop while they are watching TV — or have one on hand when they pass by a billboard or are flipping through a magazine.

Build A Marketing Strategy Using Both Inbound And Outbound Strategies

There’s no reason to choose just one. Both inbound marketing and outbound marketing strategies have their pros and cons. Inbound tends to be a more long-term strategy, while outbound is more short-term. As such, using them together allows you to run a more comprehensive omni-channel marketing strategy. The more complete your marketing efforts are, the greater the odds of success will be.