buyer persona

How To Implement A Customer Retention Program for Long-Term Success

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Customer retention program that allows you to continue to engage with existing customers so that they will continue being your customer. Inbound marketing is a very involved, long-term strategy that businesses put a lot of time and resources into – as they should. However, one of the issues that many companies have is that they focus so much on attracting new leads and nurturing them that once they finally close the sale, they act like they crossed the finish line. This is a huge mistake. The best customers aren’t the new customers, they’re the existing customers that continue to make purchases. In fact, it’s estimated that improving your customer retention by as little as five percent could potentially increase your profits by as much as 95 percent.

The following are a few tips on how to implement a successful customer retention program.

Regularly Ask For Feedback media mix

Ask for customer feedback, whether it’s about the quality of your products or services, their experience dealing with your customer service, what would make your service better, or even about the function of your website. You can do this via email (NPS surveys are great for this), social media, or even a feedback page on your site. Feedback lets you see where you stand with your existing customers.

If someone had a less than stellar experience, you can even reward them for providing you with honest feedback with a special promotional offer (thereby helping offset the less than stellar experience and hopefully showing them that you’re taking their feedback seriously). Not only are you showing customers that you want to know how their experience was, but it actually provides you with a lot of insight into how you can improve the customer experience to increase customer retention in the future.

Establish A Customer Loyalty Program

A loyalty program is one of the best ways to retain customers, yet many small businesses don’t have one. There are many ways that you can implement a loyalty program. You can provide discounts or free shipping based on how many purchases they’ve made or you can establish a rewards program based on points earned for purchases that they can use towards other products or services.

Similar Article: How To Develop Content To Build Customer Loyalty

Provide Live Chat On Your Website

While a chatbot can be helpful as well, having a live chat feature on your site will allow your customers to speak with an actual human. You can choose what pages to have your live chat box appear, such as your customer support page or your client login page. By offering this feature, you greatly improve the experience your customers have since they’ll be able to ask questions or report any issues that they might be having without having to wait to speak with someone.

Follow Up On Dormant Customers

Pay attention to customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while. Make sure you follow up with these customers just to keep your brand on the top of their mind. For example, you could email them an offer on a product that they bought before to encourage them to buy it again. Or send them content that can enhance the use of your product or service.

Customer retention programs are essential to the success of your marketing efforts. Without customer retention programs, you’ll end up losing the customers that you spend so much time and effort obtaining. These are a few tips on how you can implement effective customer retention programs into your marketing strategy.

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Six Steps To Better Use Of Marketing Analytics & Dashboard

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Using marketing analytics is essential to being able to judge the performance of your marketing efforts. They allow you to see what is and isn’t working in real time, thereby letting you adjust your strategy. Not only do marketing analytics improve your marketing efforts, but they also make you much more efficient. You don’t end up wasting a lot of time and money on tactics that aren’t working.

Considering what an essential part your marketing analytics dashboard plays in the effectiveness of your marketing strategy, it should come as no surprise that marketing analytics continue to grow in importance, with many companies devoting bigger and bigger portions of their budget to their analytics capabilities. To ensure you’re making the most out of your marketing analytics dashboard, be sure to follow these six steps:

1. Embed Analytics Into Marketing Decisions

Analytics should not be a mere complimentary tactic to your marketing strategy that allows you to see how you’re doing — it should be an important part of the marketing decision making process. Once you begin using analytics, you should use the data you’ve gathered from previous campaigns to help inform future campaigns and strategies.

2. Use Your Analytics For A Better Understanding Of Your Customer

Marketing analytics can help provide you with incredible insight into your customers, thereby providing all kinds of opportunity for growth. The challenge is in collecting data from a wide range of data points. The reason that this is a challenge is that there are often barriers between marketing, operations, and sales data. If you can gather and analyze data from all three of these facets of your business, you’ll be able to get a more complete picture of your customer, thereby allowing you to form a much more effective marketing strategy.

3. Develop And Hire Talent That Understands Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics is unique in that it requires analytical thinking to read and understand the data, but it also requires creativity to put that data to use in actionable steps. You’ll want to focus on developing and hiring talent that understands both the science of analytics and the art of analytics, which is no easy feat. However, having such individuals on your team will help you get the absolute most out of your marketing analytics.

4. Organize Your Analytics Operating Model

If you’re going to embed your marketing analytics dashboard into your company’s marketing decision-making process, then it’s important that you organize its operating model to reflect how decisions are made. For example, if your company makes your marketing decisions by brand, then you might want to dedicate analytics resources.

The Buyers Journey Explained Stage By Stage

5. Focus Marketing Analytics On New Opportunities

One of the common traps companies fall into is using their analytics to adjust their marketing tactics on current strategies. While you should certainly do this, you should also leverage certain marketing analytics, such as data mining and predictive analytics, to find new opportunities, such as new marketing strategies, new business models, new markets, and more.

6. Learn When To Measure And When To Act

The use of analytics allows you to analyze and measure data at any time, but knowing when to act on that data you have can be tricky. There’s the temptation to want to wait until you can measure everything and obtain more data before making key decisions. Waiting too long can cause you to miss out on potential opportunities. On the other hand, constantly acting on the data you have can be a serious mistake as well. Many strategies do take time before you’ll begin seeing results.

As you know, using analytics will help you get the most out of your marketing strategy. These tips will help you get even more out of your marketing analytics dashboard.

buyer persona guide for business

What’s Trending In Marketing For August 2023

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Hello and welcome to our August 2023 edition of “What’s Trending,” where we bring you the most relevant marketing news and insights. This month, we dive into the revival of an infamous fast food mascot and explore current trends to watch out for in the summer of 2023. Stay informed and ahead of the game with our curated collection of marketing updates and reports.

Noteworthy Marketing News

 

Quiznos eyes comeback as they bring back Spongmonkeys mascots. 

In a new ad campaign from the famed sub sandwich company plans to bring back the creepy corporate mascots, the Spongmonkeys. After years of decline and a 2014 bankruptcy, Quiznos is making a comeback by franchising new locations. The quirky rodent-like characters aim to revive the brand’s popularity. With just over 150 locations left, Quiznos is determined to regain its place in the restaurant industry and attract customers with the nostalgic return of the Spongmonkeys. Read more here. 

Twitter loses almost half of advertising revenue since Elon Musk takeover.

Since Elon Musk’s $44bn acquisition of Twitter in October, the platform has faced a substantial 50% drop in advertising revenue. The company’s anticipated sales growth in June did not materialize, though July showed some promise. Musk’s cost-cutting measures, including laying off about half of Twitter’s staff, aim to address the platform’s struggles. Meanwhile, rival app Threads has gained traction with an estimated 150 million users, while Twitter grapples with heavy debt and negative cash flow. Despite challenges, Musk aims to turn the platform around. Linda Yaccarino, the new CEO, emphasizes video, creator, and commerce partnerships to boost ad sales. However, the road to recovery may be prolonged due to pre-Musk revenue declines and competition. Read more here.

Netflix scraps low-tier ad free plan.

Netflix’s ad-free $9.99/month basic plan is being discontinued in the US and UK, impacting both new and returning members. However, existing users have the option to keep their current plan until they decide to cancel. Alongside this move, Netflix is introducing a new $7/month plan with commercials. This decision is part of the company’s strategy to diversify its revenue streams and remain competitive in the rapidly evolving streaming market. Notably, Netflix’s recent emphasis on its ad-supported tier has yielded positive results, attracting nearly 5 million monthly users and creating an enticing opportunity for advertisers. Read more here.

Improving Your Marketing Program 

 

Core Difference Between Buyer Journey vs. Customer Journey.

Discover the core difference between the buyer journey and the customer journey in this insightful article. Uncover the stages consumers go through before making a purchase decision and how businesses can nurture relationships post-purchase to build brand loyalty and create brand ambassadors. Learn valuable strategies to engage customers and ensure the long-term success of your business. Don’t miss out on these essential insights! Click here to read the full article.

The Importance Of Lead Generation Content Marketing.

Learn the power of lead generation content marketing in boosting your business growth and attracting potential customers. Discover how to create compelling content that converts prospects into loyal leads, standing out from tough competition. Quality content with specific purposes and formats, along with consistent publication, helps build trust and credibility with your audience. Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your company’s online presence. For a consultation, visit the link below and take the first step towards a successful content marketing strategy. Click here to read more.

8 Reasons to Invest in OTT Marketing.

Discover the top 8 reasons to invest in OTT marketing. With close to 200 million streaming viewers expected in the next few years, OTT advertising reaches a massive audience. Target your audience more effectively using GPS and behavioral data. Unlike traditional TV ads, people engaged in streaming content are more likely to watch entire ads. Personalized OTT ads improve engagement and yield better data on viewers. Flexible campaigns allow real-time adjustments for improved results, and A/B testing helps fine-tune your strategy. Paying for ad views, OTT ads offer a cost-effective and high ROI approach to complement your inbound marketing efforts. Read more here. 

Recent Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends

 

As we enter the peak of summer ’23, the advertising realm is abuzz with thrilling trends. Artificial intelligence continues to transform content creation with innovative and easy to use tools such as, chatGPT and Jasper.  Among Gen Z, Instagram Reels reigns supreme as the favored social medium, offering brands an avenue to showcase authenticity and engage viewers. Short-form videos dominate summer marketing campaigns, while Influencers maintain their impactful role in fostering genuine connections. These are just a few of the key trends shaping the industry this season. To discover more about these trends and beyond, explore the full article here.

How does ‘Estimated read time’ in your meta description impact SEO?

In a recent poll by Search Pilot, the impact of adding “estimated read time” to meta descriptions was examined. While many believed it wouldn’t affect organic traffic, some thought it could be positive. However, the majority’s prediction was correct, as the display of estimated read time had no noticeable impact on site traffic. This finding highlights the importance of SEO testing and being cautious when following competitors’ actions. The article showcases the significance of user polls in understanding marketing trends. Read more here. 

Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2023.

The 2023 social media marketing landscape presents challenges due to economic uncertainties. Despite this, social media marketers enjoy increased budget and autonomy, as the profession matures. Successful marketers will carefully assess opportunities and consider long-term impacts in their strategies. The 2023 social media trends report offers valuable insights to navigate this defining year in the industry. Embrace these trends to optimize marketing strategies amid the evolving social media landscape. Read more here. 

 

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Keys Successful Price Reduction Strategy

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There are many reasons why you might be thinking about reducing the prices of a product or service. There are usually two main reasons: the product or service isn’t selling as well as you had hoped, or you’re looking to increase your customer base. A price reduction can help interest potential customers who may not have been interested before. However, if you plan on cutting prices, you need to implement effective price reduction strategy marketing.

Why is Price Reduction Strategy Marketing Important?

There are two critical reasons why you can’t just slash prices without a price reduction marketing strategy in place. First of all, nobody will know about the price change. Secondly, you don’t want those who do know to make the wrong assumptions about why you are changing the price.

Generating Awareness Of Your Price Reduction

If you don’t market the fact that you’re reducing your prices, nobody will know about it. This then defeats the purpose of lowering your prices in the first place. For example, if you are reducing the cost of a product because it isn’t selling well, then it’s still not going to sell well if nobody is aware of the price cut.

Informing Customers Why You Are Reducing Prices

If people don’t know why you cut prices, they will make assumptions. This can hurt your brand image. For instance, some customers might think that you’re discontinuing a product and are trying to get rid of the last of what you have left. Customers don’t want to buy a product if a newer version is coming out soon after.

What Are The Keys To Effective Price Reduction Strategy Marketing?

When you cut the price of a product or service, you should have a goal in mind. After all, why else would you reduce prices? Whatever your goal might be, you’ll want to keep it in mind as you develop your marketing strategy. A good price reduction marketing strategy should include the following:

  • Provide A Reason

If you don’t justify your price cut, your target audience may become skeptical about why you’re doing it. You need to have a good reason. For example, maybe you’re just having a sale to reward your customers. Or maybe it’s an ethical reason (such as temporarily lowering prices during the COVID-19 pandemic). If you’re permanently reducing the price, you should provide an explanation as well.

  • Research Your Competition

If you’re trying to price your product more competitively, then you should do some competitive research. How much are your competitors charging for similar products or services? If you’re temporarily reducing prices, then you might want to make them even lower than your competition. Doing so can help you steal customers who are willing to try your product or service due to the low price.

  • Establish A Timeline

Is your price cut going to be permanent or temporary? If it’s temporary, you should market it as such. You’ll want to note exactly when you plan on reducing the price. You should also mention how long it will remain at that price point. This way, customers who want to take advantage of your price reduction won’t miss out. The last thing you want is for customers to not make the purchase because they didn’t know that your price cut was temporary.

  • Consider Your Buyer Personas

Consider how a price change will affect your buyer personas. You might not realize it, but reducing the price isn’t always the best way to increase sales. This is especially true if your buyer personas are on the wealthier side. These personas are likely looking for a premium product or service. If you lower the cost of your product significantly, it may lose the perception of luxury.

Why Are Buyer Personas So Important?

  • Focus On Features

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is to focus solely on the price cut. While the price reduction will attract many customers, it’s not the main reason why they will make the purchase. It’s the features of your product or service. Focus on the features that make your product or service worthwhile. The features are what provide the real value, after all.

Implement A Successful Price Reduction Marketing Strategy Today

Reducing the price of your product or service can help you increase sales and your customer base. If you take the time to develop an effective price reduction marketing strategy, it will result in both a short-term impact and a long-term impact (even if you’re only reducing prices temporarily).

buyer persona guide for business
b2b marketing

5 Ways to Improve Your B2B Marketing Strategies

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B2B marketing can be a challenging endeavor, especially if you don’t have a clear cut marketing strategy in place. To have any hope of running a successful B2B marketing campaign, you’ll need to establish what your goals are. Once you’ve done so, you should implement marketing strategies that will support those goals and help you achieve them. The following are five B2B marketing tips that you should use to help improve your marketing efforts:
email marketing metrics 3

1. Streamline Your Email Marketing

Effective email marketing is vital to your ability to convert subscribers into leads and leads into customers. It’s estimated that 81 percent of B2B businesses have an email newsletter strategy. In addition, 40 percent of businesses believe newsletters are the most important component of their content marketing efforts. To get the most out of your email marketing strategy, you need to streamline it. This means that you should segment your email list so that you can personalize your messaging and target subscribers more effectively. Doing so will help ensure that your email campaigns are relevant to your email list, making it easier to nurture your leads.

2. Enhance Your Online B2B Marketing Presence With SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is essential to putting your business in a position to be found by potential B2B clients. Many businesses will begin searching for information or solutions through Google. If you have a strong SEO strategy in place, your website will receive more exposure on Google’s SERP (search engine results page). This will bring in more organic traffic from Google. To receive the most exposure on Google’s SERP, you will need to rank high on their page. Most people will click on one of the top three results and rarely ever go past the first page. By optimizing your website for SEO, you will boost your page rankings. The following are a few SEO factors that contribute to Google’s page rankings:

  • Keyword use

Keywords help provide Google with information about what your website content is about. You need to use keywords that are relevant to your content and that are competitive, meaning that you have a chance to rank well compared to other websites ranking for the same keywords. Your keywords also need to match your user intent to ensure that they are actually being used by people who are in your target audience. Finally, you’ll need to properly optimize your site using these keywords, such as by using them in your titles, headers, body content, anchor text, alt image tags, meta titles, and more.

  • User engagement

High user engagement indicates that the content is of high quality, which is why Google pays attention to certain factors that indicate high user engagement, such as social signals (shares and likes), comments, and backlinks.

  • User experience

User experience is another element that indicates quality. Technical issues, such as slow-loading pages, hinder the user experience. As such, you need to make sure your website is technically sound.

Difference Between Branding and Marketing

3. Know Your Audience

One of the ways in which B2B marketing differs from B2C marketing is that B2B clients are much more specific. B2C companies tend to have more general audiences that they can market to. Because B2B companies have to target a more specific type of client, you will need to figure out who exactly your audience is. To do this, you should develop your buyer personas. Buyer personas are representations of your ideal clients. They help you define the different types of clients that make up your target audience. You can then use your buyer personas to guide all of your marketing efforts. For example, when creating content, you can make sure that the content you’re creating is relevant to at least one of your buyer personas. Additionally, you’ll be able to make sure that you address your entire audience by making sure to create content that’s relevant to all of your buyer personas.

4. Measure Your B2B Marketing Online Performance

Not all of your b2b marketing strategies may achieve the success you were hoping for. However, the only way to judge your marketing performance is through various analytics tools to monitor key metrics. By doing so, you’ll be able to determine what is working and adapt accordingly. The ability to adjust your strategy mid-campaign can help ensure that you’re not wasting resources on tactics that aren’t effective. In the end, measuring your online performance is critical to achieving a high ROI on your B2B marketing.

5. Take Advantage Of Referral Marketing

Capturing leads and converting customers requires you to build trust. One of the best ways to build trust is through another customer’s referral. Implementing a referral marketing strategy can help you attract new leads through word of mouth of existing and past customers. To do so, you should give existing customers an incentive to provide referrals, such as a discount on a product or service.

These are five B2B marketing strategies that can enhance your marketing campaign. Keep in mind that you should continuously monitor and adjust your B2B marketing tips as needed. Doing so will help ensure that you’re not pouring resources into tactics that aren’t working out for you and will help you achieve a higher ROI in the long run.

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

4 Strategies of a Successful Attraction Marketing Formula

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Almost every business engages in inbound marketing in one way or another–and they should. Inbound marketing is an effective way to increase your brand awareness, build authority, and find new leads. However, it’s extremely broad. For instance, you could set up a social media page and that would be considered inbound marketing. To truly get the most out of your inbound marketing efforts consider engaging in attraction marketing, which emphasizes a strategy that focuses on your audience. The following are the four main strategies that make up an effective attraction marketing formula:

Focus on Story Branding

Storytelling is an essential way to connect or relate with audiences. One of the common challenges businesses face is finding a way to not only engage with their audience, but to connect on a personal level. Using storytelling to get your message across is one of the most effective ways to do this. In particular, you should focus on story branding. Story branding involves sharing information about your brand through the power of storytelling.

b2b marketing strategy

For example, instead of just saying “our company provides the best product,” story branding would involve explaining why your company was established (to provide a service or product missing on the market), what your values and beliefs are, what your goals as a company are, and how you plan to accomplish those goals. This allows you to connect on a more emotional and relatable level.

Strengthen Thought Leadership

Position yourself as an authority within your industry by producing content that is relevant to your target audience and that is more helpful than promotional. The stronger your thought leadership is, the more you’ll be trusted by potential leads. Not only can you strengthen thought leadership by regularly publishing high-quality content, you can also do so by regularly engaging with your audience on social media, answering questions or concerns that they have, contributing to group discussions, contributing to posts by followers or by other thought leaders, and more.

Nurture Leads

Capturing a lead isn’t equivalent to closing a sale. You can’t just assume that they are ready to buy if they’ve given you their email address. You need to nurture the leads that you’ve captured until they are ready. A good way to get a lead to unsubscribe from your email list is to immediately send them promotional content pressuring them into purchasing something. Instead, send them more in-depth content based on their past level of engagement with your site (and the information they’ve provided in your opt-in form). The goal is to build a relationship so that by the time they do make a purchase, they’re more likely to stay loyal to your brand.

Focus On Customer Service 

Last, but not least, focus on customer service. Don’t just dismiss your leads once they turn into customers because you’re chasing the next sale. Increasing customer loyalty is important. The better their experience is (and continues to be) the more likely it is that they will stay loyal and even recommend your brand to friends and colleagues.

The most effective way to implement inbound marketing into your marketing strategy is by focusing on this attraction marketing formula. Doing so will help you attract leads, connect with them on an emotional level, and build lasting relationships with them.

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

How Interactive Content Can Boost Your Inbound Marketing Efforts

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Marketing has changed drastically over the years, and as a result, marketers are finding new ways to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive landscape. The need to catch the audience’s attention has never been more intense. One technique that has proven quite effective is using interactive content to drive up inbound marketing efforts. In the sections below, we’ll discuss how interactive content works, its benefits, and some strategies you can implement to boost your marketing.

What is Interactive Content?

Interactive content is an engaging form of content that requires the audience to participate. That means instead of just reading or watching something passively, the audience must interact with the content somehow.

This particular type of content is so effective because it creates a more immersive and personalized experience for the audience. With this type of content, your audience isn’t just consuming the content but being an active participants. This makes the content more memorable and enjoyable.

So, what are some examples of interactive content? Well, if you have ever been on your favorite social media platform and seen a post that compelled you to engage in one way or another, that is one perfect example. More often, this content comes in the form of a survey, social media polls, quizzes, games, or interactive maps.

Why Invest in Interactive Content?

Modern-day marketers leverage interactive and personalized content everywhere, from landing pages and blog posts to social media channels. Here’s how using this content will enhance your marketing plan:

Better Insights into Consumer Preferences 

With interactive content, you can leverage the data obtained from quizzes, polls, and surveys to understand your audience’s engagement rates. This understanding helps you tailor your content to your audience’s preferences, resulting in more effective marketing and lead nurturing.

Boosts Conversion Rates

Since interactive elements demand user engagement, your target audience is more likely to take action. Brands like IKEA and Facebook have used interactive elements, such as virtual and augmented reality, to increase their reach and achieve higher click-through rates. If implemented correctly, interactive content can also be useful in your senior living marketing campaigns.

Unleashes Creativity 

The opportunities for creativity with interactive content are limitless. With these elements, you can create a unique brand experience that sets you apart from the competition. Many interactive and evergreen content pieces have reusable value, meaning consumers may return to engage with the content multiple times, driving continued engagement.

Improves Audience’s Experience 

Interactive and highly personalized content can enhance a prospective customer’s experience by providing useful information or tools that can help solve their problems. By providing valuable interactive resources, you can strengthen your authority in your industry and build a more loyal audience.

Better Brand Awareness

Interactive, branded content can help drive brand awareness by providing viewers with a unique, memorable experience. As more people find value in your content, they’re more likely to share it on social media, generating word of mouth and referrals.

Levels up Your SEO Game

Interactive content can help improve your website’s SEO by encouraging visitors to engage with it. As a result, the time visitors spend on your site increases, signaling to search engines that your content is engaging, informative, and of high value.

Interactive Content Strategies to Consider

If you want to enhance your inbound marketing strategy, tap into the various interactive content strategies. From polls to interactive landing pages, these strategies can help engage consumers, collect information, and increase sales. Here’s what to implement and how:

Quizzes/Surveys 

Quizzes or surveys are fun and engaging forms of interactive and personalized content that are becoming increasingly popular in inbound marketing. They are commonly used to educate, engage and entertain the audience, and when done creatively, they have a good chance of going viral.

For instance, social media polls and surveys offer an effective way to encourage audience participation on a given topic. The quizzes can capture valuable insights into the audience’s maturity in the subject matter and can help boost your inbound marketing strategies.

Interactive Infographics

Approximately 1 in 3 marketers admit that attracting user intention is their biggest marketing challenge. That is why interactive infographics have become increasingly popular in recent years. Unlike static or traditional infographics, interactive types use buttons, statistics, and quizzes to grab the audience’s attention and engage them deeper.

These infographics keep the readers on your site longer, increasing the chances that they will convert into leads or customers. The interactive elements also make your content more shareable, which can lead to increased brand awareness and improved search engine rankings.

And while creating interactive infographics may require more time and resources than traditional infographics, the benefits can be worth it. By providing an immersive experience for your audience, you build a stronger relationship and stand out in a crowded digital landscape.

Interactive Landing Pages

In today’s highly competitive digital landscape, interactive landing pages have become a crucial element of inbound marketing. The goal of a landing page is to generate conversions. Adding interactivity to landing pages can trigger a visitor’s desire, increasing engagement and the likelihood of conversion.

Interactive landing pages enable visitors to engage and participate, creating a unique user experience that differentiates your website from competitors. Thoughtfully incorporating visual and animated content will enhance your landing pages. This increases click-through rates and ultimately generates more leads.

The above techniques are a few interactive content marketing strategies you can implement in your business. Other options include the use of interactive tools such as calculators, interactive PDFs, interactive videos, interactive presentations, etc.

Bottom Line

For the longest time, inbound marketing has become integral to nearly all major businesses and industries. The simple reason for this is that, unlike advertising, inbound marketing focuses on creating value for the prospect and building long-term relationships. However, competition is quickly catching up, and marketers turn to interactive elements to make their marketing techniques more creative and innovative.

When creating interactive content, it’s vital to take a customer-centric approach. That means understanding the audience’s needs and preferences and creating content and experiences that speak directly to them.

ingredient branding

What is Ingredient Branding & How Does It Work?

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There are many different marketing strategies to employ to increase the value and name recognition of your business. There are traditional marketing strategies, like commercials, billboards, and events. Then there are digital marketing strategies, like social media advertising, contests/giveaways, and community engagement.

Each of these methods can be a great strategy for getting your business name out there, generating new leads and customers, and growing your business. If you’ve been in business for awhile and already have an established business name, then you have some potential advantages for increasing your business’s value and brand recognition. One of these advantages is a strategy marketers call ingredient branding.

What is Ingredient Branding?

Ingredient branding is a marketing strategy where a component of the business is branded as a separate entity. This helps to add more value to the parent company and make their product/service seem superior to its competitors.

You’ve probably seen this strategy in use several times before without even realizing it. Here are a few examples of ingredient branding by large brands:

  • Dodge’s Hemi engines
  • Citgo’s TriCLEAN fuel
  • Dupont’s Teflon
  • Intel’s Intel Inside

Intel Inside is actually credited with the conception of ingredient branding back in the ’90s, and was the first success story of having an ingredient helping to promote their business.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

How Does Ingredient Branding Work?

Each of these ingredients were developed and branded separately from the main business to make their product seem better. Dodge put together an entire campaign around “That thing got a Hemi?” to help promote the engines they use in their trucks. When Citgo started branding its TriCLEAN fuel, it was able to focus more on the quality of its fuel over its competition, rather than only competing with gas prices.

These two cases are specifically about an already well-known company branding an ingredient that it already uses to help increase value of its product.

But there are other ways that ingredient branding can work. Some products are already ingredients in and of themselves. Let’s think of a few:

  • Tide detergent
  • Arm & Hammer baking soda
  • Splenda sweetener
  • OnStar
  • Oreo

And so many more.

Let’s dive into these examples. Tide detergent is already a well-known brand. However, you’ll often see other cleaning supplies that contain Tide. Since these products know that consumers love Tide detergent, they’ve worked with the company to include Tide as an ingredient and help promote their product.

This works both ways, though. Including Tide as an ingredient in another company’s product, it receives even more promotion for their own brand. So essentially, the financial deal struck between the two companies is mutually beneficial.

Arm & Hammer is another popular ingredient brand. You’ll see products like cat litter, toothpaste, and more that contain Arm & Hammer baking soda. Splenda sweetener is another ingredient brand that consumers will commonly see promoted among other products.

Back to vehicles, customers see OnStar’s security service as an amenity when buying a car. This means that customers will pay more for a car with this feature installed, which can be pretty valuable for an automaker.

And finally, Oreo is a popular cookie that is sometimes used as an ingredient in other products, like cookies and cream ice cream, McDonald’s McFlurries, and coffee flavoring.

Learn more about 7 Steps To Launching a Packaging Brand

Can Ingredient Branding Help Your Business?

If your business isn’t prominent enough to be branded as an ingredient, perhaps your business is one that can benefit from including an ingredient in its product or service. By including a well-known ingredient in your business model, you’re able to promise a level of quality that is already well-known to consumers.

One example of an ingredient in the digital marketing world is social media scheduling tool Buffer. If possible, many new SaaS companies in the digital marketing will offer Buffer integration with their service because they know how popular Buffer is.

Offering a well-known ingredient in your product or service can be a great way to promote your product to consumers who already use that ingredient in other products.

Ingredient branding is a great way to provide more value and marketability to your business. What are some popular ingredient brands that you’ve heard of?

Want a complete guide of story branding?
brand development

4 Essential Brand Components

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There’s a common misconception that many people have that a “brand” is basically just the name of the company and the logo that they use. While these elements contribute to the overall brand of a business, the term “brand” is actually much more comprehensive than that. It involves many different components, which is why it takes a lot of thought in order to successfully develop your brand. The following are the four main brand components that you will need to address when building your brand and what kinds of strategies you can put into place to further develop those components.

1. Brand Identity

Your brand identity is how you want your brand to be perceived. It’s important that you know what your brand identity is and what you want it to be. If you don’t, how is anyone else supposed to know? You’re going to have a tough time generating brand awareness if you lack a strong brand identity. The following are a few steps that you should take to establish your brand identity:

  • Identify your mission

    What was the reason you established your company in the first place? What is your company’s goal? Consumers want to know what your mission is (and they don’t want to hear that it’s “to make a profit”) and it will reflect who you are as a company.

  • Establish your unique value proposition

    Your unique value proposition is what sets you apart from your competitors. It’s a statement of how your offer benefits your customers, how you will meet the needs of your customers, and what makes your offer unique. Every marketing campaign you run should align with your unique value proposition.

  • Create your brand’s visual identity

    The visual elements of your brand certainly factor into your brand identity. Just consider the logos and color palettes of some of the biggest companies out there, from Facebook’s simple logo and use of blue to McDonald’s golden arch and yellow and red palette. A strong logo that’s instantly recognizable is important, but so is choosing your colors. Different colors have different meanings and the colors you choose can have a psychological impact on your audience as well. For example, many fast-food restaurants use red and yellow because that combination of colors is thought to stimulate the appetite. Just keep in mind that consistency is key. If you decide to use shades of blue in your logo and on your website, then you should use those same colors for your social media pages, email newsletters, and physical location as well.

  • Increase brand recognition

    It’s going to take some time to get your vision of your brand identity out to the masses. You’ll want to generate awareness of your brand to do this through a variety of marketing efforts, such as building a website that emphasizes your mission and unique value proposition, creating content that’s optimized for SEO, using social media to engage with consumers and to post your content, and more. It’s also vital that you make sure your mission, unique value proposition, and visual identity are consistent across all platforms. If it’s not, it will end up hurting your brand identity.

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2. Brand Image

Your brand image is similar to your brand identity in that it deals with how your brand is perceived. However, whereas your brand identity is how you want your brand to be perceived, brand image is how your brand is actually perceived. Consider your brand image as the reputation you currently have with the general public. Take for example United Airlines. Not long ago, they updated their brand design in an attempt to strengthen their brand identity as a “thoughtful, modern, and innovative airline.” However, their brand identity and brand image are currently quite different from each other after numerous massive PR failures regarding their customer service. Keeping that in mind, the following are a few ways to build and maintain a positive brand image:

  • Spread your message via PR

    Use public relations to spread your key messages as well as relevant news concerning your company. You can do this through news outlets, trade publications, and even online blogs. Public relations will help you raise awareness of your brand and what you’re doing, thereby helping to improve your brand image.

  • Establish a social presence

    Social media is an incredibly effective way to build your brand image, whether it’s by sharing content with consumers, keeping consumers up to date on the latest news and product launches, spreading awareness of your message, and engaging with consumers on a personal level. In fact, you can even use social media to address negative comments. It’s a good way to repair potential damage done to your brand image as a result of a poor customer experience by showing that you care and trying to correct the situation.

  • Create high-quality content

    Content will help to increase brand awareness by bringing in more web traffic. However, it can also help to build your brand authority. By publishing content that is relevant to your company and to your audience (and that’s of high quality), you’ll become a trustworthy source of information, which — in turn — will help improve your reputation and increase brand trust.

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3. Brand Culture

Brand culture refers to your company’s core values and how you set an example for those values. Businesses have always

emphasized certain values; however, those values were often things like “reliability” or “honesty.” Values that are more equivalent to basic ethics. While those are important values to hold onto, more and more businesses have begun taking moral stances as well as political stances in addition to generally accepted values. These types of values feed into your brand culture as well. Take Nike for example. They have taken strong social positions by running commercials backing Colin Kaepernick and recently touting the importance of the women’s U.S. soccer team’s World Cup win. These are branding efforts touting their championing of equality, which has become a part of their brand culture. The following are a few tips to help you establish your brand culture:brand recognition

  • Define your values

    Define exactly what your values are and how your company lives out those values. Don’t be afraid of taking a stance if there’s a particular stance that you want to take. Using the Nike example again, their backing of Kaepernick was considered controversial and plenty of consumers did not agree with their position. However, those that did agree with their position became even more strongly aligned with Nike’s brand. You can’t please everyone, but by sticking to your values, you’ll be more likely to strengthen your relationship with many of your customers.

  • Spread awareness of your values

    Let consumers know about your values by declaring them on your website or by encouraging discussion about your values on social media. Publishing content that backs your values is an effective method as well.

  • Ensure that your company reflects your values

    There’s nothing consumers hate more than a hypocrite. If you’re flaunting your support for equal pay across social media and in your marketing efforts, then you better be practicing what you preach. Your brand culture is incredibly dependent on your ability to embrace your own values within your company.

4. Brand Personality

Your brand personality refers to the human characteristics that your company has. Developing a brand personality is vital to connecting with your audience on an emotional level and for making your brand relatable. Because of this, make sure that you use the following tips to develop your brand personality:

  • Learn who your audience is

    Understanding your audience is something that you need to do from the very beginning. It’s an important step in building your brand identity as well. However, it’s particularly important when it comes to developing your brand personality. The way you present yourself and the way that you communicate should reflect not only who the audience is but what they expect. For example, if you have a younger audience, then a dry, formal tone may not resonate with them. However, if your audience is older, using younger slang and current pop culture references may go over their heads.

  • Engage with your audience

    While you can get your personality across in the content you write, it’s easier to do through engaging with people. It’s why using social media is so important. Your entire audience sees your interactions and it helps establish your personality a certain way. For example, Wendy’s has a reputation for having a playful personality because of their use of humor and the pretend feuds that they get into with other brands on Twitter.

  • Be consistent in tone

    If you’re going to be funny and informal on one platform, you need to make sure that personality carries over to all of the other platforms you use, both online and offline. If you’re inconsistent, it will hurt your ability to develop a cohesive brand personality, which will only confuse your audience.

These are the four main brand components that you will need to address when developing your brand strategy. A strong brand requires a strong brand identity, brand image, brand culture, and brand personality. Implementing a successful brand strategy that develops all four of these components increases brand trust, loyalty, and awareness.

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Digital Communication Tools to Help Build a Human Brand

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Whether you’re a brand looking to establish a human connection with your audience or an individual seeking to engage with peers and build professional networks, leveraging these digital communication tools will undoubtedly enhance your ability to connect, collaborate, and succeed in the digital age.

The success of your brand depends on much more than just convincing a potential customer to try your product. While in the past the customer experience has been based around the product being offered, these days, you need to look at the big picture. It’s not just about the customer experience in regards to your product. It’s about the emotional connection that they are able to form with your brand.

Customers don’t just want a product, they want a relationship with the brand that is selling them that product.  You need to focus on fostering an emotional connection instead of just trying to build awareness for a certain product. Fortunately, building an emotional connection with your audience is easier than ever before with the number of digital communication tools that are at your disposal.

The Importance Of An Emotional Connection

Customers are human beings. They have hopes, dreams, and feelings. In a world where their product choices are practically limitless, they will want much more out of a brand. They do not want to engage with a corporation. Customers want to engage with a brand that’s relatable on a personal level. Their desire for connection in such a world is not surprising. A brand that is able to touch them emotionally is going to make them more engaged.

There are many ways that you can do this; reinforcing the beliefs or perspective of your audience, supporting the goals or perspective of your audience, or challenging your audience to do greater things.

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How Digital Communication Tools Can Help Foster An Emotional Connection

Engaging on an emotional level with your audience is easier than it’s ever been, as long as you make the effort to do so. The following are just a few ways that digital communication tools can help you to connect with your audience emotionally and to build meaningful relationships with them:

  • Video content – When it comes to content, few other forms are able to engage audiences on an emotional level like video content. There are numerous reasons for this. First of all, people consume visual content much more easily than written content. Secondly, you can use actors or even real figures that audiences can relate to on a personal level. Thirdly, you can emphasize certain emotions much more effectively through the production of video, from the look of how it was filmed to the type of music that’s used to how the video is edited.
  • Segmentation – Segmenting your leads and customers based on the data you’ve collected (via opt-in forms, surveys, and more) will provide you with valuable insight into who your audience is and how you can connect with them. It also allows you to personalize your content much more effectively, which will make it easier to drive engagement.
  • Social interaction – The use of social channels makes it easy to engage with your audience directly. Direct interaction makes it easier to build meaningful relationships. You’ll have a bigger emotional impact on those who witness the interactions on social media as well.

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Building a human brand will help you build long-term relationships with your audience based on real emotional connections. Use the digital communication tools available to you to emphasize emotion in your marketing efforts. Doing so will help your audience relate to you on a more personal level, thereby driving engagement with your brand.

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