A Trusted Brand Strategy Agency Offers Tips for a Winning Brand Strategy
Why is it Necessary to Have a Brand Strategy?
Every business should develop a long-term plan to help their brand succeed. The brand should be defined with consumer needs, sales journey and competition in mind. Without a brand strategy it is difficult to meet goals or even know where to start. One simple way to create your brand strategy is by asking your audience.
Who is Your Audience and What Do They Think of You?
Before you begin your brand positioning, it is important to find out what your audience thinks of your company and your product.
Develop a focus group on your products to get valuable feedback on what customers like or dislike about you or your products and what improvements they recommend. This information allows you to reformulate, repackage or replace whatever else customers may not have liked before increasing the marketing budgeting on the product.
Another way to get feedback from your audience is through a short survey. Having customer feedback can help your company build a roadmap to a great brand strategy, allowing you to understand your unique positioning in comparison to your competition. If you are unsure where to start, a brand strategy agency can assist you.
Through your findings in your focus groups and surveys, you can get data that will help you understand your potential audience. This information is not only necessary for your brand strategy but also for digital campaigns that help you target a specific market with your ads. You don’t want your ads reaching the wrong audience that does not have interest in your products or services.
Branding is NOT about YOU
Once you know what your audience thinks of you and your product, develop your brand around these findings. This is not about what you want the product to be; it is what your customer wants it to be. Your potential customers are the ones who will or will not make the purchase. Your brand should answer your customer’s simple questions. “Why is this product better than XYZ brand?”, “Why does it matter to me?” and “Can I trust this brand?” If your company is not focused on answering these questions for the brand, the customer will not be focused on you.
Building the Brand Strategy and Connecting with Your Customers
Once you have defined your customer and what they want from your brand, the next action would be to launch it. This is where it is helpful to work with a brand strategy agency. There are several advertising outlets to reach your customers: media, digital and social to name a few. Branding through more outlets allows for more brand awareness. Some outlets, like social media, allow you to establish relationships with your customers. When your customers trust you, they will buy from you.
However, growing a brand takes time and money. A brand strategy agency can help you focus on where to allocate your marketing budget to provide the most benefit for your brand.
Analyze the Data
Every advertising platform provides loads of data that allows you to analyze your every move. It is extremely important to regularly monitor your efforts to ensure what you’re implementing is working and to find out what is not. Strategy is ongoing so things that don’t work you have to re-strategize your marketing efforts and funds to get better results.
Regularly Check in on Your Brand
Times change and so do customer’s minds. It is important to keep your brand fresh with the current environment, trending communications and with interesting creative marketing. Customers like brands that are “in the know.”
In conclusion, don’t think of your brand as a “one and done” deal. Branding strategy is constant and should be reviewed to make sure you are keeping up with the changing times. It needs to be revisited regularly and restructured based on your customer’s perception, the current environment, data and trends, and be refreshed to provide new visions to keep up with the changing times and your customer’s vision of your brand.
Strategic Marketing specializes in branding and is a full-service agency that can manage traditional and digital services for you. For more information on how we conduct branding strategies, please contact us at (561) 688-8155 or visit us at www.thinkstrategic.com.
- Published in Branding
When is it Time for a Social Media Marketing Agency?
The simple answer is when your social media management begins to take too much time from managing your business or it is not experiencing growth.
Social media is an important communication tool that allows a business to get in front of customers. An active social media program allows you to introduce new products and services, build relationships with potential customers and promote trust, potentially leading to sales.
Besides being time-consuming, social media management can be a complex process. Not every business has a dedicated team with the necessary skills to grow a business’s social media “following”.
That’s where a social media marketing agency comes in.
It is important that your business consistently posts on social media. It allows your customers to know what you are promoting and what you care about. When you post about things other than sales it gains trust with your customers. Business posts let your customers know what your company cares about and that you are “human.”
Being “human” in social media is important. “Human” posts gain a sense of trust with the customer which is essential for future sales. I mean if you think about it, how many sales people really get a sale by telling a customer all about a product without establishing a rapport with the customer first. It works the same way with social media.
To increase sales you have to build the rapport through regular communication in organic social media. So, while you may think “human” posts are not gaining sales, think of them as the communication that takes place before the sale.
However, this all takes time and thought. A social media marketing agency has dedicated people to commit to this process and are trained to respond to notifications from interested customers.
Many businesses do not have the time or the staff to commit to their social media presence.
By understanding the importance of organic social media, you may want to look into paid social media. This is where you pay for ads to show on social media. Ads are designed and budgeted to fit your business’s needs and can be particularly helpful If you have a new product launch, a new service or want to revive an older product. A social media marketing agency can easily manage this for you.
However, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself before you post ads for your business on social media. “Who is my audience?” “Where do they hang out?” “What do they like?” “How often should I post?” “Where do I post?” There is a lot to research and that is difficult when you are trying to manage your business. By answering the above questions realistically, you will be able to invest in the proper ads that reach your intended audience.
The good news is that you can hire a social media marketing agency to help you answer those questions and develop a strategy before posting so you reach the right audience and grow your social media “following.”
Maybe you are thinking “Why should I do any of this?” Very simply, for brand awareness. Several social media case studies have shown that social media has a big influence on brand awareness not just through organic and paid social but also through influencer marketing. Managing social media goes beyond just simply crafting a post. Social media is as big today for spreading brand awareness as TV was years ago. Don’t get me wrong, TV still brings awareness, but it is good to embrace new technology and tools to promote your business in today’s world.
Influencer marketing has a huge impact on brand awareness. It allows your content to reach large audiences similar to your market with people who already trust the person reposting your content. Although a money maker, it is time-consuming to manage on your own. A social media marketing agency can help establish the right person to represent your brand, manage the content and monitor your budget.
The world of social media is a wide-open door. There are new avenues to help promote your brand every day. Keeping up with the trends can be exhausting for businesses but it is a social media marketing agency’s job to remain up-to-date on trends.
Strategic Marketing is a traditional and digital marketing agency that has been in business for 28 years. We are not just a social media marketing agency, but an agency that offers multiple marketing and advertising services that most businesses require today to remain competitive. If you would like to learn more about what we do, you can contact us at (561) 688-8155 or visit us at www.thinkstrategic.com.
- Published in Marketing Strategy, Technology
Is Your Local Business Prepared for Voice Search?
People are relying on voice search more and more these days, and it is essential that local businesses are set up so they get included voice search. It’s believed that two out of five adults use voice search daily and it is expected that half of most searches will move from the keyboard to voice. Voice speakers like Google and Alexa are most frequently used and 62% of people using these voice-activated speakers expect to buy something through them within the next month. This means that businesses that are optimized for local search have a better chance for ranking at the top of the search results page. This is why it is important for your business to be prepared for voice search. Let’s dive a little deeper.
What is Google 3-Pack and Why Does it Matter to Voice Search?
Local Pack is a section of Google’s search results that shows the local businesses related to your search query. Whenever your query has a local intent, Google will show three local businesses that might answer it. Why is it important to be among the 3-Pack? It shows in the #1 position 93% of the time. Also, the “near me” search query has increased 34x since 2011. So, it is important that your local business is on Google My Business and other local directories like Yelp. If you are not set up yet, here is how to do it. Voice search can help a small local business beat larger chains, and it makes Google happy because they want their search queries to be accurate.
How Do I Set Up and Rank for Local Pack?
First, it is important to note how essential to make sure all your business information is consistent. Small errors like “Ste” or “Suite” can make a difference to Google. Streamlining this process is easier with directory assistance. We use “Smartlist” which ensures all information on all directories is the same. Second, Google wants to make sure they answer their search queries as accurately by using the best results with results such as key factors such as proximity, category and keyword.
How Does Local Pack and Reviews Improve Voice Search?
Voice Search is increasing every year. 20% of the online population already uses voice search and 58% of mobile users use it for a local business search. Many of these users consider it as their first choice. Making sure your business information is online is crucial, but so are reviews. Reviews are extremely important to ranking in the Local Pack and essentially voice search. By having many reviews from Google and Yelp, especially five-star ones, it is likely Google will rank your business. Reviews can also determine if you get into the 3-Pack or not. This is why it is important to have a reputation management program. We use “SmartRep” to manage our reviews and reputation. Ask your satisfied customers for a Google review because it has a positive impact not only for voice search, but also for web traffic and search engine optimization (SEO).
Where Do Voice Devices Get Their Data?
Not all voice search devices are alike. Each one obtains data from different sources. Siri and Google Assistant obtain information from the 3-Pack Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and from Yelp. Alexa obtains data from Bing, Yelp and Yext data. To get the most out of voice search, you want to optimize your business for all devices.
We’re Here to Help
Strategic Marketing is a full-service advertising agency that can assist you with local SEO, reputation management and many additional services. Please contact us with any questions or let us know how we can assist you with voice search.
- Published in Marketing Strategy, Strategic Marketing, Web Design
