Archive for the ‘Marketing and Branding’ Category
Tuesday, November 16th, 2021
First there was AIDA, then the notion of a sales “funnel” emerged and the concept of a buyer’s journey that began at the top of the funnel (TOFU), moved to the middle of the funnel (MOFU) and ultimately ended with a sale at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). But is this concept too simplistic—and too linear—to truly represent today’s buyer’s journey? Was this model ever relevant in a business-to-business environment? Are content marketers wasting their time attempting to create copy that focuses, discreetly, on TOFU, MOFU, BOFU?
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Tags: Advertising, AIDA, buyer's journey, Marketing, marketing strategy, sales funnel, sales strategy, top-of-funnel
Posted in Business Development, Client Relations, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Communication, Sales | No Comments »
Thursday, November 11th, 2021
There is often tension between marketing and sales in many organizations. But why? Shouldn’t these two functions be closely aligned to most effectively achieve the revenue and ROI goals of the organization? What causes this tension, why is alignment important, and what steps can you take to bring these two important organizational functions closer together? (more…)
Tags: Business development, coordinating sales and marketing, effective sales, marketing sales, Sales, sales and marketing
Posted in Business Development, Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Promotions, Sales | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 5th, 2021
Effective corporate communication has always been important. Now, though, in a hybrid and continuing uncertain corporate environment, it’s more important than ever for organizations to determine how effective their corporate communications efforts are, and what adjustments or improvements need to be made to keep employees engaged, productive, and employed!
What worked pre-pandemic almost certainly doesn’t work anymore. It’s critical that corporate communications and HR staff work together to create a strategy and plan for moving forward.
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Tags: communicating with employees, communication strategy, corporate communications, employee brand ambassadors, Employee Communication, internal communications
Posted in Career Advice, Employee Communication, Internal Communication, Strategic Communications, Strategy | No Comments »
Thursday, September 16th, 2021
I’m often surprised that the most overlooked audience, when it comes to communicating with key constituents, is the internal or employee audience. Companies are generally pretty good about recognizing that they need to communicate with customers and prospects, but employees tend to be an afterthought. This may be because of the assumption that since employees are part of the organization they somehow “know” what’s going on. After all, it was in the newsletter or on Slack, wasn’t it? The fact of the matter, though, is that companies can’t leave it to chance that employees are paying attention to the messages they’re sending, or that they understand which are the key messages that they should be paying attention to. (more…)
Tags: building brand ambassadors, communicating with employees, Employee Communication, employees as brand ambassadors
Posted in Employee Communication, Influencer Marketing, Internal Communication, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 14th, 2021
Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in numerous naming and branding initiatives and am always struck by not only the intrinsic challenges of getting a group of people to agree on a particular name/brand for a company, product, or service—but also by the enormous amount of angst and emotion that becomes part of the process.
In truth, the process of coming up with a name—whether for a company, a product, a campaign, a department, or whatever is a process that is virtually destined to be an emotional and difficult one from the get-go. Why? Because everybody has an opinion, everybody has an emotional stake in the outcome and everybody wants their brand to be the next Nike.
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Tags: Brand Management, branding, changing a brand, establishing a brand, naming guidelines, naming your business, renaming your business
Posted in Brand Management, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
Friday, September 3rd, 2021
In the newspaper business, the above-the-fold headline is a crucial aspect of grabbing a potential reader’s attention and enticing them to pick up the paper and read on. The same is true of online headlines – the hyperlinks that come up in a list when you search for something in a search engine. In addition to page ranking, an enticing headline is an important way to drive traffic to your site. With that in mind, here are some tips for generating great headlines. (more…)
Tags: content marketing, content that sells, copywriting, creating content, effective headlines, headlines, WIIFM, writing compelling copy, writing effective copy
Posted in Content Marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Communication | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 17th, 2021
I do a lot of presentations (and since the pandemic emerged, webinars) on marketing-related topics. When I do, I try to provide as much practical and useful advice as I can. I don’t worry about “giving away my secrets” for a couple of reasons:
- They’re not that secret—they’re just good, proven, elements of effective marketing and communication.
- Telling someone how to do something rarely translates into the ability to actually do that something.
- The small business owners and entrepreneurs—and, often, even senior and very seasoned marketing executives in large organizations—simply don’t have the time to do it themselves.
They often need to call upon others—agencies or freelancers—to help them out. (more…)
Tags: finding an agency, finding freelancers, help with marketing, hiring an agency, marketing assistance, marketing consultants, marketing contractors, social media consultants
Posted in Client Relations, Content Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Small Business Strategy | No Comments »
Thursday, August 12th, 2021
Much of my work over the years has been with “service brands”—brands that are not tied to a particular product, but to the delivery of some type of service—educational services, healthcare services, energy services, engineering services, consulting services, etc.
Developing and maintaining a strong brand for a service is, in my opinion, significantly more challenging than developing and maintaining a strong brand for a product. Why? (more…)
Tags: brand, Brand Management
Posted in Brand Management, Marketing, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 10th, 2021
Not many people remember a product called Zima, and that’s the point of this post. As a marketing professional, I’ve always been interested in new product introductions and advertising campaigns in general— how well do they work? how long do they “run” (suggesting that the positive effects are continuing to produce results or, if nothing else, that the agency and client haven’t “pulled the plug” prematurely).
In addition, as someone who is not a “beer drinker,” I was interested several years ago when a new product was introduced—Zima—a beer-based beverage that was supposed to be light and refreshing. Hmm. Sounded interesting. The campaign was extensive, attention-getting, and effective—to a degree. It raised awareness. It generated preference (at least initially). All was good. Right? Wrong. (more…)
Tags: beating the competition, competition, effective advertising, ineffective advertising, marketing strategy, product quality, service quality
Posted in Advertising, Competition, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Content is king, as the saying goes, and that’s certainly true in a digital world. Consumer appetite for content is at an all-time high and continuing to grow. That’s great for organizations that have well-oiled content creation teams in place to meet the demand. For others, though, developing content on a regular basis that is high-quality and focused on issues and topics that resonate with their audiences can be a challenge. The gig economy can help. A wide range of freelancers and contract content creators are available to organizations to help produce content for any format. (more…)
Tags: content marketers, content marketing, Contently, contract writers, evaluating freelancers, finding freelancers, Fiverr, freelance writing, freelance writing sites, hiring freelancers, nDash, Skyword, Upwork
Posted in Blogging, Content Marketing, Journalism, Marketing and Branding, Remote Work | No Comments »
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