While businesses are rapidly increasing their use of social media, blogging, and mobile applications to increase leads and retain clients, email continues to serve as a central e-marketing and communications strategy. Email also proves synergistic with social and mobile e-marketing tactics. By developing targeted email campaigns as part of an overall integrated digital marketing plan, business owners and marketers can generate significant qualified leads, expand client bases, and achieve email marketing success.
Email marketing is as relevant in 2019 as it was 15 years ago. Here’s proof: a recent study of typical daily online activities of adult internet users ranked email as the most popular daily internet activity. Creating targeted email campaigns that communicate, inform, and sell to your customers is an ideal way to leverage the continuing popularity of email. And although search engines and social media platforms are ideal for attracting new customers, email is the most effective, budget-friendly way to maintain and strengthen existing customer relationships over time. As long as you’re messaging a list of recipients who opted in, you’re committing time well spent to an interested audience.
Achieve Email Marketing Success with Relevant Content
Content for email campaigns should be valuable, informative and designed to improve customer loyalty. Achieving email marketing success begins with an effective subject line—to get your message opened—and continues throughout the text of the email in your distinctive, brand or business-specific voice. Email can also work with your blog to share recent posts; it can amalgamate your most interesting social media posts for an audience uninterested in being on social media directly; it can alert people to webinars, deals, and approaching offer deadlines; it can even connect to your influencer marketing campaign.
As with every marketing tactic, email campaigns should complement and enhance existing on- and offline efforts. Therefore, always include links in your email campaigns to your websites, blogs, and social media pages to drive online traffic and engage leads. By maintaining a consistent flow of concise, engaging email content with a clear call-to-action and consistent messaging, you will be cruising comfortably down the road to email marketing success.
Use Segmentation to Target Specific Customers
Deliver more relevant and specific information to your email subscribers by developing separate e-marketing campaigns based on set criteria such as interests, geographic location, demographics, conversion history, purchase history, and more. Segmentation offers subscribers content and offers that appeal directly to them, resulting in higher open rates, click through rates, deliverability rates, and higher conversions.
Experiment with Email Campaign Schedules
Due to the diverse nature of email campaigns, many experts believe that there is no ‘right day’ to send an e-marketing campaign because there are too many factors to consider. Your company, your industry, and your customers all have unique demands and needs. Experiment with sending emails at different times of the day to discover what works best with your audience. Mid-morning and mid-afternoon deliveries often achieve higher open rates, but this can shift based on the particular market and target audience.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
With over 1 billion websites online today, the competition to bring new visitors to your website and keep returning customers engaged is difficult. Even if you have an interactive, customer-friendly website, how can you ensure prospective and existing clients find your site via search engines before landing on the home page of a competitor? The answer is search engine optimization (SEO) — the process of working your website to a top position in search—and implementing search engine optimized keywords that are relevant to what people are searching for.
Generate a List of of SEO Keywords Relevant to Your Business
Improving your site’s search engine rankings can be achieved with some simple changes. Think about the keywords that the majority of prospects in your market would enter when searching for your business. Target three types of SEO keywords:
- Long-tail keywords with three or more phrases.
- Informational keywords used to discover information about a particular subject.
- Transactional keywords used by customers looking to make a purchase.
By brainstorming combinations of keywords, you can generate a list of potential keywords, add prefixes and suffixes, and combine them into a larger listed using an online tool such as Mergewords.
Find SEO Keywords that will Send Traffic to Your Website
Investigate the competitiveness of your SEO keywords using Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool takes the guesswork out of traffic data and provides the exact number of times each keyword was searched for in Google.
Integrate SEO Keywords in Your Content
Optimize your page title, which describes the subject of your page and shows up as the first line on a search query, by using your target SEO keywords as close to the beginning of the title as possible. Make sure to also include your keywords in your meta description and your subheadings to help searchers determine the relevance of your content.
Add keywords to your page content—most importantly in the first few sentences of each page—plus incorporate variations of your keywords throughout each page. Use keywords in blog posts, image titles and image file names, and any social media via embedded feeds and posts. Incorporate keywords into your site’s URLs, keeping them short and descriptive.
Links are one of the top three SEO ranking factors, so be sure to include SEO keywords in both internal and external links while varying your anchor (clickable) text. Links can also include social media interactions and posts via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Upgrade Your SEO Marketing by Working with an Agency
SEO marketing is a fundamental part of any business strategy and adding effective SEO keywords to your website is the first step in increasing your website’s rankings, traffic and sales. But sifting through the information relevant to SEO can be overwhelming. If you don’t have the time or inclination for tackling SEO–but want to grow your business–an integrated marketing firm can design and manage an SEO plan that will bolster your online presence and bring in those coveted leads.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a full-service digital advertising company with over 20 years of experience managing campaigns across a variety of industries. From video advertising and web design, to social media and PR, Millennium can guide your marketing efforts every step of the way. Contact the professionals at Millennium Agency to learn more!
To paraphrase Finley Peter Dunne: Manufacturing marketing ain’t bean-bag.”
While it goes without saying that manufactured goods like spindles, ball bearings, and wires make up an important part of everyday life, actually marketing these products presents a unique set of challenges. Manufactured goods don’t tend to have the broad target market of things like potato chips or beer, nor do they have the exciting sex appeal of the latest summer blockbuster.
Rather, most manufactured products face the dilemma of being wildly important to a small but very significant portion of the population. Dynamics like these make common marketing tactics like TV commercials or newspaper ad buys the equivalent of going after a fly with a bazooka. Instead, the practitioners of manufacturing marketing must leverage internet and digital resources in order to achieve the scalpel-like precision needed to reach their targets.
Be Where Your Consumers Are
In many ways, the internet has been a democratizing force for medium to niche crafts like manufacturing marketing. Reaching your target market once called for an army of traveling salesmen or presence in a slew of obscure trade publications. But now, the internet (specifically social media) has allowed manufacturers to build up digital presences that simplify customer outreach.
That being said, location and strategy remain key to success.
There’s an ever growing list of social media services, but the odds of each and every one of them being useful to reaching your clientele is slim to none. For example, while a Facebook page may be a great way for a manufacturer of brake rotors to reach their desired consumers, Pinterest would probably be a colossal waste of time. Rather than wasting good money after bad on a full court press of every social media brand under the sun, manufacturers should begin by doing their homework and seeing where their customers (and competitors) have already set up shop. From there, you can begin to establish presences on the relevant sites and build up a network of followers and competitors who are relevant to your area of manufacturing marketing.
Constant Content
While social media sites are constantly tweaking and adjusting their algorithms, the keys to brand success have remained more or less the same: Content is king.
The game is quite simple. Producing quality content that conforms to the standards of any given site increases your chances of showing up in the feeds of those you with to engage with. Showing up in feeds more frequently makes it more likely that your content will be clicked on, liked, or shared — thereby further increasing the likelihood that your brand will attract more attention from likeminded consumers.
While this digital game of telephone is important for all brands, it’s all the more vital to the practice of manufacturing marketing, which depends almost entirely on fierce competition for an exceptionally select number of consumers. A good first strategy to take would be to review the practices of those you compete with: How often are they posting new content? Is that content being engaged with by others? More importantly, does the manufacturing marketing content feel authentic to your slice of the industry.
By beginning with a firm grasp of the market, you can better set to the task of outpacing your competitors with more frequent and creative blog, image, and video content makes it all the more likely that you’ll gain the attention of the elusive eyeballs of your consumers.
Keywords Are Key
Take it from us here at Millennium: you can blog all day until your brain is creative pulp and your fingers are permanently locked into the shape of your keyboard, but every single word of it will be wasted effort if you aren’t crafting your content around the keywords that your customers are actually searching for. Looking for evidence? Well, why not take this blog? If you stumbled upon this blog via a Google search for a certain set of terminology, congratulations! You’re living proof of the importance of keywords to manufacturing marketing.
While this practice can seem complex for writers who are used to conforming with SEO practices, in reality it’s quite simple. To begin with, put yourself in the mind of a purchaser who would be in the market to buy the goods you manufacture.
- Who are they?
- Where are they located?
- What sort of terminology or jargon do they use when they talk about their business?
If you can answer questions like these, you can begin to put together a shortlist of terms and phrases that your consumers would be most likely to use in a Google search. From there, you can set about the task of crafting web content structured around those manufacturing industry specific keywords.
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Linda A. Fanaras is the President and Founder of Millennium Integrated Marketing (www.mill.agency ) located in Boston and Manchester, NH. She can be reached at 877-873-7445 ext. 201 or [email protected].
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
The average person has come to rely on Google for anything and everything. Whether you’re looking up directions or trying to find out if Incredibles 2 is really worth a trip to the movie theater, think of how many times you use Google in a day. With over 40,000 Google searches per second, how can you make sure your page doesn’t get lost in the shuffle? By utilizing different search engine optimization (SEO) guidelines and including an SEO-friendly URL, your page will be easily accessible by Google and your visitors.
Here are some tips to help you create an SEO-friendly URL for your website:
Make it Easy to Read
Your URL is intended for two audiences: Google and your web visitors. That being said, it’s important to make an SEO-friendly URL as well as a visitor-friendly URL. The topic of your page should be easily understood just by looking at the URL. This means you should avoid using stop words like “and” or “the” that are unnecessary to include. Additionally, you’ll want to forgo characters and punctuation, as they will create messiness in your URL. Instead, you should create consistency by matching your link to your page title, excluding the unnecessary stop words, and using only lower case letters and standard characters such as slashes and hyphens.
Hyphens vs. Underscores
Coke vs. Pepsi, chocolate vs. vanilla, tea vs. coffee, and hyphens vs. underscores. For all the debates that go unsettled, hyphens vs. underscores is the most important in the case of SEO-friendly URLs because there’s a bigger difference than you realize. To Google, hyphens are word separators. For example; “these-are-hyphens” would be translated to Google as “these are hyphens.” However, underscores, according to Google, are word joiners. For example; “these_are_underscores” would be translated to Google as “theseareunderscores.” Hyphens make it much easier for Google and other search engines to process and will allow for greater search engine optimization.
Avoid Keyword Repetition
That’s right we said avoid. When it comes to creating an SEO-friendly URL, keyword repetition is your enemy. Keyword stuffing in hopes of increasing search engine rankings will only lead to a sloppy URL structure, making it difficult for search engines to decipher. If the search engine can’t understand your URL, chances are your visitors won’t either. The key is to keep your URL short and uncluttered. Once is enough for your keyword. Feel free to be a little more generous with keyword repetition within your blogs and the rest of your website’s written content, but keep it out of your URL.
Generating 3.5 billion searches each day, Google and similar search engines rule the web. Make your web page stands out amongst the competition by creating a URL that is short, avoids unnecessary words and characters, and uses hyphens and your keyword. To find out more about how to stand out against the billions with cutting edge SEO, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.com.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Your brand is as much a part of you as anything else. It’s a visual representation of who you are and that’s why creating your brand is one of the most important parts of developing your business. When creating a brand, it’s important to showcase the side you want your audience to see. This brand is your stage and it’s time to show the world what you’ve got.
Here are some helpful tips that will help you in creating your brand.
Research Target Audience
As important as it is to establish yourself within your brand, it’s also just as important to establish a target audience for your brand to focus on. Knowing who your target audience is can prove to be successful in creating a brand. The key is to be as specific as possible. Knowing the demographics of who you’re trying to reach will create a picture in your mind of potential customers and clients. Researching the target audience will also help to create your company’s brand strategy in how and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering your brand’s message to.
Define Your Brand
The next step in creating a brand is to define that brand. This can be done by establishing a mission statement that will emphasize your company’s message. This is the time to look at the benefits and features of your company’s products and services in order to create an accurate message behind your brand. You will want to focus on what you want associated with your company. Remember it should reflect who you are.
Know Your Competitors
Creating and maintaining your brand takes focus. Focus not only on yourself and your own brand but on other brands within the same industry. It’s beneficial to know how your competitors have succeeded and failed to better compete with them. By studying the competing brand you’re able to find ways to reach your target audience in a new, more effective way.
Get the Word Out
Now that you’ve created a brand that’s uniquely you, it’s time to spread the word! Creating a logo and a tagline is a great way to represent your brand’s personality. Be creative and have fun with this part of the process. This is where you create a voice for your company. Once you’ve come up with an image for your brand integrate it in all aspects of your business and all media channels whether it be social media or print just spread the word!
Creating a brand is a way for your company to stand out. Through proper research and reflection of your own business, you can make your brand a reflection of who you are. For more about creating a brand that fits you, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Designing a mobile app for your business was once an optional investment but has now become a necessity to maintain a competitive edge. In fact, mobile searches have exceeded searches from stationary devices such as laptops and desktop computers.
A strong mobile presence is key to both maintaining your current customer base as well as attracting new customers. Designing an app is not always the same as designing a ‘good’ app. There are many different factors that contribute to a successful app design, meaning that consumers enjoy using it and will use it again in the future.
Here are four design factors to consider when creating a mobile app for your business:
Simplicity/Ease of Use
Small screens can be tricky to navigate at times which is why an easy-to-use app with simple design features is ideal. The key is to take as much user input out of the equation as possible. Only the most necessary information should be provided, and the least amount of user action required.
One design feature that successful apps use is the inclusion of larger buttons that aren’t grouped closely together. Remember when designing your mobile app that it should be made for the navigating with the finger and not the mouse. The inclusion of a home screen return button is also important because it provides the user with easy pathway back to home. Navigating through an app should be as simple as possible, you don’t want users jumping from page to page, not being able to find their way around easily.
Visuals
An app should include an enticing visual design in addition to ergonomics. A few factors to keep in mind include:
- Consistency with your brand.
- Contrast is important, especially for users who are trying to see against a glare. Dark text against a light background is a good rule of thumb to follow.
- Less is more when it comes to text. Try to say what you need to in as few words as possible. Consumers on the go may not always have the time or patience to scroll through a lengthy amount of text.
- Enticing visuals does not mean including a large amount of graphics and videos. Excessive picture/video elements on an app can be too much for the eye to take in and can cause your app to operate slowly.
- Keep in mind that not all users are the same. Color-blindness, a fairly common affliction, can prevent users from understanding color coded directions. Using symbols and other cues that are universally understood is the foundation for a successful app.
Speed
Consumers on the go simply don’t have time to wait for an app that loads too slowly and will likely search for a faster one. One effective way to enhance speed is to minimize clutter (unnecessary icons and text).
If your app has reduced all clutter possible and still takes an extra second to load, opt for a loading icon. Loading icons are an excellent feature to include, they inform users that progress is being made and customers won’t be left thinking that your app is always freezing. This is a great area to be creative in as an interesting load bar/icon will hold your audience’s attention.
Prioritize
The organization of your app should be based on the pathways that users are likely to follow and pathways that would lead to sales. Knowing your audience is key here:
- What did they come to your app for?
- What is their likely end goal?
- How can I structure my app to increase conversion rates?
Ask these questions and more when organizing your app and creating the navigational structure. One tip for effectively prioritizing an app is to include a hamburger menu.
The mobile world is only increasing in size which is why businesses must adapt with the times to maintain a competitive edge. If you would like your business to experience the benefits of a new and exciting mobile app, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
In the world of marketing, it is very common to hear about millennials and the strategies used to effectively resonate with them, but not much is said about Generation Z. While marketing to millennials and previous generations is still important for any business, one should keep in mind that early members of generation Z are beginning to become adults. With this newfound adulthood comes consumerism and spending habits.
It is still early to tell how adult Gen Z-ers will react to marketing strategies in ten years or so (or what strategies will be available in that time), but it is very possible that their current consumerism trends will lay the groundwork for the future. Any business that sells youth products will find these trends helpful and any business that currently markets to prior generations may want to learn these trends now to maintain a competitive edge in the coming years.
Here are a few marketing trends that have been observed for Generation Z in relation to their online engagement and purchasing habits:
Mobile Applications and Presence
As the first generation to have grown up in a time when mobile devices are so commonplace, members of Generation Z are savvy smartphone users. Mastering micro-moments and having a strong overall mobile presence will be an important part of Gen Z marketing in the future.
Web Design with Modern Appeal
Having an up to date website with a modern feel to it is much more engaging to younger audiences. If a website is too cumbersome to use, Gen Z-ers (who have the shortest attention span yet) may jump straight to the next link in their web search. An enticing web design is an effective way to attract younger audiences, who are much more visually inclined than previous generations.
Social Media Presence
When they are online, much of Generation Z spends their time on social media. Seeing as they don’t do as much online shopping as millennials, maintaining presence to Gen Z involves having a strong social presence. Native ads are an excellent example of a successful way to market products to younger consumers through social media.
Individualism and Personalized Content
Much of this new generation has been observed to engage much more with content that focuses on their individualism. This means that members of Gen Z often prefer personalized content that is tailored to their specific interests.
Transparency
Generation Z often don’t respond to flashy sales techniques like previous generations do. With so much information at their disposal, Gen Z-ers do their research which is why it is important for businesses to be as straightforward with them as possible. This is also important from an attention standpoint. As mentioned before, this new generation has the shortest attention span yet when it comes to advertisements. This is why getting right to the point is crucial for younger audiences.
Every audience has specific marketing techniques that are most effective at getting through to them and Generation Z is no different. If your business sells youth products or you would like to begin gearing up for future adult consumerism trends, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is often considered the basis of most digital marketing strategies. Many digital marketing tactics today revolve around enhancing a website’s “searchability” through SEO. This means that their goal is to boost a brand’s ranking on a search engine’s results page and, as a result, increase their flow of web traffic and lead generation.
Here is a basic guide to understanding what SEO is, as well as why and how it should be done:
What is SEO?
As mentioned earlier, SEO is the process of enhancing a website’s standing on a search engine’s results page. Google and other search engines use algorithms to ensure that users obtain the most relevant answers to their inquiries.
In Google’s case, these algorithms are complex, regularly updated, and have many “rules” that websites must follow to ensure that they offer the best possible information. This means that search engine algorithms “reward” sites with superior SEO by giving them a higher spot on a results page and “punish” sites with poor SEO by giving them a lower placement. By knowing and adhering to the rules of SEO, a business’s website can gain a higher rank on a search results page.
Why You Need SEO
Enhanced SEO is beneficial for a variety of reasons. From a consumer perspective, it is much easier for them to click on one of the first links they see, rather than scroll through a vast list of possible answers to their question. This is especially true for mobile searches. A small screen and an on-the-go environment will often lead to a consumer clicking on one of the first options they see on their mobile device.
If your company’s website has a higher rank on a search engine’s results page than your competitor’s, it is much more likely that consumers will click on your link and come to you with their business. This also works in reverse, if your competitor has an advanced marketing strategy, with enhanced SEO, then it is likely that you are losing business to them, even if you provide a superior product or service. This is why it is crucial to ensure your brand’s SEO is at peak efficiency.
How to Enhance SEO
There are many factors that go into improving a site’s SEO, as well as many “rules” surrounding these factors. Considering Google search queries account for more than 65% of all searches, it is advantageous to align your SEO efforts with the rules created by Google’s algorithms.
Here are some of the most prevalent areas for SEO enhancement:
Content: consistent production of content is something that Google and other search engines reward. A regular stream of articles, blogs, and other information shows that your website is up to date with the most current information. Search engines will increase your rank if they think that your website is both current and relevant.
Keywords: One of the most important factors in enhancing searchability is the inclusion of specific keywords that are frequently searched and are relevant to your articles subject. A few things to keep in mind for keyword use include:
- Finding the right number of keywords for your page is an important factor, too many or too little may cause your page to fall in rank.
- Ensuring keyword relevancy is also crucial. For example, if you include the right number of keywords in your content but they are not related to the subject matter, algorithms will recognize this and reduce your rank as a result.
Links: The inclusion of links in your content to other webpages is also an important part of SEO. A solid division between links that are inbound (going to pages on your website) and outbound (going to other webpages) is preferable for the best placement on a search results page.
The internet and advances in search engine programming, have revolutionized the way consumers find products and services. If your business is ready for a new marketing strategy with the goal of enhancing your website’s SEO, contact Jessica Chabot, Vice President, Client Services of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
You have streamlined your production, optimized your services, and mastered your specific trade. Now it is time to conduct in-depth market research. Why, you ask?
The answer is this: market research strengthens your brand in a variety of impactful ways. Knowing your target audience allows your business to reach the right people with specialized advertising strategies that speak directly to their values and purchasing trends. Market research also plays a crucial part in knowing which of your new business ideas or brands will succeed.
Read on to learn why market research is one of the best tools you can use to strengthen your brand:
It Enhances Your Outreach
One of the largest benefits of thorough market research is the widened reach of your marketing efforts. A solid understanding of your target audience allows you to reach consumers that you may not have been aware of and vice versa.
The gathering and analysis of consumer data often reveals hidden trends, untapped markets, and unfulfilled needs, all of which can be utilized to provide consumers with tailored services and advertising.
A pre-branding process of thoughtfully prepared and analyzed market research ensures that your brand connects and garners top-of-mind awareness across target markets.
It Reveals Your Audience’s Values
Many businesses make the mistake of becoming so entrenched with their existing products or focus so much on the creative process surrounding their brand elements–logo designs, taglines, and color schemes–that they lose sight of what customers actually want. Oftentimes, this leads to an aesthetically pleasing brand, but one that doesn’t necessarily resonate with target audiences.
In the past, consumers would often buy products based entirely on their function and features. While this is still an important part of the buying process, it has now become necessary for brands to take on personas that emulate certain values. In other words, consumers nowadays want to purchase products and services from businesses whose values align with their own.
Market research allows businesses to have a firm grasp of their target audience’s values. This is important for creating an effective brand, as well as reaching consumers with relevant, personalized content and advertisements.
It Helps You Influence the Buying Process
Not all consumers are created equal. Some are avid buyers of your specific offerings, some are not experienced, and others are somewhere in the middle. In the marketing and sales worlds, this is what is referred to as the sales funnel.
Inexperienced buyers are located at the top of the funnel and require advertising that can assist with their beginner understanding of your products and services. Experienced customers, on the other hand, are located at the bottom of the funnel. They know exactly what they are looking for and require advertising that is much more in depth.
A firm understanding of where members of your target audience are in their buying processes will allow you to diversify your advertisements based on optimizing your unique sales funnel.
It Makes Adapting to Changing Markets Easier
Most markets are not static environments due to the fact that, over time, consumers change their purchasing habits. This is why successful brands are always keeping their ear to the ground by regularly gathering consumer data.
Understanding and reacting to changing market climates allows for businesses to release cutting edge advertising strategies as well as effectively manage consumer opinions through public relations.
Knowing the latest consumer trends through market research and adapting to them makes this area of market research a key factor when building a strong brand.
How to Conduct Market Research
Begin with a Brand Audit
If you have an existing brand that needs a revamp, the first step is to analyze it objectively. Where does your brand stand today and how it changed since it started?
A brand audit typically consists of evaluating the following:
- External Branding: advertising, creative, website, social media, public relations, videos, and print collateral.
- Internal Branding: messaging, brand values, culture, voice, Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and positioning.
- Corporate/Infrastructure: corporate identity and policies, internal systems and sales processes.
Depending on your budget, focus groups, and online surveys of employees, customers, and partners can be helpful tools to identify an existing brand’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. The results of this analysis will provide the necessary direction for your rebrand.
Combine Primary and Secondary Research
For a new brand–be it an original or a rebrand–it is critical to combine both primary and secondary market research methods to produce one that will connect with your target markets. Use qualitative, or exploratory market research methods to ask customers for feedback about your brand or business (or industry-at-large if you are just starting up) via online chats, interviews, and social media.
Conduct secondary market research—information and data gathered by others— by collecting industry-focused information from publications, databases, and associations to assist you in better understanding target market perceptions and any market barriers. This method is also effective in reviewing the current strategies of your competitors; helping you to differentiate yourself in the marketplace.
Along with driving the logo design, this integral research fuels the creation of a unique selling proposition (USP), which serves as a uniform message that articulates why your product or service is the perfect solution for its target markets.
Summarize Your Data
Once the market research phase of your branding initiative is complete, you will have created a comprehensive outline of the characteristics and messaging of a unique and successful brand.
When you feel satisfied with your finished product and you still have the ambition and budget for some extra market research, it is a tried-and-true best practice to test your brand among potential customers and prospects via survey or focus group. Your result will be a brand that prospective and existing customers will embrace, remember, and reward with loyalty.
A successful business is so much more than its products and services. It is a brand that consumers know and love because it speaks directly to them. If your business is ready to experience the advantages of widespread outreach, an in-depth understanding of your target market, an optimized sales funnel, and knowledge of the latest consumer trends, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency at www.mill.agency.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. Visit www.mill.agency or book time here.
Did you know that a 2% increase in customer retention for a business has the same financial effect as a 10% decrease in costs? Many businesses realize the importance of retaining customers and building loyalty but still focus their marketing efforts primarily on attracting new customers.
Here are a few ways that digital marketing can assist with retaining customers.
Personalized Content
In times before web-based commerce, buyers would often return to businesses based on the way they were treated in-person at the store. Nowadays people can make purchases without stepping foot in a store, or even leaving their own house for that matter. This disconnect can make it difficult to provide excellent service to customers and show them that you care.
Personalized content is an excellent way to maintain a connection with your customers. Presenting content to users based on their own unique preferences is an effective way to show that you know your customers and provide them with a positive experience. By offering tailored service, you are much more likely to increase loyalty to your brand.
Web Design and Mobile Applications
A strong web design and mobile app will encourage repeat business and heighten retention. If the website or mobile app for a company is difficult to use, or has a confusing setup, consumers will often make the switch to a competitor that offers the same product/service purely because their web-presence is more streamlined and user friendly.
Consistency and ease-of-use across your business’s web platforms allows customers to know what to expect and a well-thought-out design will make them want to return. The addition of chatbots to a website is just one example of a design feature that enhances the user experience. By quickly answering customer inquiries without requiring them to email or call you, the process is made much simpler on their end. A positive web experience will encourage repeat business from consumers time and time again.
Marketing Automation
Whether they be a one-time form submitter or a ten-year loyal customer, you can always follow up and nurture that lead through marketing automation. This form of digital marketing encapsulates several different processes that automatically reach out to subscribers who have come in contact with your business. This is important because a continuous flow of content to your customers is imperative to maintaining a presence in their mind.
While a consumer may not initially need your product or service, they will remember you when the time comes. It is in this way that marketing automation helps capture missed sales opportunities and encourages repeat business.
Data and Analytics
Gathering consumer data is an important step to learning why some users become loyal customers and why others don’t. Tracking a user’s path through your website that led them to either make a purchase or leave the site allows you to monitor what is working for customer retention and what may need some fixing.
While attracting new business is important for growth, retaining customers is even more important for maintaining that growth. If you feel that implementing digital marketing strategies focused on retaining customers would be advantageous for your business, contact Linda Fanaras, President/Strategist of Millennium Agency.
