In marketing, there’s a lot of different forms of marketing as it keeps evolving. However, traditional marketing is not going away.
The following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post.
The reputation you have with your customers is critical.
That should not come as new news to anyone running a business. How your customers perceive your products and services has a direct impact on future sales and it directly affects prospects consideration. The online community can be both a huge boost as well as a land-mine. Anyone with access to the internet, so basically everyone, can impact how you are perceived. So, what to do?
If you have read any of our articles, there is often one common theme in there, have a plan. It’s better to proactively manage your reputation than to let the social media world run it for you and be in a reactionary mode, especially if there are negative comments.
Assess where you are now
Start with an assessment of where you are today by taking a fresh look at your social media accounts. Understand where your customers are and that’s where you want to be. Depending on the size of your company and the resources you have, you may not need to be everywhere. For example, in our company, and given our target audience, we don’t need to be on TikTok. Then take the time to read the comments and the level of engagement your audience has with your posts. Get a good sense of what people are generally saying and how much is positive, negative, or just neutral.
Engage and boost
This is where the heavier lifting comes into play. It’s increasingly important to engage with your target audience online and this applies to B2B as much as it does in B2C companies. Are you posting regularly? How often you need to varies by the type of company and the channel. For some it might be a few times per week and for others at least once every two weeks. Your marketing team or agency can help determine the proper cadence.
Stay on top of the questions or comments
Try to respond to customer questions within 24 hours if possible. If someone states something incorrectly, it is appropriate to provide the correct answer. If someone says something negative, don’t react until you can assess the validity of the statement and provide a professional response. And given that anyone can say anything, not all comments necessitate a response. Ensure you have a trusted person responsible to answer questions with clear guidelines to help them understand when to escalate or bring in specific expertise.
Content matters
Finally, review what you are posting. Don’t always make it a sales push, but look to educate, inform, and at times, entertain – just be sure to keep it in your brand voice. Be sensitive to the medium you are using. With LinkedIn for example, keep it primarily business oriented. It’s fine to let your personal or company brand personality come through, but it’s probably best to avoid touchy societal topics
Take the time to assess where you are, continuously engage with your target audience and never stop generating content that matters to your target audience. Your brand reputation is critical to maintain, and as Warren Buffet once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post.
Sure, some people are lucky enough to work with a product or service that they consume or want to consume, but most of us spend our days working on products or services where we are not part of the target audience. And, that’s okay. You don’t have to be the target audience to be able to market to them. However, you do have to recognize who they are and keep them top of mind when making marketing and product decisions.
It seems so obvious, but it’s not. For example, a team member may know that their target audience is a 45-64-year-old woman, yet they choose to put a 20-something model in their print ad. Sure, she looks good, but that isn’t the right choice to resonate with the target audience, and in fact, may actually turn off that audience. That is a simple example, but you get the idea. If those marketers were thinking about their target audience, the young model wouldn’t have been a consideration.
Getting into the minds of your audience may take some time and extra thought, but it’s worth it. You need to know them and also know what they say about your brand or product. If your audience says a product is practical, it’s practical. It doesn’t matter that you want it to be chic.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS TO GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE.
See them in action. I spent a large portion of my career in marketing research, so I’ve had the pleasure of watching consumers interact with a variety of products from greeting cards to bank teller lines to welding equipment. There is no replacement for seeing them in action. Get out of your office. Trust me, you will learn something every single time. You can watch them and just observe, or better yet, ask them some questions. Why did you choose that? How did you decide to pick that up first? Was this something on your list or an impulse purchase today? Then listen to what they say and ask follow-up questions. People are more than willing to share their experiences. One thing to remember is that you’re only talking to a small number of folks. Yes, it’s helpful, but don’t make decisions based on what we like to say is “a focus group of one.” Combine this with other learnings.
Conduct primary research with them. There are many methodologies out there from quantitative to qualitative. Match the method to the objective. You’ll want quantitative (e.g., survey) if you want to measure something. An example here is finding the preferred marketing message. To choose a winner, a large sample size is needed which means quantitative. Qualitative (e.g., focus group) is used when you want to explore something. The example here is understanding what the target audience likes and dislikes about a selection of marketing messages.
Dig into secondary research. There is data available on many target audiences – especially if your audience is a common one (e.g., Moms 25 – 54). Understand that this information won’t be specific to your brand or product, but you can still learn a lot about various audiences this way. Try to look at secondary research first, because it can help inform what you want to know from your specific audience.
Knowing your audience is a key step in presenting your brand or product in a way that resonates with them. Take that step – it’s worth it.
Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Here are their insights on the logo’s role in the brand platform.
Recently we received an email from a friend who asked for feedback on his new “brand.” He sent us his logo. We wanted to scream, your brand is more than your logo!
Having a unique and memorable logo that can last the test of time is important. What’s more important is what stands behind it. Otherwise, it’s just another pretty design.
Part of your brand is what you say about your company. But predominantly, your brand is every experience your target audience has with your company.
But where does the logo fit into that? The logo is part of your visual identity which also includes colors, fonts, image style, etc. It’s the face of your brand, it’s what people see. But as anyone running a successful business knows, there is more to it than what people see. It’s all the reasons why a customer buys something in the first place and then keeps coming back for more. (more…)
