Results for: social media marketing strategy

Digital Branding

Social Media Marketing Tips for Effective Brand Growth

Social media is now essential to marketing plans across all business sizes. With over 4.2 billion social media users worldwide, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more offer immense opportunities to build brand awareness, engage with customers, drive traffic, and boost sales.

But, merely maintaining social media profiles does not suffice. Businesses need effective social media marketing tactics to stand out from the crowd and achieve substantial brand growth. This article outlines some of the top social media marketing tips.

Provide Value Through Thought Leadership

Position your brand as an industry thought leader providing education and insights versus overt sales pitches. Share advice, ‘how-to’ guidance, data reports, trend analysis, behind-the-scenes views, leadership perspectives, and more high-value content.

Such helpful and inspiring thought leadership content engages followers, establishes authority, and gives positive impressions that support conversion goals. It also attracts press, speaking, and partnership opportunities.

Engage Followers Through Two-Way Interactions

Simply broadcasting content will not cut it anymore. Brands need to have meaningful two-way interactions with their social media followers.

  • Reply to comments and messages promptly and thoughtfully
  • Ask for feedback through polls and surveys
  • Address queries and concerns effectively

Such personal engagement humanizes your brand and boosts affinity. It also provides valuable insights into customer needs and preferences, allowing you to refine marketing accordingly.

Execute Targeted Ad Campaigns

Paid social promotions provide a compelling avenue to connect with relevant niches and demographics aligned with the brand. Strategic ad campaigns targeted to the viewer’s location, age, interests, behaviors, and more can cost-efficiently amplify organic content reach and increase conversions.

It is vital to leverage unique ad formats and best practices of each platform for optimized results. For instance, leverage photo ads on Facebook, carousels on Instagram, and promoted tweets on Twitter.

Build Consistent Branding

A coherent brand image across social media cultivates familiarity and trust among audiences. Maintaining alignment with the core brand identity is vital.

  • Use consistent profile imagery, color schemes and voice reflecting the brand guidelines
  • Echo any signature slogans, themes or hashes that embody the brand’s essence

Such uniformity makes the brand instantly recognizable to users. It tangibly builds affinity that makes followers more receptive to marketing messages. Studies reveal over 30% revenue rise for brands leveraging consistent versus fragmented presence. Moreover, consistency aids discovery by making branded search terms more prevalent and findable across social platforms.

Create Appealing Visual Content

Visual content has become extremely popular on social media. Posts with images receive up to 180% more likes than text-only posts. When creating content, focus on:

  • Top-notch, attention-grabbing visual content that resonates with your brand image is crucial.
  • Infographics, stop-motion videos, announcement posts, behind-the-scenes footage, and tutorials.
  • Relevant hashtags that help discoverability
  • Optimized images and videos for mobile viewing experience
  • Customizable overlays with calls-to-action to encourage shares

Leverage User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) created by customers and fans provides authenticity that branded content cannot match. The most effective UGC includes product reviews/unboxings, testimonials, brand mentions, re-shares and more.

UGC can be seamlessly woven into other content like social proof. With permission, outstanding UGC can be adapted into ads and post boosting. According to Zippia, a staggering 78% of customers feel a connection with businesses that captivate them through distinctive and valuable content. So, inspire UGC creation through incentives and by delivering share-worthy experiences.

Establish Clarity on Objectives and Audience

The foundation for an impactful social media growth strategy is defining the core objectives and target audience. Evaluating crucial questions is imperative initially:

  • What are the vital goals intended for the social media presence?
  • Is the priority to drive traffic to the company website organically or enhance engagement metrics on the social platforms themselves?

Once the goals are established, the next step would be to analyze the consumer demographics, interests, behaviors and needs to accurately map the target audiences to create tailored branding and communication appealing to them. 

Having this clarity of purpose and understanding of the people you seek to connect with is vital. It enables crafting a high-level roadmap or framework across channels to achieve the envisioned social media success for the brand.

Implement referral marketing

Word-of-mouth referrals are extremely convincing in driving brand perception and sales. Social media referral programs incentivize existing customers to refer your business to their networks through:

  • Custom links
  • Promo codes
  • Gamification elements making referral generation competitive

Continually Assess 

Evaluating social media strategies based on tangible performance data is vital to optimize effectiveness. Most platforms provide insightful analytics on critical metrics like audience reach, engagement levels, and response rates.

To objectively determine campaign successes and shortcomings, brands should actively monitor these reports. These learnings empower iterative testing of creative formats, posting times, messaging angles and topics to drive higher engagement.

Wrapping Up

Executing these continually advancing social media marketing best practices necessitates commitment, vigilance, and adaptability. However, brands that embrace this process can achieve substantial awareness, engagement, and conversion growth over the long term.

SaaS Branding

Product Marketing vs. Product Management: Demystifying the Roles

Product management focuses on the development of a product while product marketing focuses on launching a finished product to the market.

I agree this is an oversimplified differentiation between the two.

In reality, the two disciplines overlap and are more intertwined. Not just the disciplines, even the roles, responsibilities, and skills of a product manager and a product marketing manager, who manage the respective disciplines, overlap.

This often leads to confusion between product marketing and product management and the role of a product marketing manager and product manager.

In this post, we will dig deep into product marketing vs. product management and the roles of a product manager and product marketing manager.

What is product management?

Product management is an organizational function that focuses on the management of the complete lifecycle of the product — from its conception to development, launch, and ongoing improvement.

A product manager or product owner is responsible for guiding the product life cycle.

Martin Eriksson calls product management the intersection of business, user experience, and technology.

Product management is different from project management, which looks into the day-to-day details of a product’s development. And product management is also different from product marketing, which takes care of marketing the finished product into the market.

What is product marketing?

Product marketing is an organizational function that focuses on launching a finished product to the market and making it discoverable to the customer with the purpose of selling it.

It includes deeply defining a product’s target audience, USP, and messaging and positioning, competitor research, and creation & distribution of the content.

A product marketer is responsible for creating, executing, and managing product marketing strategy.

What is the difference between product marketing and product management?

The difference between product marketing and product management is that product marketing focuses on launching a finished product to the market while product management is concerned with the creation of the product.

A product manager oversees the product management function whereas a product marketing manager oversees the product marketing function.

The confusion between the two roles and the two disciplines lies because they both are concerned with the successful launch of the product to the market.

A product manager researches and analyzes the market because they want to make sure that the product is the right fit for the market, desired by the end users, and fulfills the company’s objectives.

 

On the other hand, a product marketing manager researches and analyzes the market because they want to make sure that the developed product is reaching its intended target audience and is portrayed in the best possible light.

A product manager focuses on creating the product that is the right market fit whereas a product marketing manager focuses on positioning the product effectively to the right audience with the intent to make users purchase the product.

There are also some clearly visible differences between these two disciplines and roles.

For example, product marketing is not concerned with the technology part or the development of the product, but product management is concerned with strategizing, development, and user experience of the product.

Though product marketing can influence feature development with its deep marketing insights at any stage of product development and product development can influence product marketing with its product offerings at any stage.

Product marketing vs. product management

Product marketing 

Product management 

Focuses on bringing the product to market

Focuses on creating and  developing the product

Product launch, promotion, branding, positioning, and messaging 

Product roadmaps, defining features for development, maintaining backlog, and project planning

Work closely with sales, marketing, customer success, and product management team

Works closely with engineers, user-experience designers, and other stakeholders 

Achieve business objectives by  generating demand for products and accelerating sales

Achieve business objectives by delivering user-centric products that drive business growth

Focus on creating compelling product stories that resonate with your target audience

Gather user feedback continuously and use it to inform product development decisions

The role of a product manager

The role of a product manager is to ensure that the team creates a product that is desired by the customers and serves the business objective. They work cross-functionally with managers from various departments, including marketing, sales, finance, and legal to ensure that each step of the product development life cycle is executed properly.

This leads to a set of responsibilities of a product manager. Have a look at them.

 

Responsibilities of a product manager include:

  • Understanding and identifying customer needs.
  • Performing market research and competitive analysis to identify the product-market fit.
  • Representing the end-user needs and defining the vision for a product.
  • Creating a product roadmap (roadmap tools will ease this process), defining the project scope, setting goals and milestones, and defining strategy for product development.
  • Defining product features, coordinating product release, gathering feedback from end-users and stakeholders to iterate on the product to make improvements.
  • Communicating with stakeholders from various departments to align product development with business objectives.
  • Guiding teams through the entire product lifecycle.
  • Gathering feedback and guiding ongoing improvement on the product.

Essential product manager skills

A product manager is either someone who is a master at technical development with good business understanding or a seasoned marketer with decent technical skills who can drive the creation of the product.

 There is a certain set of skills a product manager needs to be successful in the role. Have a look at them.

  • Communication skills: A product manager has to lead the marketing, development, and business aspects of a product. They should have good communication skills to understand others and convey messages in a way that everyone can comprehend.
  • Project management: A product manager needs to oversee the entire product life cycle. They should have practical knowledge of project management methodologies to manage various projects, create product roadmaps, and devise an actionable strategy for product development.
  • Technical skills: A product manager needs to have a decent knowledge of technical software development including coding, testing, and deployment to lead the overall product development.
  • Research and problem-solving skills: A product manager should be able to research extensively to gain knowledge and find solutions to the problem. It is because they have to set a vision, guide teams through the product life cycle, and solve challenges daily.
  • Analytical and strategic thinking: A product manager should be able to think analytically, critically, and strategically. It also requires the adaptability and flexibility of mindset to make better decisions.

The role of a product marketing manager

The role of a product marketing manager is to design, execute, track, and manage the product marketing campaign. A product marketing manager works with the product development team, sales team, and marketing team to ensure the successful launch of the product.

A product marketing manager plays a key role in all three stages of the product launch:

  • Before the launch: By sharing insights to develop a product with the right market fit.
  • During the launch: By creating a product’s go-to-market strategy.
  • After the launch: By overseeing customer response to the product, receiving feedback, and taking necessary actions for potential improvement.

This leads to a set of responsibilities of a product marketing manager throughout the product lifecycle marketing. Have a look at them.    

Responsibilities of a product marketing manager include:

  • Deeply understanding the target audience and defining ideal customer profile and buyer personas.
  • Performing competitor research to learn about your competitor’s products and marketing tactics.
  • Establishing the product’s messaging and positioning to position the product appropriately in the market.
  • Creating a product’s go-to-market strategy and building the product’s branding and image.
  • Creating content including blog posts, social media posts, email newsletters, videos, and ads to drive awareness and demand for the product.
  • Managing the content calendar and content distribution to ensure the product reaches its intended audience.
  • Tracking the marketing campaign for the optimization and improvement.
  • Ensure the marketing, product, sales teams, and other stakeholders are all on the same page.
  • Guiding the marketing team to drive sales and profit for the business.

Essential product marketing manager skills

A product marketing manager is someone who is heavily skilled at marketing. There is a certain set of skills a product marketing manager needs to excel at the role. Have a look at them.

  • Team building and leadership: The marketing team works under a project marketing manager. They should have good team-building and leadership skills. It includes skills like communication, storytelling, conflict resolution, decision-making, and analytical and critical thinking.
  • Empathy: Emotions play a big part in product marketing. A product marketing manager should have empathy to understand the pain points of the customers. This not only helps you create effective market campaigns but also handles your team’s emotions well and understands your emotions better.
  • Meeting deadlines: A product marketing manager should be good at meeting deadlines. It helps them plan the content calendar effectively and deliver the content on time to lead business growth.
  • Strategic and tactical thinking: Strategic thinking helps a project create long-term strategy while tactical thinking helps a project manager take short-term marketing initiatives to achieve business objectives. A project manager needs both strategic and tactical thinking skills to create marketing campaigns that outperform the competitors.
  • Technical skills: A product marketing manager needs good technical skills including market research, competitive analysis, knowledge of various marketing strategies, content creation, content management systems, and knowledge of marketing automation to create marketing campaigns that serve business objectives.

Do you need both a product manager and a product marketing manager?

A product manager and a product marketing manager work closely together to achieve the common goal of product success.

It is because even the best product with poor marketing fails to reach its audience; resulting in a failure of the product.

Similarly, a poor product that does not fulfill end-users’ needs even with the best marketing strategy would not be able to make a mark in the market.

That’s why you need both product marketing and product management for a successful product launch.

Having said that, in some companies, a product manager takes care of the role of product marketing manager. In that case, it is good to make sure that the product manager along with the technical development leader has expertise in product marketing to make the product successful.  

Top online course for product managers

Learning courses can help you build the knowledge and skills required to become a successful product manager and get certified. Here are the top three online courses for product managers:

      

1. Product Management Program by Stanford School of Engineering

This program will equip you with the skills you need to be a great product manager. It covers topics like product creation, marketing, team operations, product costing, and more to teach you the skills you need for effective product management.

Course link: https://online.stanford.edu/programs/product-management-program

2. Product Manager Certification (PMC)™ by Product School

In this program, you will learn to build products end-to-end and get the hands-on experience you need to lead Product teams. You will gain practical skills and apply everything you have learned through a comprehensive final project to create a product from ideation to launch.

Course link: https://productschool.com/product-manager-certification

3. Software Product Management Specialization by the University of Alberta

In this course, you will learn to create better software products using Agile Practices. You will learn the Agile software management practices that will help you lead a team of developers and navigate the realistic scenarios you will face as a Software Product Manager.

Course link: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/product-management     

Top online courses for product marketing managers

Have a look at the top three courses for product marketing managers.

1. Product Marketing Manager Certification (PMMC)™ by Product School

In this course, you will learn about how to master product positioning, deliver messaging that captivates customers, create exceptional go-to-market plans, and choose metrics to demonstrate impact. You will learn from the experts who designed marketing campaigns for companies like Spotify, Shopify, DoorDash, and more.

Course link: https://productschool.com/product-marketing-manager-certification    

2. Product Marketing Core by Product Marketing Alliance   

This course teaches you all the concepts you need to successfully promote and sell your product. You will learn about pricing strategies, market research, OKRs and KPIs, personas, messaging and positioning, go-to-market strategies, and more.

Course link: https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/product-marketing-certified-core  

3. Certified Product Marketing Manager (CPMM™) by 280Group

Certified Product Marketing Manager credentials demonstrate your skills in creating and executing the marketing plan and budget, creating marketing campaigns to drive customer acquisition and revenue, and both strategic and tactical marketing functions throughout the product life-cycle. You can enroll in the Optimal Product Management Training course by 280 Group to prepare for the AIPMM CPMM™ certification exam.

Course link: https://aipmm.com/cpmm       

What is the salary of a product manager and a product marketing manager?

As per the Glassdoor estimates, the average salary for a Product Manager in the United States area is $125,778 per year, while the average salary for a Product Marketing Manager is $121,396 per year in the United States area.

The total pay range for a product manager is $121K – $206K/year. Whereas, the total pay range for a product marketing manager is $128K – $206K/year.

Wrapping it up

Product marketing and product management are two different organizational functions with the common purpose of launching a successful product that customers love to use and serve business objectives. A clear understanding of the role helps you implement the right strategies and appoint the right people to create successful products.

Use social media to find a friend
Local Branding

Planning a Successful Media Event

A media event is an opportunity to showcase a company, product, or service to a broader audience, gaining significant visibility and publicity. It’s a strategic move that, if executed well, can catapult an organization to the forefront of its industry. Successful media events are the result of careful planning and coordination, ensuring that the right message is conveyed to the right audience at the right time. Here’s how to make it all happen!

Identify Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is a multidimensional task that goes beyond basic demographics. Delve deeply into market research to comprehend the psychographic and behavioral aspects of your audience. Explore their past interactions with similar events or products, identifying patterns that can inform your event strategy. This understanding allows you to personalize your event, tailoring not only the content but also the overall experience to resonate with their values and expectations.

Define Your Objectives

When it comes to defining objectives for your media event, it’s not just about having a general idea of what you want to achieve. You should intricately analyze and articulate your goals. These objectives should be quantifiable, time-bound, and aligned with your organization’s broader strategic goals. Consider breaking them down into short-term and long-term objectives, creating a roadmap for success. Moreover, make sure these objectives are realistic and achievable within the scope and resources of your event planning.

Choose the Right Venue and Date

The selection of a suitable venue is a meticulous process that involves more than just assessing the space. Evaluate the venue’s accessibility, infrastructure, and overall ambiance to ensure it aligns with the image you want to portray. Negotiate with venues to secure favorable terms and conditions that suit your budget and requirements. Additionally, the date selection process should factor in not only industry trends and competitors’ events but also the seasonality of your target market and potential weather impacts.

Craft a Captivating Storyline

Creating a captivating storyline is an art that requires a deep understanding of storytelling techniques. Conduct a thorough SWOT analysis not just for your organization but also for the storyline itself. Identify the story’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, enabling you to craft a narrative that leverages the strengths and overcomes weaknesses. Weave a compelling story that not only resonates emotionally but also aligns with the unique aspects of your brand, leaving a lasting impression on your audience, especially if you present it using one of those effective media walls that will help your event stand out and become memorable.

Create a Detailed Event Plan

A detailed event plan acts as the blueprint for your event’s success. Break down the plan into granular tasks, defining the responsible individuals, resources required, and timelines for each. Categorize these tasks into different phases, meticulously outlining pre-event, event-day, and post-event activities. Anticipate challenges that may arise and develop contingency plans to mitigate these challenges swiftly and effectively, ensuring a seamless event experience for all stakeholders.

Involve Influencers and Key Media Contacts

Engaging influencers and media contacts demands a strategic and relational approach. Beyond merely inviting them, cultivate relationships by understanding their interests and expectations. Offer tailored benefits that align with their goals, ensuring a mutually beneficial collaboration. Encourage them to share their experiences and perspectives, making them feel valued and integrated into the event’s narrative. This symbiotic relationship amplifies your event’s reach and impact.

Utilize Social Media and Marketing Strategies

Incorporating a robust social media and marketing strategy necessitates a comprehensive understanding of each platform’s nuances. Develop a content strategy that not only aligns with your brand’s voice but also caters to the specific demographics and behaviors of each platform. Leverage paid advertising strategically to augment organic reach, focusing on targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience. Consistently analyze performance metrics, adapting your strategy in real-time to maximize engagement and drive desired actions.

Rehearse and Fine-Tune the Details

The rehearsal process is a critical phase where attention to detail can make all the difference. Simulate the event environment meticulously, leaving no stone unturned. Anticipate potential hiccups and challenges, working through scenarios to develop effective solutions. Fine-tune not only presentations and transitions but also the overall flow of the event based on feedback from the rehearsal. This iterative process ensures a flawless execution on the actual day, providing a polished and memorable event experience.

The success of a media event lies in the depth of planning and execution. By elaborately defining objectives, intimately understanding your target audience, carefully selecting the venue and date, crafting a compelling storyline, meticulously planning every aspect, engaging influencers strategically, utilizing tailored social media strategies, and rehearsing diligently, you set the stage for an event that not only meets but exceeds expectations. This comprehensive approach ensures that your media event stands out, leaving a lasting impact on attendees and reinforcing your brand’s image and message in the market.

Social media marketing
Digital Branding

Best 6 Strategies to Promote any Event Through Social Media 

There is a lot that goes into planning an event. From managing the event registrations to in-event arrangements and promotions, event hosts know how laborious bringing together event arrangements can be.

There are so many tasks and not one can be put below another. If you are prioritizing the organizing and planning of the event, you cannot ignore the event promotions and marketing. 

And now, with social media being the monogram of authenticity for any business, it is a must to include it in every promotion.

And fortunately, promoting your event on social media can actually be extremely beneficial for you and even make your task a lot easier and budget friendly. 

You only need an effective set of strategies to reach your promotion goals. And speaking of goals, any event’s ultimate goal is to bring more people to attend the event.

So here are a few social media strategies to promote any type of event. 

6 Social Media Strategies To Promote Your Event 

1. Stay Active On Social Media 

This may sound like an obvious thing to do but many times, people forget the importance of simply staying active on social media. 

Promoting your event on social media is rather simple. But it is crucial to stay transparent with your audience. You can stay active by sharing snippets of the event’s arrangements, behind the scenes and giving sneak peeks to your audience. 

Another way to grab your audience’s attention is by liking their tweets, status updates, or posts. Another must-do is to be responsive. 

Make sure to reply to comments and messages. Especially those asking for more details about the event. This way you can keep your audience with you until the end of the event. 

2. Introduce An Event Specific Hashtag 

An event-specific hashtag can be the most advantageous strategy you can include in your event promotions.

With the help of a specific hashtag, you can increase your event’s visibility on social media. A hashtag for your event can also help you to gain more popularity and spark conversations about your event. 

This is also an extremely effective way to collect and boost user-generated content around your event. You can introduce a hashtag and use a social media wall at your event to showcase the collected UGC. 

A small tip to introduce a hashtag for your event is to keep it simple, specific, and unique. The hashtag should be short enough so the audience can remember it, event-specific so it can easily remind the viewers of the event, and unique so that the content remains specific only to the event participants.  

3. Run A Social Media Campaign 

Running a social media campaign for the event is another impactful technique for promotions. You can collaborate with influencers and content creators to promote your campaign and even urge them to use your event’s hashtag while promoting your event. 

A social media campaign will help you reach more audiences in a short period of time. You will be able to tap into the audience of influencers you are collaborating with, and you will also be able to generate valuable content for your event to showcase during the event. 

4. Create A Pre-Buzz, Showcase Snippets From Previous Events

People love attending events with more popularity. Creating a buzz around your event can boost your event’s visibility and generate a sense of FOMO among potential audiences.

A great way to do that is by showcasing snippets from previous events and giving your audience a gist of what they could be missing on. People love watching well-curated video compilations and you can use content from your previous events to create a video teaser and promote your event.  

5. Reveal Your Speakers

A popular guest or speaker at your event can be a great source of popularity for your event. You can reveal your speakers on social media and capture the audience interested in catching the speaker live.

You can ask the speakers to share your event’s details on their page and get the attention of their audience as well. A popular personality can bring a large ounce of audience interest to your event. 

6. Host A Contest

Social media contests are known for performing exceptionally well. They are the best way to boost your social media page’s engagement and following. You can host a contest and announce the winners of the contest at the event itself. This will ensure a great conversion of participants from social media to your event. 

This is another excellent way to increase your event’s visibility through social media and can promote your event in the right direction. 

The Final Word

Promoting your brand on all the prominent social media channels is not an option or a choice. It has become a vital strategy to move forward with any kind of promotion. 

However important it may be, it is crucial to follow a plan to achieve the best results. In this blog, we have provided a few strategies that you can use to promote your event through social media.

Author Bio

Prakash Rawat is a savvy digital marketing specialist. For the past two years, he has been specializing in SEO, PPC & Marketing Strategy. He has a super sharp analytical mind and a finely tuned creative eye for marketing initiatives that optimize brands.
You can reach out to him on Linkedin.

Printer cartridges
Digital Branding

4 Tips to Ramp up Your Product Marketing Efforts Through Screen Printing

Screen printing is one of the most efficient marketing strategies. Are you starting a business? Use screen printing for a commercial sign. Do you want to promote one of your products? Screen print stickers to offer them at any purchase of the desired product. The screen-printing process allows for more personalization, trending among customers, whether they want a T-shirt with their favorite movie or fleet graphics for their small delivery business.

However, screen printing must be combined with the proper marketing strategy to reach the best outcomes. Otherwise, you might print materials that can be useless since your target audience is not interested in stickers or posters. As a screen-printing business, you must extend your area of services and reach out to other small businesses that need you.

Regardless, let’s get into strategizing your screen-printing business.

man holding printing screen near white window

Find your market segment

Market segmentation is the easiest yet most complicated method of finding the people who are in need of your products and services. It implies that you create an imaginary version of the perfect customer and try to determine features that would make them choose your business. Some details about the client’s persona include:

  • Age: what is the age at which people need screen-printed products?
  • Gender: do more men or women need your services?
  • Income: what income or jobs have the people that would consider it affordable to purchase from my business?
  • Interests: are they passionate about movies, or do they own a small company?

And so on. This persona will suffer minor changes if you decide to offer your services to other businesses rather than regular people because you may need to reach out to different providers or approach a specific market strategy. Despite these nuances, what’s essential to determine is who needs you.

Choose a proper marketing channel

This step wouldn’t be possible without assessing your customer persona because you need to know where they spend their time most; that means learning what social platforms they use frequently. If you can find it, it’ll be easy to choose the proper channel that allows you to reach out to them quickly.

That’s because even if you make thousands of advertisements on a random platform, your efforts will be in vain since your targeted audience does not spend time there. You could find out by simply asking your customers what channel they prefer using. If you want to find a more exact answer, you could research finding the platform your customer persona would engage the most.

You have plenty of platforms to create smooth communication, like:

  • Physical channels: trade shows, fairs, associations;
  • Traditional media: TV, magazines, banners;
  • Online: websites, forums, blogs;
  • Email: newsletters (weekly or monthly);
  • Social: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube;

People have to find you fast when you’re needed for your services. Otherwise, they might lose interest. So, when someone is looking for Screen Printing in Denver, CO, they need fast results and an optimized website or app that allows them to contact you in a matter of seconds. But for this, you need more than a communication channel; you need to boost your SEO.

Cross-sell

Cross-selling is among the most efficient marketing strategies. It involves recommending an additional product to the customer who’s already purchasing something. For example, when someone asks for illuminated signs for their office, you may suggest they also get facility-wide signage outside the building. They might be interested in your proposal, and you might offer them a discount for both services, and this is how you keep customers loyal.

However, when approaching this method, you must consider your client’s interests more important than the strategy. That means you need to suggest products or services that are really valuable for your customers instead of marking another sale. People can tell when you’re genuinely interested in helping them or just trying to sell more, so you need to be careful when shooting your shot. The trick is to know your customers well. That means being an exceptional seller and asking them questions (but not being too intrusive) while pursuing long-term collaborations.

You can increase customer loyalty through cross-selling. If you’re truly interested in your customer’s needs, it’s safe to say they’ll go back to you each time they need a certain screen-printing service. At the same time, strengthening your customer relationship can turn into customer retention, ensuring a safety net of customers that will support you in more challenging times.

Ask for referrals

Asking for referrals is the least time-consuming strategy you could have, and it’s also one of the easiest methods of generating high-quality sales leads. This is because referred customers are more likely to believe in your trustworthiness as a business since someone familiar has already tested your products.

Asking for referrals regarding your screen-printing services can be easily done through an email where you need to sound like you’re talking to an old friend, so your language shouldn’t be too formal and academic. Always add a personal note to your emails so that your clients feel like they’re given an important task they can’t refuse since you were too straightforward and friendly.

You can also get qualitative referrals by:

  • Having a customer loyalty program to reward clients for advocating on your business’s behalf;
  • Keep current customers engaged by staying in touch with them post-sale;
  • Offering incentives in the form of gift cards;
  • Referring to other companies for providing equal compensation;
  • aligning with your customers’ values to nurture partnerships;

This practice can increase your overall sales because it creates a powerful social circle of people that are interested in your printing services. If a business owner accepts referring you to their close group, new customers will be looking forward to collaborating with you.

Final thoughts

Boosting your screen-printing business can be easily done if you test a few methods. However, you must know your target audience well and improve your client retention approach to get loyal clients and a brand known for qualitative products, services, and deep customer relationships.

Digital Branding

Top Social Media Strategies to Drive Frozen Food Business

There were a time when independent food businesses were dependent mostly upon walk-in customers, word of mouth, print media evaluations before the new era of smartphones and social media started. In the digital age, everything is changed. The customers, on the other hand, are increasingly getting information, determining how to spend their time, and making purchases online.

A low-quality vendor with a high budget may still succeed simply because he or she can afford the rent across from the bus stop. But the case is totally opposite for a smaller one. Especially for a more ambitious artisanal bakery operating out of a home kitchen, as he or she might now compete.

Everyone has a chance at a slice of the pie with the correct new media marketing and branding strategy. Here are some of the best online techniques to consider for the better growth of your frozen food business:

1. Younger People Should Be Targeted

You are not alone if you still have the tape of your mother or father reminding you to eat your vegetables as a child. This reminder is also lodged in the minds of the younger generation of Millennials and Gen Z. When it comes to fresh and frozen vegetable consumption, it is the younger age that is driving the surge. As a result, when it comes to your frozen food business, this is the ideal market.

The truth is that the younger generation is far more health-conscious than their older counterparts. As a result, individuals are more inclined to choose frozen fruits or veggies over other options. This is because they know they are healthier.

2. Make Your Company Green

People are more concerned than ever before about where they spend their money. They want to know that their money is going to be well spent. If you show that your frozen food company cares about the environment, you’ll be able to gain traction in almost every market area. 

For instance, you might want to supply environmentally friendly custom frozen food packaging. You want to make it known that your food was sourced responsibly. You want to make sure your customers know you’re working hard to be carbon-neutral.

3. Show Off Your Creativity & Variety

Finally, you must demonstrate sincerity, variety, and creativity. Customers want to know exactly what ingredients are used in their cuisine. Make every attempt to keep your ingredient list as short as possible. Provide organic alternatives. Single-serve portions should be made. 

Try to come up with ways to serve cuisines that are influenced by many civilizations. You have various options to promote the Innovative frozen food items that you supply. From demos to signs, and from social media to email marketing, there is so much to avail. 

Next, strive to get feedback from your clients through your marketing channels. You will inspire loyalty among your consumer base if you demonstrate that you care about what they have to say.

4. Distribute Dynamic Content

The purpose of content marketing is to build authority through information sharing. Google will rank you higher for related keywords if you post more helpful material regarding the food sub-niche. Your regular readers will love to share your dynamic and original material with others. They will also return for more if it actually gives value to your intended audience by addressing their interests.

Get started on your blog straight away so that your pages can begin to get indexed. This can take some time. Start by sharing some of your favorite cooking tidbits – they’re generally amusing.

5. Participate in Niche Food Photography Communities

Pinterest is only the beginning when it comes to exposing small frozen food brands via photo-sharing groups. Foodily, Instagram, Purple, Kitchen Artistry, dishPal, and food-oriented groups on Flickr are just a few of the super-targeted communities where opportunities abound. It is a nice selection to get you started.

Despite the fact that some of these platforms have a small audience, the people who use them have already decided that they are interested in what you have to offer. 

6. Online Ordering Should Be Enabled

You may already be using your website as an eCommerce property, depending on the type of food you sell. This is a necessity if your consumables are packaged and can be sent easily. Online ordering has the power to increase sales to some great level, no matter if the food item must be delivered within a specific time frame. Although this is not the case when you are dealing with frozen food items. 

Electronic payment alternatives and digital self-service ordering are greatly desired by both restaurateurs and food consumers. Experts claim that anything that can be bought by ordering online has a higher chance of boosting sales. Whether it is an edible product or a hot selling high speed robot arm, the right online information and ordering remove many hurdles. 

7. Optimize Your Website on Mobile Devices

Hungry people sitting at home have two options. The first one is getting to know where to find good food. And the second option is attacking the empty fridge again and again. But when individuals are out and about, especially in an unfamiliar location, they will rely on their smartphones for directions. 

Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly so that these potential customers do not depart with a bad taste in their mouths.

8. Optimize Your Website For Local Search

Google receives roughly two billion local intent queries per month from desktop computers in the United States alone. For example, if someone is interested in trade show rentals in Las Vegas, the person will simply type in Google search and hundreds of websites will appear. The same rule applies to your frozen food business.

More than half of all smartphone searches contain location-related terms. These stats make sense when you realize that the internet is a terrific resource for busy people looking for things to do on short notice. Geo-targeted campaign settings from Google and Facebook’s pay-per-click ad networks can help if organic local search results in your area are too competitive.

In Close

Today’s competition in the food industry is more fierce than it has ever been. It could be difficult for you to make your frozen food business stand out. You will not only protect your market share but also expand among the current demographic of shoppers if you employ these marketing methods.

Digital Branding

8 Expert Tips to Produce an Account Based Marketing Content Strategy

If you run marketing campaigns for a B2B company, chances are you have heard of Account Based Marketing.

Also called ABM, it is a marketing strategy meant to reach potential prospects within a target company. Instead of reaching out to an individual, ABM allows you to connect to a group of stakeholders.

This also explains why ABM requires close coordination between marketing and sales to succeed. Add to that content marketing, and you can produce excellent results.

But to make that happen, you need to produce precise content. This can be based on industry, roles and functions of your target decision-makers, or the size of an organization.

That said, here are eight tips that you can use to develop an Account Based Marketing content strategy:

Know Your Target’s “Who” and “What”

Sure, Account Based Marketing means that you are reaching out to a target account. However, every account is made up of a group of decision-maskers.

Before you build a content marketing campaign for a prospect, you need to know who you should target. You also need to identify their roles in an organization.

That’s because a piece of information that matters for a Chief Finance Officer may not matter for a Chief Executive Officer.

However, you should not rely on LinkedIn alone when scouring the Internet to target accounts. You should also look into a company’s annual reports, earning calls, social media accounts, and blog. Doing so can give you an insight into the key issues that a prospect is facing and how your products and services can help solve those.

Use an Account-specific Subdomain

This one is pretty basic but often overlooked.

Whenever you are driving a lead to your website, it would help to use a specific subdomain. Doing so adds a personalized touch. It also makes your prospect feel that you went the extra mile to create an online experience that is unique to them.

As such, it will be inherent for them to engage and interact. That’s called the “power of reciprocity.”

Build a Content-rich Microsite

In relation to the previous point, your account-specific subdomain must have the right pieces of content. This is where having a microsite can come in handy.

Think of your microsite as a content hub. This is where you will organize and present relevant content, third-party data, and resources that will be meaningful to your prospect.

That said, we recommend that you use an ABM platform that can help you build and measure your microsite’s ROI. This includes the number of site visitors, the most accessed content, and how they interact with your data.

Incorporate the Company Name

There is a reason personalization is integral in content marketing. One of which is that it compels your prospect to act.

But do not take our word for it. Let the numbers speak for themselves:

  • 74% of consumers are frustrated when web content is not personalized.
  • 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that provides a personalized experience.
  • Consumers view personalized content as essential.
  • 85% of consumers are influenced to buy because of personalized homepage promotions.
  • Personalized calls to action convert two times better than a standard CTA.

A straightforward way to personalize your B2B offer is to incorporate your prospect’s company name. Instead of saying “Learn How to Improve Company Efficiency,” you can say “Improve Efficiency at Oracle.”

Provide the Right Tools to Your Sales Team

As mentioned earlier, Account Based Marketing requires coordination between marketing and sales. As such, you must be providing your sales team with the right tools.

That’s because they will be the ones who will make the connection with your prospects.

Arm your sales team with guided conversations, including value-driven offers like a product demo. That way, they can get the prospects to respond to them and move them further down the sales funnel.

From there, your sales team can gather critical data about your target account. For instance, they can ask whether a prospect uses a competitor’s products and services and what additional features they would like to have.

Pitch a Web-based Presentation

A personalized, content-rich microsite is fantastic, but they are not meant to drive sales. Sure, they allow a prospect to navigate through your content and learn about what you can do for their business. However, it does not demonstrate how your products and services work.

This is where a web-based presentation comes in.

It is like a “virtual salesperson” that pitches your products and services in a linear, storytelling way. Doing so enables you to control your marketing message and pacing. For instance, you can include how your products and services work and how your prospect can make the most out of it.

Offer a Useful Client Experience

Here’s the thing: Prospect-to-salesperson connections do not always happen. That’s because there are target accounts that would like to gather more information before you can urge them to talk to you.

As such, it would be helpful if you could provide your ideal clients with the right tools and content that can support their exploration. This includes interactive white papers, assessments, and quizzes. Doing so can also enable you to accelerate a target account’s consideration phase.

Track and Measure Your Content

Just like with any content marketing campaign, you should always track and measure your efforts.

For instance, you can measure the engagement levels of each persona. That way, you would know which content fosters prospect-to-salesperson connection and generates sales.

On the other hand, you can tweak or eliminate content that does not produce results.

Still, keep in mind that your analytics will only work if you have well-defined goals and KPIs. So ensure that you have them in place before you run an ABM content strategy.

ABM and Content can Work Hand-in-Hand

The content tips listed above are some of the things you can do when building a content marketing strategy for your ABM effort. Regardless, the key here is to produce highly-targeted content.

Build a microsite or a web-based product demonstration that will be relevant to your target account. That way, your prospects will be compelled to interact with you. It will also enable you to guide them further down the sales funnel.

As a result, you can generate excellent ROI.

Digital Branding

4 Tried and Tested Ways to Promote Your Brand on Social Media

If you’re an entrepreneur, responding to your customers on social media platforms can build relationships that instantly boost your brand awareness. This effect gets even better if you constantly interact and engage with your online community.

Replying to your online community isn’t hard, especially when you have a flexible solution to deal with community engagement. Even the most successful brands with millions of followers are frequently investing in the technology required to sift through all the incoming mentions and messages on social media to have a comprehensive response for critical queries (questions related to brand tech, customer support queries, etc.)

 If you are reading this, replying and interacting with your audience should be on the top of your priority list to bring your brand to the limelight. And this brings us to the vital question:

 

Why Is Winning Customers Through Social Media Platforms Difficult?

 One of the most prominent challenges marketers face today is closing the expectation gap – a space between what customers expect you to deliver and what they get. The void results from a brand not adapting to traditional marketing techniques to satisfy modern expectations for personalization and speed through every channel.

However, delivering customized content at the right time is difficult. So is creating and delivering content at high speed, across multiple channels, without compromising the consumer experience.

 The tactics mentioned below will help you modify your social media strategy to satisfy the demands of a modern consumer, so your brand can reach high levels of engagement and success.

 

1.  Know Your Social Media Audience

 As a brand that depends on social media marketing, you need to ask yourself this question: who is your audience repeatedly, and with whom you are trying to communicate?

 This is because when you know your target audience, it is much easier for you to create personalized marketing campaigns that successfully capture your customers’ attention on social media platforms.

So, How Do You Match Your Tone and Voice With Your Following?

Matching the pitch of your content to drive maximum engagement demands a deep understanding of your customer base. Understanding your buyer’s characteristics is vital to create personalized campaigns for the right segments. This will help you get the right idea of which sections resonate with your content and how you can enhance customer experience with this approach.

 

2.  Know the Location of Your Audience

Are you on one social media platform, and your audience is on another?

If you don’t know the location of your audience and on which channels they are active, driving engagement on social media platforms is going to be complicated. For instance, if your primary audience is engaged on Facebook, then there is no reason to run your campaigns on Twitter or any other social media platform because it won’t generate any traction for your brand.

For this reason, it is crucial to know where your company is mentioned and where your targeted audience spends their time. This will enable you to entertain your audience at the right time and the right place, with the right content.

Also, you must know where your customers are mentioning you as it will help you answer their every query regarding your products or services. Further, it can be your key to maintain a positive brand image. Despite everything, social media platforms are public channels where your new and old customers can see your actions and use them to find out more about your brand.

3.  Engage With Customers Promptly and Frequently

In addition to monitoring the social media platforms where your brand is mentioned, it is essential to quickly engage and respond to your customers.

Your quick response is essential to customers, and it helps them believe that you care about their opinions. And on this particular front, many organizations are still unable to meet their customers’ expectations.

A quick response time not only refers to customer queries about your brand on social media – but it can also be generic comments or even positive reviews. Moreover, for a company that interacts with its followers regularly, its average response time is quick. However, regular engagement with your online audience isn’t the only way to keep your customers engaged through social media.

To elaborate on this topic, let’s talk about user-generated content(UGC). Every time a loyal customer shares a positive review about your brand on social media, it sends a direct message that they are satisfied with your products or services. So, why not earn new customers by sharing User Generated Content across your community and channels? Also, apart from sharing UGC, follow customers on social media platforms to build stronger relationships. It’s precisely like following a friend. When you follow a friend, you’d expect them to follow you back, correct?

4.  Help Your Content Reach the Targeted Audience

An effective way to improve customer engagement on social media is to help your content reach your target audience – that is, make it more accessible to your audience.

Once your content becomes more accessible to your audience, it becomes easier for your audience to consume. The two ways of doing this are adding descriptions to your image-based content and captions to your video-based content.

Adding thoughtful descriptions to your images will give your customers a better understanding of the product or service you are sharing with your customers. The description will also improve your customer experience and interaction.

On the other hand, captions on your video-based content will give your customers the right idea of the content they will see in the video. Again, helping improve customer experience with minimal effort.

To Sum it Up

In today’s world, engaging customers on social media can be tricky since your customers are always on the go and exposed to different content, which makes winning their attention even more difficult.

However, it can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Knowing about your audience, replying to their queries, and making them familiar with your brand identity, can successfully help you establish a connection with your audience and encourage them to interact with your business.

Digital Branding

Why Content Marketing Is Essential for Small Businesses

In every single market, small businesses make up the majority, and they are holding the economy together. However, the competitive nature of running a small business makes it difficult to steal the spotlight, let alone hold onto that same spotlight for a long period of time. This is where digital marketing steps in to help your business thrive, attract your target customers, and position yourself better so that you can elevate your reputation.

One particular strategy within marketing is content creation that is truly vital for your small business success. However, too many small businesses don’t have the in-house capabilities and resources to properly handle the content strategy for the long haul, so they haphazardly post the occasional blog, rarely respond to Facebook comments, and have no clue how to use TikTok. Working with professionals can help, so let’s break down the most relevant benefits you can expect from regular and strategic content creation within your small business.

Building your brand’s image

First and foremost, as a small business owner, you cannot afford not to take care of your reputation. Content creation is one of the most effective ways in your control that you can use to build a name for yourself, to position yourself as an industry leader, and a trusted authority.

Informative, educational, and value-driven content is vital for building and preserving your brand’s reputation. You need to be able to stand behind everything you publish, and with the right tone of voice, your content is what will help set you apart from all the other businesses in your community.

Establishing lasting engagement

Content is far from passive and stagnant. It needs to evolve and you need to treat it like a vital part of your communication strategy when you’re doing your best to inspire customer engagement. Writing engaging content helps you set the tone of your audience relationships, start relevant conversations, and start being perceived as an industry leader thanks to your content.

With the right timing and components, developing a content strategy will help you build brand awareness and increase interactions. From interactive social media polls and gamified quizzes, all the way to image-enriched how-to articles, your content should be tailored to your audience to get the right level of engagement.

Elevating your SEO and visibility

Your ranking depends on the technical aspect of your website, of course. The ease of navigation, image and video quality, the level of security, and the like are all essential components of getting those top spots on Google. However, your SEO depends on content as well, which means that you cannot neglect one over the other.

Producing quality, search engine-approved content helps you introduce the right keywords and phrases from your industry that will send all the right signals to the digital world. You’ll be able to show what you do and how you can help, while proper content creation with SEO in mind will get you that high ranking you need for better brand visibility.

Expanding your audience reach

A single blog post won’t do you any good, but when you have a strategy at hand, you can use every piece of writing, as well as every image and video to strategically and carefully reach more people. Writing brilliant, unique content means you’ll be able to inspire more shares, comments, and overall engagement – but that engagement means that you can expect more people to talk about your business and more people to learn about you.

For example, guest posts help you reach more people in your target demographic, while publishing on other media portals, organizing interviews, and diversifying your output can give you access to new audience segments where your brand can make a difference.

This is a benefit that takes time to materialize, but as with any other effective, long-lasting strategy, you need to be persistent and dedicated for your content to take effect.

Using content as a lead magnet

People don’t buy products, they buy brands. With that in mind, your ads might be beautifully designed and you might have sterling campaigns, but ongoing content creation is the key pillar of defining your brand identity that will ultimately help you differentiate yourself and attract the right customers.

From the copy found on your website describing your product or service, all the way to your continuous content creation through blog posts, social media, and newsletter, perpetuating your brand’s tone of voice helps you elevate the interest in your brand.

In that sense, content becomes an excellent source of leads, since you can provide informative articles where you showcase how the readers can benefit from your brand, and you can position yourself in such a way that you elicit trust. Combined, these efforts get you more clicks, more inquiries, and more actual, qualified leads.

 

Small businesses need to diversify their investments in terms of digital marketing as much as possible, in order to boost their ROI and overall profitability. Content creation can be an internal effort, you can work with a professional writer, but in both scenarios, your brand will certainly benefit from having a dedicated strategy for your content output.

Digital Branding

Get Positive Publicity And Media Coverage For Your Small Business!

“Without publicity, there will be no prosperity.” -Yakov Borisovich Zel’dovich.

For small businesses, brand recognition plays a significant role. Correct? It helps in making a small brand become big and achieve all the organization’s goals. However, the process of brand recognition is long and requires impressive strategies.

Nonetheless, as you might be aware of the fact that the beginning of every process is small. So, what is the beginning of getting brand recognition? Yes, you are absolutely right! It is by getting the attention of local customers. But how? No! Providing discounts and offers is not going to benefit you. These are temporary solutions only. You need to think of a strong strategy that creates a buzz and makes your company a talk of the town.

And this brings you back to square one! So, what else can you do to create a buzz? The answer is to grab the local media’s attention and get famous in your target market.

Having said that, we should also remind you that there are generally two types of publicity, i.e., positive and negative. Both are good for a company to improve its industrial exposure and generate more leads. However, in this article, we are going to talk about positive publicity. So, are you ready to learn? Let’s get started!

Understand your target audience

First of all, just like any other strategy that you plan for your company’s success, you have to consider the target audience. Who are the people that you want to reach? However, as your motive is to attract the media’s attention, this time, your target audience is not your customers but the journalists and media outlets.

Yes! You read it correctly! You need to understand what “beat” you want to attract. In more simple terms, every news outlet has different sections for different types of audiences. Thus, you need to decide whether you want to get recognition in the entertainment, CSR, or an informative section. So, kindly select cautiously! 

Contact the right person for the pitch.

Once you have decided your beat, you need to approach the right person. Why? Well, several journalists and editors can write a story for you. However, you need to contact the person who, according to you, can understand your intentions and help you achieve your goal.

You might agree with us that every word used by the press has a significant impact on society. That’s the reason why you need to select the right person. Who can show you the company as its own and help you grow?

Try to take advantage of breaking news.

Another thing that you can do is to take advantage of burning topics of the news. For instance: Consider the situation of Covid-19; you can take the help of this pandemic to get coverage. You can offer free masks and hand sanitizers to needy people. It’ll help you complete your CSR (corporate social responsibility). This gesture will also make you a hero in front of the eyes of your target customers.

Keep in mind that every time you try to be a part of a burning news topic, think and speak from the perspective of a layman. It will help create a soft spot in their heart, and they’ll be more interested in knowing about you. Results? The media will try to reach out to you to get more stories.

Invite the press to your events

If you plan on hosting any event either for a product launch or for sharing news. Inviting competitors and press should be on your priority list. Give them some exciting and intriguing stories. Besides that, you should also address them from time to time throughout the event and give them a media kit.

In addition to that, you can also add a question-and-answer round. So that in case any person has a question they can answer. Believe it or not, it’ll create a great impression about your organization which will take you a step forward towards your dream goal.

Remember, press releases can do wonders.

Needless to say, that press releases are one of the effective tools to get media attention. Not only it helps in providing excellent and captivating content to the media, but because the information is provided by the company officially, it is a great way to spread positive information about the company.

Nonetheless, as reporters will write a few short yet different articles, everything in the press release must be written precisely. If you want to learn more about how to overcome writer’s block and how to write an impactful press release, you can read more here. It’ll help you write a press release as per your target audience and the announcement you want to make.

Use social media to create stories.

Social media isn’t just for connecting people and getting entertained. You can use the power of social media to help your business get famous, especially among teenagers. With your marketing team, you can create an impressive social media campaign that makes curiosity in the mind of viewers.

Understand that the more fascinating your content on social media is, the more people will engage with it. You can also collaborate with social media influencers and budding artists and help each other out. Good content will not only help you gain more followers but will also grab the attention of local media channels. They would contact you on their own and learn more about your campaign idea, eventually helping you get more publicity.

Be philanthropic

Last but not least, you should keep in mind that as an organization, people expect you to do good for society. The reason being is that your organization uses the resources of the community. Thus it is their responsibility to give something in return. You can do that by being philanthropic! Organize charitable events, take steps to help nature, and provide opportunities to society with employment and quality standards of living. Believe us; your excellent work will speak for you and give you positive media coverage.

To conclude! It isn’t easy to operate a business and take it to new heights. Everybody knows that. However, what people don’t know is that the media can help businesses to get successful. And now that you have read the whole article, you can use the techniques mentioned earlier and help your small company grow big!