Digital Branding

Why Should Your Brand Story Be Part Of Your Marketing Strategy?

on July 12, 2021

In this fast-moving digital world, developing connections is easy. However, maintaining loyalty for the long term is a tedious task to serve. Maintaining a loyal customer base has become a Herculean task with the high rise of competitors for brands. 

The changes in marketing strategies are proportional to the customer base. Today it is not just about promoting the brand, but it is beyond the physical virtues. Marketing is leveling the definition to a more personal connection for the long term.

Emotions are always a strong suit of connection. Strategically implementing emotions through experience or story to a brand brings about differences in reducing the influence to bring a shift. Now let us see what a brand story is and how it is essential in the marketing strategy.

What is a brand story?

 A brand story is a narrative strategy that speaks about the values and virtues of the brand. It’s not just about the history of the brand. Moreover, it’s about how and why the brand was established, the guiding principles, and how it would like to reflect in the future.

Storytelling has been an age-old practice that stirs creativity and creates ideas in minds. The act of storytelling is a powerful tool that helps to bring emotional values to concepts and experiences.

Through brand storytelling, the brand conveys its thoughts and shares its values with the customers. It’s about understanding the outlook of the brand and what it stands for. Brand storytelling is not about selling products and services directly. It’s about establishing connections through long-lasting impressions.

Significance in marketing

Brand storytelling is a marketing strategy that is followed by almost all brands today. In this digital era, there are certain limitations to online advertising. The regular practices of personalized emails and sales reminders are now the least effective. They occupy the junk mail fraction with a large number of brands engaging in the same.

An effective resonation of emotions is missing in these forms. With the advancement in technology, customers have a significant realization that it is all automatically generated with mere personal consideration.

A more projective or experienced form of marketing is Storybrand. Rather than showing according to the needs, it speaks about what the brand stands for. A communicative form rather than an announcement where the customer connects to the ideas. Embarking the virtues of origin, the journey through loss and gains, without hiding anything. This method creates a visual image of the brand in customers’ minds, and the emotional sentiments of the brand are consumed.

Establishing a unique identity in the market is an important part. The uniqueness should be conveyed not only through the visual portrayal of ideas but also through values too. Every brand has a different journey of its establishment; sharing personal experiences brings out these values.

How to portray a brand story

Using a set of ornate words would not suffice the purpose of the brand story; content marketing is also important. Here are some factors to consider while portraying the brand story

Understanding the mission and vision

The brand should have a clear idea of its missions and should be able to convey them to the customers. It is about what the mission is, and it’s about how well the mission is related to the brand’s virtues. 

The unique understanding and actions taken by the brand will help build its reputation to follow. Moreover, each step taken by the brand for its development is the unique event of the brand story. This helps in defining the visions too. The brand story helps to bring life to the visions of the brand, communicating a better idea.

Connecting with Customer

Not any story would serve the purpose of the brand story. It should connect with the customers. Understanding the customer base is an essential factor. Their values and emotions are of great worth. The brand story should communicate with the customers and help them feel more special and wanted.

Through a transparent brand story, the customers develop more trust for the brand. When the brand shows both negative and positive aspects, it positively impacts customers, showing that the brand works through constant improvements. Linking personal experiences with the brand story helps customers connect better. This brings a sense of inspiration and connection to the brand through motivation.

Choosing the right medium

Communicating the brand story through the right medium is an essential part. The brand story can be showcased through visuals, animation, blogs, voice narration etc. This should solely be dependent on how the brand sets its identity in the market.

Suppose the online presence of the brand is more active than offline. Then the online mode should be preferred. Even in the online mode, too, the essence of the brand story should not be lost in the process of marketing. Choose something that fits the brand’s identity and is most effective. Staying with the trend is important but choose the right platform that best suits you.

Creating excitement and curiosity

 The brand story should bring about excitement and curiosity to the customers. Through sharing and understanding the brand, customers should be engaged to explore more. The essence of curiosity is important, and this helps in attracting more customers.

The way of storytelling should ignite the urge to look through the brand and experience the conveyed feeling. A brand story is not a one-time act of communication. It should be a constant relation of surprises and fun. This can only be maintained through developing a continuous story through some curiosity to leave.

Conclusion

A brand story is a foundation of building trust in the customers. Laying facts and numbers to convince an idea or concept is no more effective in modern marketing concepts. The right idea conveyed through the right emotions can only bring the best gain in the market.

It’s not about making a story. It’s all about telling the life of the brand, the struggles of its birth, the hardships of existence. Humans are all about sharing and caring. Sharing a good story creates a deep impact. This very essence lies in the brand story.

Digital Branding

How Has COVID Impacted Customer Service?

on July 11, 2021

 

We’ve all heard the stories — on the news, from friends, on social media. With shops reopening, there are accounts everywhere of overworked, exhausted employees, irate customers, and customer service experiences that might range from exemplary to nonexistent. There’s no doubt COVID has changed the way we look at customer service — from the perspective of public health as well as courtesy and the social contract. Here are some of the ways the pandemic has changed things… sometimes for the better.

How Customer Behavior Changed in 2020

In a recent survey, almost 54% of respondents said they’ve noticed considerable behavioral changes from customers since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

One of the most noticeable changes in customer behavior: where customers went. With COVID shutting down travel and tourism, there was (and is) a considerable rise in demand for things like online shopping (especially groceries), healthcare, and even cybersecurity. This has led in turn to ticket backlogs, slower service, and an increased volume of customers seeking help via phone or online.

The increased volume of customer service calls changed in other ways as well. Peak customer service hours shifted to earlier in the day, almost entirely due to the increased number of people working from home. With the greater flexibility and freedom that comes with telecommuting, customer service is no longer restricted to after 5 pm.

Finally, the pandemic made customers much more comfortable with ordering, requesting, and paying for things online, out of safety concerns as well as convenience.

How Did Business Respond?

In the wake of the changes wrought by the pandemic, companies have had to change the way they do business — not only in terms of stepping up their customer service game to deal with increased demand, but also account for seismic shifts in how work gets done.

Many companies have seen a big shift in customer service demands, which means a higher volume of help tickets and businesses scrambling to keep up — and keep customers happy. This has led to the widespread adoption of chatbots to take some of the burden off living employees. The good news is, other strategies for dealing with the pandemic, like streamlined workflows and omni-channel support, has made response time faster than pre-COVID levels.

One of the other noticeable trends is the aforementioned shift toward working from home — in-person meetings become Zoom meetings (or emails), and teams must learn to rely on cloud-based solutions like document sharing, collaboration tools, and shared access to data to keep things running.

Digital Apps in the Age of COVID

Speaking of the cloud: mobile apps! Out of necessity, reliance on mobile apps has skyrocketed in the midst of COVID. Goods and services formerly accessible in person have shifted to digital solutions in the wake of retail stores, restaurants, and other establishments closing up shop — some of them for good. This has led to an increased adoption of digital alternatives and a sharp rise in a wide array of apps:

  • Messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram
  • Food delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash
  • Quick pay apps like CashApp and Venmo for easy transfer of funds between individuals
  • COVID-19 symptom trackers and information apps
  • Apps like Rave which allow shared streaming of media
  • Mood trackers and online counseling apps
  •     Not to mention countless mobile games that can be played with friends from the comfort and safety of home — a surrogate for when hanging out in person is impossible.

What Customer Service Skills Became Most Important?

The massive shift in the way customer service is handled in a post-pandemic world has left some companies wondering: which customer service skills will be the most vital going forward into 2021? A software survey of 90,000 companies yielded some valuable insights on this question. According to the survey, the top five most valued customer service skills are:

  • Empathy
  • Collaboration
  • Product knowledge
  • Efficiency
  •     Messaging skills

Are These Changes Permanent?

While many are hoping for a full-on “return to normal” once the pandemic is conquered, it’s likely that many of the changes brought about by COVID will remain long after it’s over — maybe even permanently.

An increased comfort with online shopping may seriously impact, or even end, some retailers. More workers operating from home might mean the shuttering of formerly busy office complexes. The travel and tourism industry could take years to recover. Businesses requiring an in-person presence are likely to focus far more on safety and cleanliness as perks to attract customers, as well as superior customer service and attention to detail.

This doesn’t have to mean gloom-and-doom for businesses. Those who choose to adapt to the new circumstances and continue to innovate — particularly when it comes to customer service — are likely to find themselves with considerable advantages going forward into the post-COVID world.

Digital Branding

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

on July 11, 2021

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.

marketing-strategy
Digital Branding

5 Steps to Rewrite Content for Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business

on July 11, 2021

In this article, we are mentioning 5 easy steps for supporting writers in generating content for marketing purposes to help grow the business. 

Table of content 

▪ Marketing your business with the fresh and new content 

▪ 5 easy steps for supporting writers in generating content

1) Rewriting also needs proper research

2) Understand Your Customer’s New Requirements

3) Stay flexible & Engaged Customers with your content

4) Make Your Shift to Digital

5) Add useful links from relevant resources

▪ The warp-up 

 

Marketing your business with the fresh and new content 

Nearly all professional services require extraordinary marketing strategies while dealing with a particular subject matter. Marketing departments that are working on supplying smart and exceptional content and living a phenomenal dilemma. Such companies and businesses have the bandwidth to handle a steady delivery of content for their growth. 

Even though producing marketing content is easy or not, quality is what always matters. And writing quality content is not easy for everyone, moreover, it demands your precious hours to compose an eye-catching piece of material. 

When a leader of a newly established business firm or a marketing expert is having the possibility to choose a hot leading offer or starting up a fresh blog post, it is almost clear that he will go to choose the leading offer leaving the writing from scratch to the back burner. 

However, reviving business owners need to maintain a steady stream of healthy, new, and fresh content having driven keywords in their blog posts, articles, and other pieces of write-ups. And here they require professional and experienced writers to make their contributions in generating and holding the content flow tight. 

So, in this article, we are mentioning 5 easy steps for supporting writers in generating content for marketing purposes to help grow the business. 

This guide is for all writers that find themselves scraping to churn out excellent material day after day. Follow these simple 5 steps and you won’t find yourself struggling anymore as these are the proven ways to get outstanding outcomes by doing less hard work. 

Make this thing clear that here we are concerned about rewriting and restructuring already existing material. Rewriting means taking content from already published material as a foundation for creating valuable content avoiding duplication and plagiarism. 

Rewriting an already existing piece of writing is not about altering a few terms and making it publish again. Rewriting content needs a proper strategy to follow up, then you just take ideas from the original content and generate a new piece on your own. 

Read on further to explore some easy ways to do so. 

5 easy steps for supporting writers in generating content

  1. Rewriting also needs proper research 

People think that rewriting is just captivating content from the web and making some changes to it and that’s it. However, it is a structured and well-researched method just like writing from scratch. 

Rewriting is not putting some words on a page by reading an existing post. You cannot take any content and start rewriting it. It also demands proper research and time but most of the writers do not understand. 

Rewriting content especially for your business marketing is just the tip of the iceberg. So, before putting some rewriting words on paper, do proper research, take important notes and start writing content in an organized manner. 

This strategy will never fail you and your content will speak itself. So, do not even try to take shortcuts due to strict deadlines or self-imposed time constraints. 

  1. Understand Your Customer’s New Requirements

Regular revisiting your website can make a huge difference as it tells you about the major pain points of your customers. This way, you can have a better idea of how your customer’s preferences have changed this year and what you need to produce in the future. 

Updating your content according to the customer’s requirement is nothing more than a minor inconvenience to avoid a major crisis in your business. Taking care of your customer’s needs is a first and foremost strategy to follow and it will result in an incredible difference in your business growth that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. 

Changes in your customer’s preferences challenge your marketing approaches and you will have a better idea to change your priorities and preferences accordingly. 

Therefore, to look your business in a new frame, tracking your content must never be a neglecting step. Revisit your website and update your content to provide better and enhanced services. 

Keeping a check on what your consumers are searching for by transactional data such as their accounts and the services the customers are using could be a great help. Then try out some more fresh updates by adding some complimentary services on point. 

Furthermore, tracking their behavioral content like what is going on in their head and what topics and queries they are searching for. Start doing research on that particular subject matter and rewriting content and do not forget to mention your products, services, and competency.

  1. Stay flexible & Engaged Customers with your content 

The next important step for rewriting is engaging your customers with your content and staying flexible. After knowing your customers’ needs, we consider the most essential step is focusing on how you are rewriting your posts for marketing your business growth. 

Track your content from the past six months and see how your services and products have developed in these months. You will notice a huge difference, of course. So, to avoid this trouble, be flexible in your writing and engage your target audience. 

Engaging your people and uncovering innovation in marketing look a little different these days. Find technologies that work for you, stimulate your mind, and allow you to collaborate with more famous brands. 

Start producing content by using digital technologies or sharing a digital inspiration board may be as simple as that.

  1. Make Your Shift to Digital

It has become a necessity for all business markets out there to use computing needs to stay ahead of their competitors. They can accomplish this by exploiting uncomplicated apps that are established in multiple languages. 

Despite their primary focus on language-based applications, software developers are now developing solutions for making the rewriting process easier than ever. Think of using a tool that can rewrite your content without taking much time. 

Article rewriter tool is the best choice to rewrite large numbers of text in a split second (sometimes referred to as paraphrasing tool or spinner). Some of these remarkable rewriting tools are not only a spinner that operates a strong database thesaurus to substitute synonyms but also guarantees that the content is plagiarism-free. 

It is time to shift your rewriting process digitally if you have not tried out this yet. Rewriting must not be simply for marketing purposes; it can take your business to the next level as your content is directly handled by google SEO. 

Make your content is integrated into successful influencers-led campaigns and doesn’t put the strong link-building strategy behind you. 

  1. Add useful links from relevant resources

If we give useful advice to make your rewriting process better and fully beneficial, trying adding links from another good and authentic website is the one. 

It doesn’t really matter if you are working on your old post and making some changes in it or generating an entirely new article, links from the most relevant content can make a huge difference. 

Readers find this kind of writing most useful as they can jump on another post to get some extra knowledge in just a single click. This helps you keep on the subject while enhancing readers’ value.

The wrap-up 

All the rewriting steps and suggestions for marketing your business we have offered in this article are basic and easy to grasp. Therefore, you don’t need a lot of work or hard work to advertise your business growth. 

The work you put into advertising your brand is more significant. So what do you expect? Your elevator pitch might need to rewrite content by utilizing proper strategies. Try out the these stepsfor better results in less time. 

Regardless of the situation, undoubtedly you are well on your approach to be more successful in marketing methods for your business. 

Digital Branding

Why Content Marketing Is Essential for Small Businesses

on July 9, 2021

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

Making the Most of Your Branding: A How-to Guide

on July 6, 2021

Building a brand is a process that is not completed in a short amount of time. Even though new brands pop up each and every day, there is a great deal of strategy and development that goes into those brands that are able to break into a market and stand the test of time.

 

For new entrepreneurs who are just getting started with their brand’s development, it can feel as though there are countless branding decisions to be made. Making the wrong decisions along the line can make it very difficult to achieve the results that you are after.

 

Ultimately, developing a strong brand is achievable when you take the time to go about the process in the right manner. You want to make the most of the material that you have to work with and avoid rushing the process, even if it means pushing back your timeline just a bit.

 

If you are currently in the process of trying to develop and make the most of your branding, here are a few tips to help you to get the results that you want.

 

Plan for Ultimate Visibility

 

Having a strong brand is one thing, but having a brand that is visible is another thing entirely. You can put in the effort and lay the groundwork for a strong brand only to have it come to nothing if you are unable to make that brand visible to your audience.

 

There are many ways in which you can increase the visibility of your brand. There are a number of solid online tactics that you can employ, such as bringing your brand to social media, as well as some other tangible marketing strategies to consider.

 

For instance, by strategically placing your brand on commonly used items such as water bottles or pens, you can provide potential and current clients with a daily reminder of who you are and what your company is all about. You can learn more about this marketing tactic by checking out Anthem Branding.

 

Know Your Audience

 

When you are looking to develop a brand, the point that is arguably the most important is that of how well you know your audience. If you don’t know your audience well enough, you can hardly expect to be able to create a brand and utilize marketing tactics that will cater to them in the right manner.

 

While you likely did a fair amount of market research at the start of your business venture, it is important to revisit this research from time to time. The fact of the matter is that the state of the market is constantly changing and developing. This means that the marketing strategies you once used successfully might not be the right ones to use going forward.

 

By choosing to learn more about your audience as time goes on, you can keep your finger on the pulse of the market.

 

This will allow you to truly make the most of your branding.

Digital Branding

B2B Brand Recognition Tips to Consider in 2021

on June 29, 2021

Brand awareness creates brand recognition, and brand recognition builds customer loyalty.  When a business customer identifies with another company, they not only buy that company’s products, refusing to ever consider their competitors’ products, but they will also buy their products repeatedly.

If the product lasts a long time, then a business will buy other products that the company makes. Buying that company’s products has become a part of their operation. They rely on that B2B relationship the same way they rely on their board of directors.

With that said, it all starts with establishing excellent brand recognition. While there’s less pressure on B2B enterprises to invest heavily in their brand, that doesn’t mean they’re off the hook. Establishing an identity within the industry remains as essential as doing the same in the consumer market. 

This quick guide will help you increase your understanding of building your company’s B2B brand. Let’s dive in.

Tip #1: Build an Impressive Website  

The first step to building B2B brand awareness is creating a great website that attracts attention and engages visitors. Besides the skillful use of graphics and copy-written content, it should be easy for visitors to understand what service the business offers.   

Take, for instance, the brand recognition needs by a global payroll solutions company. Its homepage should explain its unique selling proposition in the first fold. That way, potential customers can immediately understand how international payroll services can cost-effectively manage the entire payroll of a large organization.  Doing so makes it possible to quickly and accurately compensate employees working in multiple locations.  

Tip #2: Focus on Creating a Good First Impression  

Your advertising materials include brochures, business cards, and stationary.

If these are not well-designed, your company will lose business. You will not impress clients or attract new business partners. That’s why it’s important to search for professional graphic design companies to help create these materials. 

High-quality marketing collateral shows that a business is professional. So, use the best color combinations, card quality, and professional descriptions. 

Also, evaluate the quality of other branding elements to create an excellent first impression. For instance, see if your logos, slogans, and signage align with your brand image. 

Tip #3: Engage in Social Media 

Besides setting up a profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, research any other social media platforms your target audience frequents. Social media allows you to engage with prospects, clients, and future business partners. Stay active on these platforms, with regular posts, providing content that shares your expertise. Hire a team to manage your social media presence, ranging from social media managers to graphic designers and writers. 

Tip #4: Publish in Industry Magazines 

Prospects looking for business services often read these for industry news and to discover new products or services. Consider publishing guest posts in these magazines, offering invaluable advice on business-building strategies. 

It might also be possible to arrange an interview for your company. Speak to the editor about what makes your company unique and share the founder’s story. If you can intrigue the editor, they might send a staff writer over to interview the top executives in the company. Additionally, advertise your services because your target audience will be reading them.  

Tip #5: Create an Email Newsletter  

Despite the growing number of new marketing methods available online, email marketing remains one of the best ways to build a business-to-business relationship. While other marketing trends rise and fall, email continues to help build relationships between companies and their clients.

Here are a few ways to get your emails read rather than ignored when they arrive in your subscribers’ inboxes: 

* Offer great value, providing information that will help your readers to improve their business. 

* Since readers are quick to discern sales pitches pretending to impart information, offer accurate information that makes a difference. 

* It’s okay to make sales pitches, but do it with discernment, rather than trying to get the reader to buy your product at every opportunity. 

* Hire an email copywriting professional to write your email sequences. 

Brand awareness sets your company apart from your competitors. Differentiate what makes your company unique and explain how this uniqueness positions your company to get things done better and faster.

Uncategorized

E-commerce Security 2021: Alternative of Google reCaptcha

on June 22, 2021

hCaptcha…. ummmmm….. sounds different right? Some might have heard about it but do not know what it is. In simple terms, hCaptcha is an E-commerce security software for bot and spam detection.

Now, you will be thinking you already have reCaptchas for bots and spammers. Well, in this article I will clear you out all about What is hCaptcha? How does it work? Is it safe? Is it better than reCaptcha?

E-commerce security is the major concern for online business owners. Spam and bots affect E-commerce websites adversely. They misuse your site data and hence, you lose the trust of your customers. E-commerce merchants are always in search of protecting their websites from these spammers.

Among the many options available to protect your website from spam attacks, Captchas are one of them. Captchas help you to prevent spams and bots from entering your online store. Completely Automated Public Turing-test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) keeps spams and bots away from the website. CAPTCHA recognizes humans and stops spam bots from entering the website.

What is Google reCaptcha?

Initially, people used distorted images with alphabets and numbers on the registration form, checkout page, and login page to prevent spammers from entering the website. With the advancement in technology, spammers and bots got smarter and this technique would no longer prevent them.

Image Source: Nabtron

Later on, with “identify a thing”, the user has to solve the challenge, where it provides a grid of nine pictures and the user has to select appropriate images in order to move ahead.

Image source: Terence Eden

Then after Google bought the reCaptcha and offered a high level of security simplifying the process for users. The user just needs to tick the checkbox “I’m not a robot” without brainstorming to solve the questions. People liked it as the process became faster for them. Plus, it provided a greater level of security.

Image source: Google Developers

Google provides reCaptcha service for free in exchange for user data. Every time a user solves a puzzle, Google gets information about the user’s behavior, what site is being visited.

The latest version of Google reCaptcha is Invisible reCaptcha. With invisible reCaptcha, “I’m not a robot”, the dialog box was even removed and the user was not prompted with any question to solve or perform any task. It tracks user behavior without any user interaction.

What is hCaptcha?

hCaptcha is a complete alternative to Google reCaptcha, owned by Intuition Machines. It is basically the same as reCaptcha with some major benefits. hCaptcha is a blocking tool for bots and spammers to enter your E-commerce websites. hCaptcha offers a high level of security and protects websites from spam and bots. It accurately identifies what is safe and what is a risk for the website. It provides challenges that are difficult for bots to solve but easy for humans.

Image Source: MageComp

Benefits of hCaptcha

Along with, security hCaptcha offers other benefits for E-commerce websites. Let us figure out what hCaptcha has to offer

  • hCaptcha provides security from spam and bots to enter the website.
  • It provides privacy to the user’s personal information.
  • It allows earning money when a user solves a puzzle. The money is received in the virtual form known as Human Tokens which can be used for image classification or given as charity.
  • Users of your site will be able to see the charity work you are doing, increasing your site’s reputation. 
  • hCaptcha provides easy tasks to humans consuming less time.
  • They classify the images and sell back the image classification service to others without binding the personal information of the website visitors.

Is hCaptcha safe?

With hCaptcha, you need not worry about spam, bots, or malicious factors affecting your website. Your website visitors get more privacy if hCaptcha is running on your site. The service providers get an image classification service. You get an incentive with which you can buy services or donate to charities like Wikimedia Foundation. 

Moving from reCaptcha to hCaptcha is like a walk in the park. You simply need to perform 3 simple steps which will cost you less than even 30 minutes. Thus, migrating from reCaptcha to hCaptcha is a stress-free easy-peasy task. 

hCaptcha vs reCaptcha

reCaptcha is being used by millions of people around the world. But the major problem with reCaptcha is, it breaches privacy policies. This problem is solved with hCaptcha. The user’s personal information is safe with hCaptcha. Apart from security, hCaptcha benefits the user as well as the website owners. hCaptcha is not managed by an ad service, hence there is no violation of user information.

Is hCaptcha better than reCaptcha?

Google is becoming less effective in figuring out bots and spam. For this reason, it is better to find an alternative for it. hCaptcha is the new arrival in the spam-preventing area. hCaptcha classifies the images without selling the personal information of the users. hCaptcha provides a small incentive for image classification which the owners can donate as charity. Looking at the positive sides of hCaptcha, yes it is better than reCaptcha.

Final Words:

In a dilemma whether to switch to hCaptcha or not? I must say it’s a pretty good idea to switch to hCaptcha for preventing bots and spam. Integrate Magento 2 hCaptcha Extension and safeguard your store from bots and spammers by increasing the customer experience of the store.

Flipping from reCaptcha to hCaptcha is a matter of minutes by keeping the personal information of the users secure. hCaptcha offers straightforward, effortless, and authentic bot detection making it easy for humans.

Author Bio: Zoya Scoot is a Hubspot Certified Inbound Marketing Specialist and Content Marketer at MageComp. With her exceptional research work on Magento, she has helpes MageComp to grow in many ways. Some of her articles are featured on Google SERPs, which drives lots of visitors.

How Webinars Can Benefit Nonprofit Branding? Free Tips & Advice.
Digital Branding

Should Your Business Start a Branded Podcast?

on June 19, 2021

You’ve probably listened to some of the popular business-sponsored podcasts out there. Filled with valuable tips and insights, you might even give their company a try when in need of their products or services. But is creating a podcast worth the time and effort? Will it pay off in additional revenue for your company?

 

Edison Research released The Infinite Dial report, indicating around 78% of Americans are familiar with podcasting. The number represents a 10 million person increase in a short twelve-month window. Approximately 57% say they’ve listened to a podcast recently.

Benefits of a Branded Podcast

You’ll discover many benefits to starting a branded podcast and tying it into your business. You’ve likely heard a similar model on local radio stations on your AM dial. A garden center starts a show on Saturday mornings and answers questions about the best plants for the area. A real estate agent answers questions about buying and selling real estate.

 

Some of the benefits of a branded podcast include:

 

  • Greater name recognition
  • Free advertising
  • Establishing yourself as an authority in your industry
  • Reaching new listeners you otherwise wouldn’t have reached
  • Engaging your current audience

 

Ready to dip your toes into the water of a broad listening audience? Here are some things to keep in mind as you create your branded podcast for your business.

1. Choose a Topic

First, you must select a topic related to your industry. You don’t want the focus to be too narrow or too broad. For example, if you run a plumbing company, you don’t want to choose a narrow subject like PVC pipe, but you also don’t want to choose water. Instead, you might go with an issue such as solving home plumbing problems.

 

See what other podcasts cover similar issues and find a unique angle for your show. What do you want to be known for? Whatever your specializations and areas of expertise, you can likely turn your knowledge into a show.

2. Invest in Equipment

Unless you want your show to sound like you recorded it in your mother’s basement, you need a few pieces of equipment. Find a small space where the sound doesn’t reverberate, such as an enclosed office or small utility room. Add coverings on the floors and walls to reduce the echo.

 

Acoustic panels can limit reverberation, and noise absorption materials improve overall sound quality and reduce background noise. You can take almost any space and boost the sound quality by 50% or more with the right mix of materials.

 

You’ll also need a high-quality microphone. There are numerous ones on the market. Choose the one you feel comfortable with, read reviews carefully and make the investment in something you can use long-term for your podcast.

3. Collect Great Stories

The last thing you want is a boring podcast. If you solely rely on callers, you may have a show where no one phones in. If you just share facts, people will quickly grow disinterested. Instead, think about stories that illustrate your main points for each show.

 

The plumbing company might share a particularly complex problem one of its customers faced. They’d explain the age of the home, the issue they dealt with and how they solved it. After sharing the story, the audience is ready to hear tips to solve their problems.

4. Research Your Audience

Your ideal audience is the same people who buy your product or services. Do some market research on them to see what their greatest needs might be. Once you fully understand their pain points, you can address them in your podcasts.

 

After you’ve gained a few listeners, you can survey them to find out what topics they want you to cover. Send out a survey and allow room for customized feedback. You’ll learn a lot by tapping into your audience.

5. Market Your Show

According to Podcast Insights, there are around two million podcasts. The number varies from year to year, but you have a ton of competition. People can choose to spend their time listening to any show they desire. Why should they listen to yours?

 

You must market your podcast. Announce it on social media, list it on podcast repositories, make sure it’s in enough formats to attract a wide audience. On your show, ask people to tell others about you. Building your audience won’t happen overnight, but you’ll start gaining momentum if you offer consistent quality.

6. Don’t Spam Your Listeners

When you think of a branded podcast, you might think you should mention your show as often as possible. Unfortunately, too much self-promotion is a real turn-off to listeners and may have the opposite effect of them feeling spammed.

 

Instead, keep your mentions of your business light. You can announce who you are and your company when you introduce yourself. It’s okay to share personal experiences throughout the show but word it generically.

 

For example, you might say, “We once had a customer who needed pipes run for a new build, but no one could get into the house due to a huge snake we were all scared of.” Such wording indicates you have experience and you own a business but isn’t as spammy as saying, “ABC Plumbing once had a customer…”

 

It is also appropriate to mention your company at the end of your podcast and let listeners know you’re there for all their needs in your industry. People don’t mind you doing some light advertising.

Invest in Your Podcast

Podcasting isn’t a fast way to build leads, but it is a steady method that adds to your authority in the field. Anything you invest in your efforts today pays off in the future. You may want to consult with experts on podcasting, hire someone to do editing and market more than you initially intended. A little effort on the front-end pays off in a bigger audience on the back-end.

 

 

 

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

 

 

SaaS Branding

How to Get More Customers

on June 17, 2021

Every business needs a constant stream of customers. Without plenty of satisfied customers, you won’t have a business, regardless of how well everything else in your business works. 

If you don’t attract enough customers after you launch your business, then your business will flounder, failing to flourish. And if your volume of your customers drops after you’ve established your business, then your business might close when revenues drop below operating costs. 

While the value of getting plenty of customers is obvious to every business, many businesses often lose sight of this goal, distracted by internal business concerns.

Small business owners, in particular, are more likely to lose track of the value of growing their customer list because they are often overwhelmed by so many other aspects of business tugging at their attention.  

Fortunately, customer acquisition is not complex, and here are three simple strategies to ensure your business always has more than enough customers to thrive:

Get Direct Leads 

If you are a contractor, for example, you can pre-buy business leads from a contractor locator service like Networx. Networx leads are available in real time. As soon as they secure a qualified lead, they will then pass the job to you as one of their qualified affiliate contractors. You won’t have to go through endless negotiations with the customer to win the contract.

Improve Conversions 

When your business attracts targeted leads, then your sales will soar. If a high volume of traffic doesn’t trigger a large spike in sales, then review your customer conversion process.  

If you’re not sure how to gauge customer conversion rates, then hire a business consultant who can figure out a better mechanism, strategy, technique, or policy to turn prospects into customers. 

Consider Rebranding

If your business once had a lot of customers but now struggles to attract enough interest in its products or services, your branding may be archaic, no longer relevant.

That could happen for many possible reasons:

  • corporate reputation issues,
  • change in market conditions,
  • a surge of fierce new competitors who are offering better quality products or services at a lower cost, or
  • change in the needs or wants of your target audience.  

If you suspect that you’ve lost your market share because your brand has lost some of its appeal, then consider rebranding.

Rebranding isn’t as simple as designing a new logo, coming up with a snappier slogan, or building a trendier website. Rebranding goes deeper. It’s a sea change. Rebranding goes beyond a new look and feel. It reflects your company’s new approach to market conditions. 

You can decide exactly how to rebrand by monitoring audience preferences to understand what change in direction to make.  

Upgrade Customer Service  

There’s no point in spending time and energy acquiring new customers if you lose existing customers at a steady rate. It’s not enough to just acquire new customers, you also need return business from loyal customers.

Since the cost of acquiring a new customer is so high, you are wasting money if you have no strategies in place to build customer loyalty. Your revenues will take a hit if you don’t address the issue of a high turnover in customers.

You can improve customer service by reviewing customer touchpoints. 

Make a list of things to test and tweak:

  • enhance customer interactions,
  • update dysfunctional customer service policies, or
  • get your staff more engaged in customer satisfaction. 

If you don’t have a clue about the quality of your customer service, ask your customers directly. Use the best survey tools to get customer feedback.

Troubleshoot Your Customer Acquisition Process

If your business is not doing well, troubleshoot why you don’t have enough customers. Review how you acquire customers and try new marketing strategies to get customers.

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