Building a strong email list is an important part of your marketing solutions and most important to your Black Friday and holiday season preparations. Here are a few expert tips to help you increase your email list size—and increase your sales potential.

Tip #1: Turn social media followers into email subscribers.

Your social followers should be a part of your email audience to expand your reach this holiday season. Use your social posts to direct people to a landing page where they can opt-in to your emails.

Tip #2: Capture site visitor information.

If you do not have one already, you should also add a pop-up form for placement on the homepage of your website and collect email addresses of site visitors so you can market to them throughout the holiday season.

Tip #3: Create a new subscriber discount.

Entice customers to opt into your email list by offering an incentive to new subscribers—like 10% off their next purchase or free shipping. You can promote the offer across your marketing channels and on your website to help you generate leads.

Tip #4: Import a list of your current customers.

If you already have an e-commerce platform, don’t forget to import your database into your dip campaign. When you sync your store and bring your customer data, you’ll be able to generate more robust insights about your existing customers. Then, you can use those insights to inform strategies that will help you gain new customers.

Taking action to grow your email list and starting communications prior to the holiday season will help you build stronger relationships with both new and existing customers. This can lead to higher email open rates—and more conversions, too. For more help on how to maximize your email campaigns contact Branding Iron Management. 

It takes less than three seconds to have a gut reaction. Emotions, rather than cognitive thinking, have a more profound impact on our actions; create lasting, impressions; and predispose us to follow the same course of action in the future.

For brands, this is an incredibly powerful fact, and many are taking action by creating emotional ads designed to go straight for the gut. Emotional ads aren’t merely images and slogans that try to educate and persuade viewers. They manipulate consumers’ feelings and stimulate the emotional triggers that influence how we make decisions. An emotional ad may be designed to incite anger, sadness or joy —all targeted toward the brand’s end goal. While this can be a wildly successful strategy, the best emotional ads reach a resolution instead of leaving viewers wallowing.

For brands using emotional storytelling, the wrong tone or context can make advertisements feel more like con artistry.

Feelings are gold

Brands are latching onto emotional ads because when they work, we reach for our tissues and our wallets. Studies analyzed 55 emotional marketing campaigns, with categories ranging from “nostalgic storytelling” to “waiting dogs,” and found the average popularity score to be 8.0—higher than flashier categories like “adventurous auto” and “scandalous undies.”

Emotional ads aren’t just likable, they also drive higher conversion rates. A recent study  found that ads with purely emotional content generated twice as much profit as ads based on rational content (31 percent vs. 16 percent). According to Nielsen, “Emotions are central to advertising effectiveness,” and ads that generated the best emotional response generated a 23 percent lift in sales volume. fMRI neuro-imagery shows that consumers use emotions rather than information to evaluate a brand.

While the traditional marketing research models assume that persuasion produces desired behavior, consumer decisions aren’t guided by linear thinking nearly as much as by feeling. But not all feelings are created equally. When an emotional ad fails, audience reactions can veer from their intended course. So how do brands get what they want without manipulating the audience? We examined some emotional content—both good and bad—to find out.

Some hard feelings

Novartis, a pharmaceutical company, made some waves recently with a heart disease ad featuring a man sitting in an armchair, blissfully unaware as water slowly floods his room. Even though Novartis never mentions its products, cardiologists, professors, and marketers still slammed the ad, calling it “shameful” and “terrifying.” The tone, they claimed, was a subtle threat that manipulated vulnerable patients—maybe the right angle for selling heart disease drugs, but the wrong tone for winning an audience’s trust.

Successful emotional ads must strike the right tone: Fear is a viable emotion to use, but it’s got to appeal on an instinctual, subconscious level, which is where more advertising happens.

Context is essential for emotional ads, a lesson learned from the fallout of Nationwide’s “Make Safe Happen.” The ad, which aired during the 2015 Super Bowl, begins with a sweet touch—a child listing the milestones of boyhood—but then, wait, actually he’s dead, due to a totally preventable car accident. The punchline was more like a sucker punch, delivered during a celebratory occasion and sandwiched between feel-good ads about puppies.

Nationwide misjudged both the tone and context of its ad, eliciting some harsh reviews, an audible “ugh” that echoed around living rooms nationwide.

A key component to successful emotional advertising is to find and capitalize on the core value of the brand, not just reach blindly for an emotional reaction. Otherwise, companies risk mocking an audience’s emotional intelligence. In this example, Nationwide blindsided audiences with emotion just for effect, which came across as manufactured and heavy-handed. 

That’s not to say successful emotional ads have to be cheerful. In fact, negative emotions can be a powerful tool to elevate a brand’s message, as long as they’re not delivered too bluntly. Brands are cautioned to strategically resolve negative emotions and leave audiences with a positive takeaway.

For example, Thai Life Insurance’s aptly named “Unsung Hero” tackles the dark subject of poverty but ends the story on the protagonist’s random acts of kindness. The ad, which tucked away the Thai Life Insurance logo on the closing screen, received over 27 million YouTube views.

What many suggest is “the best anti-smoking ad ever”, Smoking Kid, shows the results of a series of pranks when young kids approach smokers and ask them to light up their cigarettes. The ad went viral in 30 countries and coincided with a 40 percent increase in hotlines that help smokers quit, effectively using a dark truth and the power of “advertising” to power the campaign’s call to action.

All storytelling is a form of manipulation and in many cases, manipulation is just one of the many tools brands can rely on to stand out. But to create great content—with the added goal of driving ROI—they have to tap into a universal truth. That’s the only way to make sure a gut reaction doesn’t turn into a stomach ache.

Call us today for help creating your next ad that moves people’s emotions and pocketbooks in your company’s favor.

What makes one marketing campaign persevere through tough circumstances while others fall to pieces?

The question is an important topic.

First, we live in a world where there is constant downsizing, rightsizing and capsizing.  Resilience is and will be the differentiator in handling what comes our way. Second, success in marketing depends on more than your ability to learn quickly and easily. Resilience is the differentiator.

It’s a great asset to have a certain amount of IQ, social intelligence, good looks and physical health, but the characteristic that keeps rising to the top is resilience, the passion and perseverance for long-term success.

So the question is not primarily, “How high is your IQ?” According to Angela Duckworth, an academic, psychologist and best-selling author, the question should be, “Who is successful here, and why?”

What we don’t know is how to teach grit and keep folks motivated for the long run. What we do know is that talent is not what makes one gritty.

Businesses and marketing plans with grit display some common traits. Here are five we should be emulating:

1. Keep the end in mind.

Small goals are good, but the big picture keeps you energized and galvanized. Having “the big win” in mind fuels your resilience when the daily grind starts to wear you down. Begin with the end in mind and keep envisioning the big picture. This will increase your ability to persevere. What goals do you have when you enter a marketing campaign? What is the investment going to accomplish for you? Lots of businesses just start with I want more leads… but what are those leads going to accomplish? Something specific and measurable. Something like: Next year, I want X% of my revenue to come from this part of my business.

2. Dump the distractions.

Sometimes our ability to persevere is not directly a resilience issue as much as it is a distraction issue. The extra stuff can do a number on our “grit meter.” Too many outings, hobbies, meetings and projects dull our determination. Eliminating the extraneous conversely strengthens our resilience. It’s good to quit the lesser so we won’t quit the greater. In marketing, sometimes we try to get all the leads from everywhere. But if we find an efficient lead source, dig down to the bottom of that barrel. Diversification in marketing is not always a good investment.

3. See your plan as resilient.

This is about our thinking style. All of us have developed thinking habits that impact the way we see ourselves, our world and our future. These thinking styles can be beneficial. The shadow side is that they can lead us astray by misinforming us about what’s going on. It gets amplified during high levels of stress, uncertainty and ambiguity. Some of these beliefs are limiting. Understanding the positive and negative implications of your thinking will help you see yourself differently when you are tempted to quit. Your accuracy and flexibility increases and helps you generate more solutions.

This is where excellent reporting comes into play. If you are making decisions based on hard facts of your marketing and not gut feelings, you are able to set parameters that define success and failure. What does your reporting tell you? Are your cost per lead goals being met? How are you measuring brand recognition? What are your thresholds for success? Knowing your plan and keeping a resilient mental image about the facts will help in your staying power.

4. Have a growth mindset.

If you are not growing you’re dying. Nothing stays stagnant for long. This is more true today with global and economic challenges than ever before. With a growth mindset, you are more likely to persevere when you encounter a failure. We all need to understand that failure is not a permanent condition. However, positive forward momentum can carry you a long way. The hardest part of a marketing campaign is getting it up and running. Once it’s generating results maintaining those results becomes gradually easier.

5. Put things in perspective.

It’s just marketing. There will be hurdles you must overcome. Catastrophizing creates a vicious trap. It increases anxiety, which in turn decreases our ability to work through challenges we face. It dumbs us down. What if we could spend less time worrying by reducing anxiety? Worst-case scenarios and fears are not easy things to ignore, but resilient business people write them down; now they can deal with them realistically and prudently.

The world is getting more turbulent, and our grit will be tested. What will you do to adapt, survive and thrive? As we come into 3Q and start annual planning season, how can Branding Iron help you build a more resilient marketing plan for your business? Call us today.

What a small business can do right during COVID-19:

We don’t live in an enormous city. Between the internet and a vibrant business community before COVID hit, there are limitless choices about where and what I want to eat or buy. Standing out in an already crowded field like the restaurant business is not always easy in the best of times. Limited by the need to practice social distancing, stay inside, not travel, and avoid crowds, I can no longer drop in to say hi or can a delicious aroma beckon me in the door. One small restaurant keeps me coming back for more. Here’s what they do.

How we stay in touch

The owners use a wide variety of digital strategies: social media, website, and email marketing. They designed their website to feel as if you just walked in the restaurant. The photos and color capture the look and ambiance of the actual space so it feels familiar. I do ordering through the restaurant website and not a third party. This allows me to customize my order as if I were talking to my server (hold the onion). Instagram is also visually exciting and customer posts get reposted in Instagram Stories reminding us they know who their customers are. Email marketing and social media are timed well so you don’t feel bombarded by too much communication but reminds me they are an option, timed almost exactly the times I recognize I’m hungry. Email confirms your order and lets you know when it’s ready.

What gets communicated is important

Every communication starts with expressions of concern and care for the customer. The owners themselves are doing the communicating and provide an update on how they are doing as well.  There is complete transparency about what they have done about safety concerns, which makes me believe when things open up full throttle they will take the issue seriously. You’re clear there are multiple ways to communicate, and there’s an immediate response when you do. I personally love seeing the way the owners have been creative and nimble in how they’re approaching their challenging situation. Because they’re sharing it with me, it makes me want to get behind them and cheer them on.

Mixing it up and giving choices 

Just when you feel like something different, a new time-limited dish appears in your inbox, or it’s looking delicious on Instagram with a swipe up to the site. There’s the option for doing pickup or delivery depending on your comfort level. Sometimes I just like to pop in and wave hello across the dining room. What started as being able to order a bottle of wine with dinner has now become a wine and craft beer shop as you walk in the door. When you least expect it, a free appetizer or dessert will find its way into your bag. Offering the opportunity to get a gift card suggests there will be a future. Everything they do as a business conveys a sense of optimism and grit.

Giving back to our community

Seamlessly incorporated into the website and social media is a way to donate and give back to our community. The owners have provided hundreds of meals to healthcare workers in our local community. Showing the deliveries and the reactions of the workers on social media let us see how our money was being used and made us feel very much a part of a community.

Even more than before, these strategies have made me feel a bond and loyalty with the owners that means I will be a customer for life.

Not a restaurant owner? Take out references to food and insert references to your product. The point here was their communication was flawless and that communication inspires loyalty and encourages people to get back to life, even with this paradigm shift to a cleaner, safer, healthier lifestyle.

You can do it too, but if you need help call Branding Iron and we’ll walk you through the steps.

You’ve hit a wall. After going through your list of potential buyers (& friends & family), you don’t have anyone else to sell to. But you believe in your product so much. You don’t want to just give up. So, you research online and find that advertising might solve your problem. You run some ads on Facebook. But after a couple of days, you still haven’t made much progress. Doubts creep in. You start thinking that maybe your product isn’t that good. Maybe you’re not meant to sell. You’re just not good at it.

You’re not alone.

Majority of small and medium businesses are in the same situation as you. While there are revenues coming in, they aren’t enough to warrant hiring new people or investing in other activities. A lot of big brands also started out like that. Apple started selling to their family and friends. HP, which also started in their garage, sold to their inner circle first. But they found a way to get more customers to grow their revenues. To scale. To become who they are today.

What they did differently:

What the successful brands did differently is that they applied a holistic strategy — one that allowed them to continuously sell and grow their business. They became successful because, in one form or another, they used a holistic strategy and not just string together a couple of activities. When it comes to digital marketing, that holistic strategy means having a way to fill your marketing & sales funnel automatically.

Let me explain.

The Marketing and Sales Funnel

Your marketing and sales funnel, or simply funnel, is a visual framework that allows you to see how every activity ties in together, and what metrics you should keep an eye out for.

The funnel is composed of 3 parts: Taking prospects & turning them into leads. Then leads into customers. The key indicator for leads (vs prospects) is that these groups of people gave their contact information to you. You have the ability (and hopefully, permission) to reach out to them. Finally, people who were willing to trade in their hard-earned money for your product (or service). To be successful in business today, you don’t end a relationship when someone pays you. You continue this relationship, get to know them more, ask for feedback. You can ask your best customers for referrals, give them exclusive perks for being loyal, and many more.

How does a Holistic Strategy fit in with the funnel?

As you noticed, the typical journey of an entrepreneur moves from talking to the prospects, to leads, then to customers. This is the same for other big, successful businesses as well. The only difference is that they don’t stop doing one activity in exchange for the next. A holistic strategy allows you to create a sustainable business.

The Problem: Non-scalable Activities

While this approach goes through the funnel (prospecting, lead nurturing, closing), whenever you switch to the next activity, you stop doing the previous one. And that’s what’s hurting you and your business. You didn’t spend time on activities that are sustainable. Those activities that do the hard work for you, even if you’re taking a vacation.

The Solution: Scalable Activities

Scalable activities in digital marketing are things you do that yield results now, tomorrow, and years into the future.

Compare this with non-scalable things, where once you stop doing them, results stop coming in. Typically, advertising is a non-scalable activity. The moment you stop pouring in money, results will stop coming in. Below are steps you can take to make sure that you invest in scalable activities, while at the same time, bring you quick wins as well.

1. Start blogging and create content

This activity supports the entire funnel — from prospects, to leads, to customers. You can create content to attract people who don’t know you, provide more information about your product, answer FAQs, and provide user guides. Use a Content Pillar approach when creating content. It’s an efficient and effective way to repurpose your content. And don’t forget to share them on social media and in your email list.

If you don’t have any content to attract new people, engage with your audience, and help existing customers, where would this leave you? You’ll plateau quickly, just like in our story. Why?

Without content targeted to the different stages of the funnel, the only thing you have left is your product. And when you’re left with something you can’t change, you start discounting just to be able to sell. Lower and lower. Until you don’t make a profit anymore.

In addition, when you lower your prices, the only people who will see it and/or take notice of it are already the people who know you. Remember the funnel? If you don’t fill the top of the funnel with new prospects, you won’t get new leads and customers. What will end up happening is your existing customers will see the discounts. They will switch over to the lower price and, eventually, you will lose all your margins.

Finally, look at your business from a larger perspective. There are a lot of people who don’t know you, care about you or your product. If the only thing you post on your social media accounts is how awesome your product is, eventually, no one’s going to listen to you anymore.

As a sidetone, this is one of the reasons one organic posts by Pages on Facebook keeps declining. Marketers keep abusing the platform. Users get irritated. This leads to a bad experience for them. And Facebook doesn’t want that.

The funnel has stood the test of time for a reason — you keep filling the top with new prospects. This will give you the chance to test your messaging, get more feedback, and more importantly, grow your business.

Your strategy has to consist of addressing the 3 parts — how to get more prospects/visitors, how to get more leads, and how to get more customers. Jumping from one stage to another or simply focusing on one is ineffective.

2. Create landing pages

Landing pages allow you to capture contact information. It’s composed of two parts: (1) a copy that explains what you’re offering and (2) a form that people fill-in. You can use this across the entire funnel as well. You just change the contents of it depending on your goal.

Most businesses only have a contact us page as their sole landing page. This is also the reason why they aren’t growing. Landing pages typically have a 1% conversion rate. For every 100 visits you get to your contact us page, you only convert 1 of them. How often do you think people visit your contact us page? Now imagine the amount of traffic you need to reach your goals. You literally need hundreds of clicks to capture a few leads… and they aren’t even customers yet!

So, what do you need to do? Create more marketing offers and put them on landing pages. Distribute them on social media, add calls to action all over your website.

3. Setup lead nurturing campaigns

Lead Nurturing is a marketing activity that moves a lead from one stage to another. It does this by sending (mostly) automated content usually through email that educates the lead about the company, its products/services, and how it can benefit them.

Lead nurturing campaigns always add value. The only way to add value is to be helpful.  Being helpful is not about talking about your products and your promos. It’s all about the customers and how you can help make their lives better.

Do not discount or devalue your product in these tools. Remember not to default to a downward spiral that ends in customers only using your business when they get a discount.

So, what are you going to do next?

Whether you are new in digital marketing, or an expert, it’s essential that you apply a holistic digital marketing strategy. While you may choose to “focus” on one aspect of the funnel, the fact that you know that there’s a next part in the strategy will help you develop better campaigns. By using a holistic digital marketing strategy, you can avoid problems most organizations are facing today — declining sales despite tons of promotions. If you have a way to continually fill the top of your funnel, convert them into leads, and nurture them into customers, results will come in.

And as a bonus, you’ll know which parts of your funnel are not working, and have an idea how to fix it! If it all seems overwhelming, give us a call and we’ll do the heavy lifting for you. 

Branding Iron is a full service advertising agency that can help you grow your business. While you focus on running the day to day, we’ll help you generate a sales funnel that generates new business for you.

It’s no secret that to be impactful in the game of marketing, you have to stay on top of the trends like mobile marketing. Still, it might surprise you to learn that, according to Forrester Research, there are more than 30 billion mobile moments happening each day in the United States alone. A study by SessionM tells us that people often use their smartphones for calls and texts (70%), reading and sending email (61%), and browsing social media (52%). Additionally, it’s estimated that consumers spend roughly 4.7 hours a day on their phones according to the experts, but that is a Pre-COVID19 number. It has increased dramatically since then.

Are you starting to see a pattern emerge? If your marketing plan hasn’t already mobilized, it is time to make some changes. Proper mobile marketing will have a huge impact on your business–and it’s an impact you can’t afford to miss in today’s crowded market. That’s why we’re sharing some benefits and best practices of mobile marketing that you should implement A.S.A.P.

Be more responsive

We don’t mean replying faster to inquiries (though that certainly goes a long way in good business practices). In the world of mobile marketing, having responsive websites, email templates, and landing pages means they provide an optimal viewing and interactive experience. They’re easy to read, simple to navigate, require minimal resizing, and don’t require much in the way of panning or scrolling. When the content you wish your customers to read is easy to view on their smartphone, they’re much more likely to view and respond to your message.

Make communication easier

Customers want easy–really easy interactions. Don’t make them type your phone number into their phone. Don’t ask them to copy and paste your email into a message. Instead, use the click method. By simply clicking the phone number that pops up on their smartphone, customers dial you automatically without having to input the number themselves. By tapping your email address, an email form with your address populated in the “To” section will appear. While such a move is helpful to customers, it also benefits you by removing the risk that customers will mistype or misdial.

The power of prefill

Don’t make customers fill out an entire form from their mobile device. There are two ways you can tackle forms, making them more smartphone user friendly. First, allow a prefill option. This gives users the option of having the form fill itself in automatically based on personal information they’ve stored in their phone. It’s much easier than tapping in information letter by letter on a tiny keypad. Secondly, you can prefill some information for your customers if there are some things that will always remain the same for your business. For instance, if you only offer your service to a specific area, you can prefill the form with that area’s state and ZIP Code™.

Make your message center stage

When users read your web copy, email, or newsletter from their smartphone, chances are they won’t read through everything you’ve written for the desktop versions. Revise your content according to the device. A shorter message should pack a big punch–and the call to action should be clear, concise, and actionable. For instance, if the ultimate message is to view the new blog you posted, share only a snippet of your blog for the mobile version of your email. Next, create a button like “Read More” that will take interested smartphone readers directly to the full blog.

Be inviting

Most mobile users are on the go. This means that when they’re looking something up, it needs to be easily accessible. If you make customers (or potential customers) search for important information like your business hours, phone number, address, or email from their phone, they may choose to go an easier route (ie: your competition). Ensure that important information is easy to find and use to give the best experience to smartphone users.

Test everything

Don’t forget to test your changes across multiple devices (iPhones™, Androids™, etc.) in order to make sure everything renders as you desire, giving users a great experience. In addition to the layout, remember to test phone numbers, click-to-emails, links, and all visual elements.

Smartphones are here to stay. People use them to shop, to play games, to travel, to find useful information and much more. In order to give customers (and prospects) the best user experience possible in today’s market, implement the helpful mobile marketing best practices outlined above.

Branding Iron Management is here to help you how to better navigate your smartphone marketing. Keeping your business in mind, we’ll work with you to build an effective marketing plan.

In today’s digital age consumers can pretty much buy anything, at any time, from anywhere. So what makes someone choose one brand over another? Furthemore, what keeps them coming back? We believe the answer to these questions lies in the amount of humanity in brands. Let’s take Southwest Airlines (a personal favorite of mine) and the amazing brand they have built over the years.

Everything from the colors they use, to their fun ads showcasing their employees, to their philosophy of not nickel-and-diming passengers has built one of the best examples of a human brand.

Why are human brands more successful?

The answer seems very simple when you think about it, but human brands (brands built upon a human persona) are able to better connect with people. They take thousands of years of human interaction and distill it down into a relatable and familiar personality that people are able to identify with and build a relationship with. People know what drives the brand, the values of the brand, the goal of the brand, and ultimately how they as consumers should engage with the brand. Human brands make it easy for people to open their hearts—and ultimately, their wallets.

How do you create a human brand?

Over the past five years we have branded more companies than we can count. The method we utilize gives birth to very strong brand personalities that can continue to grow as the company and culture evolves. Our method has three steps:

·        Understand your brand personality.

·        Understand the brand personality of your competitors.

·        Build your brand around that personality.

We’ll briefly take you through each of these parts and explain how our team successfully creates some of the best human brands possible.

Understand your brand personality. 

If we don’t know who we are, how can we expect others to get to know us? Understanding ourselves starts with clear and honest self-evaluation.  Not only does this give us insight into the values and true mission of our purpose, but many times our clients have never gathered in a room together to discuss these topics. So in a way, this acts as a therapy session/team-building opportunity for you and your staff. At the conclusion, we can narrow down to two or three areas of focus.

Understand the brand personality of your competitors. 

Since we are rarely the only option for our consumers, we also have to look at our competitors. What are their brand personalities? What space are they occupying in our consumers’ minds? Humans like variety. Think about the show “Friends.” Now think about which of the characters you best identify with. It’s a good thing the writers decided to give them all different personalities. It’s that broad coverage and acceptance that attracted huge numbers of people to watch the show.  The same theory goes for brands. You and your competitors may offer similar products, but it’s your personality with which people will connect. That’s why we go through a thorough analysis of your top competitors to help identify their position in the market. At this point we can ensure the creative path we assign to a brand both encapsulates the essence of the brand, as well as occupies a unique space not currently occupied by your competitors.

Build your brand around that personality. 

This is the last step in creating a truly powerful human brand. Once we know our creative path we can begin building an identity that communicates the mission, values, and motivations both visually and verbally. The colors, the fonts, the textures, the photography style, and the words we use should all strengthen and convey your brand personality. Both consciously and subconsciously, it should provide our consumers with a clear understanding of who we are as a brand. This is what truly great branding experts are capable of doing. They don’t just create cool logos and identity systems, they build a communication bridge between your brand and your consumers across which human connections can be made.

Using our methodology to branding not only lays the foundation for a strong brand but arms companies with a cohesive identity from which all business decisions and processes can rely upon. A Hero can’t just wear a cape. She has to embody the morals and values of a hero. We must be constantly learning and sharing that knowledge with others. No matter what your business goals might be—retention, market share, or some other objective—make sure your brand is human. Because it’s human brands that will continue to thrive and connect with people in 2020 and beyond.

Need help navigating in the new reality? We are here for you. Call us today with questions.

Multi-channel marketing, sometimes called integrated marketing, continues to set foot as the top industry strategy to maximize engagement with your key target demographic. Brands use this popular method to interact with their audience using a combination of marketing channels.

The various mediums to reach customers can include email, telemarketing, newspapers, television, social media, digital marketing, and native online advertising. So, how do marketers pick the right channel?

1) Identify your audience: Does your audience read the newspaper, or are they more suited to click a display ad on websites they already visit? Know your audience to determine the right platform.

2) Don’t get carried away: Two to three channels are usually enough to test the waters in a new marketing campaign. Stick to known strategies to generate the best results.

3) Consistency matters: Regardless of the strategies you choose, it’s imperative to treat them as a single plan. Make sure your message and voice are the same throughout your campaigns.

4) Measure everything: Some marketers will test a single channel against a multi-channel approach to measure results. This is called A/B testing and it allows revisions to either plan, improving overall quality.

Are you ready to create a multi-channel marketing campaign? Stick with these four tips, and you’ll be prepared to tackle any project. If it seems more than you want to handle or if you don’t have time to do the research, call Branding Iron Management. We can help.

How your business acts during times of uncertainty can shape your customers’, current and potential, perception of your brand and business. Marketing is an essential way to not only keep your customers loyal to your brand, but also support them during a time of crisis. 

Keep your customers informed

Maintaining open communication about the status of your business keeps your customers in the loop and lets them know how they can continue to support your business. 

Example: Proactively communicating changes in service such as drive thru, pick up, or delivery options.

Show how your company is helping

When your brand is helping the community, show your customers how they can help as well. This is a good alternative when it is not appropriate to display your own offerings. 

Example: Using social media to show how your employees are staying connected to each other by supporting the local community and recovery efforts.

Strategically reposition your brand

Make sure that your brand avoids looking tone deaf in light of the current crisis.

Example:  Listen to what your customers are reporting online and develop a response that shares what your business can realistically do, while also addressing their needs.

Prepare now for your future customers

Crises like COVID-19 don’t last forever. Use this opportunity to lay out the groundwork for how your company will function in the future.

Example: If your business is slowing right now, use the down time to develop new marketing strategies for attracting new and returning customers. 

Marketing your business during the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic can be challenging. Regardless, it’s important to come up with solutions that allow you to generate sales and revenue.

How can you effectively market to consumers who may have limited access to regularly frequented businesses? How do you market to businesses when everyone is working from home? Companies have started to adapt and overcome these obstacles. Here are four ways you can get started:

1. Remain Customer-focused

A customer-focused marketing strategy is a winning marketing strategy. Your marketing efforts should be less focused on what makes your company great and more focused on how your company is helping your customers. What about your product or service can directly benefit them at this very moment? Instead of focusing on the features of your products, focus on the benefits to them.

2. Stay Front and Center

Continue to stay in front of consumers, because when they’re ready to buy, you want it to be from you. Ride out the waves. Focus on the future possibilities and partnerships. There are still consumers and businesses who need your services. Don’t make them find you. Lead them to you. As more continue to open back up for business, they will need you. You don’t have to spend a giant ad budget to remind your customer you are the expert in your field. There are affordable options.

3. Give and Tell

Storytelling is a compelling way to connect with your audience and gain exposure. Tell relevant, authentic stories about how your company is contributing to ease the pain of the pandemic. Do something that stands out. Is your company supporting those who need it most right now? Tell the world and remain humble in your messaging.

4. Be Authentic

When is the last time you reviewed value propositions? What about your customer experience? This crisis has reminded us how important a brand’s authenticity is. Use good taste in your message and approach, and people will be more receptive to hearing what you have to say. You need to speak less about yourself and more about your customers.

Creating a customer experience that builds trust, loyalty, and confidence in your brand is crucial. While this isn’t new, we’re forced to rethink our current strategies. These tips can help make your marketing strategy during this pandemic a time of growing rather than a time of shrinking. It won’t be easy, but it can and will be done if you stay positive, stay calm and be tenacious in your efforts.

Branding Iron can help you build a strategy to grow when everyone else is contracting. Call us today.