Here Adina Brunetti provides her expertise on how businesses can easily improve their marketing.
According to you, what are the best things a business can do to up their marketing game?
- Know your audience as well as the type of media they use. Once you do that, the next thing is to appear in front of them with a professional and interactive website, execute an effective content marketing plan which involves consistent social media posts, email marketing, and blogging- and most importantly, all of these must provide valuable, useful, and relevant content to them.
Where To Start as a business while defining the brand? What are the things to consider? What are the types of conversations to have?
- The primary step is to analyze the positioning of your brand. What type of products and services does the business provide, and what are the needs, wants, and budget limits of your potential customers. These two factors intersecting point is what I call the “sweet spot” for your offerings. Moreover, your brand needs to look unique in comparison to your competitors. What does your business provide that no other company in the market offers? Last but not least, your business must be true to its brand. This means focusing on the customers and offerings that are in line with its positioning (and being strong enough to reject all the transactions that are not within your domain).
According to you, what are the most effective practices for positioning a brand?
- Pragmatically, it is analyzing your business’ offerings and the relevant audience for those offerings. One of the first steps a new enterprise (or one that is preparing for a new offering) needs to take is to carry out good market research- are there any opportunities existing for this new service or product? Is there any market for the products and services your business offers?
Once the brand has been defined, what approach should a business take to write its brand story?
- The two primary objectives are to define the unique elements of the brand- and how the brand helps the consumer or the customer. Most companies tend to prioritize features. However, customers always give particular importance to the value that an offering provides. Answer the customer’s question: “How will it benefit me?” Once the business is clear about the main idea of its brand, the next step is to inform the audience about how its services and products have made the lives of its consumers better. The best ways to tell your brand story are through positive reviews, testimonials, and interviews.
What are the most common mistakes or blunders that businesses often make while building their brand story?
- They are mostly involved in talking about their business operations and how they do what they do. Realistically speaking, customers are only interested in knowing what the business can do … for them.
What advice do you tend to give on branding time and again?
- Businesses must understand how essential it is to talk about the benefits their brand can provide and why their business is unique and better in contrast to their competitors.
Currently, what are your preferred marketing tools?
- In my opinion, interviewing some of your clients’ customers can prove to be highly useful. The deep understanding with regards to the strengths, weaknesses as well as the perception of the business in the market you get from their interviews can certainly be practical for you in developing the brand messaging (and overcoming weak links in the company’s current way of carrying out the business activities). Let’s talk from the perspective of implementation. I always want my clients to improve their visibility and status as professionals in their niche by creating, developing, and publishing custom content. For industry recognition and SEO, it is vital to create blog posts and remodel those posts by means of guest blogging, email marketing, and reposting on various content and social media platforms. An email campaign, which is received by a properly maintained mailing list keeps the business a priority of the customers.
What businesses, according to you, have done remarkably well with regards to defining and positioning their brand and sharing their story? What is there to learn from them?
Undoubtedly, on top of the list are Apple and Nike- they made top-notch products and told their stories with an exciting lifestyle twist- “Want to live a great life? Buy our product/service.” I really find Coke’s strategy of making its packaging attractive by having the names of people and song lyrics on them. This makes the buying experience more personalized. Southwest Airlines have improved its customer experience. All of these brands are making highly effective strategies.
What are the most exciting industry innovations or trends you are following?
- The major shift that I have witnessed has been towards consumer-centric marketing (useful, relevant, valuable, “secret sauce” information) from advertising which has been company-centric (aka “a pitch”). In my opinion, small businesses are learning to enhance their marketing activities in order to reflect those once only doable by major companies. Thanks to online marketing, all the companies now have access to the internet as well as affordable yet effective ways of “spreading the word.” With that being said, the amount you spend can be counterbalanced by the amount of time being involved – which is vital for companies to realize. Above all, this is having a consistent approach when it comes to publishing and promoting the content and engaging the audience with helpful content, shown in a creative and inventive manner that entertains and educates.