Thu, 19 March 2015
Your brand is the foundation and one of the most important aspects of your business. Doesn’t matter if you are a solo entrepreneur, small business, large, super size, business to business, business to consumer or anything in between. You only have one chance to make a first, second and third brand impression. In a nutshell your brand is your promise to all those who come in contact with your brand. It's your promise to your customers, partners, employees, audience and community. Your brand will help you tell your story and helps you build trust as it informs people what to expect. When done right it will also help differentiate you from your competition. Your brand is rooted in who you are at the core, what you are about and what you do for your customers, employees, partners, audience and even online community. Your brand is so much more than your logo. Of course your logo, colors, website, mobile site (or not), mobile applications, videos, tweets, Facebook and other social network pages, packaging, communication is also part of your brand foundation. Some may argue that "your audience determines your brand, so why worry about it." While this is true that the perception of your brand is in fact in the eye, heart and mind of the recipient. It is not true that the receiver is responsible for that first, second or third brand touch. That responsibility comes from you. As a marketer you have the opportunity to be storyteller, and to also engage and empowers others to not only be part of the story, but to give them a canvas and a paint brush and inspire them to help you write and tell it. By developing your brand strategy, brand architecture, vision, mission and more, you can impact perceptions. You can better connect with the human beings on the receiving end of your brand visuals, messages, social media updates and everything you create and deliver via whatever mediums you are using to connect with your audience, community and customers. Although you obviously can not control how others perceive your brand, you can definitely influence and design a positive, inspiring and engaging experience every time they come in contact with your brand. Take a listen to the 109th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast where I provide the definition of a brand, reputation and most importantly the top 5 reasons why you must develop your brand strategy and how it can benefit your business, customers and greater community!
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
Direct download: SZF_109_BrandingStrategyFinal_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:43am EDT |
Tue, 17 March 2015
Every smart marketer wants their brand to be relevant, memorable, inspiring and positive in the mind of their audience, ideal customer and online community. What many marketers don't know is that the little things they are doing online every day could be hurting their brand more than helping. When you think of leaving memorable brand impressions what comes to mind? Do you first think of a logo, colors, messaging, tone, sentiment or all of the above? None of the above? Even the best business leaders and marketers get overwhelmed with staying up to speed with new media, social media and integrating it into the DNA of their business. Social media is both art and science. It's easy and dangerous to get caught up in the tools and technology that you lose sight of why you are doing it in the first place. Are you getting so focused on building your community, generating revenue, growing your email subscriber list that you are falling to lazy marketing behavior? Or even trying some spammy tactics that are hurting your brand more than helping your brand? It’s not so much about what the technology can do for you as it is what you can do with the technology! It's important to make sure you are using social and digital technologies in a way that is helping you versus hurting you. Check out the 108th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear 25 ways you may be hurting your brand online without even realizing it!
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
Direct download: SZF_108_Wayshurtingbrand_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:03pm EDT |
Wed, 11 March 2015
Attention is the most scarce resource in business. Earning the attention of your customers, audience and community is one of the greatest challenges for marketers in businesses big and small. How do you differentiate? How do you stand above the crowd? How do you embrace real change? How and when do you disrupt the current status quo? How do you bust ahead of your competition once and for all?
This week I am at the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was invited as an Adobe Insider to get a behind the scenes look at how Adobe is driving innovation and empowering their clients and community to change the world with amazing digital experiences.
The truth is that your product is marketing. Marketing is your product. How you market, how you sell is what will drive you turbo speed ahead of your competition.
A top goal for every marketer should be to create the most delightful, amazing, memorable customer experience possible.
Combining art and science to create real-time, delightful brand experiences will inspire your customers and audience to fall in love with you and your brand.
Take a listen to the 107th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear my top 5 takeaways from day one of the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit. Be sure to also check out the conversation via Twitter and the hashtag #AdobeSummit.
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
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Thu, 5 March 2015
Would you like to better convert traffic to your blog or website to a real sale? Do you wish you knew more about your customer? Wish you knew what content is truly engaging your audience? How about the top traffic sources to your blog or website?
Many marketers stay far away from analytics data and measurement as they think it's too complicated. The truth is that understanding analytics measurement systems doesn't require a math or analytics degree.
Even better, you can quickly learn enough to be intelligently dangerous in short time. Google Analytics is an amazing platform to help marketers get in the head of their customer, better understand the performance of their content, online platform and overall marketing.
Take a listen to the 106th episode of the Social Zoom Factor to learn how to get started with Google Analytics as well as 10 Top Metrics you should be using today to understand and grow your online platform and business.
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
Direct download: SZF_106_GoogleAnalytics_Final_mixdown-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:36am EDT |
Tue, 3 March 2015
The challenge can be overwhelming for marketers to consistently create content that is fresh, relevant and provides real value to their audience, customers, and prospective customers. Because of this pressure, unfortunately many marketers fall to lazy marketing tactics. They quit creating their own content and start curating and sharing other helpful content from leaders in their industry. Even worse they start copying, pasting and regurgitating other people's content. They copy, tweak and pretend it is their when in reality they have often lost the real meaning of it without even knowing. They wind up hurting their brand more than helping. Though curation can be an impactful and excellent way to establish your brand online as well as serve the needs of your audience, it also requires both art and science to see real benefit. Is anything really new anyway? Does content have to be new to be relevant? How can you curate content from other industry leaders and still be relevant to your audience? Where do you draw the line of endorsing other people's content vs supporting their brand more than your own? What are the negatives of content regurgitation? If these are some of the questions you have then take a listen to the 105th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the difference between creation, curation and regurgitation of content. I also include tips and strategies to develop your own curation platform and ensure you are not simply regurgitating content that will hurt you more than help.
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
Direct download: SZF_105_Create_Curate_Regurge_Final_mixdown.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00pm EDT |
Mon, 2 March 2015
Your customers, employees, audience, partners and online social media community is human. They eat, sleep, breathe and talk like humans. So, why are so many of you talking to them like they are a robot who wants to read your corporate speak? Why are you afraid to let your human show? Why do you keep trying to win them over with stupid stunt marketing and upside down tricks? Your audience wants to see you, hear you and understand you. They want you to inspire them to connect and engage with you. They want you to help them achieve their goals and objectives. They want relevant content and conversation that makes them think. They want you to inspire them to do more, be more, achieve their life and business goals. better and be better. So tell me, are you doing these things? Are you even thinking about these things? Or are you too focused on yourself? Too focused on your own campaigns or developing the next big thing that you forgot why you were doing it all to begin with? Humanizing your brand is a requirement, not an option if you want to be in business 3 years from now. Yes, you can put brand humanization on hold. However, every day you lose is a day you could be building relationships, nurturing friendships, establishing and earning the respect of powerful brand evangelists who will shout from a mountain top how wonderful you and your brand are. Take a listen to the 104th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 20 tips to help you humanize your brand starting today. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or social media brain surgeon to do these things. Start now and start somewhere. Perfection is the enemy of good. Embrace imperfect perfection.
In this 30 minute podcast you will learn:
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