Tag Archive for: marketing strategy

Using Reviews to Drive Growth

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Positive reviews can be a potent tool for any website or business looking to increase its online presence and attract new customers. Negative reviews, on the other hand, can place the entire existence of a (small) business in jeopardy and create a PR nightmare for mid to large-sized companies. 

Regardless, the benefits of getting positive reviews for your website or business are self-evident.

Estimates show that anywhere from 60% to 90% + of your visitors will check out online reviews before they ever engage with your brand and by the time they connect through that first touchpoint, about 70% of the buyer journey has already taken place; and much of that journey involves the analysis of reviews – both yours and those of your competitors.

The Benefits of Positive Reviews

Positive reviews help to build trust and credibility with potential customers and enforce brand confidence with existing customers. This can be especially valuable for smaller businesses or startups that are trying to establish themselves in a competitive market.

Positive reviews not only enhance the value of your brand but also help boost your search engine rankings. Naturally, positive reviews make it more likely that people will click through to your website   

Finally, positive reviews can also improve the perception of your products and services thereby leading to an increase in your prices – customers are often willing to pay more for your products or services for the confidence of knowing they are dealing with a reputable organization that stands behind their products.

The Opportunities Presented by Negative Reviews

Although negative reviews can present a challenge for your brand, they also present an opportunity to showcase to customers how you deal with challenges and resolve customer issues.

Customers whose issues are resolved to their satisfaction can become some of your most loyal advocates. After all, there are few things more satisfying to a consumer than a hassle-free resolution of a perceived issue. And by doing so, you are likely to see these same customers posting positive reviews about their experience as opposed to negative ones.

How To Manage Reviews

Review management requires a commitment of time and resources. Daily monitoring of posts and comments accompanied by appropriate responses is part of a successful review management strategy. Here are a few helpful tips on how best to manage your reviews:

  1. Show your customers that their feedback matters by actively responding to all reviews in a timely manner regardless of whether they are positive or negative
  2. Don’t automate the process by simply saying ‘Thanks’ to positive reviews or ‘Sorry you weren’t happy’ to negative reviews. Take the time to post an actual reply. Show customers that you are actually engaged in the conversation.
  3. Find a review management platform that addresses your needs. Some platforms are best suited for businesses with a small number of reviews and others are more robust for larger volume demands.
  4. Prompt customers to leave reviews and make it easy for them to do so. Most review management platforms offer the tools to do this and allow you to link or form on your website, social channels, or via email communications.
  5. Filter out fake, inappropriate, and illegitimate reviews in order to streamline the time you spend on management.
  6. Take your customer feedback seriously and use it to help grow the image of your brand.

The Takeaway

Search results, brand image, customer service, and reputation are all impacted by the reviews your business receives.

Reviews are a great way to generate positive exposure and multiple tools exist to help you accomplish this. 

Positive or negative, every review is an opportunity to grow your brand.  

Optimizing Customer LTV

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What is cLTV?

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is a measure of the total value a customer will bring to a business over the course of their relationship with the company. This value is typically calculated by estimating the average purchase value of a customer, the average number of times a customer will make a purchase, and the average customer lifespan. The resulting number can be used by businesses to make decisions about marketing and customer acquisition, as well as to prioritize resources and investments in order to maximize the value of each customer. By understanding their LTV, businesses can identify their most valuable customers and tailor their strategies to retain and grow these relationships.

In some industries such as gaming, LTV can be data-driven in that results can be more easily tracked via rewards programs, hotel reservations, money spent at a casino, dining expenditures, and the like. 

On the other hand, retailers are faced with a greater challenge as data tracking may be harder to come by from customers who are passive shoppers or who pay with a debit or credit card and don’t share personal information.    

How to Optimize cLTV

In general, there are a number of ways to optimize customer LTV, including the following:

  1. Understand your customers: The first step in optimizing LTV is to have a clear understanding of who your customers are and what their needs and preferences are. This can be achieved through customer segmentation, surveys, and other forms of research.
  2. Focus on customer retention: It is typically more cost-effective to retain existing customers than it is to acquire new ones, so focusing on retention can be an important way to optimize LTV. This can be done through loyalty programs, personalized communication, and other tactics that help to build strong relationships with customers.
  3. Upsell and cross-sell: Offering related products and services to existing customers can be an effective way to increase their lifetime value. This can be done through personalized recommendations, special offers, and other tactics that encourage customers to purchase additional products or services. For e-commerce retailers, this step is particularly effective
  4. Monitor and analyze customer data: Regularly monitoring and analyzing customer data can help businesses identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for improving LTV. This can involve using data analysis tools and techniques to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, and using this information to make data-driven decisions.
  5. Provide excellent customer support: Providing timely and helpful customer support can be crucial for retaining customers and maximizing their LTV. This can involve offering multiple channels for customers to contact your business, such as phone, email, and live chat, as well as responding to customer inquiries quickly and effectively.
  6. Create a seamless customer experience: Creating a seamless and consistent customer experience across all touchpoints can help to improve customer satisfaction and retain their loyalty. This can involve ensuring that the customer experience is consistent across all channels, such as online, in-store, and mobile, as well as making it easy for customers to access information and make purchases.
  7. Personalize the customer experience: Personalizing the customer experience can help to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately improve LTV. This can involve using customer data to personalize communication and offers, as well as providing personalized recommendations and tailored experiences based on individual customer preferences.
  8. Offer value-added services: Offering value-added services can be an effective way to increase LTV, by providing customers with additional value beyond the core products or services that your business offers. This can include things like extended warranties, maintenance services, white glove or concierge experiences, or other services that enhance customer interaction.
  9. Invest in customer relationship management (CRM): Investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) system can help businesses manage and optimize their interactions with customers, and ultimately improve LTV. A CRM system can provide a central repository for customer data, as well as tools and features for managing customer interactions, tracking customer behavior, and analyzing customer data.

The Most Important Pieces of a Brand Strategy

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Introduction

Creating a brand strategy is one of the most important things you can do for your company. And yet, many companies don’t take the time to do it. It doesn’t have to be complicated—in fact, some of the best strategies we’ve seen were just a few pages long. Still, there are some key elements you should consider when creating yours.

Create a brand strategy based on your target customer, not yourself.

It’s important to remember that the customer is not necessarily you, and he or she may not think like you. It’s easy to get caught up in your own world and forget about the needs of others. When creating a brand strategy, resist the temptation to use your own perspective as a basis for understanding what makes for a compelling brand. Instead, focus on understanding what makes your customers tick—what they need from the products and services that your business provides; how they feel about their experiences with those products or services; what their expectations are when interacting with brands; etc.

When asking customers questions about themselves and their preferences (which is necessary if you want to create a comprehensive picture of them), it’s also helpful to ask open-ended questions rather than yes/no queries, because open-ended responses give you more information than simply checking off boxes on an online form or answering multiple choice questions can provide. If someone tells you they’re loyal but only buy one item every three months at most, then this tells us something very different than if they said they’ve bought everything from Amazon Prime over the past year but only visit Walmart once every two weeks.

What is your brand mission?

A brand mission statement is a short summary of the purpose or value of your brand. It’s a way to differentiate yourself from competitors and communicate what you stand for in an easy-to-understand way. A brand mission can also be used as a guiding principle for all other aspects of your strategy, including setting goals and making decisions about how the company operates.

It’s important to use language that’s relevant to everyone who works at your company, so it should be written in plain text rather than technical jargon or buzzwords. Make sure that everyone understands why their work contributes toward fulfilling the brand mission—this will help them feel more connected with their jobs and motivated to do them well!

What values do you personally have that you think represent your brand?

What values do you personally have that you think represent your brand? What values does your target audience have? How can you build a brand around those values, and how can you use the power of the internet to reach them?

There are plenty of brands out there that have done this in a successful way. Some examples include:

  • Dollar Shave Club: A company that started with an online video and now has over $200 million in revenue. The founder talks about his feelings on being cheap in his video, resonating with many people who feel as though they are overpaying for everyday products.
  • Etsy: An online marketplace where people sell handmade goods, craft supplies etc. Etsy offers a platform where these sellers can market their items worldwide while still operating as independent artists or entrepreneurs – this is another good example since it appeals directly to individuals that wish to build a business without sacrificing the passion that drives what they do.

What are some of your favorite companies and why?

What are some of your favorite companies? Who are the innovators, and what do they do that you think is so great? Why do you like them, and why do you think they’re successful? What can we learn from their success in terms of how to apply it to our own business or brand strategy? Answering these questions can help you better identify you company mission and how you hope to achieve the objectives of your brand.

Be able to create a brand story around what you do.

One of the most important aspects of a brand strategy is being able to create a brand story. This is a narrative that helps explain why your brand exists, what it does, and for whom it does it. It’s often referred to as “brand positioning” because you can use this story to position yourself in relation to other brands or companies in order to create differentiation between them (think “We are not like this other company”).

The best way to think about creating your own unique brand story is by using the AIDA framework:

  • Attention – How do you get people’s attention? What makes you stand out from all the other businesses out there?
  • Interest – Once they have paid attention, how do you continue holding their interest? What keeps them coming back for more?
  • Desire – Now that they are interested, how do you convert that interest into desire for what you have on offer (i.e., make them want/need what you sell)? Finally…
  • Action – How do I take action now—buy something from me!

Create a brand message that’s clear and consistent.

One of the most important things you can do for your brand is to create a clear, consistent, and memorable brand message. Your brand message should be easy for consumers to understand, even if they’ve just heard about you for the first time. You want it to be simple enough so all your customers can remember it and identify with it without difficulty.

As part of this process, make sure that every piece of marketing material has been reviewed by multiple people on your team so there aren’t any confusing or conflicting messages being sent out there. It’s also essential to make sure that everyone approves any changes made before they’re implemented into your overall strategy – this way mistakes won’t happen later down the road!

Build an emotional connection to the brand.

A brand is not just a logo, slogan or colour scheme; it’s much more than that. It’s how you feel about your favourite brands when you think of them. The emotional connection we have with brands goes beyond just liking their products, but also includes things like loyalty and trust in the company as well as respect for their brand identity (how they represent themselves).

A successful brand strategy takes all these factors into consideration so that consumers can clearly see why they should choose this product over another one from another company or individual selling similar products at similar prices – because it makes sense for them!

Create unique selling points for your brand.

USPs are a powerful part of any marketing strategy. They’re what make your company stand out from the competition, and they can help you earn more customers by attracting them to your brand.

But what exactly is a USP? And how does it work?

A unique selling point (USP) is simply something about your business that makes you different than everyone else in your industry. It could be anything from “We offer free delivery” to “We have the best customer service.” By creating and communicating this special thing about yourself, you’ll be able to position yourself as a standout among competitors—and attract more clients who want that extra value or service.

Here are some examples of how different types of businesses can create their own USPs:

  • A spa might choose “Our therapists use organic products sourced locally.” This lets clients know how committed they are to quality care without getting into specifics like treatments offered or prices charged (which would require more research). It also shows that this spa cares about environmental sustainability and supporting local businesses, which may appeal especially strongly to eco-conscious consumers who want their dollars going toward socially conscious causes.

The most important thing about creating a successful strategy is understanding your target audience.

As you create your brand strategy, the most important thing to understand is who you are creating it for. Knowing your target audience is crucial because it allows you to align yourself with their needs and desires. It will also help you identify different audiences who may share similar interests but have varying reasons for doing so, which can be leveraged by your company in order to reach them more effectively.

The first step in knowing your target audience is understanding what they care about most (their values). How do they view themselves? What do they value most? Does their lifestyle influence how they spend money? What are their concerns regarding society and culture at large? Once you know these things, take note of what emotions these core values evoke within them: do they feel secure when thinking about their families; could they benefit from feeling more confident; would being respected by others make them happy?

Once you’ve established this baseline of information regarding values and emotions, it’s time move into specifics such as what products or services would best address those needs—and how much value those products have in comparison with other options on the market today! This analysis should give us an idea about how much money our customers might spend over time (assuming we keep providing quality products/services).

Finally: once we know who our customers are then we must also consider how well each type fits into existing markets already established by competitors’ offerings before making any decisions about which direction we should go next!

Conclusion

Remember, creating a brand strategy should not just be about what you like, but rather about what your customers want. If you can find a way to create an emotional connection between yourself and the people who buy from you, then you’ll be able to find success with the right demographic in a much shorter timeframe.

5 Keys to a Successful Go-To-Market Strategy

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Introduction

If you’re a business owner, then you know the value of a go-to-market strategy. It’s the backbone that keeps your company moving forward and growing. Without one, it’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations and lose sight of where you’re going and who your target customers are.

Planning to delight targets from the start

A go-to-market strategy is a company-wide approach that defines how you will sell your product or service to your target customers. A go-to-market plan is the execution of that strategy, including specific tactics and resources used to achieve certain goals. It’s important for you to understand the difference between these two because many companies confuse them or create one without having clarity about how they want to approach the market.

The first step in creating a go-to-market strategy is understanding who your target customers are (or will be). You need to define what their needs are, why they would buy from you instead of another company, and where they spend their time online so that you can develop content and marketing campaigns designed specifically for them. This part of the process can take some time, but once completed, it will serve as an invaluable reference point throughout all stages of development: research & ideation; development & testing; launch & optimization; post-launch review; etc.

Connecting with target customers through integrated channels and messages

Let’s talk about how to connect with your target customer.

It’s important for you to understand that your go-to-market strategy is about the end-user and how you can best serve them. This requires a deep understanding of their needs so that you can solve problems for them—and do so in an integrated way across all channels and messaging functions.

So, what are these channels? The most common ones include:

  • Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
  • Email campaigns (for example, newsletters or notifications)
  • Online advertising (Google AdWords)
  • Mobile apps
  • Direct marketing campaigns

Look at each channel as its own communication function—one that needs its own strategy based on its unique characteristics and goals. For example: If someone sees an ad for your furniture brand on Facebook but has never heard of your brand before they might not take action right away because they don’t know who you are yet; however, if someone is already familiar with your company then they will likely take immediate action after viewing the ad because it reinforces their existing knowledge of what makes up “good quality furniture.”

Developing a flexible go-to-market strategy that evolves as you succeed

To develop a flexible go-to-market strategy, you will need to consider:

  • How much data do you have?
  • What are the key business drivers behind your go-to-market strategy?
  • What types of analytics should you use when making decisions about your product and its marketing mix?

Leveraging data and analytics to accelerate growth

Your go-to-market strategy is all about leveraging data and analytics to accelerate growth. You want to use data to understand your customers, your competitors, your market, your business, and even your product and brand. The more you know about real people who will be buying or using your product or service in the future – that is, when you need to change course on what you’re doing right now. Here are some examples of how entrepreneurs can use their data:

  • If a competitor has launched a new product or feature that’s getting traction with customers
  • If a certain type of customer segment spends more than other segments on average
  • If there seems like there is a new trend emerging in your industry – it could mean there are opportunities for growth waiting just around the corner if only we could find them first before anyone else does!

To be successful, a go-to-market strategy must be based on facts.

The first key to a successful go-to-market strategy is that it must be based on facts. This means you need to gather data, analyze it and use what you learn to inform your go-to-market plan.

First, you should know who your customers are and where they live. You also need to understand their needs and the competitive landscape of your market so that you can develop products or services that meet those needs best. Next, analyze your company’s capabilities: do we have the resources in place (people and systems) for a successful launch? What does our current sales pipeline look like? Are we ready for more revenue growth? How will we reach out to new customers through our channels of distribution? Finally, assess how well every single element of your go-to-market strategy fits together—from channel selection to pricing strategy—before they make up part of an overall marketing plan.

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, a go-to-market strategy is a process that requires planning and flexibility. It should be built on facts, not assumptions. While there are several key components of an effective go-to-market strategy, the first step is always to understand your target customers and how they use technology to make their lives easier.

Why Marketing Personalization is the Future of Communications

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Marketing personalization has long been trending, but if we’ve seen anything trend significantly upward during the last year, it is that a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer an option for brands looking to make their mark with communities.

Google’s recent announcement that the ad platform will no longer provide the same level of interest-based tracking as it has for so long is a major indicator that marketing is shifting away from generic presumptions in terms of targeting. A transitive property approach to ad and content targeting has long been held; if User A likes X, and User A and User B both like Y, then User B must also like X. Now, it seems, we are facing a significant shift away from this model and marketing personalization trends upwards in all facets of communications.

marketing personalization by user profile

Marketing Personalization Is Nothing New

For years, marketers have attempted to build the most detailed user profiles and customer personas they could using tools like email clients and CRMs, or whatever else they had at their disposal. As ad platforms – like Google’s – became more sophisticated, some of the manual work that went into targeting was diminished. Over time, for many marketers, the targeting process was largely left on autopilot, relying heavily on the advancement of technology to effectively target ads based on data minutiae, like cookies. Though with increased use, and the scattering of user behaviors and preferences, this targeting mechanism has had an inverse impact on end-user demand as it compares to data supply. People don’t want their data used for broad match ad targeting, and companies like Google and Apple are listening and taking action.

Sweeping reforms are underway both in the worlds of hardware and software. Much of that has to do with privacy. Though the data is there, its power is being given back to its creators: the individual. The question now, it seems, is how brands and marketers can respond to the increased restrictions (if you want to call it that) on public data use. The answer rests in tailored data collection processes and personalized marketing efforts.

How Marketers Should React

First and foremost, marketers need to accept that for a long time, we’ve enjoyed access to data that was never really ours to use. While it was our great pleasure to leverage it into successful campaigns, that should never have stopped us from continuing efforts to build our own data funnels and audience personas. So, if you haven’t been doing that while also using the data afforded to us through ad channels, here are the steps you should start taking immediately in order to avoid backsteps in your efforts to grow.

You’ll want to start by auditing your existing data collection processes. If you’ve relied on ad platforms to handle the data side of your marketing efforts (even if only in part) then an audit is going to be crucial to regaining control of your data. Once done, you’ll want to analyze any and all historical data related to customers, visitors, and those that have engaged with your content in order to start developing a series of updated audience personas. From there, the process of marketing personalization can begin in the form of content and segmented communications.

As I mentioned, not all visitors are created the same. As such, you’re going to need to start creating content campaigns that are geared towards the specific tastes and preferences exhibited by your audience in your historical analysis. Yes, this means more work. But it also leads to more loyalty, higher levels of engagement, and a significant improvement in your ROI with a direct correlation between the degree to which you connect with your audience and the results of their engagement or conversion.

None of this is easy, nor should it be. We have talked a lot about personalization for a long time, but we have increasingly let the tech do the work. Now, as demand has outpaced what the technology can offer (and tech companies are responding in kind) we need to get back to the process of manually analyzing our audience, identifying how best to engage with them with tailored offers and communications, and personalize the process for a greater brand loyalty moving forward.

t2 Releases Communications Toolkit for Healthcare Providers for Covid-19 and Beyond

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t2 Launches New Healthcare Communications Toolkit

t2Marketing International (www.t2marketinginternational.com) has developed a free communications toolkit for healthcare providers designed to respond to communications challenges during the current healthcare crisis, and serve as a foundation for more effective, streamlined communications moving forward.

For many healthcare providers, particularly long-term care facilities, digital communication has not been considered a priority. Current circumstances, however, have put a spotlight on communication weaknesses, which have created a crisis within a crisis.  Many of these facilities are missing the most fundamental of communications touchpoints, and families have been struggling to get even the most basic updates on the condition of their loved ones.

Many large healthcare institutions that have robust communications departments have faced challenges as well. In some cases, marketing personnel have been furloughed, laid off, or re-assigned, with communications tasks re-allocated to people with little or no experience in best practices. The results, in some instances, have been disastrous.

This eBook was created from years of experience working with hospitals, long term care facilities, healthcare organizations, and associations, many of whom have found managing communications overwhelming at this time. It provides a step-by-step guide for structuring, implementing, and troubleshooting key communications initiatives and programs to better serve their communities during this crisis and beyond.

To download our new eBook, you can visit this page.

A Marketer’s Responsibility During Time of Crisis

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For those of us who were in business in 2008 or during the dot-com bubble burst, we can vividly recall the economic downturn and the challenges faced by businesses at a macro level and the hardships faced by individuals at a micro level. 

This time, it’s different. The Coronavirus is like nothing we’ve seen before. Economic downturns usually creep up on the economy over a period of time. You can see them in your rearview mirror and map out a preparedness action plan. They don’t shut down businesses, supply chains, countries, or the world, for that matter, in a period of weeks. 

In 2008, our agency was fortunate enough to have a number of clients that weren’t significantly impacted by the recession and we were expanding our business development team. We posted ads and were amazed at the range of candidates who applied for the positions including lawyers, engineers, a couple of pilots and even a priest. The impact of the slowdown was painfully obvious. Many candidates had no experience in marketing, no background in advertising and a large majority had limited knowledge of the digital landscape. But they needed to work and we were hiring.

Throughout the 18 months of that recession, we had to make some tough decisions when it came to certain client accounts but we had time to make those decisions because the economic crisis rolled in like the build-up of high tide. This is a tsunami. 

Over the past few weeks, our agency has noticed a significant increase in email and solicitation requests. We are hearing from people who have been out of touch for years inquiring to see if there is anything they can do for us; any business we can send their way, any services they can provide? We have been inundated with invitations to join webinars, download ebooks with statistics about the impact of the Coronavirus on marketers, and invitations to take advantage of deep discount offers for products we haven’t used in years. 

This is fully understandable. It’s about survival. Most of the webinars we have joined are more about the presenter staying engaged and keeping top of mind with their community than it is about a new idea or product. But these people are taking initiative and looking for ways to innovate and remain relevant.

For marketers, and agencies, in particular, the reality is that not every business is going to come out on the other side of the tunnel. Most of you are already experiencing the impact of this global event with clients cutting budgets or closing operations. For many of these companies, marketing costs are among the first and easiest expenditures to reduce or eliminate.

As marketers, there is one very specific responsibility we have to our clients at this time: honesty. Our agency does a lot of work with ecommerce companies and, on average, we are currently receiving at least half a dozen emails every day from various service providers claiming there is a ‘huge uptick’ in online traffic and orders for everything from beauty products to fashion. Now, they claim, would be a great time to consider expanding, not contracting our marketing campaigns.

That might be true in very specific verticals for certain products (anyone have some extra toilet paper they need to unload?) but asking our clients to embark on campaigns as a result of misleading data would be a disservice to both the client and ourselves. 

As marketers, we have a responsibility to clearly understand the current environment and the ability to analyze the expected ROAS, especially at a time like this. Sure, if you are fortunate to have clients who continue to operate during the Coronavirus outbreak it may be easier to counsel them to invest in content and advertising but know when to emphatically say no. 

This is a hard course to follow because for many agencies, especially smaller boutiques, saying no to revenues even in normal times goes against our natural instinct as business owners. But these aren’t normal times. Your long-term vision for the future or even your short-term plan for survival must include a strategy for maintaining the relationships you have built, and that’s why you need to be brutally honest with your clients. 

At the same time, guide your clients through these challenges. If part of your digital program involves PPC and Facebook ads, analyze if these are appropriate or if they are even relevant right now. If not, help your client find alternatives. But if the data says the investment is unwise, we have a responsibility as marketers to advise the client accordingly. 

However, saying no to one initiative does not mean saying no to everything. Earlier in this post, I talked about webinars and how many presenters are trying to stay top of mind. Perhaps your client needs to pivot their current program to one of awareness and support. Granted, this may mean a lot less revenue for your agency but it offers your client an alternative to going cold. 

We’re all in this boat together and we all have a common goal of getting back on track safe and sound. If you are an agency advising a client and you hope to build meaningful, long term loyalty with those that survive these extraordinary events, be honest with them and focus on solutions. You’ll both be grateful that you did.

t2Marketing International

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