5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Digital Marketing

29Apr

Now that spring is here, you’ve probably seen a lot of tips and tricks for cleaning out your home. But what about your digital marketing?

Spring cleaning isn’t just for basements anymore! Regular updates to your digital marketing infrastructure are important to keep things optimized and running smoothly. After all, the marketing standards have heavily shifted over the past 5 years, so why would you want a website that hasn’t been updated in 5 years?

Like in your home, an in-depth digital marketing clean is harder than most people realize. That’s why I’m going to share the 5 things you need to do to spring clean your digital marketing.

1. Freshen Up Your Lists
If you’ve been practicing effective digital marketing, then you’ve almost certainly got a few lists lying around. Potential customers, email lists, etc. But when was the last time you looked at these lists to make sure that none of those names or email addresses had lost their relevancy?

For this part of spring cleaning, you’ll want to review your lists and take off any expired emails, addresses, people who can no longer be considered potential customers, etc. A simple way to do this for your email marketing list is to send out an email blast asking users to verify that their information is correct or needs to be updated.

2. Take Out Your Website’s Trash
If you’ve been updating your website over the past year (or more if you haven’t done any site cleaning before), then there’s probably some content that has expired. This can look like: non-functional links, missing images, or pages that your website just doesn’t need anymore.

Now is the perfect time to clear out this digital junk. If you see any pages that are irrelevant, have links that don’t work, etc., then salvage what you can and scrap the rest. Finding a lot of issues across the board is a major sign that your entire website could use an overhaul.

3. Edit Your Email Strategy
You’ve been keeping up with your email marketing, but what results are you actually seeing? I often see that people start email marketing with good intentions, but before long it becomes a chore and is given the least amount of attention possible.

Make sure that your email marketing is performing well by looking at your results and comparing what you’re getting with what you’re aiming for. If there’s a disparity, that’s your sign that you need to give more attention to your email design, copy, or delivery system.

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4. Track Your Social
Do you know what sites your business is on? Maybe you tried Pinterest for a few months before losing interest. Look around every social media platform and see if you have any presence that might have fallen to the wayside.

If you do find any old accounts, you’ll have a choice to make for the account. If you can show that it’s boosting your SEO, then by all means, leave it standing. But if the page looks unprofessional and isn’t doing anything to benefit your business, then scrap it ASAP or put in the work to make it work toward your business goals.

5. Brush Off Your Branding
When was the last time you worked on your branding? Without a devoted marketing and branding team, there’s a good chance it got lost in the stress of day-to-day operations. Take some time to reflect on what you want your company to emphasize in its public image, then compare that to what messages you’re actually sending.

Some questions to ask during this process:

Does your logo reflect your brand identity?
Are you maintaining consistent branding in your visuals and promotional materials?
Does your social content mix advance or contradict your brand’s values?

If your answers are showing anything but a consistent brand image, then you need to redouble your branding efforts or find a team that will handle those concerns for you.

Start the Cleanup
While you’re spring cleaning around the house, you may as well keep the ball rolling and extend that cleanup to your digital marketing. It’s a lot of work, but you’ll be glad that you took the time to focus on digital marketing when you’re seeing increased traffic to your business and engagement with your brand!

Does this sound like too much to handle? Let’s talk about your options during your free consultation with The Go! Agency!

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How Can I Keep My Branding Consistent On Social Media?

By Dale Griffen

7Jun

Business, Facebook, Facebook Advertising, Local Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Branding is such a major facet of marketing and brand recognition. It’s about keeping a consistent and recognizable identity and ensuring the customer that they are getting what they have come to expect from such a great company. So how can social media help with such an important endeavor?

The following is five steps to keeping up with consistent branding throughout the world of social media, accompanied by some examples of brands that do it best.

1. Tone

Social media is all about communication between person and person, or brand and customer. As such, a company needs to ensure their message’s integrity is upheld, but also their voice.

Nike is a great example of keeping a consistent tone. Their message of empowerment and striving for success resonates with its copy, and customer relations. Powerful, short, and punchy vocabulary led to an identity we all recognize.

2. Imagery

When you think of a company, you might think about their logo, products’ packaging, or an iconic color. All this is relatable when creating a loud and recognizable voice on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the other platforms.

Chic-fil-A is very meticulous when it comes to their branding. They rarely waver from their signature red, their unmistakable logo, and their bovine mascot. While it may seem to some like they are being sticklers, this level of consistency helps them stand above their massive competition.

3. Product

What do companies expect when they think of their brand? Is it a specific product? Maybe it’s your signature service? Put your thinking cap on and explain what it is that people love about your company. Then, utilize it in marketing and make sure it’s a central element to your tweets, posts, snaps, etc.

What is Disney’s spotlight product? Movies, right? Nope. It’s the characters. They harness the power of their characters’ iconic designs with every social media post. The reason why it’s not just movies is that Mikey, Minnie, Buzz Lightyear, and all those other memorable faces go way beyond movies. They are in books, on posters, in our children’s toy boxes, and so much more. While you will have to work pretty hard to beat Disney’s popularity, you can most certainly take a note from their marketing book and push what people know about you!

4. Customer Service

Branding is all about reputation. Well, you can have a good rep without providing excellent customer service. Take pride in how you handle your customers’ issues and what you do for them, even if it doesn’t directly affect your bottom line.

Zappos’ claim to fame is their crazy fast shipping times. Often, they will upgrade a customer’s order to next day delivery without issue. Because this is something they’ve become known for, they often talk about this on their social media channels. It’s not bragging if you’re doing business right!

5. Be Human

This is where social media changes things in the marketing world. Yes, we’re promoting products as marketers always have, but a big part of branding now is humanizing your brand. Talk about things that a person would talk about- holidays, weekends, fun times in general. Tap into trending topics and continuously pop up on your users feed with more than just promotions.

For this example, we’re going to spotlight a local hot spot – Datz in Tampa, FL. Datz is a young and hip restaurant where you can find the latest dessert craze while sipping on some local craft beer, all while getting the most unique flavors you can find. On Twitter and Facebook, Datz continues to shock and wow with new concoctions the locals can enjoy. But it goes beyond that. They talk about holidays, trending topics (at the moment, their logo has been changed to match Wonder Woman’s tiara in honor of the hit film) and shares things that you would expect a friend to share.

How do you create a dynamite social media marketing branding strategy? It’s simple- be yourself! Present your brand in a real, organic, and smart fashion that upholds everything your customers expect from your brand.

Looking for some help with your social media? Contact us! We’d love to help.

5 Ways To Adapt The Big-Brand Approach On Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

Copy of Go! Blog Image Templates (900x350) (1)

3May

Marketing, Social Media, Social networking

One thing that made us fall in love with social media marketing is that it evens the playing field for businesses. Both big and small companies have a shot at being visible and making an impact on their audiences’ feeds. At least, that’s how it should be.

Let’s face it – some brands utilize social media marketing better than others. Some companies such as Starbucks, Adidas, and Netflix generate incredible levels of engagement with every post. Is it their pre-existing fame or is their content really that compelling? After studying this phenomenon, it’s definitely a bit of both.

There is such a thing as the “big-brand approach” on social media. Even if some of these big names miss the mark on a post, they still get a massive amount of followers thanks to their staggering online presence.

If you want to generate big brand levels of engagement, you need a big brand approach. Try these five suggestions and see where it takes your brand.

1. Make good original content.

Go on any social media account of a major brand and you will see a steady stream of original content. High-quality pictures, videos, and copy pack a powerful punch. Do not underestimate your followers – they know good content when they see it. Make sure yours stands tall on the web.

2. Spend money to make money.

Here’s the hard truth – you are going to need to invest into some social media advertising, whether it is on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The good news is that you can quickly see its impact on engagement as promoted and advertised content has the potential to reach a large number of prospective customers.

3. Come in with an attitude.

What’s the voice of your brand? Whatever it is, keep it consistent. Wendy’s recently went viral with a sarcastic, witty, and brazen voice on Twitter which not only attracted nearly 2 million followers, it put its brand in a unique light against its several competitors.

4. Understand what the people want.

Take a step back and see what people respond to the most. Is it videos? Maybe Q&As? Maybe your audience is a sucker for memes? Whatever is your saving grace, develop it and continue to grow a following.

5. Have a soul.

While all brands have the common goal of making money and striking engagement, a bit of humanity can be more helpful than a promotional post ever could. Showcase an employee, contribute to a charity, show support for the people that make your brand great. It’s important to show the world the people then making your brand so great.

Social media is an amazing opportunity for brands to present themselves in a professional and attractive light. If you are trying to go for the gold and reach big brand levels, try these five strategies.

5 Reasons Social Media Marketing Has Become Essential

By Christopher Tompkins

21Jun

Social Media

Even before the internet took over everything, marketers had a duty to adapt the brand they represented to current trends. Whether the fashionable thing to do was to send out a thick catalog in the mail or to put up flashy billboards downtown, those in charge of promotions always had to keep contemporary. Today’s brands needs social media. If you think it is a fad, think again. If the marketing gurus of “Mad Men” worked today as opposed to decades prior, they would all be social media managers! Need more convincing that this is key to today’s business world? Here are the top five reasons that you need social media in your utility belt:

Your customers are already there. The main purpose of marketing is to have your message positioned where your audience congregates. It was the same when we put ads in magazines and commercials in prime time television shows. Now, we need to be on their computers, smartphones, and tablet screens via social media marketing. Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the platforms have millions upon millions of users. If implemented correctly, your businesses can be on many screens.

Your competition is already there. If you think your business doesn’t belong on social media, think again. It isn’t just for tech-based companies. We’ve seen those in industries ranging from dentistry to real estate, to assisted living facilities to churches benefit from using these communication tools. Don’t think it’s true? Your competition does. Go onto Facebook or Twitter and you might be surprised to see that many of your fellow professionals are already there.

The companies you use are already there. Look around your house or office and inspect the packaging of your most used items. There is a good chance you will see at least a little Facebook or Twitter logo, which indicates that brand’s involvement on the internet. The big brands have already wised up to social media’s power. This should show you that this movement isn’t going away anytime soon, nor should it. It has allowed countless customers to connect with companies they trust in new ways.

You want to seem invested- Because of just how popular social media has become, you need to show that you care about your customer base by participating. You can do this by delivering engaging posts via the avenue of communication your audience prefers. In essence, it is the same as community outreach which, as all professionals know, is amazing for PR.

You want to keep in the know. Social media has become so much more than “connecting with friends”. Many people now use these platforms to network and promote themselves, but also to learn about their industry. Industry leaders post articles and news stories that are relevant to their work everyday.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to jump onto social media. So what are you waiting for? Start posting today!

Why do you go on social media? Comment below!

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Why You Need To Get Your Branding Right the First Time

By Christopher Tompkins

11Feb

Uncategorized

It is no surprise to anyone that marketing departments do not have the endless budget to satisfy a hungry company’s every marketing desire. In fact, many times it is difficult to squeeze enough money out of the overall budget to get some of the necessary tasks executed.

Oddly enough, many times over-spending in marketing is due to an elusive culprit: inconsistent branding.

If I had a dollar for every company who had inconsistent branding, I would be a very rich man. Now is this the point in the blog where I start wagging my finger and saying “bad company, bad bad company!” Absolutely not! I have been there and understand how a company strapped for cash and overworked can struggle to get a consistent image together. There are changes in staff, or maybe the upper management is impetuous when it comes to graphic changes.

No matter what it is, you need to create a Branding File that is to be used as the main be all and end all. This file should be created on a shared drive so that any one can access it, but only one person can add to it: the head of marketing.

Now what goes in this file? I would suggest the following items be added to the Branding File:

Your Logo: This would be the logo that is approved to be used. Do not add every logo file in history here, just the one you will be using.

Word Document: A word document that has the following elements included in it: the approved font used in your logo, the approved font that you wish to use on all of your promotional materials (can be more than 1, but not more than 3), the colors you will be using and their corresponding RGB, CMYK, and HTML numbers

Images: Any images or stock imagery that you will be using in your marketing materials

Long Description: This is the long description of your business – 6-8 sentences that describes your entire business focus, what you sell or provide, location and more.

Short Description: This is the short description of your business. 2 sentences that explain your business fully

The last two items sound odd when we are talking about branding, but I believe it is very important to have boiler plate descriptions that you can use on the fly in any marketing that you have. If both of these are approved, your team can pull the verbiage whenever they need it.

Then when you are ready to have something designed or send something to the printer, you will be able to find exactly what you need without having to scramble for files and descriptions. You will be able to get your printed and online materials to one color, look and overall consistent branding. By doing this you will increase your credibility ten fold and help bring a more professional sheen to your business!

While this may sound elementary, this simple exercise will help you not only get organized, but also act as a springboard for a more organized marketing approach.

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Tag : branding

5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Digital Marketing

How Can I Keep My Branding Consistent On Social Media?

1. Tone

2. Imagery

3. Product

4. Customer Service

5. Be Human

5 Ways To Adapt The Big-Brand Approach On Social Media

5 Reasons Social Media Marketing Has Become Essential

Why You Need To Get Your Branding Right the First Time

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!