Rebranding a business can be a challenge and you need to be prepared for the endeavor before you ever begin. You may want to change your name for various reasons. Maybe the name you chose years ago doesn’t fit the current company culture or products. Maybe you want to remove the personalization of a name or initial included in the original name. Or maybe you want to disassociate with legal issues your company has faced in the past. Whatever the reason, changing the name of your business can help you propel your business into new markets or even just help your customers better understand what you offer. Check out our business name change checklist below to get a brief explanation on how to go about changing the name of a business and rebranding strategies.
Steps for changing the name of a business
Step 1: Determine what’s wrong with your current branding.
Before you begin a rebrand of your company, you must understand what’s wrong with the current branding. Is your name difficult to pronounce, in a foreign language that doesn’t resonate with your customers, obscure, childish, or lackluster? There can be many reasons why a name or branding doesn’t work out. Figure out what’s wrong so you can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Step 2: Identify your target audience.
Once you figure out why you want to change the name and branding, it’s time to focus on the customers. Understanding your customers is the first step to successfully marketing a product or service. Who is your target market? If your target customers are children, your name is going to need to be a lot different than if your target customers are college educated blue collar workers.
Create a buyer persona for your company that includes all of the most important information about the ideal customer you want to attract. Consider this a profile of your target customer based on real data that includes items like gender, income, job title, family size, etc. You should give this persona a name and a face so you can imagine this person viewing your brand. For more information about targeted marketing and marketing segmentation check out our articles “What is the definition of market segmentation” and “Targeted marketing, understanding the basics.” Tailor all of your branding and messaging to this desired target market and make sure you always ask yourself this question or similar: “Would Joe/Jill Customer resonate with this ad/image/blog/social media post?”.
Step 3: Brainstorm new business names.
Brainstorm a list of names that are a better fit for your brand. Be sure to check if website domains are available for these names. The worst feeling is coming up with a star-studded, unique name idea, then finding out the domain for that brand is going to cost $10,000 more than you have to spend. Also be sure to research the best names and find out if anyone else in your industry has already taken them. Even worse than missing out on the ideal URL for your website is running into legal issues with your business.
Types of brand names
There are 4 main types of business names: functional, invented, experiential, and evocative names. Each name type can be wildly successful, given the right branding and marketing to go along with them. Functional names usually consist of a description of the company’s product or service. Think Toys R Us and Bank of America. Invented names are made up words or obscure words most people aren’t likely to know. Think Google, Pixar, or Kodak. Experiential names connect to something real but can have a touch of imagination. Think Safari, Netscape, Vanguard. Evocative names use suggestion or metaphor to let the customer interpret what your brand does. Think Amazon, Apple, Hooters.
Step 4: Change your business name legally.
Determine the legal changes that must be made to change your name. This can differ depending on the type of business you own. You may want to change your name entirely with every legal agency, such as the IRS, secretary of state, etc. This may result in a new EIN (employer identification number) for your business. Or you may be able to file a DBA (doing business as) with the new name, keeping the old name legally and using the new name as a front-facing name for your branding. Either way, you must notify the government that you plan on doing business under a different name. Make sure to update your licenses and permits to include the new name if necessary.
Step 5: Update your name and branding.
There are some obvious things that need to change with a name update including a logo, verbiage/content on your website, and physical marketing materials such as signage and brochures. And there are some not so obvious things that may need to change, such as company colors, imagery, and the way you speak to your customers. You may want to hire a professional marketing firm to handle the rebranding process to make sure your logo and other visual assets are on point. You may also want to trademark your logo if you’re concerned about another designer ripping off your design or using it inappropriately, but this step is not necessary in most cases.
Step 6: Communicate with your customers about your new name and brand.
Let your customers know about changing your business name. Returning customers might think they’re in the wrong place or customers who have heard about you with your old name might not be able to find you. Send multiple email blasts to your subscribers with a rebranding announcement, post on social media, and make it obvious on your website that you used to have one name and now have another. Use every channel you can find to let your customers know that they can still get the great product or service they’ve come to love. You can even make a blog post or a page on your website about why you decided to change your name. This not only lets your current and potential customers know who you are and used to be, but it will help users who don’t know still find you when searching for your old name.
Conclusion
Rebranding with a business name change is a demanding and tedious process. Aside from the research and legal changes that must be made, updating your branding everywhere is a lot of work. You must scour the internet for mentions of your old name and redesign every physical marketing material you have. Everything from your website to your business cards must have your new name and branding. That’s why we recommend hiring a marketing and branding professional to help guide you through the rebranding process. If you want to know more about the importance of branding, check out our article “Branding and its role in marketing” for more information.
Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important marketing strategy for businesses. As such, Keyword optimization still stands as an integral ranking factor of SEO. This article walks you through the basics of keyword optimization as well as the best and most effective types of keyword optimization to increase search rankings.
Content:
What is Keyword Optimization?
Importance of Keywords in SEO
Best Tools for keyword optimization
Best tips and strategies for Keyword Optimization
Conclusion
What is Keyword Optimization?
Keyword Optimization can be described as the process of researching, structuring, analyzing, and implementing the best and most relevant keywords to your website to increase its search rankings. Keyword Optimization helps search engines decide if your website content is relevant to a search query. Search engines reference the usage of the specific keywords searched for against the content on your website and others like yours to determine each website's position on the search engine results.
The process starts with keyword targeting. This is the practice under which you research what keywords are used most frequently by your target customer base to search for relevant products/services or content that your website is offering. Afterwards, comes the on-page SEO step of writing valuable content rich with keywords. These keywords should be relevant to what your customers are actually searching and should be kept to a reasonable level. Spamming keywords is frowned upon by search engines and may reduce the visibility of your website. For example ‘Marketing firm in Seattle’ carries the following keywords relevant-
(Source: Keywords Everywhere
extension for Chrome)
You should focus on using these and other relevant
keywords for searches related to ‘Marketing firm in Seattle’.
Importance of Keyword Optimization in SEO
Keywords optimization helps boost your organic traffic and search ranking. SEO is one of the greatest marketing tools of the digital marketing age. It not only it helps you connect with more potential customers, it also provides a great database for information on potential customer base. Through research. you can analyze the behaviors and lifestyle preferences of your customers to modify your market campaigns and boost goodwill for your website.
Best Tools for Keyword Optimization
Answer the Public.
SEO by way of blogs and articles, answer the public allows you to find out what people are looking for so you can answer their questions
Answer the Publicis a great tool for commercial blogging and generating traffic towards your blog via keyword optimization. It is especially helpful for keywords optimization for smaller businesses which require ultra-specific keywords to rank in search engine results. When you search a topic, Answer the Public will generate a list of the most popular searches related to that subject, sorted by rankings. It's a great tool for blog keyword optimization and for finding blog topics. The platform allows only a limited number of free searches a day, so make each free search count.
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is an efficient keyword analysis and management tool which can be used as an extension for Chrome and Firefox browsers. Keywords Everywhere shows valuable data for your search query and related queries that may result in more keywords. This add-on provides search volume, CPC (cost per click), & competition for every keyword in the search box. It also shows what keywords your most popular competitors are using. Keywords Everywhere is also helpful for paid Search Engine Marketing campaigns and works alongside Google Keyword Planner to provide valuable data for your campaign targeting.
Google Analytics
SEO Marketing Requires Analytics tracking like Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers you the power to monitor every kind of traffic you can imagine on your website. It also offers feedback on which keywords visitors use to reach your web pages, which makes it an essential tool for traffic monitoring and content optimization.
XML sitemaps
XML site maps (with a
robots.txt file) allows and guides search engine crawlers to crawl and index
all the pages of a website sufficiently, involving sorting by keywords as well.
Hence XML sitemaps help improve search rankings by enhancing the rankings of a
website in a search result.
SERP robot
SERP robot connects directly to your website’s rankings. You can check your website’s rankings for up to five different keywords to see where your website stands. Not only that, but it allows you to check and compare with other websites’ rankings as well, making it an effective tool for competitor analysis.
Best Tips for Keyword Optimization
Focus on ultra-specific keywords for small businesses
(also known as long-tail keywords analysis). This is especially helpful for local organizations offering specific products. For example, the keyword ‘Haircut salon Greater Seattle’ is better optimized for a saloon in Greater Seattle than let’s say ‘Haircut salon’. Although these need not always be location based, for example ‘Black leather formal shoes nike at discounted price’ is another long tail keyword, emphasizing on the ‘discounted price’ phrase conjoined with ‘black leather formal shoes nike’ to make it ultra-specific.
Make sure to optimize title tags, images, and tags.
Title tags are the first thing that web crawlers as well as the traffic on your website read. Image text should be added in the alt attribute of the image as well as its file name, otherwise crawlers and search engines do not recognize images as pieces of content but simply take them as blank blocks. An image without an alt attribute is a missed opportunity for extra keywords and a potential penalty toward your site from search engines.
Focus on developing a user friendly site structure.
While keyword optimization can improve your search ranking, it is bounce rate that determines the public’s verdict on the content of your website. Bounce rate is the percentage of traffic that leaves the website after viewing only one page. Some website tend to go overboard with keyword stuffing and fail to produce on-point and relevant content. You should focus more on producing quality content over quantity so as to minimize bounce rate and cater to your traffic’s actual needs.
Decrease bounce rate by creating an organized list of keywords to improve landing page relevance.
You should pre-determine what keywords you will be using in what type of content by researching and comparing the most popular keywords in the categories. It can greatly reduce time, effort, and cost put into optimizing and researching for different pieces of content.
Audit your keywords with mobile users in mind.
Editing the contents of your website to keep up with the trends and search patterns is an excellent idea to keep up to date with the ever changing search dynamics, especially for mobile users. Nearly 60% of all search queries made on Google are on mobile devices. Moreover, data released by Google shows that a 53% of users bounce off a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This shows not only the importance of loading speed optimization, but also content optimization for mobile users.
Conclusion
Google claims to have hundreds of factors when it comes to ranking. However the above listed SEO strategies and tools have proven to be repeatedly effective. It is important to stay dynamic and optimize your content as fresher ranking factors are introduced. Search Engine Optimization can be a tricky concept to understand and even trickier to tackle. However, with expert guidance it can be used to the best of your interests.
We Can help!
Symphysis
maximizes the number of times you appear in organic search queries. Our SEO
team begins by reducing loading time, improving image quality, removing
leftover template code, implementing analytics, all while improving keyword
ranking. For more information and a free initial consultation, call or text @
+1 (425) 390-4738.
Market segmentation is one of the initial marketing strategies that ensure a smooth and actionable flow of marketing decisions in your business. This article guides you through the basics of market segmentation as well as provides tips and strategies for its successful implementation.
Contents:
What
is Market Segmentation (with examples of marketing segmentation)?
The
importance of market segmentation.
Types
of market segments
The
segmentation process
Best
tips for market segmentations
Conclusion
What is Market Segmentation?
Market segmentation is the process of categorizing potential and actual customer base, into various categories such as age, sex, location, preferences, income, etc. This ensures better targeting, increased ROI, conservation of marketing budget, and aids in broadening the product range and variations.
For example, a shampoo may be sold in sachets, tubes, or bottles, targeting different income groups. Similarly, most bigger fast food chains sell various local flavors for different countries they operate in to cater to the flavor palette of the region. Selling a product with different scents, such as deodorant, is appealing to segmented market based on their preferences.
Market Segmentation clarifies your market’s needs. Targeting is where and how your budget should be applied based on the market segmentation. Segmentation is also greatly helpful for individual marketing campaigns, as it can guide you on how to apply various campaigning strategies on different demographics of customers.
Segmentation can be made on the basis of one or more of the following:
Demographic Segmentation.
This includes variables such as age, gender, level of education, level of income, family status, etc. This is the most popular type of segmentation as it helps businesses of all sizes and types to organize their audience into smaller and easier segments.
Geographic and cultural Segmentation
Geographic segmentation, when done on a wider level, becomes cultural segmentation. Geographic segmentation can consist of anything from suburban to international level. For example, larger fast food companies serve local flavors of their products in each country they operate.
Behavioral Segmentation
Behavioral Segmentation relies on learning a buyer’s existing purchasing patterns to divide them based on factors such as retailer preferences, usage occasion, purchase frequency, etc.
Psychographic Segmentation
Psychographic
Segments consists of divisions based on social or personal characteristics such
as lifestyle choices, interests and opinions, personality, values, etc.
It is important to know what your market is before deciding what part of it you need to market to and how. Conducting proper marketing and industry research with adequate research tools and strategies is the first step towards effective segmentation.
Determine on what basis you will be dividing the market.
For local businesses, smaller criteria such as demographic and psychographic data could be valuable.
Conduct online and offline research about the actual statistical distribution of your target demographic.
Next step is to gather data about your potential customer base. This can be done online or offline with marketing strategies and online tools like MyBestSegments, USA GOV statistics, or traditional questionnaires, surveys, and focus groups.
Establish your customer base.
It is best to express the number in a relative term like in percentages or a pie chart. You should focus on marketing to the segment which is most likely to purchase the products/services as initial testing.
Best tips for market segmentation 2019
Be dynamic with trends and market needs.
Segments, especially those based on behavioral and psychographic tendencies, are more likely to be dynamic in nature. It is advised that you keep updating and revising your marketing segments when necessary.
Make sure your data is measurable and comparable.
Data should be presented in relative and quantitative terms. Data from various segments should also be comparable to each other, in case the need for grouping arises. For example, if people from a different geographical location move to another place and their consumption habits are changed, the data between the two should be comparable such that now they can combined into one segment.
Be realistic about your marketing approaches towards each customer base.
It is advised to appeal to the beliefs and lifestyles of each individual segment. The customer should ideally derive a sense of belonging towards your brand, which is achieved mainly by appealing to their belief, lifestyle, and cultural choices.
Group similar segments together.
You should keep the number of segments to a number as low as possible so that the process of segmentation becomes easier and actionable. For example, suppose you have two segments with people who are interested in sports and people who are active at gyms. You can combine them under one category as people interested in physical activities.
Conclusion
Marketing Segmentation, when done correctly, could be the key to a long chain of successful and profitable marketing decisions and increased ROI. Not only does it help target your customer base, but helps in every aspect of decision making for your business. Therefore it often becomes important that all personal and professional efforts are put into its planning and execution.
We
can help!
Symphysis believes in marketing from the ground up. With our team of dedicated experts we can help in locating your ideal market, segmentation, campaigning, search engine optimization, and creating your own successful brand. For more information call or text @+1 (425) 390-4738 for a free initial consultation
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most crucial online marketing strategies in 2019. However it can be a really hectic and challenging process without proper preparations. Below is our top picked SEO checklist for launching a successful website in 2019.
Contents:
The Importance of Search Engine Optimization in 2019
Simple yet effective 10 point SEO checklist for launching a website in 2019
Conclusion
The Importance of Search Engine Optimization
The importance of SEO can be determined in terms of discoverability and Goodwill. Given the cut-throat competition these days, it has become a necessity to stay current in every aspect of business to increase your brand’sgoodwill and gain a competitive advantage over other businesses in the industry. It is very effective when it comes to boosting your organic revenue since it drives more potential customers towards your brands via search results.
10 point SEO checklist for launching a website in 2020
1. Install Google Search Console and Google Analytics on your website to track performance.
Google Search Console Webmaster Tools for Search Engine Optimization
Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster tools) allows users to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites. It measures your site’s search and ranking performance and suggests methods to improve these metrics.
Google Analytics is Google’s free reporting marketing tool that monitors and reports in-depth data about the traffic on your website. It measures things like age, gender, interest, device and location of your audience. It also provides reports on bounce rate (the rate that measures the percentage of people leaving your website after visiting one page) and suggests ways to address the issues leading potential customers to leave the site.
2. Make sure to polish your landing pages.
Landing pages are the pages that show up on Google’s search results when someone conducts a search. A landing page is the first page a user visits on your site, so it needs to lead the user toward your desired page or action.
In the previous point I talked about bounce rate. Google lists it as one of the most important ranking factors, among other things. It is very important to have an interactive and user-friendly UI (User Interface) to keep users your website for a longer period of time. It's also important to link your pages to create a web of connections that lead your users throughout your website to increase the time on site.
3. Reduce Load Time
Perhaps the biggest factor when it comes to bounce rate is loading time. Studies have shown that people do not wait more than 10 seconds for a web page to load before leaving a website. Moreover, data released by Googleshows that 53% of mobile users leave the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Therefore, it is important to reduce loading time by methods such as image optimization, removal of leftover code, cutting down on external scripts, making use of caching systems, etc.
4. Optimize loading time and landing pages for mobile devices
Approximately 60% of all Google searches are conducted on mobile devices. Google also claims to place mobile compatibility as one of the major SEO ranking factors. The length of time users wait for a page to load is reduced on mobile devices compared to computers, hence it is necessary for a website to be compatible for mobile devices and maintain an attractive mobile interface.
5. Follow the proper keyword research and target highly specific searches
Every search consists of keywords that (hopefully) link the user to relevant information. For new websites it is advised to focus on more specific keyword strings (also called long tail keywords). These are the strings of words that direct users who are looking for something very specific to your website. This ensures improved targeting and is cost efficient.
For example, an article about your product could include terms like "Where to buy..." or "...in Seattle" to rank higher in searches using those specific keywords.
Check out our list of best free and paid SEO tools to learn how and where to conduct keyword research.
6. Link to relevant internal and external webpages in your content.
On page optimization includes factors such optimization of title tag, meta description, image optimization, URL optimization, keyword optimization, and Backlinking.
Title tags should be short and to the point. All sources will tell you a different number, but search engines may not read past 50-60 characters or around 9-12 words of the title tag. Your main keywords should be at the beginning in case the end of the title is not read.
Meta description is the small block of text that appears beneath the title of your page on a search engine result. Search engines read this, but so does the consumer. Together, relevant titles and meta description should guide users to your link over another web page.
Image Optimization is the process of using appropriate file types, sizing images appropriately, and filling out the meta information for the image to reduce load time and bounce rate. Search engines like to deliver relevant information quickly, so a page with a faster load time with the image alt tags filled out may outperform its competitors.
URL optimization should follow the format of website/category/relevant webpage. For example the URL for Wikipedia’s webpage on Marketing Strategy is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_strategy, simple yet comprehensive.
Keyword Optimization in on-page SEO refers to writing content with well-researched keywords that are relevant to the contents of your website. Search engines will rank your website higher if your page contains relevant information to the search, especially long tail keywords.
Backlinking is still one of the most important SEO ranking factors. Linking back to credible sources helps Google crawler find your site as well, creating a web of content search engines can connect and learn from. It also increases your chances for getting linked back from other websites as it makes it easier to find your content. You should link your own and others' sites whenever it is relevant.
8. Focus on local ranking factors for small and medium businesses.
For a website interested primarily in local targeting, local targeting factors such as long-tail SEO, local link-building, Google reviews, locality based bounce rate, etc. should be given priority.
Neilsen MyBestSegments is a brilliant and creative tool for medium and small scale enterprises. You can analyze a local area’s consumption habits and demographic details, along with shift in consumption habits and trends as well. It is good for launching a targeted marketing campaign locally. It can also be helpful for competitor analysis to a great extent.
9. Add a robots.txt file to your website and maintain a XML sitemap
Robots.txt file is how Google crawler finds and lists a site. It tells crawlers what to list and what not to list. Google ranks web pages and not just websites. XML sitemap becomes relevant here because it is essentially a directory of all the pages on a site. It makes it much easier for crawlers to find out your website and rank your pages accordingly.
10. Produce relevant and quality content.
Now that you have managed achieved a click to your landing page, the next important step is to keep the user there to improve your bounce rate. Even if the user doesn't make a purchase, their time on page is valuable and could result in higher search engine ranking.
To keep a user on your page you must offer them superior value via your blogs, offers, etc. A user isn't going to stay on a page for very long if it isn't offering something of value.
Especially if you are blogging and/or producing content, it is necessary that the keywords that lead to your site are relevant to the actual search queries of your audience and are not simply a case of keyword stuffing. In any case, Black Hat SEO is not recommended since Google is vigilant about SEO tactics that try to cheat the system and will penalize your site if need be.
Conclusion
Google claims to have hundreds of factors when it comes to ranking. However the above listed SEO strategies and tools have proven to be repeatedly effective. It is important to stay dynamic and optimize your content as fresher ranking factors are introduced.
Search Engine Optimization is a lengthy process that never really ends. However with expert guidance it can be used to the best of your interests.
We Can help!
Symphysis maximizes the
number of times you appear in organic search queries. Our SEO team begins by reducing
loading time, improving image quality, removing leftover template code,
implementing analytics, all while improving keyword ranking. For more information
and a free initial consultation, call or text @ +1 (425) 390-4738.
We have written about various marketing strategies and tools in our previous articles, however there are certain distinctions when it comes to marketing for small businesses. These may be budgeting limits, limited area of operations, and difference in targeting and potential market. This article specifically guides you through marketing strategies and techniques for small businesses.
How isMarketing for small businesses different from other types of marketing?
Best marketing tools for small business.
Online marketing for small business.
Conclusion
How isMarketing for small businesses different from other types of marketing?
These are important in cases of all large, medium, and small enterprises. However there are some crucial difference when it comes to actual marketing between small and medium, and large enterprises. These include:
Type of capital and sources of funding. Larger enterprises usually involve some form of equity or shared funding, including large partnerships. However small enterprises often consist of a single main owner and assets belonging to the single owner. Therefore small enterprises face a limited budgeting issue when it comes to making investment decisions.
Ownership and decision making. Major enterprises are usually owned by equity distribution or some form of large partnerships and are controlled by a board of directors. Small enterprises usually comprise of a single owner or a small partnership. Therefore while there is a comparative shortage of capital, they triumph at quick decision making and therefore have a higher flexibility when it comes to making decisions in response to the changes in the marketing/ industry trends.
Area of operation. Small businesses have limited area of operation, therefore marketing strategies such as targeting and advertising become relatively easier and cheaper. There is also a vital role of word of mouth marketing when it comes to marketing for small enterprises. Goodwill is geographically limited, therefore it is important to maintain a modest social presence.
Best marketing tools for small business.
Here is our list of top picks for best online and offline marketing tools for small businesses. Click herefor a more comprehensive list of marketing tools.
Nielsen MyBestSegments. Neilsen MyBestSegmentsis a brilliant online marketing research tool for medium and small scale enterprises. You can analyse a local area’s consumption habits and demographic details, along with shift in consumption habits and trends. It is good for launching a targeted marketing campaign locally. It can also be helpful for competitor analysis to a great extent.
USA GOV statistics . USA GOV statistics culminates data released by Federal Agencies on various topics such as agriculture, education, transportation, energy, etc. It can be used for geographical targeting and modifying marketing tactics as per industry needs. It is a good tool for local targeting as it conveys reliable official data.
Business Cards. Investing in businesses cards is a must for small business. Small business need to establish connections. In case you meet people with potential growth opportunities and lucrative deals providing business cards is a cheap and professional way for conveying your presence in the market.
Direct mailing. Maintaining a local mailing list can be a really effective tool when it comes to marketing for small businesses. It is important for small businesses to attract new customers, but it is way more important to maintain their established customer base. Therefore a mailing list for subscribers with mails regarding updates to the business and discounts/offers can go a long way in keeping your customer base satisfied. However spamming must be avoided as no one likes junk mail.
Sales Promotions. Sales promotions differ from advertisement in the sense that they do not promote the product itself, but include some extra benefits with the sale of the product. For example schemes like BOGO (buy one get one), discount on higher quantity of purchase, lucky draws with purchases, free shipping, etc.
Engagement, Not Aggressive Selling. Aggressive Selling, focusing on immediate sales by advertisement rather than building up a customer base, usually only works to increase sales in the short term. It is a huge obstacle for a firm looking to acquire market share from an established market. Customer Engagement on the other hand is an essential. As is evident by the ever growing need of a good Customer Support, engagement and reliability on the organization from the customer’s side helps build the brand, occasionally faster than any other marketing method.
Online Marketing. Some small businesses are often cynical about the importance of online marketing given the differences audience scale at a local level. However given the state of marketing dynamics and a customer base driven primarily by online reassurance, it has become important for every kind of business to maintain an online presence. According to a study conducted by GE capital retail bank,87% of customers who shop locally prefer to research their choices online before making a decision. This makes it essential for your brand to be visible online.
Branding. Branding, even locally, goes a long way for business growth and development. Especially for a business dealing in generic or everyday use products, brand distinction and goodwill helps a lot in acquiring a competitively greater market share.
Online marketing for small business.
Online marketing is a modern day competitive necessity. Even for small businesses, it has become important to maintain a stable digital presence. With advertising services like Facebook’s local market listing, it has also become easier to target and advertise specifically to your ideal potential customer base.
Apart from online advertisement, there are two other major online marketing strategies: SEO and Social media.
Search Engine Optimization is a sequence of strategies and methods used to by a website so as to increase its search ranking. For example, an owner of a bakery in Seattle would optimize their website content to appear in searches for "Bakery in Seattle." There are various methods and techniques of search engine optimization listed in ourdetailed articleSearch Engine Optimization.
Social Media is another excellent way to maintain an interactive customer base. Posting about current trends and connecting to your customer base online can help improve your business’s goodwill and even attract more customers. You can also use it for sales promotions or Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisement.
Conclusion
The most important points are to understand the dynamic of your local market, change and accustom to the needs of your audience as necessary, offer products of some customer value, and market to potential buyers only. Do not let the failure stories discourage you since entrepreneurship is all about facing and beating challenges. Once you understand what works for your market, marketing strategies become clearer. However in case of higher growth prospects and more complex market structures, professional assistance is recommended.
We Can Help!
Symphysis specializes in market structure and strategy. Every day we meet clients from around Greater Seattle for one-on-one training and consultation. Our marketing services extend to businesses of all sizes, family and enterprise. For more information, call or text @ +1 (425) 390-4738.
Marketing is an ever-changing and tedious process, however it is impossible for a business to gain Goodwill and Brand Recognition without proper marketing. Marketing is essential for gaining a competitive advantage. Planning and running targeted campaigns stick with the customer and drive them towards your brand. This article provides a beginner’s guide for creating and running such campaigns.
Contents
What is a Marketing Campaign?
The Marketing Checklist.
Where to run a marketing campaign.
Tips to ensure the campaign’s success.
Conclusion
What is a Marketing Campaign?
A marketing campaign is a sequence of promotional activities that a business undergoes to achieve a particular goal. Therefore it is different from marketing in the sense that while it implies all aspect of marketing, it is a goal-oriented and temporary strategy to boost your customer base, such as discounting, sales promotion, or an advertisement campaign. It can also be of various forms depending on the needs of the business.
Throughout the course of running a business, a brand may try out many general and specific marketing campaigns. Each one’s length and budget depends on the business’ current needs. Therefore certain temporary and long term variables need to be considered before launching a campaign.
The Marketing Checklist.
The following are certain perquisites to ensure a successful and profitable marketing campaign:
Industry analysis
Industry analysis is the process of analyzing various aspects of an industry, such as where your business fits in into the market, its growth and profit potential, the state of competition, what marketing tactics are useful for the product line, etc. It is essential since it defines the potential liquidity, solvency, and profitability for you and your competitors in the industry. It focuses on analyzing market trends and therefore also helps your business prepare for any future shift in economic patterns of the market.
For detailed information on Industry Analysis click here.
Competitor analysis
Competitor Analysis comes after Industry Analysis, which establishes which industry you will be competing under. But while Industry analysis is more generalized, competitor analysis focuses more on how the existing firms in the industry function, as well as any potential firms joining. It focuses on analyzing your competitors’ producing, distributing, and marketing strategies and narrowing down which ones would work best for you.
For detailed information on competitor analysis click here.
Structuring
A strong structure is essential for good management and budgeting. Decide on what platforms you will be advertising through (social media networks, billboards, SEM, etc), what promotional methods you will be using (advertising or discounts or lucky draws or a combination of these and more), and for how long the campaign will run. In this step you also define the reasons for the campaigning, that is why are you running the campaign in the first place. For example, campaign goals could be clearing up excess stock or increasing traffic on your website.
This campaign
duration can vary as well, such as it may be for a specific time period or
until certain quantity of sales is made.
Targeting
Targeting is the most important perquisite for any kind of marketing. It is advertising and promoting your product or service to a particular and predefined set of customers, who are the most likely to purchase the product. It ensures your promotional efforts reach only those who are most likely to buy the product, therefore generating more sales and increasing return on investment.
For more details and tips on targeting click here.
Resourcing
Resourcing is calculating and defining how much your marketing budget is and where it will be spent. It’s an extension to structuring which emphasises on assignment, such as where your funds will be spent, who will be running each aspect of the campaign, how much time will each resource (monetary, human, or other) spend on the campaign, etc. It is important to assign human resources who are experienced in their particular fields to manage a large campaign.
Budgeting
While budgeting is a common term, it is a game changer when it comes to marketing budget decisions. There are a lot of factors that go into budgeting for a campaign, like time period (structuring), demographic based distribution (targeting), where you will be advertising and to how (resourcing), etc. It is the process of assigning and defining the funds towards a particular variable of the campaign.
Where to run a marketing campaign.
Now that you have checked all the perquisites, comes the step where you have to decide where, how, and when you will be running the campaigns. This can be derived through industry and competitor analysis, based on what form of media distribution works for firms like yours.
The PESO Model
No, we aren't referring to the currency of Mexicao, we're talking about a common approach to marketing reach. PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned) is a model for how you should organize your outreach opportunities. Below we will break down the PESO acronym and explain what each means, and a little on how to use them. These are typical marketing channels where your campaign can be promoted.
Paid: Display and Billboards advertisement, Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, paid influencers, Sponsorships, etc.
Earned: PR and marketing, Media Coverage, etc.
Shared: Word of mouth marketing, Social media presence, forums and referrals.
Owned: Marketing on your own blogs and websites, your social channels, newsletters and email campaigning.
A company may choose any combination of the above depending on the campaign’s goals. However it is important to be dynamic and change according to the need of the environment. Some important management efficiency based factors come into play. These are-
Make A Checklist.
Use the campaign checklist. It is important to have a structured and laid out plan before starting.
Prepare To Pivot
Your campaigns must be dynamic and ready to shift course at a moments notice. The realm of marketing is ever changing and you don't want to be caught with an outdated strategy. Some of the worlds most successful brands have come out of campaigns that were quick to make a pivot. This might be an essential element of survival for your company, campaign, or content in general.
Agile Decision Making
Be quick in decision making. It goes without saying that quick and effective decision making is one of the most important building blocks of a marketing campaign. In the case particular marketing strategies are not working out, you should be vigilant enough to either change structures and redefine the campaign depending on the specifics of the campaign.
Keep track of performance. Midway evaluation is also one of the important strategies. You should maintain a journal recording day to day, or even hour to hour performance of your business, defining variables such as what time does the campaign work best, what kind of people it is most likely to affect, how much you are spending for each aspect, etc.
Conclusion
A marketing campaign is a temporary project aimed at boosting business sales, however a successful campaign can help grow a business exponentially. That is why successful companies run a plethora of specific campaigns throughout the year. It often becomes important that all personal and professional efforts are put into its planning and execution.
We
can help!
Symphysis believes in marketing from the ground up. With our team of dedicated experts we can help in locating your ideal market, segmentation, campaigning, search engine optimization, and create your own successful brand. For more information call or text @+1 (425) 390-4738 for a free initial consultation.
A lot of research and evaluation work goes into running a successful marketing campaign. From targeting to keeping up with the industry’s trends, it is necessary to do proper research before launching a campaign. There are certain tools and methods to help with that. We have presented our top picks for best marketing tools in 2019.
Content:
Why marketing research is crucial for your business
Top ten best marketing tools in 2019
Conclusion
Why marketing research is crucial for your business
In our previous blog best free and paid SEO tools 2019we listed our picks for best SEO tools in 2019. While SEO has become an integral part of marketing, marketing research still stands its own ground. Marketing is a much wider and dynamic concept than SEO. It involves researching not only to generate traffic and build an online audience, but also to keep up with industrial and competitive dynamics. It is also crucial in building your brand, as it is with marketing that most initial B2C (business-to-customer) interactions occur.
These marketing research tools will present better potential customer base data, so as to facilitate targeting and ensure efficient use of your marketing budget.
Top
ten best marketing research tools and strategies in 2019
American Fact Finder
American fact finder is a tool which can be used for general census collection as well as for targeting. Its filtering service allows you to sort out data by age, sex, race, location, etc. It provides the data about the following.
One of the most popular and renowned marketing tools in our list, SurveyMonkey can be used to create and conduct online surveys. These can be generic or specific depending on your need. While they offer a free package as well, much better targeted and in-depth, and long term surveys can be conducted by subscribing to their premium packages.
Survata is a paid form-building website with a twist. After you have finalized a survey form, their employees can (for a small fee) analyze the questions and provide feedback for targeting and industry/market relevance.
Make My Persona is a creative targeting tool that generates a persona for your potential customer. They create semi-fictional profiles about your potential buyers using real market and industry data. It inputs your existing customers to provide an ‘ideal’ image of the potential buyer.
Neilsen MyBestSegments is a brilliant and creative tool for medium and small scale enterprises. You can analyze a local area’s consumption habits and demographic details, along with shift in consumption habits and trends as well. It is good for launching a targeted marketing campaign locally. It can also be helpful for competitor analysis to a great extent.
Userlytics offers a beta testing platform to test any kind of media, from videos and banners to apps and websites. It records and shows beta users’ interactions- what they interact the most with and how long, including a screen recording feature for videos. Their pricing starts at $2900/year.
Pew Research Centre is a comprehensive online marketing tool that provides data on various topics like marriage statistics, immigration statistics, social media usage, demographic distribution, device based ownership, etc. It provides all these tools for free with a user friendly interface and relevant charts for visualization.
The official Government statistics website culminates data released by Federal Agencies on various topics such as agriculture, education, transportation, energy, etc. It can be used for geographical targeting and modifying marketing tactics as per industry needs.
So far we have talked about online marketing strategies, however certain offline methods can be really useful for marketing research as well. While these tools showing data about customer behavior are useful, they may not represent the full extent of the data at times. Therefore, some businesses may prefer more personal research.
In-person surveys are one of the most popular of such methods. One can ask people from a locality to answer survey questions on streets or organize focus groups. A focus group is a great tactic to assemble a group of individuals to share their opinions and answer questions about certain topics like consumption habits, preferences, criteria for choosing one product over another, etc.
Conclusion
Proper research is essential for any successful marketing campaign. Therefore it is always advised to conduct and invest in proper researching beforehand. Once you have become accustomed to the industry, you can use these tools for a significantly improved campaign. However, it is recommended to get expert help for professional marketing.
We can help!
Symphysis believes in marketing from the ground up. With our team of dedicated experts we can help in locating your ideal market, segmentation, search engine optimization and create your own successful brand. Call or text @+1 (425) 390-4738 for a free initial consultation.
Competitor Analysis is the process of finding out who your industrial competitors are, evaluating their working and policies, and comparing them with yours so as to gain a strategical advantage. In a world of ever-growing cut-throat competition, analyzing competitors and their strategies is very important to gain a competitive advantage.
What is competitor analysis?
The Importance of Competitor Analysis
How to find out who your competitors are (Industry Analysis)
How to conduct competitor Analysis (The Analysis Process)
Things to keep in mind while analyzing competitors
Footnotes
What is Competitor Analysis?
When you start out in an industry, it is most likely that there already are a bunch of firms dealing in similar products and services. These are your competitors, that is, organizations you are looking to acquire market share(1)from, and organizations that look to acquire your market share.
To be advantageous in this cut-throat competition, you need to strategically evaluate your competitors’ policies and conduct, analyze their marketing and advertising, maintain a proper brand distinction, and offer customers motive to choose your products over your competitors. Competitor Analysis comes after Industry Analysis, which establishes under which industry you will be working, what are its profitability prospects, and how to start out strong in the industry. You can read more about it here.
The Importance of Competitor Analysis
Competition is the whole reason behind rising specifics
of Selling Costs(2), Research
and Development, PR, and other indirect expenses and services. Under theoretical
Monopoly there is no selling cost involved, except maybe the minimum required
for informational promotions.
This suggests that not only the actual sales and profits, but every single aspect of a business is dependent on competition. For example, under a Monopolistic Competition(3) (the most popular form of competition) market like that of toothpaste, inherently the generic product being sold is toothpaste, yet it is extensive promotional methods that cause such a profitability distinction among different brands. Therefore greater level of competition is encouraged.
On the other hand, under Oligopoly(4) markets like cement, telecommunications, or smartphones, competitors often act in harmony because one brand’s decisions greatly affect another’s. For example the shift in taste towards touchscreen smartphones initiated by the release of the first iPhone led to its competitors being forced to shift their focus in manufacturing smartphones. Nokia failed to deliver primarily due to its internal struggle, leading to its infamous downfall.
How to find out who
your competitors are (Industry Analysis)
As mentioned above, Competitor Analysis is a follow-up of Industry Analysis. Followed by it, competitors can be identified as businesses dealing in products and services that can be substituted for those offered by you so that they fulfill a particular demand.
How to conduct Competitor Analysis (The Analysis Process)
To gain a competitive advantage, the first step is to list the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors across various fields of practices such as production, price, distribution, etc.
To follow, determine which competitor uses what
techniques and strategies, rank competitors on the basis of profit reports,
liquidity, solvency, and other survival/growth indicators.
This presents a ranking system showing advantages and
disadvantages of routing through a particular process.
To do this you will need to profile your competitors. You will extract their theoretical market value and their products’, real or psychological. And then to gain an advantage you will need to offer superior value to the potential customer.
These days details of most of an organization’s functioning variables are transparently available on the internet. To follow, profile each or leading competitors in your industry based on their functioning variables like:
Organizational history: Of ownership, location, functioning, previous financial reports, previous policies and updated functioning governance.
Employment details: How many people they employ, pay rate, departments, types of people employed (key qualification looked for), management functioning, etc.
Marketing strategies: Advertisement, PR, and sales promotions, and their respectively corresponding goals and objectives.
Distribution: Distribution chains, vendors and methods, geographical coverage, etc.
Financial structure and sources: What are the sources of finance (Share capital/owner capital/ loans and capital borrowings). Along with financial performance like profitability and liquidity ratios, debt payback potential, growth profile, etc.
Products Evaluation: What kinds of products are offered, what are the R&D improvements employed in the product, what is the brand and trademark value, what kind of patents and licenses are registered by various businesses, etc.
Things to keep in mind while analyzing competitors
One of the things to keep in mind while going about competitor analysis is potential competition. This includes potential new competitors/startups or other businesses looking to expand. Calculation of this is primarily done by calculating growth rate of number of businesses in a particular market based on the market’s past.
While evaluation is based mainly on past functioning,
market is a very dynamic environment, therefore another factor be consider is
the ever-changing competitor policies and market preference. To rapidly adapt
and compensate to change is very important when it comes to maintaining a
competitive advantage.
We can help!
Symphysis offers marketing
consulting for businesses of all sizes. With the right analytics and targeting
process we will give you a competitive advantage that attracts your target
audience. For more information call or text @ +1
(425) 390-4738.
Footnotes
Market
Share refers to the number of existing customers in a market. Hence to acquire
market share is to attract existing customers from your competitors to switch
to products and services offered by you.
Selling
Costs mean the costs employed in informing the potential customers about your
product and attracting them to purchase it, such as advertisement expenditure
or sales promotion expenditure.
Monopolistic
Competition is a form of market in which there are there are a lot of sellers selling
similar but somewhat differentiated products, such as toothpaste or pens.
Oligopoly
is a form of competition in which there are a few sellers selling homogenous
products, such as cement or telecommunication. This leads to co-operation
between them called ‘team effect’.
Identifying and carefully implementing your targeted marketing strategy is one of the most important success factors for any business. This article takes a brief look at the concept of Targeted Marketing, describes the targeted marketing process, and provides tips on finding your ideal market.
Contents
What is Targeted Marketing?
The Targeted Marketing Process: STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning).
Online Targeted Marketing.
How to find your ideal market (conclusion)
Footnotes
What is Targeted Marketing?
Targeted Marketing refers to aiming marketing efforts at a specific audience by using marketing mix,(1) resources, and budget. It is advertising and promoting your product or service to a particular and predefined set of customers, who are the most likely to purchase the product. In other words, targeted marketing aims at limiting the number of people you advertise your product to so that the promotion reaches the demographic which is most likely to purchase the product with minimalcost.
Targeted Marketing is especially useful for small businesses. Various strategies and variables are involved in targeting, such as age and gender, geographical location, season and weather, consumer’s preferences, etc. Targeting also largely depends on the product itself. For example, a product of women’s winter clothing will be advertised in winter or in the pre-winter season in a place where potential female viewers are likely to see it.
Check out the AMA definition of Targeted Marketing Here.
The Targeted Marketing Process: STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning).
Segmentation is the process of dividing the potential market as a whole on identified bases so that the business can select the most profitable segment to advertise to. For example, in our previous example of women’s winter clothing, let’s say we divide the market in two segments on the basis of income. Now, if we are manufacturing expensive clothes, we will be targeting our advertisements to women with greater income levels, and vice-versa.
It is important to identify the ‘basis’ beforehand, which must be something most relevant to the organization’s long-term goals such that profit maximization is possible. For example, for an organization looking to expand its area of operations, it would be beneficial to go for a geographically-based segmentation. That is figuring out where the highest number of potential customers reside and then expanding the business accordingly toward that area.
Targeting
Targeting is the process of actually making the decision as to which identified segments the product should be marketed to. A business must take in consideration various factors like distance, budget,ROI(2), etc. and decide which segment maximizes the profits and other gains, such as goodwill creation at minimal cost.
Positioning
A promotional and advertisement campaign is only successful if it resonates with the audience. Positioning emphasizes exactly on that, involving decisions and steps to follow that describe how the campaign is presented to the target audience. In other words, positioning is the actual placement of the marketing campaign in front of the segmented, targeted audience.
Online Targeted Marketing
Symphysis can manage and optimize all your social media campaigns to achieve the goals of your business.
Online targeted marketing is becoming increasingly popular due to its convenience and larger demographic coverage, which compliments the parallel increase in shipment-based selling like home delivery and online sales.
Online targeted marketing is carried out through various popular websites that present a referral link from where your product can be purchased. It justifies the ‘targeted’ aspect as the advertisement is directed towards the website users who actively show interest either in ways that suggest that they are prone to purchase or are at least interested in such products or services in a general way. For example, a user who visits a page titled ‘Cool Tattoos’ on Facebook may receive an advertisement for a nearby Tattoo place, based on whether they have opted to show location (in which way another segmentation strategy, ‘geographic segmentation’ is availed, and strengthened the possibility of the advertisement showing up). However websites do not publicly reveal their exact targeting algorithms, since that way it would be easily exploitable.
Another type of online targeted marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your own website to generate an organic customer base. By posting relevant content on your website you can improve your search ranking. Which is the position your website’s content is displayed when someone makes a search content relating to content on your website. You can read more about Search Engine Optimization here.
And finally, the most successful and free approach to generating organic customers is social media presence and activity. Operating pages under your brand name and posting relevant and relatable content of value for the potential customer is another way of building goodwill for your firm. Simply generating advertisements isn’t marketing. It consists of various other variables like Product, Price, Place, and Promotion(1). Advertisement is merely one of the marketing strategies under promotion. This is especially important for startups looking to acquire a share in an already competitive market. You can read more about Startup marketing here.
How to find your ideal market (conclusion)
Targeted Marketing involves a lot of planning and strategizing. It is impossible to launch a successful marketing campaign without necessary, in-depth market research beforehand. Looking at consumer trends and strategies adopted by rival firms, and then forming a segmentation strategy is helpful. After such trend analysis, you should select the segment which is most lucrative and has potential of shifting brands to yours, which offers them some superior, psychological or real value.
We can help!
Symphysis believes in marketing from the ground up. With our team of dedicated experts we can help in locating your ideal market, segmentation, search engine optimization, and create your own successful brand. For more information call or text @+1 (425) 390-4738 for a free initial consultation.
Footnotes
Marketing Mix consists of four major variables: Product, Price, Place, and promotion. Product Mix is decisions regarding your actual products, such as labeling and manufacturing. Price Mix refers to the pricing decisions (cost-benefit analysis). Place Mix includes decisions pertaining to physical production, transportation, and distribution of the product. And Promotion Mix refers to the decisions involving the tactics and strategies to inform the potential customers about your product.
Return on Investment (ROI) is the calculation of expected or actual rate of return (gain) on the amount invested. For example, on an asset worth $500, the return of interest is $75, then your ROI is 15%. 15% is usually considered a healthy annual ROI, though it also depends on other factors such as rate of depreciation.
A business development firm focused on growth strategies, branding strategies, and data-driven marketing for enterprise businesses, start-ups, and small businesses.
