Consistent Brand Messaging When Building Your Personal Brand

Building a powerful personal brand starts with you. How you present yourself publicly and online strongly affects how your brand is interpreted by the masses. Because your personal brand is a reflection of who you are personally, you must be aware, the totality of your actions will determine your brand.

Nurturing Your Brand Through Authenticity

Your brand is your legacy. Once you establish what you want your brand message to be, you must own it. How you present yourself to the world will define your brand culture – make it memorable. Your actions, expertise, and emotional connection to your brand will define how it is viewed. Offer something valuable only you can provide to the public; live it, and you will garner true authenticity.

Build Character – Online and Off

In the digital age, your online presence with social media has become your touchstone. This is where you engage those interested in your brand. Make sure the design of your online outlets closely aligns with your character and brand message. Whether you have a design team or one person working on creative, make sure there is an understanding of your brand’s uniqueness, your character is clearly interpreted, and don’t forget, a picture is worth a thousand words and this is your moment to shine. It will aid in your social media marketing campaign.

Consistent Brand Messaging

Current and potential clients want consistency. They want to know you will deliver each time with the same or better results. Your clients want to trust you, they want to count on you to be the answer. Consistency in your communications gives clients something to rely on. If you deliver strong and consistent communications, your clients will become evangelists of your brand. 

For more information on how you can build a powerful personal brand, contact the professionals at TwoGirlsConsulting LLC. We understand your physical and digital image must exude your brand. Enticing and consistent communication of your personal brand relies on a carefully crafted strategy. At 2GC, your image is everything.

 

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How to Communicate Your Vision Strategy

When two parties come together there are occasionally creative differences that must be resolved to move forward. It is important to be able to explain your vision to your client while also listening to their ideas for the vision and end results. 

Any good conversation, work-related or not, includes healthy amounts of listening, asking questions, and seeking to understand the other perspective. There may be times your client’s vision is the right one for the job. But there may be times you need to tactfully steer your client in another direction.

When there are differences of opinion, it is good to focus on something you can both agree on — namely, the mission, vision, and goals of your client. Ideally, both you and your client will be pursuing their business success, whether that is selling products, running events, or connecting with consumers. Once this ground is reestablished, it is up to you to clearly communicate the vision based on your experience in the field, creative genius, etc. 

 It helps to remember to stay professional and offer your client  reasons why your design ideas are strong and likely successful. You have the experience they need, and when you can clearly communicate your ideas you give your clients every reason to trust you with their hopes and dreams. Remember, business is not personal and a client simply might not like your designs for no clear reason. 

As Steve Jobs once said, “[they] don’t know what they want until you show them.” So your job is to show your clients what they want in a professional and tactful way.

Contact us for more tips about corporate communication or other questions.

Brand Development through Relationship Marketing

Relationship Marketing is an important part of brand development, focused on the long-term benefit of customer retention. This strategy places an emphasis on building customer relationships. In the modern age, marketing has evolved to include many technology-based methods, including email, video, and social media. There are benefits and challenges to relationship marketing across these various means, although it could be argued that connecting with customers has never been easier than it is today.

Relationship marketing is of particular importance when there is a competitive market for customers. When faced with many choices for the product or service they desire, customers seek to make a connect with a brand or company. That connection will fuel their consumer decisions in the future, and is often built on unique features of a brand. Some customers may gravitate to popular, well-know brands; others may gravitate to local, niche brands.

Relationship marketing usually features a combination of customer retention and customer satisfaction. Customer retention focuses on repeated transactions between customers and companies, building long-term relationships. Repeat customers are often less price sensitive and less inclined to switch companies. Because long-term customers are familiar with goods and processes, these relationships are cheaper to maintain when compared with the cost of attracting new customers.

An added benefit of customer retention is the likelihood that long-term customers will bring additional revenue to companies by word of mouth. Ensuring customer satisfaction, by building customer relationships with many positive associations to a specific product or brand, gives a worthwhile return on investment. Knowing the specific interests and desires of customers is done by accessing names, addresses, demographic information, buying history, and many other variables available with today’s analytic technology.

For help implementing relationship marketing as a brand development strategy, contact us today!

 

Does Your Marketing Strategy Begin in the Right Place?

It never ceases to amaze me how many business owners spend all kinds of time and other resources creating and implementing a marketing strategy that begins at step two. They either ignore the important first step altogether, or pay so little attention to it that it contributes little or nothing of value to the final plan.

What I’m talking about here is developing a profile of your ideal customer. A good definition for the term “ideal customer” is; someone who is most likely to buy from you.

Many business owners don’t understand this essential first step in creating an overall marketing strategy. The reason it’s so important is; by having a handle on what your ideal customer looks like, you’ll be in a better position to determine which marketing techniques are likely to be effective and which are not.

For example, if you were a heating and air conditioning contractor, you would probably be wasting valuable marketing resources if you sent marketing materials to residents of an apartment complex. The apartment owner or manager would typically make decisions on such services, not the residents themselves.

Having a profile of your ideal customer and carefully considering that information when creating a marketing strategy is important regardless of what business you’re in.

So, how do you go about developing a profile of your ideal customer? By asking and answering several questions. For example:

• Is your ideal customer male or female?
• What age range do they fall into?
• What is their education level?
• Are they married, divorced, widowed, or single?
• What is their income range?
• What do they enjoy doing in their spare time?
• What challenges do they typically face?
• What are their dreams and goals?
• Do they spend time on the internet? If so, where and for how long?
• Do they engage in social media? If so, which platforms?
• What types of businesses already market to them?
• How do those businesses market to them?

Having answers to these, and other questions, will put you in a place to make educated decisions on which marketing tools and techniques will be most effective in your market.

Of course, identifying your ideal customer doesn’t preclude you from doing business with those who don’t fit your profile. You just won’t be focusing your marketing efforts on them.

If you’d like help creating a marketing strategy for your business, contact us online or call 702-738-1197.

 

The Importance of Organizational Culture When Choosing Marketing Specialists

Whenever you are interested in working with a marketing firm for purposes such as coming up with promotions, it’s often a good idea to make sure you work with one that has a solid organizational culture. According to the Harvard Business Review, organizational culture “plays a crucial role in shaping behavior in organizations.” When most people are interested in working with such organizations, they often don’t consider the culture and practices within the organization. Most of the time, they think about issues such as how much it will cost them to use the services.

However, remember when dealing with creative subjects such as advertising, you need to ensure everyone on the team will be on board and will have the same determination to help you succeed. Of course, you could easily find a marketing firm to work in helping you come up with a marketing solution, however, if they don’t have the right work ethic and culture, you are likely to end up not getting good value for the money in the long run.

There are some ways in which this can happen. For instance, you may find dealing with the employees of the firm is not as easy as it can be. You might find it more fun to interact with people with positive attitudes towards what they do, and this  usually happens when the firm promotes a supportive organizational culture. In addition, this can also have an effect on the quality of service you receive from them. For instance, if you work with a negative company, and find the staff is not committed to what they do, it means you might not receive value for your money. They may not be spurred to produce the best they can, and this can mean your company might end up getting service that are barely just good enough.

If you are interested in marketing and working with a third-party, it is vital you find a company with a sound work ethic. This way it will be easy for you to interact  and the ability to gain more than anticipated. If you are interested in this kind of service, all you need to do is contact us. We strive to make sure that our organizational culture is as nurturing as possible, and most of our past clients have found this to be one of our best traits.

Earned Media: Building an Integrated Strategy

Earned media is an elusive form of marketing in which your company is promoted by positive media that comes from outside the company itself.  News stories, radio interviews, and positive reviews can all constitute earned media.  Earned media is alluring because it costs nothing for the business, yet can significantly increase overall revenue.

While by definition a company cannot buy or create its own earned media, there are a few strategies that can increase your company’s chances of gaining earned media.  One of the best ways to increase the earned media that your company receives is to design an integrated strategy that blends content marketing strategies with earned media potential.

Make Your Business Easy To Present.  As soon as possible, spend time developing an elevator pitch for your business.  Highlight the attributes that make your business unique, and write your company’s vision.  This makes it easier for media outlets to highlight your business in a coherent manner, without causing journalists the frustration of having to unearth your company’s vision and purpose on their own.

Develop Your Own Media Marketing Strategies.  Using media strategies such as content marketing will increase your company’s visibility and thus the likelihood gaining earned media.  Making your company searchable by developing a presence on social networks and other sites makes it easier for your company to be ‘found.’

Do Something Out Of The Box.  In order to be newsworthy, your company needs to be doing something different from the competition.  What is your company doing to stand out from the crowd?  Determine your company’s unique aspects, and don’t hesitate to make them known.

By establishing a robust marketing strategy, it will be easier for news outlets to highlight your company through earned media.  Take the time to invest in your company, and the earned media will follow.  To learn more about ways to improve your small business, please visit our website and contact us with questions or comments.

PR Effectiveness: Gauging the Many Elements Beyond Sales for Your Campaign

PR effectiveness is a wide picture to be analyzed through different avenues and not strictly by how much money is made. While making money shows a campaign was successful, it may not sustain in the ever-changing social environment. Looking at exactly what prompted those sales can help decide whether it was the result of something unexpected.

Analytics on Social Media

With Google Analytics being such a useful tool in determining web traffic, a firm can discover plenty of evidence in how people reacted to something online. If it was determined the sales were from social media influence, then the main demographics can be known. And despite social media being the place where you’d expect most of the activity to be, there may be a chance sales came significantly from somewhere else.

Analyzing Other Media

Television continues to play just as strong an impact in sales as social media. Most of the time, they work in tandem though mentions from a client on a national TV show or cable news can take sales into the stratosphere. A mention like this (or in a national newspaper) can be the result of an earlier promotion on social media without having spent a dime on a television or a newspaper ad. These interconnections tell a PR firm how the inter-connectivity of today’s media can effectively disseminate enough free information to cut costs of promotion.

Study the Advantages of Small Media

Sometimes sales can be the result of a simple word-of-mouth grassroots campaign or write-ups in small publications. While these might be graded as minor promotional places, it’s worth doing some investigation into these arenas and why they potentially do better than expected. Smaller and more peripheral avenues also typically conjoin with social media for easier methods of passing on information.

Survey the Consumers

Gauging information directly from those who bought a promoted product can help determine where those consumers heard about the product or client. There may be a surprise in store for where they heard about the product through the earlier examples. This may prove the underestimation in the power of fan campaigns by simple word-of-mouth. Determining it can be done through online surveys, telephone, or traditional mail.

Talk to the Client

PR firms need to think of their client and the effectiveness of the PR campaign. Does the client understand what the PR firm is doing and the procedures in how it’s being done? A happy client is a client that understands the entire process of an effective PR plan with a comprehensive understanding of why it was effective.

Contact us if you’re a company needing an effective local or national marketing campaign. Two Girls Consulting (2GC) is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. We also work on a national level. With a decade of experience, plus long-standing relationships with media and other venues, let us effectively take your company message to the masses.

A Roadmap to Reaching Thought Leadership

Research has shown in order to become a master in a particular field, you need to invest at least 10,000 hours of practice within the field.  In addition, to be effective, this practice has to be deliberate: it must be mindful and completed with the constant goal of improvement.  How do these 10,000 hours of practice relate to thought leadership within a particular field?

Becoming a thought leader requires the same amount of attention as becoming a master violinist, golfer, or painter.  It takes a commitment to constant improvement with an eye to becoming an expert in the field.  If you want to become a thought leader, you must give yourself a road map to success so the hours you spend at work will be transformed into the “deliberate practice” that will turn you into an authoritative expert.

Attend Conferences.  You need to know what other thought leaders are doing and saying.  The best way to locate other thought leaders is to attend conferences within your field. Conferences tend to attract large numbers of eminent figures within any particular field.

Read Current Research.  A though leader must be thoroughly knowledgeable about his or her industry.  It’s necessary to read current research or reports from within your field.  Subscribe to journals, newspapers, magazines, or any form of media that conveys recent news within your business.

Connect With Other Fields.  Thought leaders earn success by devising creative solutions, theories, or ideas within their trade.  Creativity requires flexible thinking and a multidimensional understanding of a vocation.  In order to see your work from a different perspective, connect with other professions or study to cultivate mental flexibility.

By focusing on gaining more experience every day, your commitment to becoming a thought leader will begin to pay off.  Being knowledgeable about your business will give you a keen sense of view to allow you to recognize trends and opportunities.

If you have any questions or comments about thought leadership and small business success, please feel free to contact us!

When Is Event Consultation A Good Idea?

When do you need an event consultant? That question is best answered by the importance of the event itself, not only to the attendees, but to you. What is the purpose of the event? Will it decide your future?  Will it affect your livelihood? The greater the impact of the event on your life, the more important it is to get the details right.

If you have an introduction for a campaign, how much do you really know about focusing the attention of the media on that day? Do you know who reads Luxury Las Vegas, and how to use the demographics associated with it? Have you priced special invitation dinners, and do you know who offers the latest trend and most exclusive venue?

If your event lasts all day, are the people who are there at 6 am going to be there when the last customer walks out the door at 7 in the evening? And perhaps most importantly, do you even have time to worry about it?  Much of the time, when you are staging an event the star of the show is you. 

Perhaps the problem is best stated by a New Zealand firm that offers a venue for entertainment talent. The details that go into event planning are myriad and sundry.

“A well-designed and well-orchestrated event is analogous to a good stage production. It’s all about getting your act together and performing the right show for the right audience.”

One is often able to deal with the “when” and “why” aspects of an event, but the “where” and “how” parts can get a bit tricky. You have a budget that you have to honor. You have a purpose to fulfill. You have to publicize it, and meet expectations.

You have to know how to conceptualize a theme, where to buy the Kobe beef, how to leave them smiling, and where to present your event for the biggest impact on your target group.  Where do you go to hire temporary waiting staff, and what is the best price for oysters? Do you need an investment analyst? A ballet dancer?  A string quartet? 

If this event will affect the public’s conception of your endeavor, then what you need is an event consultant.

Contact us

 

Storytelling Captures Your Audience and Results in Sales

Gaining attention in the business world is a highly challenging effort. Competition is deep, and there are many original marketing practices that can shine a spotlight on your company. The best way to stay there and to turn that attention into sales, is through storytelling to connect your audience with your products or services.

Establishing a target audience or customer for your company is crucial. You have to know who you are talking to and what tone you should be using to communicate to them. They are the main characters in your tale. A basic premise could be someone (your target customer), wants or needs something (your product or service) and is having difficulty getting it.

No matter what medium you use to tell your story, there are some basic strategies you can use to pull in customers. Remember, your main character has a problem they need solved or a goal they want to meet, and they need help.

There should also be a clear sense of the stakes at hand for your characters.  While you want to keep things positive overall, if there are moments of anxiety or fear about not finding what they need, those will create a sense of urgency. Everyone has experienced disappointment and setbacks so drawing on those emotions will connect with customers, especially when you follow-up with the ways your company can ease that trepidation.

In the end, of course, the happy ending to the story is provided by your company. Make it clear to the customer just how confident you are that they will be happy with your solutions.

Well-crafted case studies, testimonials, website content, press releases, presentations and even product description pages can become the compelling narratives to tell your customers your company’s story. For guidance on the best way to create an intriguing storytelling structure across all media platforms, contact us.