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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4 Important Email Marketing Strategies

Email newsletters are an important part of any marketing campaign, particularly as people spend increasing amounts of time online. E-newsletters go directly to customers’ inbox, giving them an advantage over other forms of social media. Like other digital media, e-newsletters are inexpensive to produce and send to customers. And fortunately, there are some simple tips for writing an email-newsletter that customers will be likely to read!

1) Start with a captivating subject line. Many readers use an email subject line to determine whether they will open the email, and it is crucial that your e-newsletter stand out among the many other emails a customer receives. Including the word ‘you’ gives the email a personal touch. Make your subject line timely and short, to catch the reader’s eye. 

2) Use visual means to convey your message. Video sites, like YouTube, and applications, like Vine, are rapidly rising in popularity. Often, readers are more likely to watch a short video than they are to read lines of text. Capitalize on this tendency by creating video (or even photo) content for your readers, whether your intent is to engage the customer, sell products, or tell a story.

3) Entice customers with a special offer. Including a special offer in your e-newsletter is one of the best ways to retain customers and keep them interested in future promotions. You will strengthen brand loyalty when you help customers feel as if they are important to your business. (They are!)

4) Utilize other forms of social media. Include social media links (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) in your e-newsletter, as these digital marketing tools go hand in hand. A great way to involve customers and increase your market exposure is by rewarding customers when they share your e-newsletter (or other content) on social media. 

With these tips, you can improve your email newsletters to make the most of the opportunity you have to communicate with your customers. For the best ways to include email in your marketing strategy, contact us today!

Would Your Business Benefit From New Corporate Communication Strategies?

All executives have in common a need, if not a duty, to achieve a degree of administrative skill. This includes public and internal communication, and while it is unlikely a typical executive is “un-skilled” at public speaking and other forms of information processing, the skill level varies widely between individuals. Throw in the many challenges of social and other electronic media, and a fresh strategy could give your organization a decisive edge in the current electronic climate.

The decision to implement new media tactics should not be approached as a sure-fire recipe for success, but hiring the right firm for a communication update could be a meaningful step in development. For an organization that routinely addresses the public or a large employee base, the correct consultant could tailor a development process to uniquely address the needs of your niche.

On the web site, Public Speaking Tips, the article lists several objectives to use to choose the correct regimen to develop confidence in using modern media. Even though our processes go beyond just speaking, using this list may help you visualize your development program. 

A few goals listed on Public Speaking Tips are:

• Master how to tell your personal stories
• Improve your voice and vocal production
• Learn to work with technology
• Be interviewed on TV
• Present before an international audience
• Persuade the audience to specific critical action.

There are many other useful objectives listed. A scenario to stay away from is a robotic approach that concentrates only on the visual, verbal, or audio aspects of communication. What else is there, you ask?

While visuals such as posture and hand gestures are just as important in electronic media as they are in person, they are only indicators of confidence and knowledge, and self-conscious application of symptomatic gestures will not replace your real expertise and experience in business and social culture. Electronic media has its own distance, and it is important to know how to relax within this new world and convey your validity when you are one more step removed from your audience.

Precise use of the “King’s English” coupled with perfect grammar will trigger a predictable response in a presentation, nevertheless, depending on the subject and the audience, it may not be a relevant response. And if this mode of speech and manner seems to contradict the personality or the goals of the speaker, than the response may be directly opposite to the desired one. You need to be confident you can convey yourself through new channels before any strategy will be effective.

A communication strategist, like a good athletic coach, will address the issues of preparation, projecting character and content as well as posture, gestures, animation, or wardrobe.

Business and government executives are motivated differently than dramatic actors, even though those motivations may (or may not) be similar in moral quality and purpose. Public speaking is different than acting.  The public might enjoy a confident actor on TV, but they want the real thing when they face their very real challenges. 

Not all communications are fired with emotion and critical strategy. But if it is appropriate for you to gather a group of people to present an idea to them, then developing technical skills that are right for forums such as TV, MP3, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, texting, Outlook and YouTube are essential, even for minor announcements.

After all, you want everyone in your organization to “get the memo.” Assimilation of minor details over a time can be critical to the success of a project.

A new communication strategy can put all the tools of modern media at your service, and give you important insight on how to use them to deliver your concepts, big and small, to your audience.

Have an important event coming up? Or do you want to design a new communication system for your business?

Let us know.  We can increase your effectiveness with modern tools.

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Executive Media Training – Eliminating the Fear, and More

It’s fairly common knowledge that public speaking is at or near the top of most people’s list of fears. Some even say they fear it more than death itself. Interestingly enough, many people who fear public speaking are high-level corporate executives. For these individuals, some form of public speaking is a critical element of what they do.

How do you suppose they handle that?

Well, a quote I heard some years ago (I don’t recall who or where) answers the question perfectly; “Feel the fear and take action anyway.” That’s all well and good, but wouldn’t it be better, and a lot more comfortable, to go into public speaking situations without the fear? Of course it would. And that’s what executive media training can do.

Here are three ways executive media training can help you and your company:

Build Confidence

A big part of what causes people to be fearful of public speaking is they don’t feel confident. This phenomenon can be found at all levels of a company, including executives.

Someone might know the company and its products backward, forward, inside and out, but when they get in front of a prospective customer, or a group, they freeze. It’s akin to a computer freezing-up. The information is in there – it just won’t come out. A big reason for this is inadequate experience in public speaking. Executive media training provides some non-threatening ways to gain this experience and develop confidence.

Improved Relationships

Human relationships are at the center of every business. Notice that I didn’t limit that statement to just successful businesses. That’s because relationships are at the center of all businesses. If business is bad, it’s undoubtedly due, in part at least, to poor relationships. If business is good, it can be largely attributed to good relationships.

If people in the company are comfortable being themselves as they talk about the company and its products, they’ll be better able to create and maintain lasting business relationships. Executive media training will help them do that.

Speak Extemporaneously

A vital part of public speaking of any kind is the ability to effectively extemporize. It’s one thing to just babble on about something and hope your listener knows little enough about the subject that what you’re saying sounds plausible. But that’s a gamble you shouldn’t be willing to take. The ability to speak off the cuff and have your presentation actually make sense is clearly more desirable. Executive media training helps develop this skill.

Some business owners and executives balk at the idea of making this kind of indirect expenditure. However, communications training in general, and executive media training in particular are more appropriately viewed as wise investments that will pay dividends for years to come.

If you’d like results-oriented help with your marketing and communications strategies, contact us online, or call 702-434-0173.

Marketing Strategies: Then & Now

For business owners, if you’re not keeping up with technology you’re getting left. The speed in which technology evolves and advances is stunning, and a comparison of marketing strategies then and now proves that point emphatically. MediaBistro offers the following points of illustration (visit their website for a cool graphic including even more ways things have changed):

Computers
Then: desktop with dial-up modem        Now: laptop/tablet/smart phone with Wi-Fi

News Information
Then: reporters                     Now: bloggers
Then: press conferences      Now: Twitter chats
Then: news clips                   Now: news links
Then: evening news             Now: Twitter
Then: TV                                Now: YouTube

Marketing
Then: focus groups              Now: Facebook friends
Then: live demos                  Now: video demos
Then: user feedback            Now: social media chatter
Then: product shots            Now: Pinterest                                          

This information highlights the growing influence of Twitter, in particular, though all areas of social media are growing rapidly. Savvy business owners know how to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others to reach their customers and create “buzz” for their products and services.

Managing a social presence can be confusing and challenging at times, and TwoGirlsConsulting is ready to assist you. We can help you connect and communicate with clients, plan community outreach events, and offer public relations strategies specific to your business.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Businesses: Reputation Management

You have developed your business so it delivers what people want when they want it. Not only have you established your product and services, you have also advertised and promoted your company effectively through traditional media like newspapers, radio, and television, as well the Internet. As a result your business is growing and prospering.

However, the unexpected happens. It can be a natural disaster such as a flash flood or having a defective product slip out the doors to the public. Or perhaps, an irate customer or group of customers threatening to sue your company.  Challenges to the health of your business can take a variety of forms. Nevertheless, you will need to be ready to deal with them.

When bad things happen, the media might be coming to you. They will come at a time that will not be convenient and will ask questions. This will be a time when all the good work you have done in creating and developing your business can be threatened.

It is at those times you need to be ready to deal effectively with both the media and the public. TwoGirlsConsulting can be a crucial asset for you during those times. From effective executive media training, to handling and advising on how best to deal with media and the public, 2GC can help you weather the storm intact. Reputation management during times of crisis is one of the many things we can do for you.

TwoGirlsConsulting is committed to helping you grow your business and make it successful, while helping you avoid the misfortunes a business can face. Contact 2GC for more information on how we can accomplish this for you.

 

The Importance of Good Publicity

You have an idea. You are going to create a revolutionary product or service to make life better for everyone and make you a lot of money. You have the location, distributors and all the details worked out. There is one problem. Getting noticed on the Internet is like being rescued from a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. Without a beacon no one knows where to find you. No one even knows you or your fantastic product exist. Even if you want to market to a local audience, a vast number of people now use the Inter net for their initial search of local businesses and products.

Whether you are a national company, a small business owner or a self published author writing books while working full-time at your “normal” job, publicity is the key to making your goals a reality. There are many ways to market a brand. Creating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social networks is useful, but that approach is limited by itself. If no one knows who you are, they cannot “friend” or “follow” you, and it will not matter how many wonderful or witty posts you do. Without publicity to get your name to new people, sales and promotions have limited impact.

In the past, you would build your store or business, put your number in the phone book, buy a few newspaper ads and develop your customer base with good customer service and word of mouth. Now, there is search engine optimization, Facebook ads, YouTube videos and millions of other methods that people will swear worked for them and are your keys to success. But without the correct publicity the best YouTube video will not be seen. Without videos, social networking and websites, the best publicity will not take you very far. Success today is determined by a variety of methods and moving parts. You can try to battle these obstacles alone, or you can enlist help. Some will make it either way. You can attempt the swim to shore, through shark infested waters, and hope your dreams do not drown, but there is a lot to be said for a good life raft and flare gun to signal the rescue planes.

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