Posted by Rahna on June 2, 2011 under General, Strategy | 
As I have been helping companies develop intelligent digital marketing plans, I have had to keep up with many different marketing disciplines, and one that I have gotten to know more about recently is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Although I always knew it was a serious discipline, I never really understood it fully. I had a vague notion that if you identified your keywords and put those as meta-tags and meta-descriptions throughout the various pages of your website, this would be good enough. It might take a while, but eventually, Google would find you and add you to the list of others who do what you do. Boy, was that naïve thinking!
There’s a lot more to it than that. SEO can be a full-time discipline and by activating the expertise and prowess of these professionals, a website can jump from complete obscurity to Google page 1 in a matter of months for as little as $199/month! It’s still a little bit magical to me, but there is a science to it. By systematically placing articles and directory notifications throughout the worldwide web, any website can rise quickly in their ranking. The tricky part is, though, that if you put yourself out there in too many places too quickly, the search engines may declare you a “spammer” (thus negating all your hard work). This is called Black Hat SEO and is to be avoided.
I have worked over the past six months with my digital partner, Starboard Digital, to help create digital marketing plans and execute SEO programs THAT WORK! The team of experts activates an organic SEO campaign that helps clients achieve phenomenal results. How does a website go from 3,000 hits per month to 11,000 hits per month in just 3 months without spending tens of thousands of dollars a month? By carefully reviewing the possible keywords, evaluating online search patterns, picking the right keywords, and executing an ongoing on-site and off-site SEO plan, web-wide, that optimizes the site by leveraging the algorithms used by today’s top search engines.
There are other methods for building traffic to your site, but nothing has the long-lasting impact that organic SEO can provide. An Organic SEO Campaign involves the following steps:
- Review the client’s online goals and digital plan, paying close attention to details on what describes the ideal client(s). This will help guide your SEO team to find the right keywords for your site.
- Research relevant keywords - priority is given to find those terms relevant to the ideal client, identified target market and SEO goals that will convert website visitors into leads.
- Review the site’s existing content with regards to researched keywords and perform on-site SEO optimization including title tags, meta-tags and descriptions.
- Manage the potential recommendations of additional SEO’d website content and social media content that will creative positive visitor experiences online, support SEO goals, and create more opportunity for lead generation.
- Implement off-site SEO efforts including Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics setup and configuration, directory submissions, article marketing, social marketing, on-going link building, competitor analysis, and website traffic reporting.
- Monitor/Measure SEO Results. Choosing the right success metrics and setting goals is one of the most important pieces of any search engine marketing campaign. An SEO campaign is measurable, and adjustments are made based on how the site is performing.
Want to dramatically build traffic to your website? Give us a call; we can help you develop a smart SEO plan that fits in with your overall digital strategy and builds traffic to your site.
Posted by Rahna on May 26, 2011 under Branding, Strategy |
The process of branding is of the head AND the heart, both a “left-brained” and “right-brained” activity. In your branding efforts, you should listen to what your consumers (and potential consumers) have to say about your brand and your category. Discover their hopes, their dreams, and their fears as it relates to your brand and your offering. This is usually a right-brained (heart) activity.
But there is also a discipline to developing a brand. When I was a Brand Manager at Miracle-Gro, I had the extreme good fortune to have been taught by Richard D. Czerniawski and Michael W. Maloney, co-authors of the book Creating Brand Loyalty: The Management of Power Positioning and Really Great Advertising and Competitive Positioning: Best Practices For Creating Brand Loyalty. They teach the process of brand positioning, the discipline of carving out a brand’s unique place in a consumer’s world. They put forth a framework for developing the brand positioning statement that I have followed throughout my entire career. While every brand is unique and the thought process I use has evolved over the years, the basic structure is so simple and so sound that I still use it to great effect today. If you can articulate a brand’s positioning statement within this context, you understand your brand. And if you understand your brand, you can communicate it more clearly.
The basic framework is this:
To (target audience), (my brand) is the brand of (competitive arena) that provides (key benefits) because (reason to believe).
Simple, right? Sure!
But usually simple is hard. Each of these parenthetical areas needs to be thoroughly researched and understood in order to get to the heart of a brand’s positioning. It works for product branding, corporate branding and personal branding. No matter what type of brand you are managing, think about your own brand within this context; what does your positioning statement look like?
If you’d like help, give us a call!
Posted by Rahna on March 3, 2011 under Branding, Strategy |
For many of my clients, keeping it simple and going back to the basics is really what they need. Despite all the changes in media outlets from YouTube to Twitter, email marketing to mobile QR campaigns, the principles of solid branding and marketing remain unchanged. Clarity of message, consistency across multiple media outlets, relevant consumer connections, and a strong call to action are still the main ingredients to a solid presentation of a brand.
One aspect of consistency that needs to be harnessed is the concept of remaining “top of mind.” Many clients I talk with have great ideas for ways to communicate all the wonderful benefits of using their products or services. They create a slick brochure, have a great website or a compelling ad that they run once on the radio….and then they wonder why the phone is not ringing. They are forgetting about being top of mind.
Consumers buy things on THEIR time, not yours, which means that you need to be at the forefront of their minds when they are thinking about acting in your category. That’s why TV commercials air more than once, or why you end up getting eight pieces of direct mail correspondence about the same cable upgrade. These advertisers know that they simply need to remind you of their existence (and their benefits) so that when you are ready to upgrade your cable service, they are top of mind.
How can you be top of mind? The key is to find ways to continually interact with your target audience in ways that are highly relevant to them. Send them a card on their birthday like Toys R Us does for millions of kids nationwide. Send them a newsletter full of interesting information that really helps them in their work. Figure out which blogs they read, or which publications they read and write an article or guest blog for that publication. As a matter of fact, you need to think about how you can have multiple touchpoints with your target audience in many different ways in order to keep it fresh.
If you brainstorm ways to interact with your target audience on a regular basis, you will be well on your way to a great marketing plan that will keep you top of mind (and keep your sales going strong)! Give us a call if you’d like some help strengthening your brand presentation. We’d be happy to help!
Posted by Rahna on February 28, 2011 under General, Strategy |
One plus one really does equal three!
For over three years, I have taught Branding, Positioning and Marketing at the University of Hartford’s Entrepreneurial Center. I have met all types of entrepreneurs at every stage of business development—those who want to start/have started/want to sell their entrepreneurial idea to someone. Being an entrepreneur is great—there’s a sense of freshness and innovation that comes from building something new….but it can also be quite lonely. You have to carry the energy of the company/product/service all by yourself. As a Business Advisor for The Entrepreneurial Center, I have also provided one-on-one coaching to entrepreneurs, so I have seen first-hand how business owners benefit from having expert advice for the growth of their business.
That’s why I’m so excited about a new program The Entrepreneurial Center is providing, the Women’s Business Roundtable, a monthly program that allows entrepreneurs to discuss the strategy and tactics for growing their businesses. This program is also designed to provide women entrepreneurs on-going access to experts in finance, legal matters, marketing, cash flow management, sales techniques, and every other aspect of business that women entrepreneurs must juggle. Every month, there will be an opportunity to revisit the critical areas of your business, including branding best practices, cash flow management, developing sales strategies and addressing legal issues that arise in your business.
If you are a woman who lives in Connecticut and you’d like to stop struggling in your business and tap into expert resources that you might not have been able to afford on your own, you should come to the free Entrepreneurial Center Open House on March 9th. Here are some of the benefits of coming to the Open House on March 9th:
- Find out more about how you can get involved in the Women’s Business Roundtable
- Get a free professional photograph (headshot) that you can use on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networking sites
- Provide feedback to the Entrepreneurial Center about programs and advice you need to grow your business
- Network with other like-minded entrepreneurial women to create business opportunities for all!
I hope to see you there.
If you’re not a Connecticut Business woman, you should seek out those who can help you develop your ideas and grow your business. Here are some ideas for ways to get some expert help:
- Check out the activities of your local SBA (Small Business Administration) office. There are tons of low/no-cost programs that can give your business an injection of inspiration or information that might be just what you need!
- Call us! We at Beacon Marketing have inspired countless other businesses to better marketing success and would be happy to help your venture grow
- Gather your own group of networking contacts to brainstorm about each other’s businesses
As Mark Victor Hansen says, “Teamwork makes the dream work!” Gather your team and watch your business prosper!
Save the date of March 9th
from 4:30-6:30 pm.
To sign up, please click here
or call 860-768-5681 for more information!
Posted by Rahna on January 31, 2011 under Branding, Digital Branding, Strategy |
Often people come to me asking for a website, or to have me talk with their team about social media best practices, or ask my advice about what their LinkedIn profile should say. While I am happy to help with all these various digital activities, I always encourage someone to look at the larger overall digital marketing plan. In fact, marketing integration is much more important than in “traditional” marketing because each element builds upon (and depends on) each of the other elements.
Is yours complete?
If you pour your heart into making a great website, but it gets no traffic, your efforts will have been in vain. If you’ve labored over just the right keywords, but you have no way to talk to your prospects once you’ve brought them to your site, you will lose a LOT of traffic.
Digital branding requires that you look at all the different possibilities and, based on your strengths, capabilities and assets (coupled with a solid understanding of your consumer), design a digital marketing plan just for your needs. Ideally, you’ll want to use many of the following elements in your plan:
- A strong website: There must be a “home base,” someplace for consumers to come to be informed, to get involved, to be a part of your community.
- SEO: This gets people to come to that magnificent website that you just spent thousands of dollars on
- Social Media: How will you engage with your target audience? Go “hang out” with them (virtually speaking) and join the conversations that are inevitably happening about your industry, product or segment.
- E-newsletters/other e-mail marketing: Offer content and continue to have an on-going dialogue with your current (and future) clients.
- Blog: This allows for an in-depth conversation about topics of interest both to you and your target audience.
- Mobile: Everybody’s on the move. If there is a way to stay engaged with your audience on that most treasured of all tools (their phone), everyone will benefit!
The good news is that integrating these is not difficult, but it does require some strategic planning on your part. If you’d like help with that, give us a call. We’d love to help.
Posted by Rahna on December 22, 2010 under General, Media, Strategy |
Caroling has been a Christmastime tradition for hundreds of years and, like everything else, it has evolved with the times. Last week, I went to a mall with twenty-some other singers to sing The Carol of the Bells to anyone who happened to be in the food court that evening. It lasted less than two minutes, was very fun to do, and was extremely educational.
Earlier this month, in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, I performed with my children and a bunch of other teens and adults in the Red Door community theater Christmas Show, harmonizing with over fifty other voices to ring in the season. Ever the marketer, I wanted to help the theater get some publicity for their fantastic programs, so I had this great idea that we should do a ‘flash mob.’ A flash mob is when seemingly random people get together to sing a song or start to dance. When the song is over, everyone disperses, as if it were just another normal activity of their day. YouTube is full of lots of examples that are great fun to watch.
My thought was to give the kids something fun to do, delight the unsuspecting shoppers, provide some buzz for the mall and provide content for the local news station. I am a huge proponent of “win-win” scenarios. It wouldn’t take much time, we already had the voices, and it could provide some exposure for the theater program.
But I learned that nothing is ever as easy as it seems. The goal of this blog is to provide inspiration, tips and ideas for marketing your product, service, company or personal brand, so to that end, I offer these:
A Commentary on Our Society
and Top Ten Tips for Organizing a Flash Mob
- When you are coordinating something ‘cross-generational,’ allow three times as much time for communication. During rehearsals for the Christmas show, I explained my idea to the cast and asked for email addresses so that I could coordinate the best time and date to actually do the flash mob. Everyone was eager to participate, but communication has splintered beyond belief. Some teens said they didn’t really use their email; they prefer Facebook. Others said, “Just text me.” The younger teens didn’t have an email address yet, so they gave their home phone numbers. For those under 12 years old, I got some of the parent’s emails (and some of those home-schooling moms said that they never check their emails even though they have it). Sigh. I was reminded of the splintering of TV when cable exploded in the late 80’s and early 90’s. You could no longer consider a TV buy “solid” if you only bought ABC, NBC, and CBS. You really had to round it out with a cable buy to hit more of your target audience. If you are in marketing today, you MUST consider all forms of communications as viable for review. If your agency recommends a Facebook campaign, you better listen. If you don’t have a mobile campaign, you really should consider it.
- Technology can only help you if people actually use the technology. This tip is related to #1. In order to coordinate the best times and dates and make sure that we had enough of each part (sopranos, altos, tenors and bass as well), I considered several different event-planning options (Facebook and others) and decided to set up a www.surveymonkey.com survey to find out which day would be best. I sent an email to all the addresses I had and got a 25% response rate from the group. I’m certain that some people didn’t even realize that they were to click on the link and vote for their top dates/times.
- Don’t tell anyone. I mean, ANYONE. I thought that the mall might appreciate coordinating the event ahead of time, but in my research, I discovered that if you tell the mall in advance, they will be required to have you take out $1 Million insurance policy, in case someone should get hurt. I’m not kidding. $1 Million! But if you don’t tell them, you can just go and sing or dance and create a fun event. This is why I did not end up calling the local news station to see if they wanted to be there; what if someone sprained their vocal chords!?
- Don’t offer it to anyone. We needed a place to meet just before we were going to sing—someplace other than the mall. Because it is winter and twenty degrees where we live, I thought perhaps we could meet at a large mattress store nearby that has large open space but would be warmer than a parking lot. When I called the local manager to ask if he would be willing to have us meet there and sing a song for his customers, he told me I had to get approval from corporate. Really? Whatever happened to “empowering your employees?” Sigh again. Needless to say, we didn’t end up meeting there; we met in the parking lot of a bookstore instead.
- Use what you’ve got. We did not have to practice the song or spend a great deal of time coordinating the four-part harmonies because we had already practiced and performed it many times.
- The bigger the venue, the more voices you need. I was concerned about how many cast members would be able to participate on a school night, so I suggested that perhaps we should go to a grocery store instead of a huge mall. The feedback I got was that this was not cool or fun, so “let’s just stick with the mall.” In hindsight, it would have been more impactful to do this at one of those “big box” bookstores which, even in the height of the Christmas shopping season, still carries the aura of a hushed library. That would have been much more impactful.
It should last longer than two minutes. We thought about doing two songs but in the end decided to only do one song (that’s the “flash” in “flash mob”). It went too quickly and people wanted more. If you listen closely, you’ll hear someone say, “Don’t go away!” Next time, I would vote for more than one song.- The video should be close. The acoustics of a mall are not the same as a theater, and while we wanted to get everyone in the video, it’s not the best recording.
- Don’t give up. There was a point at which I asked myself, “why am I putting so much energy into organizing something that nobody really cares about and for which someone might sue me for anyway?” It was supposed to be simple and it had gotten so complicated! I almost said, “just forget it.” I’m glad that I didn’t, because it was fun to do. While I would streamline the planning of it, I would definitely do it again. (And BTW, if you have the privilege of witnessing a flash mob, please appreciate the effort and coordination that went into that.)
- Consider it an unexpected gift to others. After it was over, one of the moms wandered into Brookstones, and this guy came in and asked the clerk what just happened. She told him she didn’t know, and he said you must know. “It must have been planned,” he said. She said again she didn’t know and he said,” They were all just sitting around eating and then they started to sing LIKE THAT (he meant well) and then they all just wandered away!”
BONUS TIP! Most important – Have fun! If you have an opportunity to, go caroling this holiday season (either as a flash mob or in the old-fashioned way, door to door). Singing is joyous, and it should be fun.
Posted by Rahna on November 15, 2010 under Branding, Personal Branding, Strategy |
What’s the link between business networking and personal branding? More importantly how can a strong personal brand help you be more successful when you network with others? To answer these questions, get your hands on the new book out by networking expert Kathy McAfee (aka America’s Marketing Motivator) about networking that should be on every successful businessperson’s reading list. The book is titled Networking Ahead for Business: The Best Vehicle to Get More Customers, Make More Friends, and Create More Opportunities for Yourself and Others. (Kiwi Publishing, 2010) I highly recommend it; everyone needs to read if they really want to turbo-charge their relationships!
Kathy and I have known each other for several years and have collaborated on many projects. Besides being a very savvy businesswoman, her expertise (networking) and my area of focus (personal branding) go hand in hand which makes collaborating with her a win-win for many of our joint clients. In the book, I am quoted in the personal branding chapter! If you’ve been following me for a while or have been to any of my programs, some of these concepts will be familiar to you. However, Kathy addresses the topic from the standpoint of how personal branding impacts your networking efforts. Here are some of the questions covered:
What is networking and why is it important?
“Networking is fundamentally about building and maintaining mutually-beneficial relationships before you need them.” says Kathy “A strong personal brand will help you to attract more meaningful connections more quickly. A well-defined personal brand will allow other people to refer you, position you, and connect you to other people in their network. This is how new opportunities are created for you and others in networking.”
How can I express my personal brand when networking?
In order to showcase your personal brand and present the best possible you when you network with people, you’ll want to be mindful of a few “rules of the road.” Kathy defines these in her book as the”Spirit of Networking” which is helping others and learning how to ask for help. To be successful in networking, you must be willing and able to give back, pay it forward and help others be successful, not just yourself. (Note: these are wonderful qualities to enhance your personal brand.)
How do I get started?
Meeting new people for informal or formal networking is a terrific way to help you get more comfortable and confident in expressing your personal brand. Kathy encourages you to “be yourself” and to share different parts of your life, including your work, family, interests, hobbies, passions. These are all aspects of your personal brand and when shared will naturally draw more of the right people to you.
Buy the book!
Networking Ahead for Business by Kathy McAfee is available for purchase on-line through Amazon.com or directly from the publisher, Kiwi Publisher here:
You can also sign up to receive Kathy’s weekly Networking How-To tips by:
1) Becoming a Networking Ahead for Business Fan on Facebook
2) Signing up for her free e-newsletter at her website
You can learn more about the author and about networking at www.NetworkingAhead.com.
Posted by Rahna on September 27, 2010 under Branding, Personal Branding, Strategy |
Most entrepreneurs really need to focus on personal branding, as oftentimes, they are their business. I’d like to introduce to you Christine Kalafus, the principal designer and owner of Stitch Design Studio who has learned about branding her business and herself from me (in person and through my newsletters & blogs). I recently asked her about what she had learned and how that knowledge contributed to the success of her business (growing from a home-based business to a commercial location). It is an excellent example of how executing the strategies discussed here can be put into action.
Read this story and you will find that Christine embodies these concepts:
- Be clear about who you are, what you have to offer, and who your target audience is
- Be confident that you have something amazing to contribute
- Be connected to key influencers who can help you and whom you can help
- Be dynamic in ever adding to your brand
Christine paid her way through college as a licensed insurance agent and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Interior Design from the University of New Haven. She was successful in the insurance industry, which made it hard to quit. Sometimes, excellent pay and benefits can cause inertia that can keep us from fully expressing our personal brand. Nine years after college, by then married and the mother of 3, she made the leap to pursue her passion. For three years, she apprenticed and worked for an in-demand seamstress who had agreed to train her.
But she still felt that she had more to offer, so she signed up for a class at the University of Hartford’s Entrepreneurial Center. (That’s where she met me; I have been teaching as adjunct professor for branding and marketing there for several years). “That’s where I learned about focusing on one thing; you can’t be diverse. You have to understand what your specialty is because that is what is going to carry you.”
She started working out of her house, networking with others and doing great work. She was in a new town but word quickly began to spread about her upscale designs and accessible nature. “I remembered our conversations about networking, partnering with people and the importance of prominent placement, and that definitely helped me build my brand. Through my networking efforts, I had the opportunity to design a window treatment for a set of balcony doors in a new space in an upscale, New York-style hair salon that catered to the same type of high-end clientele that I was trying to attract. As an immediate result of that work, I got five new clients who also referred me to others as well. Aligning with the owner of the hair salon was really a big break for me. She turned out to be a key influencer, as hairdressers are like bartenders—they know everyone in town! This woman is a successful business woman who is very well-respected in the community. That really launched me as a newcomer in town.”
When an opportunity came along for a fabulously inexpensive retail space, she had to overcome fears about taking her business to that next level. But she made the space her own, immediately putting fresh flowers out front and making sure her sign was just the way she wanted it to be (being authentic and expressing her brand naturally!). The adjacent storefronts had been vacant, but the power of her brand attracted other businesses to soon fill those spaces as well.
Christine is continually looking for ways to expand her brand and find more ways for people to engage with her. She has recently added event marketing to her brand-building activities. She now offers one-and-a-half hour sewing classes to teach girls the proper techniques for how to sew. She is branching out and trying new ways to build her brand by getting the moms in the door. Christine admitted, “When I first decided to have the classes, I wasn’t sure if it would do anything for my business, but I thought, if I don’t try, I’ll never know.” As it turned out, the mom of one of her first students had just moved to the area and needed her entire house to be redone.
Whether you are in a corporate situation or an entrepreneurial venture, you can leverage the same branding principles Christine exemplifies. Ask yourself, “How can I put these concepts into action in my own business life?” If you’d like, we’d be happy to help you answer that question. If you would like to find out more about Christine Kalafus and her luxurious soft furnishing creations, visit www.StitchDrapery.com or her blog at http://homecouture.wordpress.com
Posted by Rahna on September 10, 2010 under Personal Branding, Social Media, Strategy |
I read a theory about social media strategy today at Diana Huff’s B2B Marcom Writer’s Blog
It’s an excellent post (and subsequent conversation) about how strategy is over-rated when it comes to social media.
Her advice? Don’t try to get super-sophisticated with some complicated social media strategy. She advocates a Nike approach: “Just doit.”
Her argument? We, as marketers (and as human beings), instinctually know what to do when we get in to social situations:
- Be nice to people.
- Answer their questions.
- Respond to what they have to say.
- Post your own take on what is going on around you.
My favorite part of the post is this: “People recognize authenticity and like moths, want to hover near the source.”
I agree that we don’t need to over-think it, but even in her post, whether she knows it or not, she is advocating a strategy: Be authentic.
Bravo, Diana.
Posted by Rahna on August 5, 2010 under Branding, Personal Branding, Strategy |
It seems a lot of companies that I talk with are undergoing a rebranding process. This can happen for many reasons, such as:
- Acquisitions of or mergers with other companies requires a “folding-in” process of many products, services and brands under one umbrella
- A company entering new markets
- New product/service introductions
- New management
- The strategic plan calls for an investment in branding
When this happens, a company needs to invest not only in external efforts to establish the new brand in the hearts and minds of its customers, consumers, investors, suppliers and other members of the external community, but also with its most valuable internal base, its employees. These are the people who will have to embody the brand day in and day out, so wouldn’t it make sense to ensure that they have a strong understanding of that branding strategy and how their individual efforts contribute to that?
In fact, this is an excellent time to consider an exploratory of this interplay between company and personal brand.
