8 Ways To Easily Promote Your Brand

Thrive Admin • November 17, 2020

small businesses always have a fighting chance against bigger brands

1. Know your target audience

You want to have a solid picture of who your consumers are so that you can build a brand that they can easily relate to. You can start building your consumers’ profiles by knowing their age, gender, location, income level, and education level. If you want to be more specific you can also look into your buyers’ journey, pain points, and motivation. Identifying your target audience will help ensure that you create a brand that is specifically targeted towards people who will benefit the most from your products, services, or content.

2. Create a brand story

Telling a story sets you apart from your competitors because it gives you the chance to inject your personality in it. That way, you connect with your customers on a more personal and emotional level.

Before you craft your brand’s story, it’s essential to know what your customers are looking for in a brand. Make sure you are listening to your customers including social listening. Next, you’ll need to come up with a way to tell your customers your brand story. Including this to your About Page is a start, but it isn’t enough. You need to present this in a way that’s both appealing and engaging. One way is by sharing photos and video of your corporate events and behind-the-scenes on social media.

3. Develop your brand’s assets

Brand assets like a logo, tagline, and color scheme will not only reinforce your brand’s identity, but they also help you get noticed by your target audience. After all, you only have one chance to make the right first impression. These visual assets make up your brand’s identity and will appear on everything that is related to your business. This is why it’s important that you invest time and money into making exceptional visuals that clearly represents the values that your brand stands for.

Developing brand assets ensures consistent delivery of your message across all channels.

4. Research what other niche-related brands are doing

They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. But when you’re trying to make a mark in the cut-throat business world, you’re not going to survive merely by imitating what others are doing.

Instead, you can learn a lot by researching what other brands have done well in the past. Your goal is to differentiate your brand from the competition and not be a cheap replica of someone else. Study how other brands built their identity and see how you can improve on their methods or techniques.

5. Take your brand places

For your brand to “stick”, it’s important that you incorporate it in everything that your target audience can see. From printed business cards and signages to social media platforms, your branding should be visible wherever your target audience is.

There’s no denying that social media is where most of the action happens. For small business owners and bloggers, social media isn’t just a marketing tool, it’s also a place where they can make themselves more accessible to their customer base. So, you see, choosing the best social media networks to be on is just as pivotal as automating your social media marketing efforts.Incorporating your brand in all your offline and online marketing efforts doesn’t just show your consistency, it also helps you increase brand awareness.

6. Build a "tribe"

Do you know what your secret weapon is to promoting your brand? Your own followers of course! Take Apple, for example. Despite the negative reviews, hoards of avid fans were still willing to spend the night waiting to be among the first to get the iPhone XS. Even the rains didn’t dampen their patience.

Pictures like these will sure pique anyone’s curiosity, especially when those posting these pictures are Apple fans themselves.

64% of marketing professionals believing that word of mouth is still one of the most effective ways to get your brand message out there. It would be a waste not to ask your followers for support!

Here’s how to craft a compelling message to transform your group of customers into a loyal tribe:

Get personal and vulnerable.
Shift the focus from “I” to “you.”
Make good on your promises.

7. Make every employee a brand ambassador

Your followers are not the only brand advocates who can help spread the word about your business or blog. You can also rely on the help of your employees to provide customized shopping experiences both online and offline.

For any business to thrive, management needs to ensure that the brand message is ingrained in the workforce. Making every employee a brand ambassador is not only a cost-efficient and effective way to promote your brand, but it’s also one of the best ways to keep your employees engaged.

8. Collaborate with influencers

Working with influencers–particularly micro-influencers–is one of the quickest ways to build and promote your brand if you’re starting. Micro-influencers established themselves as reputable sources of information in a particular niche because of the quality of the content they publish. In fact, 61% of customers will buy a product or service recommended a micro-influencer they follow. The key here is finding micro-influencers within your niche to work with. Ideally, the best ones are those that are either your customers or those that have already been talking about your brand or product.

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4 Marketing Strategies for Small Organizations Post-Pandemic

May 20, 2021

Here are four research-based approaches for using digital technology to reconnect with members. 1. Focus on User Search Intent First, don’t underestimate people’s desire to help — even within the context of commerce. New research shows that in some cases, members respond better to marketing messages focused on altruism and prosocial behavior than those focused on their own self-interest. These altruistic impulses are much more likely to be directed at someone’s favorite neighborhood restaurant or beloved bookstore than the local McDonalds or Target. Surveys show that large shares of consumers are trying to prioritize small businesses during the pandemic, even when they shop online, and over 80 percent are willing to pay more to buy small and local. So, let the big box stores compete on price and product. For small businesses, messages around supporting the community or sharing with friends can be more effective, especially as we band together to recover and rebuild. Combine this with a sense of urgency about the challenges the business and the community are facing, as research shows that highlighting the urgency of a need can motivate people to contribute to the public good. 2. Support the desire for connection Second, serve people’s desire to connect — even if it’s from a distance. Many small businesses have found creative ways to help people stay connected during the pandemic. Comedians, local cinemas and small theaters host livestream performances and movie screenings featuring opportunities for people to engage with friends and fellow audience members. Restaurants offer group ordering, where patrons place an order together, then eat at their own homes while they videochat. Recent research shows that group rewards can be more effective at driving engagement than individual incentives, and they can also help draw in new members. As social distancing loosens, people are hungry to reconnect with their community and friends, and small local businesses are uniquely positioned to meet this need. Consider ways to safely offer in-person social engagements, but don’t give up on the creative options for digital connection for those who want it. Some people have become accustomed to the convenience of fitting virtual happy hours and online yoga classes into busy schedules, and their interest in these offerings may continue even after social distancing ends. 3. Tap into the word-of-mouth approach, with a digital twist Third, draw on the power of old-school word-of-mouth — but digitally. Members are still the best source for finding other people who might be interested in a product or service. They have information about the people in their social circles and what will appeal to them that is much richer than any digital dataset. My research shows that online word-of-mouth is still tightly linked to people’s offline social networks and location. By targeting promotions to groups, building social engagement into their digital offerings and product features, and experimenting with hyper-targeted social-media campaigns, small organizations can encourage existing members to draw in new ones from their networks, connecting with niche markets that are hard to reach right now. My research also shows that careful design of promotions and messaging — such as how referral rewards and sharing messages are framed — can help shape the “social contagion” of marketing messages. 4. Use digital tools to supercharge marketing efforts Finally, use digital tools to supercharge marketing efforts. There’s nothing new about the most powerful arrows in a small association's quiver: word-of-mouth, social connection and community good. But to work in an age of social distancing, they must be married with digital technology, whether that’s a virtual tip jar, a group discount site or a delivery app that brings the product to members. In fact, research shows that digital technologies like targeted advertising can be even more important for small associations that need to reach niche markets than for larger firms. Large companies have been steadily building their online presences for years, but many small organizations were thrust into the digital world overnight when the pandemic hit. To build back from this crisis, they must not only learn to use digital tools, but also to use them in a way that draws on their unique strengths: community and social connection. These assets are more powerful than ever as people emerge from a time of isolation and uncertainty with a desire to reconnect and rebuild their communities. Small organizations have less room to fail than large corporations, but more community connections and support to draw on. Those that can adapt and survive may come out on the other side better prepared for our digital future. *Some Information/Data adapted from Enterpirse.

3 Simple SEO Tips to Increase Member Engagement with Career Content

By Thrive Admin • February 15, 2021

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a sharp increase in article views across niche career sites. With so many professionals searching for resources to help them navigate their industry during a global crisis, career advice content is a powerful tool for associations to drive engagement and conversions. Content marketing for associations doesn’t have to be a complex labyrinth. You may be thinking, I don't have the time or resources to create a bunch of new content for our career center and update our SEO strategy. However, the reality is you don't need to reinvent the wheel to make the most of this opportunity: According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, the act of simply refreshing old content with new content and new images can increase traffic by up to 112%. Neil Patel cracked Google’s Hummingbird Algorithm and realized that user intent matters more than keyword selection and backlinks. So, what does this mean for your association? It turns out there is some good news for niche sites looking to build traction. Currently, Google uses 200 ranking factors for SERPS, yet major brands use about 40 of them. That means SEO has never been more critical for sites than right now. 1. Focus on User Search Intent If you want to increase your organic search results for career advice, you need to spend a significant amount of time knowing your targeted audience. What is their search intent? Search intent answers the why behind a specific search query. Basically, why did the person search for this? What do they want to learn? Are they looking for a particular website/resource? Chances are it’s more than how to find a job. An example of search intent is the keyword query "best remote jobs in finance". If you're an association in the finance sector it should be clear why someone is searching for this online. They're looking for the best positions in finance that can be done remotely. Thanks to updates in Natural Language Processing (NLP), particularly with Google and their BERT update, ranking specifically for keywords isn’t as important before. This change in SEO strategy means you can focus on getting specific about what your targeted customer’s search intent is when they search for career advice. In the past, SEO was all about writing for the intersection where keywords with high volume and low competition align. So rather than writing out a long-form article with 20 of the best remote jobs in finance, you can now think about categorizing your list for a more niche approach to writing content. According to Brian Dean, Google now places greater importance on going more in-depth about a topic. That means you can instead list the 5 best remote jobs in finance and provide more insight into each role and why it can be worked remotely. Google will put more value into your content sharing valuable, comprehensive information and it will boost your ranking. While you shouldn’t abandon keyword research entirely, your primary focus should be creating topics focused on search intent. 2. Create Topic Clusters SEO for associations focusing on career advice should center around creating topic clusters. Topic clusters start with a topic based on a keyword. It starts from what’s known as a pillar page, a birds-eye view of the topic. After that, clusters or sub-topics branch off from the pillar page and lead to more granular content. That is done through internal linking. HubSpot used this strategy to increase their traffic and rankings year-over-year by 25% for over 2 million keywords! By bridging content together into a core topic and sub-topics, you can see how this strategy would really boost SEO around user search intent. The internal links provide a strong index as well, which creates a better user experience. While your pillar page introduces the core topic, it is the internally linked sub-topics, that granular content that adds more indexing and provides the added user search intent Google is looking for. So how can you build topic clusters for your association's career advice content? 3. Go Granular The SEO game has changed! Instead of being all about search volume, it’s moving towards search intent, thanks to Natural Language Processing. Search engines are no longer looking for broad content on a particular topic anymore. Search intent is now driving SEO results. Therefore, content with in-depth knowledge about a specific result will be a better match than the long-form guide of the past. That offers a distinct advantage for associations looking to boost their SEO rankings. Creating a solid content schedule is paramount to strong SEO based on search intent. If you’re looking to reach people looking for career advice, it’s important to see what’s trending. Based on our current economic climate, COVID-19 and Unemployment would be popular areas. Still, we need to niche down to think about specific content within those broader concepts that would provide actionable career advice. As Americans brace for the second wave of COVID-19 and the possibility of a second lockdown, one area that could be broken down into granular articles is the topic of remote work: Remote work can be broken down into many different granular articles How to set up a work-from-home office during COVID Finding remote work during COVID-19 Managing work-life balance as a remote worker Connecting with your remote team Establishing boundaries with your family around your remote job Dealing with the stress of remote work during COVID-19 You can see how these topics go into granular detail about the broader topic of remote work during COVID-19. You can get even more granular once you tie the above themes to specific attributes of your specific industry or region. These used together could help drive traffic to your site from relevant user search intent around the topic of remote work within your niche. Increasing Association Member Engagement Through SEO You can increase your SEO ranking and member engagement around career advice in 2020 and beyond. It just takes a targeted SEO approach. Follow these top four tips to boost your association’s SEO ranking. Looking for a service to help you increase your member engagement, build your professional audience, and more? Contact Roket Marketing *Some Information/Data adapted from HubSpot, Google, Backlinko, NLP, LinkedIn, and MadgeX.