Turn Your Brand Around – With A Finely-Tuned Marketing Machine

If your brand’s performance is less than stellar, you need to consider whether the impediment to success is your online presence, e-commerce and automated marketing communications. Unless you’ve been making regular updates and investments to your website, database and integrated email and digital marketing platforms – this is a likely source of your troubles. Signs of this will be reduced website traffic, lower engagement rates, poor conversion ratios, poor sales and reduced profit.

By now you know that the first thing a prospective customer will do is research your brand online. They prefer to shop this way, intentionally avoiding personal contact at retail or phone interaction. In this way, business has forever changed. If you’ve taken too long to adapt the way your brand is marketed digitally, it could be fatal to your brand. STIR has solved this problem many times and we have a process that will take you from the back of the pack to the front in as little as 180 days.

You can design and build a marketing machine that produces traffic, leads, conversions, sales… profit.

Your brand’s digital presence operates like a machine

A machine increases power and efficiency. It’s a tool designed to perform a job. When oriented toward profitability, it is easily justified and financed. A finely tuned marketing plan is no longer “subjective” but objectively metrics-based, and can be viewed and operated much like a Marketing Machine. Designed for a purpose, built to scale, programmed for performance, measured and monitored. It produces a certain and predictable profit.

A Marketing Machine will elevate the customization and responsiveness of your sales and brand marketing in a way that only digital marketing provides. This machine, like all others, requires the functioning components, a plan for its utilization, trained operators and the raw materials and consumables required to produce its products.

The magic of the machine

You can grow your company by building a marketing machine that produces traffic, leads, conversions, sales… profit. The terrific news is that the technology and expertise required for success are affordable. It only requires some vision and a commitment to move forward. To build a marketing machine, as with any other technical pursuit, you will need expert guidance on the specification and operation of the machine. To that end, we’ve developed a 10-step process and a guide that you can use to take this project on yourself

Download the Guide

We think this guide will help you tremendously in envisioning the task ahead. Beyond that, It may be advisable that you tap into experts for ongoing support and maintenance from a team that can train your staff, while orienting the machine toward profit.

Summer is a glorious time that provides the chance for personal enjoyment as well as professional opportunities. Whether you are entertaining the public, clients or employees, a creative outdoor event can help boost brand exposure and camaraderie.  From company picnics to business promotion events, staging and marketing are key. Here are some tips to make your summer events a success.   

Know Your Purpose and Your Crowd 

Every epic event starts with a clear vision. Knowing your goals will guide your decisions and help you measure the event’s success. A key aspect of this is understanding your target audience. This is essential for tailoring your event to their preferences and expectations and will help you create a more engaging and relevant experience. It also influences how you will market and promote your event. For example, our client BAYSHORE leverages its great community green space to host annual summer concerts and family events that drive more shoppers and tons of publicity. 

Get Creative with Themes to Encourage Engagement 

A theme can be a powerful tool when planning an event. It can help connect people and keep attendees engaged. Back to the idea of knowing your target audience, they’re a main consideration when choosing a theme. It could be a simple idea like a summer luau or one that evokes the spirit of your company. Once you’ve decided on a theme, infuse it into the many elements of your event, like vibrant décor, bespoke cocktails or related food and interactive activities. 

Choose the Perfect Venue 

Summer is all about embracing the great outdoors, so take your event outside! We’re lucky to have Milwaukee’s lakefront at our disposal, and there are some great venues with indoor/outdoor spaces that showcase the view, like Coast. Lush gardens like The Mitchell Park Domes can also provide an immersive natural landscape just a stone’s throw from downtown.  

More than just ambiance, be sure to consider your event’s capacity, required amenities, including power supply or water availability, and accessibility as well as restroom facilities. Selecting the right venue sets the stage for a memorable experience. 

Get the Right Partners for The Important Stuff 

A comprehensive plan is the backbone of a successful event, second only to the partners you choose to help you carry it out. From logistics to audio-visual equipment setup to marketing, attention to detail can make or break your event. You’ll want to be sure you’ve vetted and chosen partners and suppliers with a proven track record.

It’s especially important to have a catering partner who knows their stuff and can offer a diverse array of menu options. An inclusive menu helps guests feel more welcome. Be sure your caterer can accommodate various allergies and dietary preferences like vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free. Local catering favorite Zilli Hospitality Group offers interactive food stations (think baked potato bar!) that add an element of novelty and excitement to the dining experience. 

Spread the Word and Set Up a Site   

Effective promotion and a marketing plan are key to attracting attendees to any event. If it’s a company picnic, you want people to attend because they’re interested, not because it’s mandatory. To build buzz around your event, use a mix of marketing channels, including social media, email marketing and advertising in your company’s newsletter or online. If it’s a local event, publish ads in local publications and partner with an agency to generate public relations or help you work with a social media influencer for promotion. Here are six things we recommend looking for when searching for a PR firm. 

Don’t forget to create a website or landing page for your event. Include a compelling description, event date and location, company info, relevant social media links, RSVP or ticket information and contact info. You should also include details about the schedule like entertainment and speakers, plus visuals like photos or videos from last year’s event. Testimonials from previous attendees can help build excitement and credibility.

Capture Memories for Social and the Future 

Be sure to document the event highlights. You can use photos for next year’s promotion or for brand awareness. It’s recommended to hire a professional event photographer. It’s also worthwhile to set up interactive photo ops that engage attendees, like photo booths or selfie stations. If you’re setting up one of these photo ops, brainstorm and provide branded hashtags for guests to use on social media the day of the event to amplify visibility. After the event, use photos for follow-up emails and social media posts, an important part of your event marketing plan and a great way to maintain engagement. 

Holding a successful event is an art and science with many moving parts. If you need help with marketing and advertising your event, reach out to Brian Bennett at bbennett@stirstuff.com. We’ll help make this summer’s gathering one for the books!  

The key to success in a competitive marketing category is maximizing your marketing leverage. The definition of leverage is the addition of strength, weight, clout or pull. This is absolutely critical in marketing to gain the upper hand against competitors who often have more resources to burn.

Leverage isn’t created by accident. It takes shrewd planning.In our business, this is accomplished in a variety of ways, but it always comes back to developing a heightened understanding of a brand’s customers and their needs. With that information, we apply creativity, generate leverage and create value for our clients. It takes a view of the big picture and a mastery of multiple marketing disciplines.

Let’s take a look at some of those marketing disciplines and how to leverage them:

Strategy and insight

Segment your audience and get to know the mindset of your key consumers. You can do this by building personas that describe the aggregate audience in detail.

By understanding their emotional drivers—what they want out of life and what makes them feel good about themselves—you can craft a highly refined marketing strategy that reaches them at the right time, in the right place and with the right message.

Primary and syndicated research is only one method for gaining this understanding. Even better is observant immersion into the lifestyle/industry through interaction with people in the context of their activity and interest. Gather insights and record them.

We developed several personas for our client NL Suits with each one detailing exactly who the customer is and what he is looking for in a custom-made suit—down to the cuff-link stitching and personalization on the inside breast pocket. This knowledge was leveraged and came to life through a photo shoot. The stunning imagery can then be leveraged through marketing, such as NL Suits’ website, social media channels and in-store promotions, just to name a few.

Creative

Start with the creative product. Strong, disruptive creative.

It attracts more attention, generates more interaction and is more memorable. This makes media dollars work exponentially harder—up to five times harder, according to Comscore.

Creative appeal is a personal thing. The key is to speak to the heart of the consumer, so it takes exceptional execution and the right core messaging strategy. Invest in proprietary imagery and develop an extendable idea. Consistency over time in style, voice and strategy will pay off.

Media

View media as a resource. Yes, you can drive the cost down through a variety of planning techniques, but the trick is to maximize the value and leverage that they have in the market, which often crosses over into promotional and editorial considerations. Media is seeking deeper relationships and can do many favors.

Look at how we can help the media’s business to drive value. How can we supply content for them? They’re often much more willing to give up more of their precious inventory if it can be justified editorially.

Approach the media buy with pre-determined public relations, product placement and promotional ideas that add significant brand value and help both parties. Turn media vendors into enthusiastic promotional partners. Leverage all the contacts that they have in the market. Leverage the goodwill they generate with their loyal followers. Develop programs that fit strategically with your strategy and creative direction and therefore build your brand.

Public relations

PR is about leveraging relationships and telling stories. Editors need more and more content as staff reductions continue. They’re in the business of telling stories, and by providing fresh content in the right format, we can get them to tell our story.

To do this, we need to invest the time to understand what editors want to write about and then provide them with a customized approach. By staying close to the market, we’re actually in a position to tell editors what their readers are asking for and interested in. We can develop content and package news that fits their editorial needs and format. Be mediagenic. Create interest and news with the unique ways that you execute your message.

Promotion

Promotion is about giving people a reason to take action. People are busy and only have so much time in the day. So, the action we are requesting of them must be simple and easy, and it must appeal to their needs and interests.

Not all promotions need to offer a price discount. All too often, this cheapens the brand and trains the consumer to shop on price. By understanding consumers and their needs, we can provide them with:

• An opportunity for an experience
• Access to information
• Invitation to a special event
• Added value gift

Every company has assets that can be leveraged to develop interesting offers, such as:

• Expertise/advice
• Access/distribution
• Partnerships
• Inventory

We have leveraged media companies and developed co-branded promotions with strategic partners. By leveraging the assets you have at your disposal in a creative way, this work can be done without breaking the bank.

At STIR, we do this every day. By leveraging our product and category knowledge, we generate a higher return on investment for our clientele.

Human emotions color our world, determine our reality and control much of what we do. In marketing, we want to harness emotional energy as best we can.

That’s because the inescapable truth is that humans make up to 95 percent of their purchase decisions based on their emotions and subconscious [Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman]. This explains why nobody wants to admit they behave this way.

When we say ‘emotion,’ we are referring to the subtle drivers of our subconscious which include:

• Safety / security
• Self-image / vanity
• Pride / envy
• The need to feel and give love

Logic-driven approaches to advertising that feature product attributes entirely miss the human element in the decision-making process. This explains why most of what we purchase delivers far more than what is required for survival, from a logical standpoint. This is the essence of brand building and brand equity. It’s also the genesis of selling. Another way to understand this is to feature the benefit. 

At STIR, we say we care more how your customers feel, than what they think. If they feel good about your brand, they will always justify their purchase. This is true at work (B2B) and at home (B2C). Higher order communications strike an emotional chord. This concept is so important to our philosophy that we have painted the statement on our office walls.

So, while marketing based on emotion is inherently illogical, it is entirely based on science. Wrap your logical mind around that and you’ll see it makes perfect sense.

This simple statement is loaded with insight and potential. It is a basic foundation stone of STIR’s integrated messaging philosophy.

When we refer to ‘the benefit’ we are referring to that physical, emotional or spiritual need that the brand or product fulfills for the consumer. That certain something is achieved by consuming or even through association with the brand.

Many times, brands are simply associated with an idea and the functionality of a product or a brand is never actually utilized. For example, a sports car that can go 175 miles per hour or a watch that you can dive to 100 feet with. Ownership of these products speaks to the suggestion that people are rugged, daring or just plain wealthy — even when they may not be.

‘Sharing’ is another concept altogether. Sharing suggests more than a headline or copy. It is more than an ad or a social media post. It is an immersion into the psyche and culture of a brand. It is inclusive and conversational. It represents giving, rather than selling or asking.

If the benefit of a product or brand has interest and magnetism, then people will want to be involved. By sharing that benefit, we include the audience in the enjoyment of that benefit. Through artful messaging, consumers will be drawn to the brand.

This is why the phrase ‘Share the benefit’ adorns that walls of STIR. We execute integrated messaging for the many brands that we represent. Each person, each day, must play a role in an inclusive and magnetic dialog.

At STIR we remind ourselves daily to ‘speak to the persona.’

Personalization is the cornerstone of success in the 1:1 age of marketing. It is a primary method of attracting attention and disrupting mediocracy. In personalizing messaging, we develop an understanding of the emotional drivers of the consumer. We can then share the higher order benefit that they seek. At that point we are speaking to their heart, striking an emotional chord. We are no longer selling a product or commodity but identifying with the consumer as people. They will be drawn to you, they will reward you with loyalty and pay a premium to do so. 

Can you truly know every consumer? Can you understand the hopes and dreams of each individual? In reality, probably not. But, by segmenting your audiences by attribute and mindset through the development of relevant personas, you can find common groups and gain insight as to how best to connect with them. 

In the 1:1 environment, the messaging that speaks to these personas also needs to come from the heart of the brand. The brand itself has a fully developed persona, complete with a consistent set of values, a voice, a personality. Creating campaigns that reach out, one persona to another, are the most successful because they engender trust, while creating engagement, loyalty and brand equity. That’s why we painted it on our walls, ‘speak to the persona.’