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Marketing and branding — are the words interchangeable or is there a difference?

There are several schools of thought on the difference between marketing and branding, but at XDesigns, we subscribe to the philosophy that marketing is enthusiastically pushing a product or service. It’s a strategy used to promote your business or service by getting your name out in the public arena and a way to generate sales. For example; using celebrity endorsements, customer testimonials, printing brochures, signage, billboards, product catalogues.

Branding is more about the personality of your company. It’s about what your company stands for, the traits and principles your company upholds. A brand draws customers because of what it stands for. For example; The Sony brand is synonymous with trusted technology and quality. Whether you’re looking for a High definition TV or a camcorder you can be assured if you purchase a Sony, it will be a quality product. You know what to expect. Or Levis, it doesn’t matter where in the world you purchase the jeans from, if they’re Levis as a customer you associate the name with quality.

Branding is what you remember about a product or service, even after you’ve forgotten about the advertising campaign that caught your interest. It decides whether you become faithful to that brand. It is the marketing that may persuade you that you can no longer live without having a 3D Smart TV, but it’s the brand that determines whether you rave about it to your friends and refuse to buy anything other than Sony for the rest of your life.

You build your brand through reputation and whether the product lived up to the promises it made. Did it fulfil its purpose? Has it been reliable? Did the customer think it was worth the money they paid for it.

Of course we don’t expect you to be an expert in marketing or branding, you’re probably far too busy with the day to day running of your business which is why you need XDesigns Advertising. Give us a call today so we can give your business a branding health check, make sure you’re on track with your marketing and help you in the areas you may need assistance in.

Content marketing has developed in leaps and bounds over the past several years. Over 90 percent of businesses have included the strategy as part of their marketing plan, but just how successful are they?

Many people are of the mindset that once the content is created, you can upload it online, you can forget about it and the job is done. It would be awesome if we could just upload content and it automatically ranked on the first page of search engine results, but there are three important steps you need to take to ensure your content marketing strategy will be successful.

1. Search engine optimisation
There is no point having amazing content if no one knows where to find it. If title tags and meta descriptions sound like gobbley gook, then perhaps the best option is to hire a professional who will ensure your website is ranked by search engines.

2. Promoting content
Don’t think for one minute that search engines will do all the hard work on getting your content in front of potential clients. There are a variety of ways you can promote your business.

Social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, SnapChat, Google+, Bebo.

Email – Send regular updates direct to customers in boxes with special promotions, discounts or current happenings.

Blogs – Write regular blogs for your own website and guest blogs for industry websites

Podcasts – create informative audio or video podcasts relevant to your industry

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One of the biggest dilemmas most businesses will face whether you’re a small lawn mowing business or part of a national real estate franchise is how to grow a quality marketing list. The two most essential traits of a successful mailing list comes down to two basic components:

1. The number of contacts you have
2. The quality of contacts you have

And what most businesses don’t realise is these are not quick fixes. You might be tempted to subscribe to a company that can provide you with telephone directories or buying lists. Often these are expensive and there’s no guarantee the information is up to date or legitimate.

However it is possible to construct your own email list with contact details of subscribers who want to hear from you.

Don’t try to run before you can walk. It always pays to plan in baby steps so you can firstly ascertain who your target audience is and what they are interested in. Understanding who you are emailing and how to meet their needs will reduce the number of people who unsubscribe and encourage regular interaction.

Be clear about what you are providing

Ensure your subscribers know what to look for in their inbox (special offers, e-newsletters, reports etc.) and how often they will receive them (fortnightly, monthly or quarterly). Spell out the advantages of being part of your mailing list and you will find more people will subscribe to your content.

Give them a reason to stick around

You’ll know from your own experience the email marketing newsletters that you look forward too and the ones you hit the delete button without even looking. To avoid your emails being trashed the minute they arrive in the inbox you need to focus on your content — special benefits for subscribers, monthly competitions, freebies, specific advice relating to problems they might be encountering. For example: A monthly competition might get your subscriber extra entries when they sign up a friend.

The easier the better

It needs to be simple for your prospective clients to sign up. Ask for only essential information like an email address and or a country. If it’s too complex and you’re forced to answer questions about your household income or age, chances you’ll deter people from subscribing. Leave the nitty gritty questions until after you’ve built a concrete relationship with your mailing list members.

There’s more to life than e-mailing lists

People tend to think that content marketing on the internet is the easiest option and the cheapest. It’s not always the case. Don’t forget there are ways to build your mailing list than the internet (trade show competitions, providing a glass bowl people can fling their business cards into for a prize)

If you need any further help developing content marketing to email to your clients or more advice on establishing a mailing list, the team at XDesigns Advertising are on standby to help you. All you have to do is flick them an email or pick up the phone. See, it’s that easy.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail which is why a marketing plan for the year ahead is one of your most essential business tools. It outlines what marketing strategies you are going to employ. It also ensures everyone in the company knows what you are trying to achieve and what role they play to make it happen.

Set clear guidelines

An effective marketing plan will clearly outline your monthly objectives — that is what needs to be achieved each month to reach your longer-term goals. These guidelines should incorporate budgets, deadlines, targets, sales forecasts and marketing strategies with quantifiable objectives. For example, increasing your database is a good goal to aim for, but make it more specific like increasing the database by 1000 new clients by 30 June 2014. You would then need to list what strategies will make this achievable.

Highlight key time on the Calendar year.

Identify the important dates throughout the year that will provide you with opportunities to connect with your customers. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas, School holidays are all peak purchasing times, so they are ideal times to push your products or services. If you run a financial services company, you could offer customers a special deal on budgeting advice so they don’t get into debt over the festive season. Restaurants could provide special offers to any couple that choose to dine with them on Valentine’s. Also find out when the large trade shows are coming to your area, there’s unlimited potential to reach new clients at events like the Royal Easter Show and Travel expos.

Plan for something fresh

Don’t use the same old tried and tested marketing techniques that you use year after year. Plan for a new approach to marketing. If radio advertising and press ads aren’t working for get a corporate brochure, if you’re always sending out mail drops, try an enewsletter. There are plenty of ways to change things up like updating your packaging, having a new product, revamping your tired old website. Be bold, be brave and freshen things up.

For a fresh approach to your marketing or with help developing a marketing plan or strategies for 2014, call the team at X Designs Advertising today.

The end of the year is catapulting towards us at an alarming rate of knots. It’s only a week until Christmas and it seems like only yesterday we were mentally making New Year resolutions for 2013. While making your resolutions to drink less and lose weight, you should be making resolutions for marketing strategies in 2014 because if you fail to plan for your business, you plan to fail. Not sure what kind of resolutions to make? We’ve put together a list a list of 5 resolutions just to get you started.

1. Become tech savvy

Yes, we’re talking to you, the ones who are still operating dinosaur computer systems, still think faxing is the only way to send documents and still use dial-up internet because you see any reason why your company should pay any extra for the internet. It’s time to move into the era of technology with mobile phone compatible websites and social networks

2. Try visual marketing

A picture paints a 1000 words and what better way to help your business go viral than posting social media content your prospective clients can forward with a push of a button. In the last year Instagram and Pinterest have become more increasingly popular and with Snapchat quickly becoming one of the most downloaded apps.

3. Refine your social media skills

No doubt if you have Facebook or twitter you’ve mastered the art of sharing photos, sharing links and updating your status. Make 2014 the year that you focus on creating content that encourages your clients to interact with you. All it takes is for one person to like or comment on one of your posts and all their friends will see it on their newsfeed.

What is content marketing?

4. Focus on content marketing

Create interesting blogs that offer solutions to prospective clients problems, free ebooks and ensure you have a vibrant youtube channel.

5. Get help

If you’d love to put a plan for 2014 in place and don’t know where to start or need assistance taking your content marketing or website to the next level, talk to the XDesigns Advertising team today.

 Now that you’ve decided to embrace jumping on the social media bandwagon, you’re going to need a social media marketing strategy. Essentially, it’s a big fancy marketing term for ‘plan of attack’. It will document things like how your company will approach social media, what type of content to post to your newsfeed, who’s responsible for responding to queries, right through to what to do in the case of a complaint or an emergency situation involving your business.

Writing a social media strategy doesn’t have to be a daunting task if you break it down into bite-sized chunks. Before you do anything else, decide on an objective.

Social media objectives

What are you hoping to achieve by being on social media? Is it because you want to interact more with your customers? Perhaps you want to generate more awareness about what your company does? A not-for-profit organisation may want to raise funds for their cause by driving followers to their donate page on their website.Start by writing down your goals. You will probably have more than one.

When setting these goals for your social media network, think about how you plan to measure their success. Will you be basing your results on traffic to your website, the number of shares on each post or the number of new followers on Facebook?

Do your research

Before you plunge headfirst into the depths of social media, take time to look at some of the top performers. Most of the big companies have professional teams that look after their networks. Let them lead by example because whatever they are doing, they are doing it right! Coca Cola, Virgin, McDonalds, even Hamish and Andy have a massive presence on social media. Use their networks for inspiration and adapt ideas for your company.

Plan your content

Awesome and regularly updated content that is share-worthy is crucial to be successful in a social media saturated world. The social media marketing strategy will include a list of who is responsible for researching and generating content, what type of content you will post and how often. This is an important part of the document as it means should anyone suddenly leave or get sick, anyone can pick up the social media marketing strategy and know what to post and when, while keeping within the brand guideline and predetermined brand voice.

Don’t forget to include utilising Lead ads, a relatively new way that simplifies the ways people can subscribe to newsletters, product prices and events from their mobile by submitting a pre-populated form with information they have shared with Facebook.

Track your objectives and goals

Use analytics and insights provided by the social media platforms to evaluate your successes and failures and rejig your social media marketing strategy to reflect your newly learnt understandings.

When did you last review your Brand?
If its been a while, ask yourself…

Has the businesses evolved?
Does the business name tell your prospects what you do?
Does your Brand stack up and give you that competitive edge in the marketplace?
Do you have the right brand image and message to find more of your ideal clients?

For us the timing is right, we have rebranded! We are XDesigns Advertising. We have been building brands since 2000.

Our mission is to add value and consistently deliver more than what is expected from us.

Marketing your business is a daily habit your business needs to adopt.

Contact us  Book a Branding strategy session.

Lie 1 It’s a lot less work than other promotions

Content marketing – you just write the website copy, post on Facebook or Twitter occasionally and you’re done, Right? Hold that thought. It is not as simple as stringing a few sentences together about your product or service.

There’s researching which keywords perform better, market research, making sure the content is search engine optimised, regularly reviewing the website content, assessing your resources and that’s just scratching the surface..

Lie 2 Once it’s done, it’s done.

Content marketing is not done and dusted when you insert the last full stop and the website goes live. There’s blogging, reviewing copy and website analytics, responding to website enquiries, moderating blog comments. Can’t it be automated so you can set and forget? Well there are some options you can set up to reduce the workload. For example if someone emails your company via the website, you can set up an automatic response to indicate the email has been received and how long before they can expect a reply, but there is no way to program creating the content, strategies for social media and website management, engaging with your customers and monitoring your analytics.

Lie 3 It’s cheap

Content marketing is often thought to be free, and compared to taking out a billboard in the heart of Kings Cross, a Facebook promotion is cheaper, but it’s like comparing oranges and apples – they’re both fruit, each with their own nutritional benefits, but you wouldn’t’ ditch one, in favour of the other because they both reach different audiences.

Chances are your social media promotion isn’t going to go viral overnight. This takes time, money, consistency and employing a well thought out strategy.

Lie 4 It can be handled by a Facebook savvy office junior

Managing your social media strategies is not a task to be handed over to the office receptionist for when time allows. Content marketing requires skill and just because your employee is savvy with Facebook and Twitter, doesn’t mean they have the talent to create content, apply social media strategies and ensure content is search engine optimised. Companies are now opting to hire experienced copywriters and journalists to handle their social media marketing. An office junior is never going to be able to match the talents experience professionals bring to the table.

If you need help setting up content for your social media marketing, website or print promotions, talk to the team at XDesigns Advertising. They are waiting for your call today.