Brand Archives - soulati.com

Who Knew Developing Brand Persona Included Bathroom Humor?

02/17/2015 By Jayme Soulati

I’m jumping the gun and skipping ahead to Episode 007 of The Heart Of Marketing podcast (available for download on iTunes) during which John Gregory Olson and I chuckle our way through potty humor while attempting to be serious about developing brand persona.

OMGosh! This episode brought tears to my eyes, well almost…I was just trying to get you to listen…whence I listened to it to prepare my blog post. I can’t stand not to laugh in these podcasts, otherwise I’d fall asleep!

What is Persona?

Everywhere you look, someone is suggesting that persona development is critical for brands. I dive in to three hot resources in Heidi Cohen, Vincent Messina and Tony Zambito who each know a thing or two about buyer persona versus buyer profile. They’re different!

In public relations circles from where I come, we liked rather to look at target audience as it relates to demographics. Marketers, on the flipside enjoy creating stories about who that buyer is, what they do every day and how they live. I wasn’t a fan, until I was. [Read more…]

B-to-B Firms Need Content Marketing

10/30/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Not everyone using device for notes! #convergesouth via soulati

You’re a business-to-business firm; perhaps a mid-sized business with no marketing team. You know you need marketing; however, beyond setting up a basic one-dimensional website you’re unsure what comes next.

Sound familiar?

It should and does, most likely. There are many organizations, firms, companies and business units scrambling to piece blended marketing together in order to communicate and sell to business audiences.

While there’s research everywhere saying B-to-B marketing is blending and blurring with B-to-C marketing, there are still firms that will never market to mass audiences of consumers. There are still businesses that will remain steadfast with its services offering and sell to other businesses and never to consumers.

It’s this type of business, often with an entrepreneurial approach I’m thinking about in this article today.

In order to elevate the firm’s brand and earn exposure, there are a variety of program elements to recommend. There’s one approach, however, that is the strongest recommendation and that’s content marketing.

Power Up The Blog

The first best recommendation is to launch a firm blog. The blog is owned media; you control the message and frequency of the writing. It can become the traffic hub for all types of content creation, including:

• Educational information
• Q&A with a guest
• What Is…Series
• Themes explored and explained
• Guest profiles/features
• Breaking news
• Events announcement
• Recap of a presentation + SlideShare deck
• New product launches

Share on Google+ and LinkedIn

Every B-to-B firm should claim its brand identity on Google+ business page and LinkedIn company page. The owners of the firm need to develop personal profiles on each and begin building their networks on these social channels.
All the blog content being written should get shared on these channels alongside industry articles relevant to the firm’s services and interest.

Blend Digital With Content Marketing

When we suggest digital marketing, it means developing content to generate leads. This content can be free downloadable material like an e-book, white paper or research. It can also be a thought piece on a related issue or perhaps a tip sheet or news bulletin.

There are landing pages developed to encourage people to submit an email for the content, and your firm starts creating a list with which to engage in the future.

It’s not as simple as it sounds; however, when you imagine the vast number of users combing the web for information, your content marketing has to be highly useful. Instead of giving it away free, add an email capture form and consider how you’ll keep people interested with your informational content.

Consider a Message Map

When you’re unsure of how to present the firm to external audiences, there is a nifty tool called a Message Map that helps provide answers to all the 5Ws of the firm. A Message Map is helpful in extrapolating answers from executives and getting approval from leadership on how best to position a company going forward.

This book provides a step-by-step approach on how to Message Map. You can consider its purchase right here https://MessageMapping.co.

https://messagemapping.co

Does Your Marketing Pay It Forward?

07/22/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Trust is the foundation stone of any successful relationship. If two people don’t trust each other, they constantly second guess the other’s motive and integrity. There is no opportunity for growth.

The relationship between a business and its customers is no exception to this rule. Customers can become intensely loyal to a particular brand, but only if they feel they can place their trust in that company. So the real question is, how can you make potential customers view your business as trustworthy?

The answer lies in social media marketing.

Why Is Social Media Such a Big Deal?

Social media has completely altered the face of Internet marketing. Previously, companies had to rely on emails, 1-800 numbers, and promotional events to connect with their customer base. But now, with the help of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, literally millions of customers are just a tweet or status update away. Twitter alone has around 500 million users.

Social media is different from most other marketing techniques because it is both simple and timely. Tweets are limited to a mere 140 characters, which means your message must be concise and relevant. People are constantly logging onto social media accounts to give and receive information, ideas, and opinions. For some, tweeting or updating their status comes before brushing their teeth or eating breakfast. In short, social media offers an immediate, dynamic, and personal way to connect with potential customers.

But How Can You Build Trust?

Many businesses grumble about the fact that they have tried this “social media thing” and not seen tangible benefit. It’s possible they have done everything right and somehow the gods of social media have simply deemed them unworthy. It is much more likely they are approaching social media marketing the wrong way.

We’ve already established social media is a completely different animal from conventional marketing strategies. It makes sense that businesses must approach it differently, as well. Traditional marketing is all about the business and the brand. It focuses on what the company has to offer and concerns itself with presenting an idea in the most appealing manner possible. To be successful in social media, the focus needs to shift to customers. People love social media because it provides a forum for sharing ideas and information. People want to be inspired, intrigued, and moved. If your company doesn’t offer content that is deemed valuable by social media users, you won’t gain a single customer.

So What Strategies Are Effective?

Being successful on Twitter is about the simple concept of paying it forward. If your company provides exceptional content, information, and insight without any brand or product flaunting, people will be drawn to it. It all goes back to that central idea of trust. When customers know they will receive interesting and relevant content from your company they are more likely to place their trust in your brand. They will want to talk about your company to their friends, family, and social media networks. Because social media is an opt-out society, users are completely in control of what brand messages reach them. Remember the core of social media is exactly that…being social. Once you establish trust, social media will become a huge boon for your brand.

About The Author

Randy Bowden

Randy Bowden is a principal partner along with his wife, Shalah, of bowden2bowden llc, a marketing and branding consultancy firm. Specializing in developing targeted marketing solutions, exceptional creative executions and solid branding strategies that give clients a real competitive advantage. Our core team has the ability to scale quickly and effectively with trusted partners as needed. We consider them an integral part of our team and process. Our ability to approach challenging projects in an atmosphere of spirited cooperation leads to engaging, compelling solutions and successful work that yields desired results. Randy writes three posts weekly for their bowden2bowden blog.”

New Gender Marketing With Oakley And Ruffles

07/08/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Advertising Age hasn’t inspired too much blog fodder of late; perhaps it’s due to its new ugly format and thin reporting. It was too serendipitous, though, that in the June 3, 2013 issue two stories about gender marketing with men and Ruffles and women and Oakley appeared pages apart.

Which got me thinking (always dangerous).

Why do brands continue to have gender marketing challenges in this day and age? You know, the era of women’s equality, stay-at-home dads, paternity time, and breaking the glass ceiling, etc.?

Oakley Trying To Sun Glass Women

The sub-head of the story really surmises the irony of this brand’s challenges, “At the $1 billion (yes, billion) apparel and eye glass company, the women’s business accounts for just 10% of sales, making it the biggest opportunity.” (Read that again without gasping, really?)

Apparently, the brand has attempted to sell to women but has obviously failed. No women were managing teams; they were in product development roles instead. Pink became the predominant color of choice for the women’s line because male leadership thought every woman identified with that. Few women were positioned in leadership ranks and testosterone prevailed in the male-dominated company.

Same-sex companies targeting same-sex customers does not beget inter-gender marketing success; I guess Oakley found that out.

Hmm, I wonder if Proctor and Gamble has noticed a trend for Daddy Mamas and is redoing diaper branding to make the box more manly?

Ruffles Women And The Bro Code

Ruffles, the potato chip with ridges, has always been a family brand – moms buy and the family eats. Getting too family for its britches, brand marketers sent a team of women into bars to immerse in the male snack-food psyche and crack the bro code. Men, who are too close to men, couldn’t master such research due to the introspectiveness of that analysis (or some such).

For three years (wow), the women infiltrated the snack-food brotherhood and learned a lot that resulted in these adjustments to the lowly potato chip with ridges:

Men shop for junk food on impulse; 25% of chips are purchased in smaller sizes.
The brand began to target millennial men.
Packaging was redone with inspiration fueled strictly with testosterone.
A spokesman the likes of Ron Burgundy meshed with Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood (how the heck are they millennial inspiration?) was created, named Ruff McThickridge.
The Ultimate Ruffle was born with thicker, manly ridges along with Ruffles Max to go alongside the beer (not so heavy).
Flavors were beefier and included beer-battered onion rings.

What’s so astonishing is the longevity of both these brands. Oakley is 38-years-old and Ruffles has to be older than that. How is it that this kind of eye-opening gender marketing research is happening now?

So glad it is, as I pity the poor man who can’t have a potato chip because the packaging is too girly. As for my sunglasses? I think I’ll settle for my Prada. Goodness knows those Oakley wraparounds would totally interfere with my curls.

Twitter’s Demise Or Ascension?

12/18/2012 By Jayme Soulati

twitter fail image (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a self-professed Twitter-holic since early 2009 in a 24/7 pattern, I know and whine about the changes to my first-love social media channel. When Google+ launched Communities Dec. 12, 2012, Twitter was a veritable graveyard. These days, the stream is littered with retweets of others’ content. Instead, I strive to post personal messages or say good morning to someone missing from my columns on HootSuite. In fact, last week I suggested we’d need to work harder to keep Twitter viable instead of it becoming a re-posting only channel.

What’s your view of whether Twitter can survive other channels’ apparent popularity? According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter only has 140 million registered users, dwarfing that of other channels (remember Facebook’s news of 1 billion this summer?). Can Twitter survive?

News on December 17, 2012 in The Wall Street Journal suggests a resounding yes! “Now On Twitter: Holiday Shopping Deals,” is all about big-box retailers flocking to Twitter to share Black Friday and holiday gift-giving deals. Among them are Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Radio Shack, and Toys ‘R Us.

Great article about the purchase of sponsored tweets by Best Buy and its use of Twitter “parties,” hour-long Twitter chats about gift ideas for target shoppers like moms and fitness buffs. Best Buy and its peers did not disclose to reporters how much their collective ad budget was; however, when you read the piece, it’s heartening to see that Twitter is finally getting some respect:

Marketing brand strategists prepped Best Buy retailers in various markets in advance with holiday-marketing planning sessions.

Eight weeks of Twitter attention was launched prior to Thanksgiving and is still going on during this especially zany last-minute shopping week for Best Buy.

A more creative strategy was launched other than just tweeting all day long with an inside-out perspective. Best Buy targeted shopper demographics and held 60 minute Twitter chats (there’s probably a hashtag out there somewhere) to engage peeps about gift giving.

Here’s the coolest thing about what’s happening on Twitter that the Best Buy brand strategist learned from his location-based retailers – tone of voice and authenticity were critical to the success of the campaign.

I absolutely love, love this. We on Twitter, engaging all day long for years, know the power of authentic voice. We know which brands are real, which ones care and which ones are one-way (inside out). For brands to get Twitter, they need to appoint a solid and seasoned team on the frontlines that can engage appropriately and with authenticity. When they invest in that way, the return on investment comes back in spades.

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