Canadian Small Business Women

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9 Ways to Create a Beautiful Instagram Feed

Are you on Instagram for business? Part of your Instagram strategy is to determine the look and feel of your profile. You want to create a cohesive and consistent visual experience for your community that enhances your brand and what it has to offer. This can be challenging because it requires a keen eye and a little planning ahead on your part, but here are 9 tips to help you create the best possible Instagram feed for your brand.

  1. Set your Instagram goals: Why are you even on Instagram? Do you want to create a community of engaged followers? Do you want to sell products? Do you want to educate your followers? The reasons you are on Instagram will drive you to create certain aesthetics on your feed.
  2. Find inspiration from other brands and influencers: There are a number of brands who are killing it on Instagram. If others have found the magic formula, it’s ok to get inspired by them for your own account. If it isn’t brands, make sure you are connecting with and following some of your favourite influencers. Instagram influencers have such strong aesthetics that you can tell who they are immediately.
  3. Get inspired by your surroundings: You don’t want to be something you’re not. For example, if you don’t have a dedicated office and you choose to work in coffee shops, co-working spaces, and at home, you should create an aesthetic that mirrors that. Look out the window, check out the people around you, and try to convey the general feel of your everyday brand through the photos you post on Instagram. It’s easier to work with what you know.
  4. Define your look: Set guidelines for yourself related to the filters you use to edit your images, fonts used for overlays, your colour palette (also known as colour story), shooting perspective, etc. Like you put together your brand guidelines in the beginning to create consistency across channels, you create these guidelines (sometimes called presets) to create consistency on your Instagram feed.
  5. Be flexible: While it’s good to have guidelines to follow, make sure you aren’t being TOO rigid. Remember, there is a beauty to a little spontaneity. Social media is about being social and you need to be driven by feel as much as you are driven by the details.
  6. Plan ahead: Social media should feel spontaneous, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit down each day to think about what to post. You need to think about the bigger picture and create a content strategy that will drive your activity each day. If you plan at least a week ahead with your posts, you can focus on engaging directly with your followers more organically each day.
  7. Create a library of images: This is about more than just planning ahead, it’s about working smarter, not harder. You should consider creating a library of images you can choose from. Most people do this to get images to use in marketing materials and on their website. But you have to think beyond those channels and apply the same process to your social media. If you put together a month’s worth of images in one photo shoot, you can easily plan out your colour story by coordinating outfit changes, backgrounds, lighting, etc.
  8. Use Instagram stories for spontaneous moments: Instagram stories provide a unique opportunity to showcase the day-to-day life of your brand as well as live events and your product/service offerings. Be sure to create highlights of your best Instagram stories to keep that content living on your profile permanently.
  9. Invest in photography: Consider hiring a professional photographer to help you get the look and feel you want for your Instagram feed. Taking photos for social media might seem easy – your cousin’s son’s friend does it all the time! But when it comes to carefully curating your brand’s social media, you want to take extra care to present a cohesive look that helps to connect people to your brand in a meaningful way.

Creating the perfect Instagram feed for your brand profile can be challenging, but if you approach it in the right way you can have a lot of fun with it.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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8 Ways to Get More Instagram Followers

There is no short cut to getting more Instagram followers. While there are companies out there that say they can guarantee to get you your first 1,000 followers – or 10,000 or whatever the number is – chances are they are buying followers. While you might think it’s ok to boost your numbers in the beginning because it adds credibility, you need to give your target audience more credit. They will know your followers are fake. And what is the point in building a marketing strategy if you aren’t going to engage with real customers? You can have a million followers, but little to no engagement.

So how do you grow your Instagram following to connect with even a fraction of the over 500 million daily active Instagram users? And what should your goals be when it comes to getting Instagram followers?

Here are 8 tips to help you get more Instagram followers the right way.

USE HASHTAGS – IN THE RIGHT WAYS

Hashtags are an incredible tool to help you find and connect with your target audience – not to spam them with a long list of the same hashtags on each post. There are a few ways you can use hashtags to grow your Instagram following.

  1. Use popular hashtags to join in on existing dialogue. Your target audience likely already engages with specific hashtags from competitors and other general Instagram accounts. They also use the search function to seek out new content. Using hashtags that they are already using makes it easier to find your content.
  2. Create a dedicated hashtag for your brand so your audience can follow and track your content. Make sure you don’t just use it on Instagram because no one will know it’s there! Promote it across all of your marketing channels – digital and otherwise.

MAKE SURE PEOPLE RECOGNIZE YOU

Instagram allows you to play around with the visual identity of your brand. This goes beyond your logo and branding. You also need to think about how your Instagram profile looks. To create a recognizable visual identity on Instagram, you should consider your overall themes, colours, and fonts. Your profile should be carefully curated when it comes to both style and content. And don’t forget that you can and should also brand everything you create.

SET UP YOUR PROFILE PROPERLY

A well-set up social media profile can make the difference between success and failure. Two features worth mentioning are your Instagram bio and making sure you write a great one that will allow you to be found. The other thing you should consider is changing up your profile URL – give people a reason to go to your IG profile page – and your website. One way you can do this is to post blogs regularly and include a post with a call to action that send people to read your blog.

FOCUS ON CONTENT

Your Instagram content doesn’t have to be overly produced, but it does need to be quality content. This means producing visuals that aren’t pixelated, are on brand and branded, provide value, etc. Even more, to get more Instagram followers your content needs to appeal to your target audience – which means you need to figure out what they like. If they like your content, they will follow you to see more.

BE SOCIAL

Social media should be social. If you are looking to get more Instagram followers like and comment on other brand and user content and follow other people. Instagram users are more likely to follow you if you follow them – it’s been proven. Try to follow people that would be part of your target audience. You can do this by looking at the types of accounts they follow and checking out the engagement on other content.

GET TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Post and engage when your audience is on Instagram. You can figure this out if you have a business profile by looking at your Instagram analytics. If you don’t have a business profile, it will take some trial and error, but you can also consider when your competitors post their content and how engaged their followers are. If that doesn’t work, then you can use good old trial and error, but make sure you track when and what you are posting.

If you already have followers on Instagram, don’t be afraid to ask them what they want to see from you.

Lastly, consider creating a strategy to reach your target audience that is hyper local by using geotagging on your posts. Your content will be more visible to those that are local to you.

COLLABORATE WITH INFLUENCERS

A great way to expand your reach on Instagram if you don’t yet have a lot of followers (of if you do have a good number of followers and you just want more) is to engage Influencers as part of your strategy. This allows you to amplify your reach through their community of followers.

INCLUDE CALLS TO ACTION

Calls to action are one of the most important things to include in any of your marketing tactics. If you want more followers, ask people to follow you! Ask them to visit your profile. Tell them what you want from them so it creates a path of least resistance.

It can sometimes feel like you are screaming into a giant content vacuum on social media. And when you spend the time to create great visuals on Instagram you want them to be found by an engaged audience who will become customers. Getting more Instagram followers isn’t necessarily easy – it takes hard work and dedication – but it is doable.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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10 Marketing tactics that aren’t worth the money…

A great marketing strategy is one of the most important investments you will make for your business. You won’t have customers or a growing loyal community unless people know who you are. Without customers, you won’t have a business at all. We have all heard the saying “you have to spend money to make money,” and this is true when it comes to your marketing strategy. But what should you spend your marketing budget on?

For tactics that are directly tied to sales, it is easier to figure out what your return on investment is, but there are tactics that bring you other benefits that aren’t tied directly to sales such as thought leadership, some forms of content marketing, social media community building, and others that lead to brand awareness and act as tools to help you achieve higher revenues when you use them correctly.

Marketing tactics to avoid

Regardless of what your marketing budget is, you want to make sure you spend your marketing dollars on the right tactics that will move your business in the right direction. There are so many things you could invest in, but here are ten marketing tactics that aren’t worth your money.

  1. A flashy, expensive website: A fancy website might seem like a good idea, but you should never sacrifice function for design. The most important thing on your website is that people can navigate through it properly and that you are providing enough valuable content and a way for them to get in touch with you.
  2. High volume content output: Quality is better than quantity. Blogging once per week with high value content is better than publishing a blog per day with boring content.
  3. Buying social media followers: Buying social media followers is never a good strategy. You would be spending money on something that would likely never turn into revenues. It is better to grow your audience organically, connecting with people who are potential customers and are highly engaged with your content.
  4. Social media ads… without a content strategy: As a marketing tactic, social media ads have become a necessity for certain platforms (we see you Facebook). However, there is no point in spending money on social media ads without making sure that when you send people to your page you have some great content on there for them to read. A content strategy will ensure that your social media ad spend will get you the results you want.
  5. Being on every social media platform: People think they need to be on as many platforms as possible so they can be found, but it doesn’t make sense to be on five social media platforms if you aren’t going to be active on all of them. It’s better to have a smaller digital footprint and be on one social media platform and do it really well than it is to be on many without success. Stick to whatever you can handle otherwise you won’t enjoy it and you just won’t do it.
  6. Having multiple accounts on one social media platform: For large corporations with multiple product lines and a marketing team, having multiple accounts on each social media platform could make sense. If you’re a small business, those multiple accounts cost you time and money. Chances are you won’t be able to maintain multiple accounts while providing any value for your audience. Consolidate into one account and create a solid content strategy that will help you get your message across.
  7. Print ads: Depending on your industry and target audience, print can be great. However, if you have a limited budget, print ads are the last thing you should be spending money on. They are expensive and it is harder for you to track their effectiveness. If you have a large marketing budget and you can allot a portion to print ads, then it is great – but make sure you have a way to track it.
  8. Untargeted paid digital ads: Ads are easy to get wrong without a strategy. If you are paying to reach people, take the time to target the right Otherwise you will waste your time and money. And if you don’t know who your target audience is, it’s time to step away from the paid ads and create your buyer personas to build a target audience that makes sense.
  9. Untargeted Direct Mailouts: It can be hard to make a case for direct mail these days in a digital world. While it might make sense in some industries depending on your target audience (maybe they’re just not that into social media!), most people just recycle those carefully designed materials when they show up in their mailbox or at the door. If you do choose to do a direct mail out, make sure you are targeting properly geographically and tactically. Only do it if it makes sense for your audience.
  10. Generic press releases: Press releases are a great way to keep track of official stakeholder announcements for corporate communications or general announcements. However, if you are looking to put together a media relations strategy, you should rely more on individualized pitches that are more story based so you can tailor your pitch to each media contact. Sending out a blanket press release won’t get you the coverage you are looking for.

Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, but you should invest in a strategy that will allow you to grow your business successfully.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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5 tips for getting more from your summer marketing

It’s almost here! Summer. It can be frustrating for small business owners as it often comes with a slow down in sales as people just start taking it easy.

While there are no magic solutions, there are things you can do to overcome the summer business slump. Here are 5 tips for getting more from your summer marketing strategy.

#1: Work with what you’ve got

If you had a summer marketing strategy last year, figure out what worked and what didn’t. As yourself questions like:

  • How engaged were your customers with your social media campaigns?
  • Did you have good follow through and brand recall after events and sponsorship opportunities?
  • What was general customer sentiment?

Make sure you’re building metrics into your strategies so you can track your successes. You can recycle strategies and tactics that worked well but find a creative way to keep it fresh for the upcoming summer. And you can avoid the things that just didn’t work.

#2: Try something new

If you didn’t have a summer marketing strategy last year, or perhaps it just didn’t work well overall, or maybe you are just adventurous, you might just want to try something new this year. Summer is a great time to step out of your comfort zone but remember that anything you choose to do should fit with what your audience would want. There is no reason to try something new unless you think it will bring positive results.

#3: Connect with the community

There is so much community activity in the summer you should really focus on building experiences rather than sales tactics. Whether you look at sponsorship opportunities for sports teams or community events, or even creating your own event, find ways to connect on a more personal level to build solid relationships that will continue throughout the rest of the year.

The idea is that you need to focus on brand recall through positive interactions rather than a hard sales technique. Just have fun with your marketing. Your target audience will respond will to it.

#4: Focus “snackable” content

People generally have less time to consume content in the summer, so you have to really grab their attention with quick and easy to digest content. A great way to do that is to focus more on visual content for your digital channels. Think snackable content with lots of images or even video or audio.

You can easily do this by doing things like:

  • Posting more images on social media with shorter captions, or even memes with no captions;
  • Doing vlogs (video blogs) instead of written blogs;
  • Do How To blogs that take you through step by step with images and less words;
  • Start a podcast; or
  • Create downloadable content so it can be consumed offline (at the cottage!).

#5: Pick a theme for your summer strategy

Get your audience invested in your summer marketing strategy by picking a theme that they can follow. If you pick a theme and tell a story around it using tactics that build on each other throughout the summer, you can create forward momentum even at a time of year that is normally slow.

Summer doesn’t have to be a tough time for your business, you just have to be proactive in creating a summer strategy that makes sense.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Check out our Brand and Business Strategy Package to set you up for business success!

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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5 Common Social Media Mistakes

While social media has become an important marketing tool, so many brands forget that it should be a social tool first and foremost. It’s a chance for brands to connect with their target audiences.

Low social media engagement can be frustrating. But, before you get too frustrated and throw in the towel, have a look at some of the most common mistakes brands make on social media to see if you can turn things around.

Here are 5 mistakes you might be making on social media.

#1: You’re too focused on the sale

If you are constantly talking about yourself through a continuous hard sell of your products/services, your target audience will quickly lose interest. It’s not very authentic – or interesting – if all you do is talk about yourself!

To avoid making this mistake, develop your content strategy with audience engagement in mind. If you set out to connect with people, you will find that your loyal brand community will grow. Two things to consider are:

  • User-generated content where you post content that your audience submits.
  • Curated content from third party sources acknowledges other viewpoints.

#2: Ignoring the comment section

In spite of the fact that studies show that 70% of people are more likely to stick with a brand if they respond on social media (and not with a copy and paste response!), brands ignore a staggering 89% of inquiries on social media. As a small business owner, you are probably trying to run your business and your marketing on your own. It can be easy to let things slip through the cracks, but you don’t want to lose customers.

Social media is all about connection and dialogue. Whether on purpose or not, you should never leave a comment unanswered. If you’re having trouble keeping on top of it, schedule 15 minutes every day to sit down with your online community and answer any questions or comments.

#3: Not providing value

If you are just posting for the sake of posting, you are likely just adding to the wall of noise that social media has become. It’s likely not going to attract the audience you had intended – if you attract anyone at all!

Remember, you are on social media for the benefit of your customers, which means you should be posting about things they want to hear about. Keep up on the trends within your industry and listen for questions that come up frequently about your products/services. You might even try asking your followers what they want to hear about.

#4: Focusing on size, not quality

The number of followers you have means nothing if they aren’t converting into customers and if your overall engagement is low. More isn’t always better. If your goal is merely to gain more followers on social media, you’re doing it wrong.

Instead, focus on building a community. If you have a highly engaged community on social media, it’s not going to matter as much if the number fluctuates a bit. You will notice an upward steady growth trend in your following, your engagement, and your revenues.

#5: Wrong place, wrong time

You set up your social media platforms based on their popularity and you are putting out content regularly, but the strategy just isn’t getting any traction… at all. Have you considered that your target audience doesn’t use the platforms you chose? If your target audience isn’t on a specific platform, why are you?

Do your research before starting any marketing strategy. In terms of your social media, figure out on which platforms your target audience uses.

As you are building or trouble-shooting your social media strategy, keep these common mistakes in the back of your mind. Remember that you should be having fun with your social media strategy because it is all about building a brand community of people.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Check out our Social Media Starter Kit to help you get started on Social Media!

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6 Tips For Better Business Social Media Profiles

It’s kind of hard to connect with your target audience if you’re not on social media. While the case could be made that if you are hyper local you could get away with no social media strategy, most businesses need to have some sort of digital footprint. However, you need to make sure you are doing social media in a way that is going to help you reach your overall marketing and business goals.

To get your strategy started the right way, you need to make sure you have your profiles set up properly. They need to be user-friendly and memorable. But how do you do that?

Here are six ways you can make the most of your social media profiles on each platform.

Make it easy to find you

Instinctively, users will type in @[company name] to tag brands or to find specific profiles. Keep your handle (AKA user name) simple and use your brand name if it’s not already taken. If it is, find come up with something related and creative. Once you settle on a handle, use it across all of your profiles (where possible) to create consistency.

Avoid just adding on random numbers, symbols, or punctuation to differentiate yourself because your handle will become too obscure and hard to find. Also, it doesn’t look very professional if your handle is @Widgets1234.

Create a visual brand identity

While each social media platform uses visuals differently, you can still have a cohesive, consistent visual style on each. So while your content may differ, your audience has the same experience across platforms.

When selecting your profile image, find something that represents your brand well. If you are a company, use your logo, your product, or your mascot. If you are an individual expert, use your headshot or a professional lifestyle shot. Once you select an image, use the same one across platforms. This will help with brand recall and recognition.

Your cover photo can be different, but you want to make sure that it is in keeping with your visual brand style.

Be descriptive, but cut the extras

Don’t make people guess what you do when they read your profile. Use your brand and industry keywords when filling out your about and description fields to keep it simple and get to the point.

It’s not necessary to use hashtags in your profile set up unless it’s related to a specific campaign you are running and that you want to add extra visibility to – but use them for sure in your regular content on the right platforms!

Be thorough

You don’t want to fill your social media profiles with fluff content, but you do want to get as much detail in there as possible. So, make sure you don’t leave any relevant fields blank when setting up your social media profiles. Some social media platforms give you the opportunity to include much more information than others, so take the time to set up your content properly. And don’t be afraid to change up your profile content to keep it fresh. It could be as simple as putting a featured link on your Instagram profile to showcase new blog content.

Cross-promote your social media platforms

You can absolutely ask for followers on one social media platform to follow you on another. The key is that you need to make sure you are posting different and valuable content on each platform to give them incentive to follow you in more than one place.

In some cases, you can actually add your other social platforms to the profile content itself (ie. On Facebook), but in other cases, posting a simple link to your other profiles can get you more traffic.

Be reachable

While this might seem obvious, make sure all of your links and your emails work. Put in your website, email, phone number, etc. The easier it is to get a hold of you, the more likely your customers are to call.

Social media doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if you take the time to make sure your profiles are set up for success on each social media platform.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Check out our Social Media Starter Kit to help you get started on Social Media!

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5 Tips For Creating Better Content in 2019

Content will always be royalty when it comes to marketing. (Even if you don’t like hearing “content is king” because it’s overused!) You can showcase your brand in the right way and maintain a certain amount of control over how you appear to your audience if you create content in the right ways. Now that we are officially into 2019, you should be looking for ways to boost your marketing efforts to have an even better year than last year.

It is beneficial to your business if you can make content work for you. You can have increased website traffic, search engine visibility, increased referral traffic, increased social media engagement, and establish yourself as the go-to expert in your field.

Here are five ways to make content work even better for you in 2019.

#1: Go visual

As the way we consume content shifts towards more video and easily digestible forms of content, the visual aspect of your content strategy is now more important than ever. You should look to incorporate more videos, infographics, imagery, and other visual forms into your strategy. If you write a regular blog (hint: you should!), consider incorporating accompanying graphics and video. This makes your content both easier to consume, but also to share on various platforms.

#2: Think evergreen

Evergreen content is content that is not time sensitive. It can be shared sometimes for years to come (often with minor tweaks!). To incorporate evergreen content into your strategy, create a list of potential evergreen topics that are relevant to your industry – and your audience. You can introduce these topics via your blog, your social channels, your website content, and any place you interact with your audience.

#3: Think across platforms

While you shouldn’t share identical content across all marketing channels, you can utilize certain content to enhance your overall strategy on each channel. For example, your latest blog post can be promoted across all of your channels, but you would utilize different content for each:

  • On Facebook, you could create an update that is designed to generate dialogue through its conversational tone and include a link preview.
  • On Instagram, you could create a series of images for a multi-image post that highlight the key takeaways and direct people to a link in your bio.
  • On Twitter, you could use those key takeaway images from Instagram, but spread them out over a few weeks.
  • On LinkedIn, you could include a call to action for business owners to share their frustrations regarding the topic.

People consume content differently on each platform and your strategy should reflect that.

#4: Focus on dialogue, not sales

Whether you are looking at developing a social media strategy or you are looking at other forms of marketing, remember that relationships and dialogue should be the cornerstone of your activities. If you are doing a good job communicating with your target audience, you should be able to easily funnel them through your sales channels without aiming for a hard sell every time.

#5: Listen to your audience

This one might seem obvious, but it can be easy to get stuck in the constant content churn – you know you should be putting out content, so you just keep putting it out blindly whether anyone is reading it or not. At this point, you are just creating noise and not really providing any value. It’s a waste of your time. You should make sure you are writing content that your audience will read and respond to in a way that is beneficial to your overall business goals. To ensure you are providing valuable content, take the time to ask what your audience wants to hear about from you. You can also look at conversations on social media to gain insights.

Content is an important part of your marketing and sales strategy. As you are getting ready to take on 2019, build yourself a content strategy that will give you the best chance at successful growth.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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2019 Marketing Strategy Planning Checklist

It’s year end. While for many that means a bit of a holiday break between Christmas and New Year’s as well as an end to the fiscal year, not enough business owners think about what it means for their marketing strategy. Year end is a great time for you to figure out what worked and what didn’t so you can set yourself up for success in 2019.

Here is a planning checklist to help you get your marketing strategy in order for 2019:

  • Market analysis: Start by identifying any trends that are driving growth in your industry. This will ensure you are keeping up with how your industry is shifting. Once you have identified how the industry is shifting, figure out what your competitors are up to with their marketing strategies and how your audience is responding to them.
  • Audit your brand: While you don’t need to go through a rebrand every year, you do need to make sure that your brand message is still relevant to your audience. It could be that you have changed your focus since the beginning of last year to follow industry trends, or perhaps you shifted your focus to cater to your audience’s changing needs.
  • Define your marketing goals: Before setting your goals for 2019, you need to identify whether you achieved your goals from last year. It’s the idea that you need to look back before looking forward. If you didn’t achieve your goals, figure out why and set more achievable goals for the upcoming year. If you did achieve your goals, make sure you are pushing yourself to go further in 2019. And remember to make your goals measurable so you can figure out when you are successful.
  • Set metrics: Once you have defined your marketing goals, you need to figure out how you will measure your success. If your goals were measurable, it’s a matter of selecting the appropriate metrics to track along the way. You also need to figure out how often you will prepare reports to measure your progress. At the very least, you should track your metrics once per month. If you are running an important tactic or trying something new, it might be good to do weekly check-ins.
  • Choose your tactics: Figure out how you will reach your target audience in 2019. It could be through things that are already in place, but perhaps you want to try something new. At this stage, think beyond your budget. You can include things on here that might be out of your budget now, but could be considered as future options.
  • Set your budget: Were you on budget in 2018? Perhaps there were things that cost more than you thought they would? Now that you can figure out the answers to those questions you can set your budget for your 2019 marketing strategy. Knowing what your goals are you should be able to pinpoint if there are areas you want to increase your spending. It’s important to be realistic about your marketing budget so you don’t spread yourself too thin, but you also want to give yourself enough of a budget to invest so you can achieve results that will allow you to grow.
  • Set your timeline: Prioritize your chosen tactics and select those that you can both afford to do and have time to do this year. Then create a timeline for the year of when you will use your chosen tactics. Basically, this is a snapshot of your overall marketing plan for the year.
  • Set milestones: Now that you have your overall plan in place and the timing of your marketing tactics, set smaller checkpoints along the way. This will help to keep you on track throughout the year. It will also indicate the steps needed to help you achieve your marketing goals.
  • Create your content strategy: Before developing a content strategy, you need to figure out how much you can handle. The idea is that you want to be consistent with the content you are putting out there. Your audience will come to expect certain things from you. Create an editorial calendar for your blogging and set up scheduling for your social media content.
  • Update your website: Year end is a great time for a content refresh on your website, especially if you have tweaked your brand messaging at all. You can also review the design of your website to make sure it is not out of date. It might just be time for a redesign!

A new year is a chance for you to start fresh for your marketing strategy, but you want to make sure you are starting off on the right foot.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take company and expert brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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As A Business Owner, Your Personal Profile Matters

As a business owner, your personal profile matters more than you might think. When it comes down to

it, as a small business owner, you are your brand. Like it or not, what you say even when you’re not speaking on behalf of your company will reflect on your business reputation.

You likely already have a presence online that you are building (hello,it’s 2018, this should be a no brainer!) or maybe you want to expand your current network through events and other face-to-face meetings. Regardless, here are a two things to take into account as you build your profile.

Always be aware of potential connections

You never know who knows who or the quality of their relationship if they are a mutual acquaintance. So, if you are thinking of badmouthing someone, one of three things could happen:

  1. The person you are speaking to actually likes this acquaintance and you have just offended them.

      2. The person you are speaking to really doesn’t like this acquaintance either and you have just bonded over                      something really negative.

      3. The person you are speaking to feels very uncomfortable and thinks,͞ “if you can so easily talk about them, are                 you badmouthing me as well to others?”

͟In all three cases, you have just opened your mouth (or let your fingers fly over the keyboard) without knowing what the response will be, and in all three cases you get a negative out come. Even though you bonded in #2, do you really want to get a reputation like that?

Your values should align with how you want others to see your business.

Put out what you want to get back

The way you interact with others says a lot about your personality. We have all heard about employers or clients who like to see how someone treats serving staff before making a final decision on whether to work together.

Consider also that having a politically charged, intelligent discussion is very different than ranting about our disgust of a specific political leader. It could make you seem like one of those conspiracy theorists who is a little unstable. Or how about that time when you unleashed your anger via a 10-tweet rant directed at a company because they treated you poorly?

If you focus on negativity, you’ll find that people will stop wanting to work with you because of it. When it comes to social media, customers have direct access to your online activity–and they will check you out before buying from you. This doesn’t mean you can’t be authentic when building your personal profile, but when it comes to  inappropriate messaging that could be seen as offensive or hurtful, think about whether it will give the right impression.

We all wish that our personal and professional lives could be kept separate. While it can be possible to do so, with the professional world increasingly moving digital, it makes it quite difficult. The solution is to be more self-aware and think twice about what you say before you say it.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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Develop your brand now to avoid disappointment later

It’s not uncommon for businesses to push through their initial launch only to realize that they haven’t really done any foundational brand work. In the long-run, this can actually have a negative effect on your overall business growth. After all, if you don’t figure out exactly who you are, how are your customers supposed to know? But, what does branding even mean? And how much work do you need to do to develop it? Some business owners feel like they just need to develop a product or a logo and it will all magically fall into place. It’s not quite that simple.

Not only does creating a strong brand help you stand out among your competitors, but it also allows your audience to connect with you on a more personal level. A stronger connection to your audience generally means better revenues and long-term loyalty.

Skipping over the brand development phase, you run the risk of no one knowing who you are and an inconsistent marketing and communications strategy that will confuse your target audience. And remember… branding is not just logo development. Your logo is just a visual representation of the brand you have developed.

Brand Factors

When it comes to brand development, certain factors like industry, audience, and geography will affect your approach, however, below are brand factors that you will always need to address for your own brand development:

  • Audience Segmentation: Figure out who they are, what they want, what they need, and how they want to get it.
  • Value proposition: Decide what value you bring to your target audience and how is it different than your competitors.
  • Brand messaging: These are the main points that you can use to talk about your brand. It will form the base for all marketing and communications content you put out there.
  • Brand identity/personality: Your messaging shows what you are about, and your brand identity showcases your values, ethics, and the characteristics that really make you you.
  • Brand story: Take your messaging and brand identity one step further by crafting your organizational story. Focus on the people and the things that are most important to you.

After you have gone through all of these things, you are well-equipped to create your logo and build your website and web content based on what would appeal to your audience and showcase your brand story.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Now that you have this great brand developed, you need to think about how you can establish a long-term presence with it based on three things:

  1. Consistency: Maintaining consistency when it comes to colours, messaging, tone, and all of your brand’s defining factors is important so your audience knows what to expect from you. It also helps with brand recall (your audience will remember and recognize you based on your marketing efforts).
  2. Adaptability: While you need consistency, you also have to be adaptable when it comes to evolving your brand over time. Your audience and their needs will likely evolve over time and it’s important that you don’t get left behind because you haven’t kept up.
  3. Storytelling: Weaving storytelling through everything you do will allow you to better connect over a long period of time with your audience. You took the time to develop your brand storytelling based on what your audience might want, so use it!

Brand development, while often overlooked, is an important part of the process when you are starting a business or when you are going through organizational change. It will set you up for future business success.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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The exact process we use to get clients social media success

When it comes to social media for business, most entrepreneurs fall into one of four categories:

  1. You know you need it, but you have no idea how to get started. Perhaps you got into social media a little late and you don’t have the base knowledge to know what will work best.
  2. You are already on it, but you aren’t seeing any growth or positive results and you’re not sure why. You’re spending time on putting content out there, but it’s going nowhere. You’re not even sure if anyone is reading it!
  3. You are already on it, but you can’t find the time to actually do anything with it. Running your own business is already hard enough. You realize the benefits social media can bring, but you just aren’t able to dedicate time to doing anything with it.
  4. You are an expert and you’ve mastered the art of engaging social media content.

If you fall into category 4, congratulations! If you fall into category 1, 2, or 3, don’t worry. You are not alone. It’s no secret that social media plays a major role in connecting with your audience, but, for many entrepreneurs, that’s where the frustration begins. Whether it’s a lack of knowledge or time, everyone has to start somewhere.

At SongBird one of the things I do is work with clients on their social media strategies. Sometimes it means building a strategy and executing it, and other times it is simply building a strategy and giving them the tools to execute it successfully on their own.

This is the 5-step process we go through with clients to help them achieve social media success:

Step 1: Social and competitor audit

This is an in depth look at what you are already doing on social media (if you’re on it!) to see what is working and what isn’t working. Then you take it a step further by looking at your competitors’ social media channels. Look for things like engagement, brand consistency, and content variety.

Step 2: Brand refresh

Make sure your brand messaging is aligned with your overall business goals and brand personality. You also need to take a good look at your audience and where they like to consume content to ensure you are using the right social media channels that will help you achieve your goals.

Step 3: Refine your strategy

You can start by ensuring your social profiles are consistent across platform when it comes to imagery, messaging, and brand story. Then you need to create a strong content strategy that will help you get your message across on all of your chosen social platforms. This means looking at appropriate posting timing, hashtag usage, types of content, and where the crossover content will be. Remember, you shouldn’t post the same content across all platforms. The idea is that you want people to follow you on all platforms, so you need to provide value in different ways to encourage this.

Step 4: Learn your tools

You need to make your social media implementation as easy as possible, so you can keep up with it. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer will help with scheduling so you can schedule content one week at a time and not worry so much on a day-to-day basis. If you’re concerned about how your content looks, use a user-friendly design tool like Canva.

Step 5: Take it one day at a time

Only take on what you can handle, realizing that you can grow your strategy over time. As you start to see success, and your social presence becomes more consistent, you will find it easier to add to your strategy. It is also easier to track your success if you fully understand what you are doing. If you notice something isn’t working, try tweaking your strategy slightly. There will be trial and error in figuring it out on your own, so just embrace it rather than have it frustrate you. You can learn as much about your business, yourself, and your customers through things that don’t work as you can through your successes.

If you’re stuck, feel free to reach out and ask questions! You can also check out our Social Media Starter Kit!

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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Easy Summer Marketing Cheat Sheet

Now that the weather has us all hoping that the sunny, warm days will stay, you have some decisions to make when it comes to your summer marketing strategy. While it might be tempting to slow things down for the summer in favour of vacation time because “business slows down anyways,” you should consider kicking things up a notch for the summer or at least maintaining the momentum you have already built throughout the year. I could give you a million reasons why keeping up with your marketing is important throughout the summer months, but you can check out my top 5 reasons here.

What I want to focus on is how you can make the most of your summer marketing strategy by following this cheat sheet as you build out your strategy over the next month or so.

Here is an easy cheat sheet for your summer marketing strategy building – all of the nitty gritty details that you can check off your list on your way to success.

  • Status check: Figure out what you’re currently doing that is working and the things that just aren’t. Create a spreadsheet where you can list your metrics for success for each marketing tactic you have tried in 2018. Once you have it written down it makes it easier to see the big picture.
  • Review your goals/objectives: What were you looking to accomplish when you started your current strategy and how does it relate to your results? Did you reach your goals? If not, what held you back? Have your business priorities shifted?
  • Look ahead: What big announcements/milestones do you have coming up for the second half of the year?
  • What’s trending in your industry: Do an audit of social conversations, pop culture, and other channels to figure out what’s trending in your industry (and for your audience as a whole). How do these topics relate to your brand?
  • Identify unique summer opportunities: There are a lot of events and social activities that go on in the summer. List potential opportunities for you to get involved as a brand and/or organization. Some things to consider are: Partner with a non-competing business to offer summer promos that sweeten the deal; or get involved as a sponsor for a summer event to get your brand in front of your target audience. These types of opportunities are a great way to generate buzz in the media.
  • What’s on your wish list: Are there any marketing tactics that you haven’t ever implemented but you wish you could? For example: video marketing; experiential marketing; mobile tactics; etc.
  • Set your budget: Carve out a budget for summer-specific marketing initiatives – be realisitic.
  • Write it down: Build a document that outlines everything you are going to do this summer when it comes to your marketing. This includes tactics you are continuing from the first half of the year as well as anything new you want to try.
  • Identify milestones: Once you have decided on what you are doing, figure out when you will implement everything.
  • Think beyond summer: You should look to build momentum beyond your summer marketing strategy. Look at summer as a jumping off point for future success in the year.

Summer marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, and it shouldn’t be ignored. Shake off that sudden urge to slow down when it gets hot and sunny and use the summer to your advantage.

 

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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4 steps to changing up your marketing strategy for the better

Have you hit a plateau in your marketing efforts? You’re definitely not growing your business. Or maybe your business is falling short of your competitors and they are squeezing you out of the market. Whatever the case, it’s time for a marketing strategy change. Changing things up shouldn’t happen on a whim, and it should be a slow and steady process that you work through, otherwise you will likely find yourself in the same place six months from now, needing another big change.

The need for a marketing strategy change can be triggered by a number of different factors such as industry developments, audience needs, market trends, a change in service offerings, etc. As a business owner, you should be reviewing your marketing strategy at least on a quarterly basis to make sure you are staying on top of things.

Step 1: Identify gaps

Gaps are where there is a need that is not being met. You might be surprised at what you are missing if you aren’t listening intently to your audience. Here are some common gaps:

  • Lack of customer engagement
  • Slow customer service response times
  • Lack of product education
  • Missing skill set on your team to get the job done
  • Misaligned strategy and goals

Be honest with yourself about what is working and what isn’t. It makes it easier to identify these areas if you look at the data related to all aspects of your marketing. These are some common data touch points:

  • Social media engagement
  • Website traffic
  • Conversion rate (those who go from browsing to a sale)

Once you have identified where your marketing gaps are, figure out the solutions necessary to fill those gaps and let that be the foundation of your new marketing strategy.

Step 2: Set objectives

Your marketing strategy should fit within the bigger picture of your overall business strategy. Set your marketing objectives with this in mind so your marketing strategy will help you achieve your overall business objectives.

As you are setting your marketing strategy objectives, make sure that they are quantifiable, so you can measure your progress. You should also identify both short-term and long-term objectives.

Step 3: Set milestones

After setting both short-term and long-term objectives as well as identifying your tactical changes to your marketing strategy, build out a timeline to help you implement and track your success. You can always tweak the timeline as necessary, but it will keep you and your team on track. Be sure to include things like major deliverables, growth targets, and strategic decision deadlines.

Step 4: Execute and let it breathe

The hardest part about starting something new is waiting to see if it will work after you set it in motion. Depending on your goals (short-term vs. long-term), your strategy can take up to 6 months to see full results. Adjust your expectations and don’t start messing with your new strategy unless you know something isn’t working. In these cases, make sure you figure out why it isn’t working before creating a solution.

If you are ready to change up your marketing strategy, it’s important to realize that you likely have a good base to work from already. Don’t throw out your current marketing strategy, figure out how you can tweak it or build on it to make it better.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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5 Big Marketing Mistakes for Small Business

As a small business owner, you need to make sure that you are using your resources in the best way possible. It can be easy to let things fall through the cracks, but you need to make sure that your marketing strategy is on track otherwise, it will be hard for you to succeed.

Here are six big marketing mistakes many small business owners make, whether they are just starting out or they have been in a business for a while and have hit a plateau in growth.

Targeting too broad an audience

As a small business owner, if your audience is too broad you will find that you go through your budget quickly and you won’t see great results because you are trying to reach too many people. Instead, conquer your audiences one niche at a time and let your reputation spread organically. If you do it right, your loyal customers will do your marketing for you. Focus on more grassroots and targeted initiatives to stretch your budget while getting bigger results. For example, you could run an influencer campaign to reach a small group of bloggers or other “celebrity” type influencers who will share your brand story with their audience. This helps you to amplify your marketing message while only marketing directly to a smaller group.

Not knowing where you fit into the competitive landscape

I have run into countless business owners (or those at the idea stage) that truly believe that they are the only one out there selling their product or service. While that might be true, chances are, you’re not first to the market with a product or service that is similar. And just because a company isn’t offering the exact same thing as you doesn’t mean that their similar product doesn’t have some of the same benefits. They may not be a direct competitor, but they are a competitor. Do your research before launching your business to see what else is out there that is similar. To ensure that you stay on top of industry developments, you should be constantly looking for new players in your market to see where your product fits into the industry and why your customers and target audience should buy what you are selling over your competitors.

No big picture strategy

Your marketing strategy needs to be carefully planned out in advance so you can see how all of the elements fit together. You can set yourself up for success better if your marketing objectives tie directly into your business objectives. Develop detailed timelines for each tactic you are looking to implement over the next year and set milestones to measure your success by. Keep in mind that this doesn’t have to be a rigid planning document. You can adjust your timelines and the overall strategy as you go as needed. But it will act as a guide to keep your marketing strategy moving in the right direction.

Not starting early enough

A common mistake many small business owners make is not starting early enough. This has to do with both planning and marketing for specific initiatives. Unless you have an unlimited budget that will allow for you to create a massive spectacle that can’t be missed (ie. Public stunts in multiple cities, or one major public stunt that is larger than life) you want to make sure people know what’s coming so they can get excited for it and start helping you build buzz. For example, if you are planning your product launch for September, you need to start planning in detail in June (at least!) and start talking about it publicly – even as a teaser at least a month in advance. Another example would be if you plan to run a holiday gift guide campaign where you intend to be included in media gift guides. For certain media, you need to start that in August.

If you are bringing in a third party to execute your strategy (like an agency), bring them in at the beginning and figure out the best timeline for success. You might think you are saving money by bringing them in later, but in reality, you are just cutting your success short.

Starting out free gets your name out there

This is a highly discussed topic. Sometimes people think that giving away your products/services for free in the beginning will mean that you will gain more exposure. While you might get more exposure, it’s not generally the kind you should be looking for because you are severely undervaluing yourself. In many cases, once people get something for free, they will continue to expect free, which doesn’t help you in growing your revenues. The first thing I tell brands/experts is to stop working for free just for exposure.

The only time giving your product/services away for free is acceptable is if it is part of a larger media strategy where you will get third party reviews from credible sources. This type of exposure can be very helpful in amplifying your brand message because you are tapping into their networks and building trust. It is also ok to choose a small test group of customers at the beginning for market research to get feedback on your product/service, but it should end there. Giving severe discounts and freebies to everyone in the beginning is going to make it difficult to start charging what you’re actually worth.

 

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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5 Tips For Getting More From Your PR Efforts

Whether you have competition or not, you need to figure out how to generate buzz about your brand. If no one is talking about you, then your target audience won’t be able to find you very easily.

Your PR strategy could include a variety of different tactics. Once you have your strategy in place, here are 5 tips on how you can make the most of your efforts.

  1. Think long-term, not individual opportunities

You might be looking for media coverage for your brand or product launch, or to be included in holiday gift guides, but what happens next? Your goal should be to aim for sustained buzz, and to do that you have to look at building relationships with your media contacts. If you make meaningful connections with the media, you may find that they are more receptive to your pitching down the line. Build relationships with the media like you build relationships with your customers. You may even find they take interest in what’s happening with your brand and reach out to you.

  1. Get to know the media

Using a blanket approach where you pitch every media contact you can think of is not a great idea. Build a list thoughtfully and get to know who your media and influencers are. What do they write about? What stories seem to grab them the most? Most importantly, what is the connection between your pitch and them? You will have a higher success rate if you approach your outreach in this way because you will make a connection with your contacts.

  1. Match your pitching schedule to the media’s schedule

If you try to pitch your contact and they are on air, in an editorial meeting, or producing a show, they likely won’t respond to you. Your pitch also might then get lost in the shuffle. Try to learn your contacts’ schedules. Maybe they have a 9 AM production meeting, or their monthly editorial planning meeting happens the second week of the month. You can adjust the way you pitch based on what you have learned. In many cases learning this type of information will take time and you will pick up on patterns based on when your contacts respond to you.

  1. Keep your promises

If you say you are going to provide your contact with information by a certain deadline, then do it. Also, if you promise an exclusive to one publication, don’t do the same to another. It breaks down trust and they will likely just delete your email next time you try to pitch them.

  1. Use social media to your advantage

If you are having trouble getting through to the media, try to generate buzz using your own tools. Keep up with your social media efforts as a way to attract media attention while connecting with your target audience directly. Many of your media contacts often find their story angles from scanning social media for interesting topics.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/email/Website

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