Strategy Archives - Alpha Digital
Building Your Business’s Brand Credibility
Brand credibility can be narrowed down to the trustworthiness of a business’s product or service.
And in today’s world, brand credibility is everything. The way consumers view your business directly impacts word-of-mouth advertising and in essence, your sales. Thanks to the internet, even a seemingly small piece of bad publicity can affect your business by severely hurting your engagement, ratings, sales and more importantly, your brand’s reputation.
According to Forbes, brand credibility follows a cause-and-effect arc. This means that as a business, you do your best to maintain a good reputation through strategy, high-quality products/services and excellent customer service. In return, consumers, other businesses and search engines all help your business build brand credibility.
Springboard takes a deeper look at a few strategies that will help your business develop a good relationship with consumers.
Check out these five strategies will help move the process along in the right direction:
Read the Business Landscape.
Stay on top of trends that affect your industry. Companies that stay in the know will have a better chance to adapt to changes and stay ahead of the game.
Know What People Are Saying About Your Brand.
Stay on top of what people are saying about your business and keep all feedback in mind. Having a grasp on what consumers are saying about your brand will give you an idea of what you may need to work on.
Monitor Your Site Metrics.
Monitoring your website analytics is the best way to collect data that gives you a look into your customers’ journeys. Specifically, take a look at metrics such as bounce rate, average time spent on your site, and the channels that your audience is coming from. By setting goals, you’ll have a better understanding of what KPIs are relevant to your business.
Good quality content will add visibility to your brand and establish you as experts in your industry. Content is a universal strategy that will work for all business verticals. Start by publishing a blog relevant to your business – consumers will learn to relate your brand to your industry and see you as a credible source of information.
Being honest and transparent will always win over your consumers. One wrong move could damage your brand credibility forever, so be sure to stay real with your audience. If your business makes a mistake, own it and and make sure to make it right. This will pay off in the long run once your customers know that your business has integrity and reliability.
All in all, it’s vital to ensure that your business embodies all things positive, credible, and reliable. But brand credibility does not build on its own. Once you commit to prioritizing your brand’s image, consumers will take notice. Reach out to us and let us know how we can help manage your brand’s reputation!
What Does Apple’s iOS 14.5 Update Mean for Advertisers?
Apple recently updated its iOS system. What does that mean for your advertising strategy?
Well, going forward Apple users will have to grant permission to apps and/or sites to use their data with the new iOS update.
Your gut reaction as an advertiser might be, “Oh no! No one wants to be tracked. No one will ever opt-in! How will my brand reach its target audience now?”
In part, that is a valid concern. If I asked a hundred people, “Hey, can I use your data to track your behaviors and locations,” I bet every one of them would say, emphatically, “NO!”
But, not to panic – we’ll give you some not-so-secret insight. As long as a user has allowed permission to at least one app or site, advertisers are still able to receive signals, such as location, along with other data from that device. With this, the chances that an individual has opted out of every single app or site are pretty slim. It’s really that simple.
Consumers typically choose to opt-in to apps and sites that they like and trust because they want the information that those sites provide and they also find them useful or helpful.
To put it into perspective, think of your own phone, tablet, or laptop. Don’t you usually want to receive information from your weather app, banking app, music apps, travel apps, food ordering apps, or news and information apps? If you receive push notifications from any of these apps on your phone, then you’ve given some level of permission.
The idea is that it only takes one greenlight for permission with the new iOS update…and most people have many.
So, if a user gets notifications about breaking news, updates on the weather, their favorite sports team, or their upcoming travel plans, that means they’ve also given their permission and the iOS update essentially becomes obsolete.
For advertisers, perhaps the most important thing to remember about the new iOS is that it will NOT prevent any users from receiving ads.
In fact, even after the iOs update, the end-user will most likely notice no difference in his/her online experience or the ads he/she will see in apps or on websites. For example, If you are a foodie and regularly see ads for new restaurants or recipes online, you will continue to be served relevant ads that relate to what you’re interested in, like the newest cooking supplies or a hot new restaurant. If you’re a huge sports fan, you’ll still see ads that may peak your interest in your favorite team’s newest merch.
In reality, the Apple iOS update actually gives the power back to the user… And we feel like that’s a good thing for everyone.
If You Build Your Website, They Will Come! (So You Hope)
As business owners probably realize, building a website it slightly different than building a baseball field; after all, you are not Kevin Costner and this is definitely not 1989.
The idea that building a destination will entice people to show up may have worked in the once popular movie “Field of Dreams,” but unfortunately this mindset will not work for your business’ website. It’s 2021, and by now it is known that in business, a website is a necessity and no longer an option. You may be (not so) shocked to know that the average American spends over six and half hours online daily according to GWI. With all that time spent online and the endless websites to navigate, you have to ask yourself:
Do you as a business owner take a proactive approach to direct potential customers to your website?
Surprisingly, many do not take advantage of all of the opportunities that are available to your business online.
So, how do you get the ball rolling? These days, it isn’t enough to build an amazing website if you never tell anyone about it.
Take for example a business owner with a brick-and-mortar business. He/she would never dream of opening a brand new location just to throw a tent over it. To draw attention, they’d get flashy signs that can be seen from the road or put their business’s contact information on the side of their car and drive it all around town. Nine times out of 10, they’d also add their brand’s logo and info to a business card to hand out at networking events. If we really want to get retro, they would even make sure that their business was listed in the phone book!
With all of that being said, you have to remember that your website is a digital extension of your business. Why wouldn’t you put the same effort in getting it noticed as you would for a storefront?
Did your heart start pounding a little faster just now, thinking of all the available ways for you to get started marketing your business to the digital world? That’s okay, it can be overwhelming.
But we’ll let you in on a little secret… you don’t have to use each and every marketing solution for your business and you don’t have to spend an astronomical amount of money to get the job done.
Strategic planning and identifying your target audience is a great place to start. The best part of that is that you also don’t have to be the expert in this. Feel free to reach out to us and let us help you start identifying your audience and building your own digital field of dreams.
How to Create Content for The Right Audience
Anyone can create it. Anyone can publish it. And more often than not, anyone can access it—with just a few clicks or thumb-taps.
As we know, clicks and pageviews are meaningless unless they come from a brand’s target audience. So how do you create content that your target audience wants to engage with?
Industry Dive walks through the five steps to follow to ensure your content hits the mark…and it all starts with your audience. We outlined them below, but you can check out the detailed list here.
5 Steps on How to Create Content for the Right Audience:
Define your target audience. Who are you wanting to reach? Why do you want to reach them?
Create a measurement framework. Define how you will measure the success of your content.
Listen and analyze. What is your audience telling you about what content works and doesn’t work?
Create desired content. Now, bring the content to life!
Repeat this process. Then, Measure your content against your past content and see what is resonating.
Now more than ever, users need content that they actually care about. As a brand, you’ll want to have a two-way conversation with your audiences and actually give them a voice in the editorial decisions that you make every day. By having the right strategy in place, your content can keep users informed, engaged, and coming back for more.
It’s not benevolent. It’s inclusive.
Brands must reflect this two-way street across content, or they run the risk of speaking “at” audiences and alienating them in the process.
Reach out here to learn more about improving your content strategy. Our marketing experts look forward to hearing from you!
Finding The “Why?” In Your Digital Advertising Strategy
These days, there are so many shiny new toys available in the digital advertising landscape for brands to explore. From Connected TV and digital audio to social, display, mobile, and more, it’s hard for business owners not to dive in and want to start spreading their brand messaging across each and every one of these platforms as soon as possible.
But keep in mind, a common mistake businesses tend to make when getting started with digital advertising is jumping into the “how” without first exploring the concept of “why.” Business owners want to know how they can utilize the newest digital tools, but they’re not asking themselves why they want to in the first place.
When developing a digital advertising strategy, it’s imperative to start the conversation by identifying what your business objectives are – this is the WHY behind your advertising strategy. Once the “WHY” is clear, the “HOW” will follow.
Setting goals and determining how you will measure these goals is essential to determining whether or not a campaign is considered successful to you and your business. It will also give your campaign direction and dictate how you interact with your target audience. Here are a few key tips to consider when setting goals for your digital advertising campaign.
As this article from Salesforce outlines, understanding how your customer journey fits into your marketing funnel will help you keep track of where you should be focusing your marketing dollars. While on one hand, the marketing funnel tracks a customer’s stage of interest in your business (from brand awareness to acquisition) the customer journey is the path that customer takes through these stages. This path is oftentimes nonlinear and winding, looping back and forth between stages of interest in your product or service. By mapping out this customer journey through exploring your website analytics to see how users engage with your website, you can keep tabs on each touchpoint a customer will encounter, giving you a better understanding of where to direct your advertising budget. Simply put, by learning more about your target audience, you’ll be able to reach and engage with them when it matters most throughout their journey.
Once you have an understanding of your target customer’s journey, setting a clear and concise campaign objective sits at the core of a successful digital marketing campaign. These business objectives – or your “whys” – should be the driving force behind your entire marketing strategy. Establishing these will give your campaigns clear and measurable direction. Some key examples of digital marketing objectives are:
Building Brand Awareness: reaching your target audience on a large scale so those who have yet to discover your brand will take notice of what your business has to offer.
Generating Consideration: enticing your audience to take interest in your business by learning more about your product or service.
Increasing Conversions: winning over a customer in the form of a lead, sale, appointment, etc.
Establishing Customer Loyalty: establishing loyal engagement with your customers so they become repeat customers.
After you’ve decided the objectives that you want to prioritize, it’s important to set goals that will reach those objectives, and be clear about what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be the markers of success. While some business owners often tend to judge performance based solely on direct sales or revenue, it’s important to understand that success can also be measured by increasing leads, consumer engagement, or anything else that helps you reach your business objectives.
For example, a social media campaign can be massively successful in spreading the word about your brand even if it doesn’t result in direct sales. After all, generating sales wasn’t the goal of that particular campaign! On the other hand, an SEM campaign that may not deliver a ton of impressions may still be considered successful as long as it results in a few high quality leads or conversions. Measuring the success of a campaign is all dependent on what the intention of the campaign is – this comes from clearly defining your goals and relevant KPIs from the start.
Once you have a clear understanding of what exactly you’re trying to achieve through your digital marketing efforts – or your “WHY” – and have outlined specific goals and KPIs that you’ll use to track your campaign, you can then dive into those shiny new digital marketing tools and figure out which channels are best to reach and interact with your audience. But, whichever tools you go with, make sure you’re clear on how you’ll track your KPIs ahead of time. That could mean making sure you have access to keep tabs on impression delivery and reach in a targeted display campaign aimed at increasing brand awareness. As for a conversion campaign, you may want to keep a close eye on how many of your website visitors are filling out a contact form – in this case, you’ll want to ensure you have goals set up on your website analytics platform that tracks that information. The logistics of setting up goal tracking can be daunting if you’re new to digital marketing, but with the right guidance, your campaigns will be set up for success in the long run.
As always feel free to reach out and connect with our team of digital experts. We’re happy to help you and your business get started!