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Sky, Unilever and P&G slash UK traditional ad spend as Brexit approaches

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By John McCarthy

Some of the UK’s largest traditional advertising spenders greatly tightened their belts in 2018, with overall spend slumping across cinema, outdoor, press, radio and TV.

According to research from Nielsen, top spender Procter & Gamble reduced its traditional ad spend from £196m to £186m in the UK last year. Sky’s expenditure, meanwhile, slumped to second with a 30% decline from £177m to £124m. Unilever fell out of the top three advertisers for the first time in the last five years, coming in at number seven and down 29.2% to £82.8m from £116m.

By John McCarthy–

Sourced from The Drum

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How To Build A Brand Through Social Media

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By Sara Bliss

It all started with Twitter for Dummies. It was 2010 and Suysel dePedro Cunningham and Anne Maxwell Foster decided to join forces and launch their own New York-based interior design firm, Tilton Fenwick. A few years prior, Anne and Suysel had pivoted to the design world from advertising careers. To learn the trade, they both worked as assistants to established designers—Anne for Ashley Whittaker and Suysel for Markham Roberts. While Anne and Suysel had years of design expertise between them, they had been in relatively behind-the-scenes roles. To establish themselves publicly as design experts, plus get noticed by press and potential clients, the partners understood that social media could be an incredible tool. Cue the Twitter guide.

“All the magazines were really active on Twitter at the time, regularly hosting chats with hundreds of people in our industry at once,” explains Suysel. Over time, through online conversations, comments, retweets, follows, and DM’s, they were able to get on the radar of editors, design bloggers, designers, and manufacturers who began following them back and retweeting their insights. They used the platform to create their brand identity, sharing their design point of view. It only took them a few months before they landed thousands of followers.

In order to leverage their new connections however, they needed examples of their work as Tilton Fenwick. They started by co-designing Suysel’s house in Upstate New York making it Instagram-ready with lots of color and pattern—now their signature look. It wasn’t long before one of their Twitter connections, editor Michelle Adams, reached out to ask if they could submit a few projects for possible publication. They rushed to finish Suysel’s house,  take photographs, and share them with her.

Within weeks, Tilton Fenwick were chosen as designers to watch in a collaboration between Lonny and Traditional Home magazines. Anne and Suysel completed their website, launched Instagram and Facebook pages, and started a blog—just in time for the attention the award brought them. “We knew the importance of a strong digital presence, when more established designers were still shunning social media. They would comment ‘It seems like a waste of time, what is the benefit?’” says Anne. “For us it has been incredible. Social media really opened doors and opportunities for us. It is absolutely what built our business.”

The press attention led to more social media followers and lots of clients. Suysel and Anne estimate 50% of their clients find them through social media. “Even if they discover us through a referral, they immediately go to Instagram to see our work,” says Anne.

As their followers and social media presence grew, brands took note and reached out for partnerships including Duralee where they now have a popular textile line and Target which launched a Tilton Fenwick capsule collection in 2014.

Tilton Fenwick’s Pombal wallpaper for Hygge & WestHygge & West

They have now shifted their focus to Instagram where they have 60,000 followers and an active community of design lovers. It was on IG where they discovered hip, online manufacturers Hygge & West which recently debuted a Tilton Fenwick line of wallpapers. “We  direct messaged them on Instagram and asked to show them ideas for a wallpaper line,” explains Suysel. “We asked to meet in person and presented our designs which is what closed the deal. Social media only gets you so far and then you have to connect in real life.”

Here, Tilton Fenwick share their best advice for how to build a brand on social media:

  1. Target the right platforms. Not all social media platforms are created equal. Twitter is more of a conversation, best for sharing industry news or topics related to your brand. Facebook is similar to Twitter but with a much older audience. As a visual brand, we have found Instagram is our sweet spot that allows us share our projects and make connections with brands, editors, and clients. The key is to find the platform that will boost your profile and connect you with your target audience.
  1. Build a brand voice. Make sure that the images and content that you post is consistent with style and imagery of your brand. Consider it like an advertising tool kit and keep it uniform across all platforms.
  1. Post frequently. Post often to create engagement with your audience. On Instagram we try to post twice a week, however we post almost daily through IG stories to stay connected with our followers.
  1. Post visually compelling content. Use photo editing apps like Snapped to make your feed look more coherent, polished, and professional.
  1. Create a unique hashtag. It offers another way for people to find and share your work. Do your research and create a totally original hashtag.
  1. Mix it up. On Instagram, your main feed should be a snapshot of your overall brand. Use Instagram stories to highlight other companies, talent, and things you love. Don’t forget to tag the brand, creator, and photographer to help them get more followers as well.
  1. Separate business and personal. Unless you are a celebrity brand that is selling your lifestyle, it is better to keep the two separate and keep the attention on your brand message.
  1. Connect with influencers: Follow all the influencers in your industry and develop a meaningful conversation with them online. To get on their radar, comment and like their posts. Also post about their work and tag them. You can use DM’s to make an initial connection, but be respectful and only reach out once.
  1. Do it yourself. We do our own social media so that it’s our voice online, it’s our voice DMing, and it is consistent when we meet in person. For a more authentic voice it is better to control your social media platforms.

Feature Image Credit: Anne Maxwell Foster and Suysel dePedro Cunningham of Tilton Fenwick Brittany Ambridge

By Sara Bliss

I am the author of Take the Leap; Change Your Career, Change Your Life which features 63 people who made radical life and career changes. Follow me on Twitter & Instagram.

I write about career pivots. I’ve interviewed everyone including, CEOs, celebrities, founders, athletes, and creatives for outlets like Travel & Leisure, Yahoo, The Wall Street Journal, and in my book Take the Leap: Change Your Career, Change Your Life (Touchstone, 2018). I noticed that the most successful people didn’t follow a linear path, but often had entirely different careers and lives beforehand. It’s a reminder that for many, success happens a little later, that you absolutely can reinvent your life.

Sourced from Forbes

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Joe updates logo to reflect the recent growth of the brand

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By John McCarthy

Digital publisher Joe Media has unveiled a new logo and identity as the brand looks to deliver a more coherent look across its numerous sub brands.

The company, founded in 2010 by Irish entrepreneur Niall McGarry, has largely held the same identity for the last decade. Its look has been updated by an in-house team to run better on mobile and evolve to better reflect the intent of the company.

In particular, it has expanded from Joe Media to also encapsulate verticals such as Football Joe, Sports Joe, Politics Joe, Comedy Joe, MMA Joe, Fit Joe and Rugby Joe. As a result, it required an identity that can better adapt across numerous platforms and audiences.

Rebecca Fennelly, head of brand and communications, told The Drum: “The new design reflects our heritage as much as it does our growth, evolution and big ambitions for the near future. We are still the same Joe – same mission, values and personality. We want to enrich lives by entertaining and inspiring through our original content. We still pride ourselves on our continuous investment into legacy journalism and modern-day storytelling. But we are always innovating.

“It is something we’ve become known for. When it comes to new logo designs, there tends to be knee-jerk assumptions made that they mean a ‘rebrand’ or a move away from a previous identity. When others may need to change up shop in big ways, Joe is building on something we’ve been working hard on from day one. ‘Brick by Brick’ as we say here. We are very proud of our roots and the distinct brand heritage we’ve built for Joe, and it is all enveloped into the carefully calculated subtleties of the new logo design.”

The project was led by Joe’s head of design Jack Homan, having previously worked at Channel 4 and Channel 5, and was delivered by an in-house team.

On the work, Homan said: “Breaking out from Joe’s old box means we can be more playful with our logo. For big editorial and commercial features we’ll look to build bespoke artwork featuring our logo, using the word-mark itself as the boundary box. The old Joe logo was boxed in, we wanted to break out and let the typography speak for itself.

“The logo now has a balance that the old did not. The ‘J’ and the ‘E’ are the same width. The aperture of the ‘O’ is the same size as the top bar of the ‘J’ and the middle appendage of the ‘E’. Turn both the ‘J’ and the ‘E’ in on themselves and they will meet in the middle of the ‘O’. This balance allows us to more easily lock our new logo up with commercial partners and our sub-brands.”

He concluded: “Whilst a lot of work went into this new design, it was important we didn’t move too far from our original logo, but rather embrace the best of it in the new iteration.

Late in 2018, The Drum sat down with the title’s, head of content Evan Fanning, to learn about how it is scaling up promising talent in order to take on more-established media players.

He said: “Going to a place like Joe with the freedom to attack things without the newspaper deadweight was really exciting. We say we do ‘traditional media, but digitally’.”

 

By John McCarthy

Sourced from The Drum

 

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Channel 4 and Publicis ad price row rumbles on into 2019

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By Rebecca Stewart

Channel 4 and Publicis Media have failed to resolve a multimillion pound dispute over ad prices, leaving big spenders like Asda without airtime across the broadcaster’s portfolio of channels.

2019 planning talks between the pair broke down in December, after Publicis took issue with Channel 4 upping ad prices despite a decline in audiences. It is believed Channel 4 wants to link ad prices to the wider figure Publicis Media spends with its sales arm, instead of basing the cost on audience share.

Last month, the Guardian placed the potential loss of the ‘blackout’ to Channel 4 at £210m, although a source with knowledge of the matter told The Drum the number was significantly lower.

The network and media giant were geared to reach a solution in eleventh hour talks held at the tail end of last year. However, it’s understood that Publicis Media clients will now be kicking off 2019 without a deal in place to air commercials across Channel 4’s 26 linear channels and three on-demand platforms.

Channel 4 and Publicis Groupe were unable to comment.

The hold up means rivals like ITV, Sky and Channel 5 could stand to benefit from ad spend being diverted their way.

Starcom, Spark44 and Blue449 are among Publicis Media’s cohort of agency brands. Clients include Samsung and the world’s biggest advertiser P&G – although the latter will be unaffected by the blackout since as it has its own deal with Channel 4.

In December, Channel 4’s chief commercial officer Jonathan Allan took the unprecedented step of penning a letter to Publicis Media clients to inform them of the tussle.

In a statement to media in December, Allan said Channel 4 had “put forward competitive proposal to Publicis” and would continue discussions to “hopefully reach an agreement that suits both parties”.

The duo’s inability to reach a compromise ahead of the new year follows on from a similar row Channel 4 had with Denstu Aegis Network in 2018 which seen clients pulled off its inventory for just over a week until a resolve was agreed.

Channel 4’s portfolio includes E4 and Film4. It also sells inventory on behalf of BT Sport and UKTV’s multitude of channels.

The news comes amid huge pressures from advertisers on agency holding groups to drive down costs and break down internal silos.

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

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The web design trends brands need to prepare for in 2019

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By James Pruden

2019 is set to see ecommerce sales increase by 19.5% globally, offering an opportunity to savvy brands who are up to speed on the latest web design trends and developments to drive significant additional market share.

But what do brands need to bear in mind in 2019 to ensure that they continue to deliver relevant standout online design, and therefore sales?

Mobile First

It’s vital to implement mobile first design in 2019. In 2015 mobile searches overtook those on desktop, making mobile search the highest search form worldwide. In accordance with this, Google has changed which sites they index first — they now prioritise mobile sites over those that aren’t mobile friendly.

However, it’s worth bearing in mind that this push toward mobile first design isn’t just based on ranking factors or SEO, the visual result must enhance the user’s experience on the device that they will most likely be searching from.

This focus on mobile first requires a fundamental shift in the way that websites are designed. It used to be that a site would only be created for a desktop or laptop computer and a mobile-friendly or mobile responsive design might be added as well. Today, it’s critical to design the site for the mobile user first, before creating a version that will also standout for those on desktops.

Micro-animations/movement

Using moving micro-animations along with feedback loops – that deliver movement when hovering over an icon – help make websites more usable and engaging. The details of the micro-interactions: the button clicks and the page transitions can greatly improve a user’s experience on your site, meaning they are far more likely to return. It’s this meaningful motion, connecting an action with a reaction, that satisfies a user’s desire for interactivity. And with touch interfaces, especially on small screens, it has never been more important to deliver motion in micro-animations and feedback loops to make the interaction smooth and guide users on their journey to checkout.

Custom and classic fonts

Expect a move back to custom and classic font design – clean but formal – with bigger and bolder typefaces, and a move away from humanist fonts as brands aim to standout against the proliferation of humanist typefaces.

Colour

Bright colours should be used more liberally in 2019 to deliver greater standout. The last two years has seen an explosion of big, bold colour across the internet with an increasing number of brands choosing to use their core packaging brand colours as backing for their graphics, with clashing tones moving away from the edgy start-ups into the mainstream. Those who have embraced arresting colours include The Premier League, Sky and eBay. Though bear in mind a classic font design and bright colours won’t be suitable for all. The choice of font and colours has to be right for the values of the brand and resonate with the audience they are targeting.

Optimise for search

As is always the case, making sure the design of your website is optimised for search algorithms is vital. Developments in web design will be driven by what Google’s constantly evolving search algorithm looks for. To this end, make sure that the content being communicated is relevant to your target audience and written as naturally as possible. Google looks for honest, human generated content. Of course, this must be quality content to encourage others to have weblinks back to your site to aid your SEO efforts. If users want to share your copy this highlights to Google that you are a valuable resource and the reward for your efforts will be an improved organic search ranking.

Speed

With research revealing over half of consumers leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load, websites must be designed with speed in mind. Also, the faster your site loads the better it will rank in search results, particularly in Google search. This is not to say that websites should be sparse affairs with limited content and imagery for the purposes of speed. With better broadband it’s much easier to have image and content heavy sites that can load quickly. However if you have an app it’s seriously worth considering hosting it on a Progressive Web App (PWA) for speed purposes. A PWA can be launched from a home screen and can be ready in less than a second, often beating native apps in load times.

All brands need to constantly evolve their web design to continue to standout and deliver an engaging experience to their users that generates sales. By recognising and having these six web design points front of mind, brands will be well placed for a profitable 2019 online.

By James Pruden

James Pruden is studio director at Xigen

Sourced from The Drum

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Eight Tips For Creating A Non-Promotional Branded Podcast

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Sourced from Forbes

Many professionals spend their daily commutes and downtime listening to podcasts of their interests — from entertainment to industry-specific shows.

Capitalizing on this growing trend can be a great way to market your business. However, you don’t want your show to come across as too promotional. Below, eight Forbes Agency Council members explain how to stay on-brand while offering valuable content that keeps your audience craving more.

1. Make It Advice And Knowledge-Driven

The goal is not to say what you do. Just talk about what you know. The more you share your knowledge, the more you’ll get out of it. If you are simply talking about your services and how awesome you are, it will be seen as promotional instead of advice-driven. If you show that you know what you are talking about, it is worth so much more than self-promotion. – Jonathan Laberge, Reptile

2. Put Your Audience’s Interests First

Consider your target audience and deliver useful information. Make sure topics are relevant and timely. Be willing to give away some of your “secret sauce” in your podcast. Pushing your brand agenda should be a secondary goal. – Suzanne Rosnowski, Relevance International

3. Treat It As A Thought Leadership Activity

The purpose of your podcast should be to educate your audience — and that is it. Think of it as a thought leadership activity such as a panel discussion at an industry event, keynote or TED Talk. If youraudience is interested in what you have to say, they will begin following you. – Lisa Allocca, Red Javelin Communications

4. Tell Other People’s Stories

Our agency just launched a podcast dedicated to uncovering the ins and outs of the client and agency relationship dynamic. The key is to home in on the interesting stories of your guests. That’s why people listen. They don’t want to hear about the host, they want to learn more about the person on the other side of the mic. Uncover the gems that haven’t already been reported on. – Ashley Walters, Empower

5. Use The 80/20 Rule

Never forget your audience. Step back and think about what they want to hear, not what you want to tell them. You can even compare this to social media marketing. If you want to keep your consumers engaged, only 20% of your content should be directly promoting your company, while the other 80% should inform and entertain your audience. – Lisa Arledge Powell, MediaSource

6. Tell Parallel Stories That Tie Into Your Brand’s Mission

Build your brand promises into the podcast content. For instance, if your company’s primary cause — outside of selling what you sell — is the environment, tell stories related to conservation, energy efficiency, preserving wild areas, etc. You can reinforce what you’re about and what may make you more appealing to a large part of the audience without promoting your products. – Scott Greggory, MadAveGroup

7. Focus On The Problem You Solve

When targeting professionals, you need to learn how to sell without selling. You need to respect their level of intelligence and understand that they can quickly spot someone selling to them and will immediately tune out. Podcast about what problem you can solve or tell a story about how your product or service helped a customer. Make it relational and the good story will lead them to find you. – Amy Juers, Edge Legal Marketing

8. Fulfill A Universal Desire

Humans are motivated by four core desires: First, connect with each other. Second, provide structure. Third, leave a mark. Fourth, a yearn for paradise. Identify the desire your podcast can fulfill for listeners and build a persona that humanizes it for them. Show up consistently and feed your audience with content that offers insight and inspiration. – Katie Schibler Conn, KSA Marketing + Partnerships

Sourced from Forbes

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How to Create a Compelling Video for Your Brand At a Low Cost

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By Pooja Singh

In today’s social media era, video content draws more eyeballs than written text, and it’s not surprising why. If made well, a video can tell a long story in a minute, it’s more engaging, more memorable and hence, drives more traffic.

And making videos is not a difficult task, considering the widespread use of smartphones and cameras. The trick, however, is to create one that is as compelling as it is entertaining, especially when it comes to accomplishing marketing goals.

For any business, having a marketing video could be a game-changer, for if it is good there’s a high possibility that the viewers will turn into customers. Founders understand this well, and hence, many pump in a lot of money in creating such videos.

“But you don’t really have to,” says Mike Pritchett, the CEO of Shootsta, a video tech startup that has offices in the US, UK, Singapore and Australia, and boasts of high-profile clients like Qantas, Coles, Downer Group, AstraZeneca and Red Cross Australia .

In this video, Pritchett shares how to create a compelling, entertaining and authentic video without investing too much money.

By Pooja Singh

Features Editor, Entrepreneur APAC

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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For D2C companies, marketing looks more like sales

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By Jesse Horwitz

Big brands are wrestling with how to build direct relationships with consumers, and how to do so in spite of data ownership and data privacy challenges. It’s true there’s simply no better way to learn about consumers’ preferences and how to most efficiently serve them than by selling products or services directly.

Collecting first party data about sales is the distinct benefit of selling to consumers without a middleman, and that’s why big businesses see so much promise in the startups dedicated to the model.

So far this year, investors have spent $1.2bn on young, little-known direct-to-consumer businesses, that’s up from $810m in all of 2017, according to CB Insights. These startups are also ripe for acquisition. In recent years, Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for $1bn, Walmart purchased Bonobos for $310m, and Kellogg bought RXBar for $600m.

My company, Hubble, sells contact lenses direct to consumers via subscription. Neither I nor my partner have a background in optical, sales or marketing. Rather, we’re numbers folks with backgrounds in finance, consulting, and programming. Within a year, we logged $20m in revenues.

I credit a lot of our success, and the success of other D2Cs, with knowing how to access data and build relationships using this data (plus knowing how to help the customers gain from the data, because otherwise they won’t share it – consumers are whip smart).

For D2C companies, marketing looks more like sales. D2C businesses don’t launch one message at every consumer, but rather vary their approach and their offers to each individual, using data analysis to optimize it, and technology to ramp it up to a mass scale. This individualized direct marketing interaction allows the business to hone its sales pitch to a razor’s edge.

To achieve this, it’s imperative to prioritize the right data – and that’s often not the traditional marketing metrics you might be thinking of. Focus on the data that allows you to sync up consumer behavior and your operations. For example, when it comes to measuring costs, forget the ones that pervade e-commerce, such as cost per click. What really matters is cost per acquisition.

Another important figure is your customer’s lifetime value, because that will tell you how much you can spend acquiring them. You also can’t run your business without understanding how much your customers are ordering, and what profits those orders deliver. That, in turn, means understanding your margins inside and out.

With these metrics available, D2Cs can learn the right message to send, at the right cost, to the right person—information that brands working through retailers can only approximate. This is the holy grail of marketing, and just moving brand spend to digital doesn’t get you there.

All this said, there is a competing reality. While a D2C-style sales strategy have obvious benefits, it can’t take away all the pain. On the manufacturing side, scale effects still hold and manufacturing more product leads to lower cost. And, nothing is more efficient (sorry, Amazon) than driving product in trucks to Big Box stores for sale to the consumer.

D2Cs, in consumer-packaged goods especially, don’t enjoy these advantages.

I like to imagine what business would be like if you could bring the strengths of these two worlds together: large scale manufacturing, big box stores, and digital direct marketing. It would be revolutionary, and even better it would benefit all parties: retailers, brands, and most of all consumers.

So far, however, the conversation has been framed as either/or, as David vs Goliath. The next step is finding the “and.”

The IAB’s Randall Rothenberg spoke to this when the bureau released a direct brands study earlier in the year. To brand marketers, he said: “You must watch [D2C brands]. You must know them. You must partner with them.”

It’s time we learn from each other and create solutions that we can all stand behind.

By Jesse Horwitz

Jesse Horwitz is the co-chief executive and co-founder of Hubble Contacts.

Sourced from The Drum

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What’s all the fuss about FOMO?

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By Sophie Katsali

When was the last time you saw a queue outside of what you would call a fairly ‘ordinary’ restaurant? Or an ‘exclusive’ concert? Perhaps a pop-up that gives away gluten-free bread outside of a tube station? Quite recently, I suppose.

People love queues, don’t they? That uncomfortable feeling of standing on your feet for ages while thoroughly investigating someone’s back just to get access to something…special. Well, not really. This is not something people particularly enjoying doing. But the fear of missing out (or ‘FOMO’) is so frantically embedded in our DNA that it is a far greater ‘discomfort’ for us to miss out than to waste some time in a queue.

How does this tie into social media marketing? Social media is nothing more than our world under a microscope. Sometimes marketers are too close to their own profession and don’t quite remember that it is as simple as that. They treat “social media users” as a different group of people altogether. This doesn’t particularly help since they sometimes fail to tap into human psychology 101.

Take your average Facebook ad. How often do you see a call to action that truly lures you in? In 2018, 69.95% of ads have included a CTA – a great jump from 2016’s 51.54% – but what do the rest of the ads (the 30.05%) include? They probably have some nice imagery. However, even if a picture is worth a thousand words, words (or in our world, “copy”) can elevate your ad to drive conversions. How? Enter FOMO.

The power of FOMO

How do you incorporate FOMO in your marketing efforts? Essentially, it’s about coming up with a “FOMO” proposition around your brand/product/service that’s too strong to pass.

There is a reason why ‘limited offers’ work. It’s all about framing what you offer in a timeframe. AdEspresso recently conducted a Facebook ad experiment to test three of the most popular CTAs; “Sign Up”, “Download Now” and “Learn More”. The “Download Now” CTA outperformed the other two by more than 40% in terms of cost per lead. Time-sensitive words like “now” and “today” work successfully because of the urgency they call out. You also want to make sure you call out your customer. You want to make it personal. According to Hubspot, personalised CTAs perform 202% better than basic CTAs. Words like “you”, “your”, “yours” make your copy instantly more approachable. All of a sudden, the ad is about them! They stop and listen.

What are people going to miss if they don’t join/download/buy/sign up to what you offer? This is a question that you can only answer after going deep into your social data and understanding who your audience is and where it lives on social. It could be a case where you discover that your main audience is more outgoing and sociable than the average social group. This comes with the assumption that they probably have a lot of friends they care about (and subsequently, care about their opinions) so you make it about their friends. You run a Facebook ad that is targeting people whose friends have joined YOUR Page and you go in with the hard sell: “Your friend is already part of [enter brand/product/service here]. Isn’t it time for you to join today?” This is one way to take advantage of our hardwired urge to not miss out on anything.

Common-sense marketing tells us we need to exaggerate about whatever we are selling. As a result, we focus too much on the specifications of the end-product and how well our brand compares to others. We make the sale about us. However, if you change the narrative and flip the mirror, a more persuasive argument is helping people see that if they don’t join you they will miss out on an opportunity that hasn’t been presented to them before.

By Sophie Katsali

Sophie Katsali is lead strategist at Wilderness

Sourced from The Drum

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Essential Tips For Growing Your Brand

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By LaKisha Greenwade

The race to be a prospective customer’s top choice is only going to become tougher as the competitive landscape increases. More and more businesses are starting up, there’s tougher competition for top talent and brands constantly have to account for algorithm changes on social media platforms. Current leaders have to be committed in ways unlike their predecessors to achieve success and level the playing field.

So what can you do to achieve brand recognition? 

Connecting with the right people at the right time will determine success or failure. The right people are those who align with your purpose and actively support it. A focus on building community with people and organizations that will participate in your vision should be at the forefront of growth. In spite of a technological revolution, people still make the world go round.

Focus on these five things to further develop your brand and establish your position in the marketplace.

1. Make customer discovery a priority. Learn what works for your competitors and identify contributions to brand loyalty. These key activities, in addition to properly identifying your customers, will aid in growth. A successful brand will have customers promoting and sharing its offerings as a result of their satisfaction.

2. Create a crystal-clear mission. Brands will be called on to relate their mission to their customers in changing times. In the face of controversy, be prepared — like Nike — to substantiate your goals, purpose and brand message and actively invest in the transformation of customers’ day-to-day lives. If companies plan to stay relevant despite the shifting preferences of millennial and Gen Z consumers, they should create an internal guide referencing how and when to address social issues affecting employees and customers, even if it is outside business walls.

3. Leverage social media platforms for growth. Social media is constantly changing — however, incorporating it for brand awareness and business growth will always be crucial. Not only does your brand need an active presence online but a consistent message and pattern so that followers can actively engage with it. It is not enough to post timely messages, especially when preparing to meet or exceed goals for year end. An investment in ads and influencers is necessary to build credibility, especially as decision makers become younger.

4. Link up with other brands in your community. Great brands are not built alone. I personally have found it highly beneficial to network at my local co-working space, as it houses an active community of influencers. Community-focused locations provide your startup the opportunity to build rapport and trust with like-minded brands and those working to transform the way we do business. In addition to hosting a variety of social activities, a co-working space gives you the opportunity as either an established or developing brand to meet fellow entrepreneurs on common ground and network, and collaboratively work with them to alleviate growing pains related to lack of resources.

Regardless of whether you are an established brand or one that’s just starting out, investing in customer identification, social media and unconventional spaces will pay off. It’s no fun to stay the same, so embrace change to grow your brand.

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

By LaKisha Greenwade

President at Lucki Fit LLC (Coaching and Consulting Firm), Founder of Glam Tech wearable tech expo, and Amazon Best Selling Author.

Sourced from Forbes

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