A Mission Statement 

What is the goal that you want your company to achieve? What value does your products or services have for the public? This should be a statement the drives your company to continue to function. Think about what problem your company solves and how would you make lives or society easier with your product or service. This statement can be broad.

A Vision Statement 

How do you see your company maneuvering with the business word? What type of business do you appear as? Your vision statement should be purposeful. This is what keep stakeholders and employees interested staying with your company. Think about where your business will be long term. This statement often relies on internal goals for your company and helps drive decision making. Keep this statement specific and short. 

A Target Audience Description

Who is your product or service for? A useful way to narrow down who you want to sell to is to use one or more Buyer Persona profiles. The most common way to use buyer personas is to break it up into Primary Buyer (person who will love your product and recommend it frequently), Secondary Buyer (person who likes your product, but is less like to recommend your product and may return on rare occasions) and Negative Buyer (someone who does want, like or need your product). The profile usually consists of:

• Sex or gender identity (optional) 
• Income (helps in pricing)
• Lifestyle
• Daily tasks
• Likes & dislikes
• Other brands they are interested in 

Your Brand Personality 

How do you want the feel of company to come off to potential clients? Are you chilled and laid-back or are you serious and urgent? Look up adjectives that others would use to describe your company. The goal is to stand out in the market. Your brand personality will help inform your packaging, photos or illustrations, color pallet and other graphic elements to help market your product or service. 

Your Core Values 

Break down the beliefs your company has into simple words. These words are guide for behavior you want your employees to follow and brand to extrude. For example, you are gym and your company’s goals are to make exercise fun. Some core values you might come with are:

• Friendliness
• Humility 
• Humor 
• Optimism 
• Encouraging 

Let us help you come up with a brand style guide. Call 248.528.3600.

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1. Why are you rebranding? 

You could be in one of the situations mentioned above or there might be other reason you want to rebrand you company. Here are some common reasons companies rebrand:

• Branch Out Internationally
• New Mission or Main Goal for the Company
• Internal and external brand are not aligned 
• New Owner
• Product or Services has changed 
• Your target changed age or interest
• Name change 
• Tech industry change (how brand in consumed)
• Scandal repair 

2. What is your brand’s goal?

How do you want to reposition yourself in the market? Everyone wants to increase sales but be specific in your goal. Do you want the rebrand to focus on attracting a certain demographic to a certain product or service? For example, you are a clothing company who previous sold casual cloths for the public, but now you want to upgrade to sell luxury lounge wear for specially women. You will have to research and create goals around attracting middle-to-upper class women who enjoy lounge wear. 

3. Is your current brand outdated? 

This is more of a problem for companies that have been around for a long time, but small companies can also fall for outdated graphics if they don’t have an internal marketing team. Print used to be the primary source of advertising, so a lot of old logos can be geared towards fitting those standards. Also, old computer graphics and websites from the early day of internet may still be in use if you don’t have anyone maintaining your website. This can cost you clients due to them thinking you are not around anymore or worse your old website can be a security risk due to hacking of old PHP code. Updating you brand can create trust among new and existing clients. It will also indicate that you are up to date with current standards of your industry and technology.

4. What marketing strategies will help support a rebrand? 

Speaking of digital and print marketing, what avenues will you new graphics appear on? Think about all the place your brand needs to be represented on. Common marketing materials are: 

• Social Media Ads + Profiles
• Website 
• Google Ads 
• Google My Business Profile
• Business Cards
• Letterheads
• Outdoor + Indoor Signage 
• Clothing
• Tradeshow Banners
• Product Packaging 
• Photography or Illustrations

5. How long will a rebrand take?

Depending on how much research needs to be done rebrands take a long time. It evolves a lot of research of human behavior and interests as well as designing of different marketing materials. If you are losing salesand need change right away go ahead and rebrand. It is more of a guaranty that success will occur and leads to fast results. If you are doing good, but pivoting to a different demographic, maybe slow down and stay in the research phase a little longer before rebranding your marketing material. You may discover that a rebrand is not needed or that you could start a separate business. 

6. How much should your budget be? 

If you do the marketing research yourself and create graphics in a free generator it should cost, you next to nothing. However, this might not be good thing. Maintaining your brand may turn out difficult as you need more graphics to continue advertising. That also may deter you from more important task related to running your business. An effective rebrand done by a digital marketing agency starts at $30,000. If you’re a small business this may seem high, and you may get away with upgrading your logo for $2,000 and having your internal marketing team do the rest but consider saving for more advanced services in the future. 

Ready to rebrand your company? Call 248.528.3600.

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41% of shoppers go to Google when discovering a new brand according to their survey across countries. As your company’s brand grows, it’s important to appear across places where potential customers may be browsing and to create real value that is meaningful and distinct through your content. Immersive and creative content in channels such as video, search, and feeds on Google can help build brand awareness. It will also help you differentiate your brand from your competition with shoppers who are in the market for products or services like yours.

Connect with Customers Through Video Marketing 

Over its lifetime YouTube has evolved from purely an entertainment platform to a place where viewers go to learn, stream, and get inspired by their next purchase. Google found that every day people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billion of views on YouTube. That is a huge amount of people and opportunity to create potential new customers. Video reach campaigns can help spread your brand’s message, product advertisement, or service demonstration reach as many people as possible in your target audience demographic at a reasonable cost. This is perfect if you are small business or if you marketing budget is tight. 

Let Your Business be the Answer When Users Search and Browse 

According to the guide, 61% of consumers in surveyed countries around the world say they visit multiple websites before settling on what to buy and who to buy it from. This means shoppers do not always have a specific company in mind when they search the category they are interested in. They usually search for reviews or articles first to help inform their decision. There are many ways to highlight your good reviews or demonstrate trustworthiness. Here are some important items in include in your digital marketing strategy to achieve this:  

• Broad match keywords & Smart Bidding

 Broad match can save time, simplify your Google account, and increase website traffic by finding all relevant searches that are expected to perform. Combine with Smart Bidding to set the right bid for each search within your performance goals.

• Responsive search ads

Responsive search ads combine creativity with machine learning to help show relevant ads to users. If a customer is searching Google without a specific brand or product in mind, you can put your products in the spotlight by appearing in these searches.

• Image extensions 

Compelling visuals can help you differentiate your brand from companies that sell something similar with shoppers across Google. To optimize your ads’ performance, use image extensions to complement your existing text ads with relevant visuals that engage your audience and drive a call-to-action.

• Discovery campaigns 

Discovery campaigns can help you deliver highly visual and inspiring personalized ad experiences to your target audience who are ready to discover and engage with your brand. With this solution, you can reach up to 3 billion users on feeds across Google and YouTube with a single campaign.

• Audience solutions 

To build consideration among users who are actively looking to make a purchase, use in-market audience targeting. This drives action from new customers who share similar characteristics with existing customers, use similar audiences. To reengage existing customers across the web, use Customer Match. Telia Norge increased their revenue by 15% and conversion rate by 22% among existing customers using this service. 

Ready to optimize your marketing plan with these Google tips? Call 248.528.360

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SPECIFIC: Your goal must focus on 1 clearly defined metric.

MEASURABLE: Have a way to measure the content you publish against the metric.

ATTAINABLE: Be able to realistically achieve your goal within a set timeframe with the resources that are (or will be) available. 

RELEVANT: Your goal must align with your desired goals and objectives that you set.

TIME-BOUND: Your goal must have a due date upon which you will achieve that metric.

Common Business Goals 

• Drive more sales
• Grow brand awareness
• Expand market share
• Develop stronger relationships with stakeholders
• Enter new markets or territories
• Reach new audiences or demographics
• Raise more revenue
• Secure funding
• Increase profits

Common Marketing Goals 

• Increase website traffic
• Gain more social media followers
• Grow an email list
• Improve conversion rates
• Get more website or social media engagement
• Drive more click-throughs on paid ads

Understand Your Business Goals

The value of marketing services is connected to the results it provides. You want the service you picked to help reach a key business objective. Tie your marketing goal to this business objective. For example, you want your business profile to gain more social media followers. What does it mean to want more social media followers? 

• Increased brand awareness
• Establish your business as an authority
• Reach new customers

These are objectives that will have significant impact on your business. When you set your goals, select certain goals that will drive business results, not just produce impressive sounding numbers or arbitrary measurements. 

Connect Marketing Goals to Business Goals

Sometimes businesses make too broad a statement as a goal without consulting their marketing team. Make sure to narrow down to a specific goal that is clear to understand. If it is unclear, have a discussion with your chief marketing officer or CEO or anyone who is the head of your marketing/sales department. Everyone working on a marketing project must know what the business’s main purpose and goal is. Another example might be that your company needs more customers. To achieve this, you have to generate 10 leads per weak. Your sales team has to get help from marketing to drive leads. The business objective would be to increase revenue by increasing customers, while a marketing objective would be any creative material that helps generate more leads.   

How to Set Marketing Goals 

Here is a word formula you can use to set objectives:

By {day, month, year}, the {your business’s name} marketing team will reach {number} {metric} every {time frame}.

Here is a marketing goal example using the formula: 

By June 30, 2023, the Miller Media marketing team will reach 3,000 marketing-qualified leads every month. 

This example goal is to influence marketing-qualified leads. The point of your marketing strategy is to choose, prioritize, plan, and execute projects that will influence profitable customer action. Therefore, marketing metrics closer to the final purchase are often the best goals to set. 

Here are several other marketing goals examples listed based on our marketing goal sample above:

• Increased page views
• More email subscribers
• New trial signups
• Increased completed purchases

Let us help your business develop a marketing strategy. Call 248.528.360

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1. Live Videos 

Videos are great at communicating emotions and demonstrating a skill.  A study by Livestream found that 80% of people prefer watching live videos more than reading blog posts from brands. The same study also found that 82% of people prefer live videos more than social media posts. When you convey information through visual demonstration, they can be better received and retained. Viewers can pause or fast forward at their discretion. Collaborate with similar or complementary businesses to discuss industry news, opinions, and other information that could be useful to your audience. 

2. Brand Storytelling 

Telling the story about the history of your brand may be difficult if the original owner is no longer the face of the company or if you are just starting out. That doesn’t mean you can’t tell small micro stories about your business and its employees. To sell to people, your product or services must be relatable to people. Talk about challenges and how your employees came to together to solve it. If you partner up with another local business, highlight similar or complementary company goals or beliefs benefit the community you are trying to serve. 

3. Employee Advocacy 

Your employees are also brand ambassadors. Let your employees have the spotlight on social media. Also give them the option to share industry posts on their business profiles on LinkedIn or on other business forums. If an employee does an exceptional job, acknowledge it, maybe have a certificate, or award system. Remember to form a budget for raises or if you have none for a meeting to discuss how much increase in sales to need for everyone to receive a raise. If you are in the US have robust healthcare options for your employees. 

4. Influencer Marketing 

Influencers are not just young Youtubers or acting celebrities. Think: can your product or service be useful to entrepreneur, small businesses, or large corporate entities? Are well known successful businessperson or salesperson willing to recommend you to others? Form a relationship with employees at other companies. See if there are any kinks in their process or workflow your product or service could help improve. Working on internal improvements leave the companies to focus on their clients which in turn will help them profit. This will make you an asset in their eyes and will recommend you to other businesses that may need you. 

5. Mobile-Friendly Content 

 Over 50.3% of global web traffic was generated from mobile devices. Most of your target audiences (decision makers of businesses) are always on the go. Mobile is the medium through which they consume content. This includes your website, social media, video, and advertising content. Make sure fonts are easy to read and button or links are prominent enough for people with different hand sizes to touch. You can use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check whether your website’s pages are mobile-friendly or not. If not, work with your developers or a web agency to make sure that you’re able to deliver a pleasant experience to your mobile users.

6. Customer Testimonials & Case Studies 

A study by Koyne according to a study of B2B brands, word-of-mouth is known to influence purchase decisions of 91% of buyers. The same study found that 62% of B2B marketers use customer testimonials as their main marketing strategy. Video testimonials are extremely credible and more trustworthy in consumer eye. Not every testimonial has to be a video, but if you can get 1 or 2 of your best customers to make one, you highlight it on your website and digital marketing avenues. In addition to testimonials, do in-depth case studies of how your company solved a complex problem. Case studies help with product or services that don’t have fast tangible results.  

7. Analytics & Automation 

Use Google analytics to view what type of content on your website gets the most views. You can also keep track of your target demographic or location. Analyze the buyer personas of people who have visited your website using. Then ask, “is there any administrative task that can be automated?” Simple confirmation emails or frequently ask question chat bots can help cut down on wasted time asked by viewers that are just window-shopping.  Send thank you notes after events or trade shows with automated email features or email campaign services. WordPress has a lot of free options when it comes to plugin for this task. Gather feedback using survey automations during the testing phase.

Update your B2B marketing plan by calling 248.528.360. 

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1. Create a Consistent Brand Look

To make your brand stand out, you need to keep creating and designing a consistent brand look and feel throughout all your social media accounts, so they all look similar enough for users to know they are from the same company. The main thing to consider is creating a color palette. This can usually be 2 to 3 main colors and hues. There are special exceptions having more colors, but keep in mind that too many colors sloppily done can look amateurish and will turn most potential clients away. Maintaining your brand color look will capture the attention of followers and build credibility. 

2. Choose a Great Font 

A strong brand voice is created when you have a great font. With Instagram Stories, you get a lot of choices, but be sure to pick one wisely as it makes a big impact to stick to one for all your posts, reels, and stories. The idea is that once your content is seen, it will automatically be associated with your company brand without even noticing your username. A unique font creates immense brand recognition and prevents copy-cat scammers from stealing your brand identity. 3 main elements to make sure the font is compatible with are your logo, company colors, and stylistic font on-brand. Don’t forget to keep your brand personality and character in mind when designing with your font.

3. Use Stunning Images

It is important to mix it up and us high-quality images to grab attention. One of the best options available to you are stock photo websites, such as Motion Array, Pexels, or Unsplash, just to name a few. You can start off with this great selection of free photos. When downloading your favorite stock photos, planning for your upcoming posts, create libraries of images that you can easily update and manage. Ideally to be great for authenticity, if you have the budget to hire a professional photographer to capture your product or services, but it your industry needs certain levels of confidentiality, such as the medical field, then stick to stock photos. 

4. Use Backgrounds and Overlays

One great way to highlight your new updates and add more dimension to your Instagram stories is adding brand or design colors to your background. You could also use your colors for product photos with an overlay. Use solid colors to pop what is in the foreground or use it as an overlay to cover your photo and use the eraser tool to reveal a part of the image. This might be an exciting thing to surprise your followers with if your business is offering free giveaways or new product reveals. You can also add animated backgrounds that better represent your brand image visually. There are endless options available when you look for photos or videos with light leaks, glitter, bokeh, and glitch overlay effects. 

5. Engage Your Audience

One of the reasons TikTok is so successful right now over Instagram Stories is its ability to keep their audience engaged. To compete, start by sharing content from your own followers and friends. This will act like word-of-mouth personal endorsements. Add in fun tools such as questions and polls that invite anyone to share their likes and dislikes about your brand. This is great way to see what areas of your business the most successful and what areas is need improvement. Special discounts for the first 50 followers or offering giveaways to your products can get your audience to engage with your brand because who doesn’t like free stuff? Be cautious with this technique, you still need to make a profit and if you offer free stuff too often then add a price tag you may lose trust.  

6. Tell a Story

Stories disappear within 24 hours, so consider practical designs to easily tell your brand story, such as adding easy-to-read titles. Part of sharing a story on Instagram is you must consider posting in sets of 3 (beginning, middle, and end) to better showcase your message. Breaking your messages into sections allows for a better call to action. This will provide depth and better ways of engagement from your social media account to your website. Not everyone knows what your brand is all about, so always try to incorporate details into your video for a new audience. Promote a long-form announcement with story posts around the key tips or points that entice viewers to check it out. Focus on key points of the product or tutorial you want your audience to remember. Remember that as 

7. Take Boomerangs

Instead of just adding effects to your videos and photos, make loop videos or have a professional make one for you. These types of videos are called Boomerangs. They are quick clips about 1-2 seconds long that loop and add a lot of fun to your Stories. You can easily turn your live photos into boomerangs and Instagram offers 4 effects: Classic, Slo-mo, Echo, and Duo. You can either take your live photo first and create several takes or directly shoot it live for your Instagram stories. 

8. Link to More Content

Use swipe ups and Instagram link in bio to encourage user interaction. It has become such a vital source when posting your story that there is a set of actual stickers for it with these terms. You can add the chosen link to your bio under the Website field when creating or editing your profile. Easily change it and use link bio tools to create mobile-friendly landing pages, like Linktree. 

9. Create & Use Highlights

Stories link to your Highlights, extending the life of your important ideas and topics. This is a strategic place for your audience to see what your brand’s main selling points. It is also important to note that only 5 will show on your feed, so choose your highlight topics wisely. To see more, your followers will need to scroll right. Once you are ready to create your highlights, make sure to create custom covers for them that match your brand color and style. The correct dimensions are 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels, or a 9:16 aspect ratio. Make sure your icon is in the center position. 

10. Use Instagram Story Design Templates

You do not need to reinvent the wheel and spend extra for custom designs, when online marketplaces, such as Motion Array or Canva, have a huge selection of professionally designed templates. You only need to drag and drop your photos or clips, adjust them to your brand colors and logo, and export them directly to your Instagram Stories. If you are still having trouble doing this, look for an agency that provides social media marketing and they will make sure your post is correct. 

Create a winning Instagram Story Strategy! Call 248.528.360 to get started. 

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1. Brand Awareness 

You must become relevant to potential buyers. Post design should be introducing your company’s product or service. Make sure you include contact info (phone # & links to your website). Bio sections of platform should act as an “About Us” section. 

2. Research & Development 

Follow your competitors to see in what ways do they engage with their customers. How do they answer complaints? How do they display new products or services? What type your promotional post has the most interaction? Create post similar to their successful ones, but tailor it to your own brand. 

3. Build a Community of Advocates

Build brand loyalty. Highlight excellent reviews. If there are any bad reviews post on how you are going to fix the issue. People like to feel as though they are part of a community, are listened to, and helped build or improved a product or service. 

4. Enhance Public Relations 

Reply to comments, questions, and complaints in a timely manner. Assure people that they are actively interacting the people of your company not just a robot. This will help strength your community and brand loyalty potential. 

5. Drive Sales & Leads 

Include persuasive posts on a variety of platforms that include the next steps in the sales process: call now or link to website. 

Need help organizing a social media campaign with these goals in mind? Call 248.528.3600.

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In an example provided by moz.com, Popsockets, a phone grip brand, activated 8 of their brand ambassadors to participate in a trend known as the “Emoji Outfit Challenge”. The ambassadors would film themselves matching their outfits to popular emojis and include a phone grip into their respective outfits. Their product reached 2 million viewers.

If a popular influencer from your niche is already featuring a generic product, you sell in a trending piece of content that could translate into follow-up content such as reviews, hauls, etc. This could also lead to content being created that your product could be seamlessly incorporated into. For example, if you sell cookware and you send cookware to a cooking influencer, and they genially enjoy your product, they will use it in other videos they create. Reach out to influencers for product placement and use the power of spoken word marketing. You can find influencers in every niche or even look beyond your niche; you might find a new market to break into that overlaps with your target audience. With the right creative spin, even seemingly mismatched pairings can yield successful results.

Ready to develop an influencer marketing strategy? Call 248.528.3600.

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1. Use a Brand Manual/Guide 
2. Post Consistently Across Platforms
3. Exercise Quality Control with Every Post
4. Monitor Analytics & Tailor Content Accordingly 
5. Host Influencer Campaigns 
6. Engage with Target Market 

Need help growing organically? Call 248.528.3600.

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 Target Audience 

Research by talking (via social media, survey, or in-person) to current and potential customers about what they’re looking for in a brand that sells similar products or services. Use their language when describing your brand and see where they align with your brand’s existing values. This will make them feel heard and you can see where your strengths and vulnerabilities lie within the sales funnel of your product or services. 

 Visual Components 

Your business needs to be recognizable. First, start off with a color palette. Research color used by competitors. Do you want to use similar palettes, or do you want to try something new not typically seen in your industry? Make sure they are culturally appropriate (Western vs Eastern ideology). Include primary and secondary colors. Secondly, determine if you want your logo to be a letter mark, wordmark, pictorial mark, or combination mark. What would make clients be able to recognize your brand online or on a store shelf? Thirdly, choose typography that fits the mood, readability, formality, and adaptability of your brand. This not only applies to your logo, but also to fonts used on taglines, websites, and printed materials. Fonts have personality. Look for free and licensed fonts that compliment your brand. 

 Additional Elements 

Gather assets used for marketing materials. For photos, think about the tone or mood that they give off. Look at the lighting and layout of the subject. Consider if you want a designer to edit them as surreal-style artwork or just do minor touch-ups. For illustrations, make sure they are using your brand’s color pallet and have a consistent style. Consider custom icons to use digital marketing interfaces. Make sure they are not overly complicated and work for small sizes. Create social media templates in your brand’s style to fit the audience of each platform. 

 Brand Guidelines

Create a style guide or manual. Have the information for your color palette, typefaces, logo do’s & don’ts, photo or illustration samples, icon info, and other data visualizations, so whoever is in charge of marketing can give it to a designer. This will help the designer stay consistent when creating materials for your brand. The consistency will help you become recognizable to your loyal and new clients. 

Start building your brand by calling 248.528.3600

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