• Navigating Marketing Challenges: 8 Strategies for VPs in Fast-Paced Marketing Environments

    Navigating Marketing Challenges: 8 Strategies for VPs in Fast-Paced Marketing Environments

    The landscape of marketing is fast-evolving and comes with unique challenges across industries. There are efforts to balance innovation with tried and true strategies, and efforts to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape, all while demonstrating a leadership strategy that drives growth. Easy enough? Wrong! It is tough. That is why we developed this guide that delves into 8 essential strategies for VPs who are not only looking to navigate but THRIVE in the fast-paced environment that is Marketing.

    1. Embrace Data-Driven Decision Making

    You should never think of Data Analytics as a marketing buzzword. Analytics are the bedrock of modern marketing. As a VP you should embrace this strategy to inform all of your marketing decisions. This covers things from campaign strategies to your customer engagement tactics. Understanding how to use tools such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Customer Relationship Management tools (CRMs) is imperative to effectively leveraging your marketing efforts. Without analytics, it would be very difficult to fine-tune strategies to find efforts that work. 

    2. Prioritize Customer Experience (CX)

    You should be thinking about the customer first. Especially if your offering includes product tools that users will find themselves using often. Having a customer experience that is seamless, low-stress, and easily manageable is paramount. Utilize efforts such as personalized learning experiences, seamless digital interfaces, and engaging content strategies through omnichannel communications. Don’t know what these things are? That’s okay! Most people don’t. But it is great that you are taking the initiative to review resources such as this blog. This is how VPs and other marketing leaders can curate their knowledge and lead their teams towards success effectively. 

    3. Adopt Agile Marketing Methodologies

    Adopting agile marketing methodologies is a transformative approach to enhancing the adaptability and responsiveness of your organization’s marketing efforts. Agile marketing is based on the principles of agile development. This approach emphasizes customer feedback, flexibility, and the continuous improvement of your marketing campaigns. This will allow your team to respond quickly to market shifts and trends plus consumer behavior. Be sure that you are fostering a culture of cross-functional teamwork where campaigns are informed by diverse perspectives. Cross-functional teamwork is proven to enhance creativity and effectiveness. The customer-centric approach of focusing on customer feedback allows your marketing team to create more targeted and relevant campaigns that meet the preferences of your organization’s audience. 

    4. Foster Innovation and Creativity

    This is a professional way of saying boring inspires boring! Be the energetic, excited marketing VP, or leader that your team needs! Go to bat for your team members and they will be inspired to do the same. Empower your team to develop new ideas, research, and innovate! This is imperative to stay ahead of your competition. You must remain open to unconventional ideas that can uncover potential growth avenues. Encourage your team to engage in content marketing that makes them more educated in their role and industry.

    5. Invest in Professional Development

    One of the biggest investments you can make as a marketing leader is in your team! Finding talent that is worth retaining takes work. Plain and simple. When you have found your team you must actively invest in their growth. This improves your team’s capabilities and encourages long-term employee retention. People enjoy working for an organization and a leader that treats them advantageously, or even fairly for that matter! Encourage your team to attend marketing conferences and webinars. Provide marketing courses at no cost to your team members. It should be apparent that you care about your team’s growth. Don’t leave them to wonder or even worse question if this is a priority of yours as a leader and of the organization. 

    6. Leverage Strategic Partnerships

    If you aren’t leveraging strategic partnerships, you are leaving growth on the table. Why would you do that? Are you satisfied with where your organization is now? Well, the reality is nobody is ever truly satisfied with where their organization is. The organization could do more, be bigger, make more money, grow quicker, reach more students, impact more people and the list goes on and on. So, to get your organization to its desired place of continuous and sustainable growth, leverage strategic partnerships! Reach out to other institutions, companies, and influencers that can amplify your marketing reach. These collaborations are innovative and result in campaigns that have expanded audience reach. You are also sure to increase your brand credibility.

    7. Enhance Digital and Social Media Presence

    Social Media Marketing is such an important piece of the marketing pie! If you are a marketing leader whose organization is not active on social media, you are again leaving growth on the table. Optimizing your online presence has so many factors. Social media activity goes hand in hand with SEO, content marketing, responsive design, and user experiences. 

    8. Prioritize Sustainability and Social Responsibility

    Last, but certainly not least, you need to have a facet of social responsibility and sustainability around your organization. Corporate social responsibility is a do-or-die scenario. Without adequate CSR efforts, you will fail to differentiate your brand as an outlier that appeals to environmentally and socially conscious consumers. This is, however, not a narrow niche. Most people these days would say they would prioritize working with organizations that take care of the environment rather than destroy it. 

    Hopefully, this helps in building a roadmap of marketing strategies that allow you and your organization to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities. With these strategies in place, you are well on your way to driving significant growth for your organization and solidifying your leadership within it.

    Michelle Sulzer

  • Staying “Trendy” while marketing the goods! Why advertising is growth & revenue focused

    Staying “Trendy” while marketing the goods! Why advertising is growth & revenue focused

    In today’s marketing world, prospecting clients are looking for an agency that can provide them with growth and revenue. Which is what everyone is looking for, right? To find an agency that can speak the language of their brand. For an agency to stand out amongst the crowd, prospectors are looking for marketing tactics that will transfer to growth and revenue. Because at the end of the day, it’s about selling more to the consumers, and growing your company.

    As we take a look back at technology and digital marketing, there has been an extremely large growth in the transitioning of these changes. Did you know that the most popular devices used to browse the web are mobile phones?

    “More Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the U.S. and Japan” (Google, 2015).

    So, what do we do with this information? And how do we drive leads that transition into revenue for the client? I’ll tell you how, by providing the prospecting client with revenue-focused marketing. Revenue-focused marketing takes all of the marketing strategies of the business into consideration. It is data-driven that focuses on marketing analytics and reports that assist the agency in campaigns that drive revenue, ie. social media and digital ads. Some strategies may require revisions and constant supervision in order to adjust and compete with the leaders in the industry. But hey, it’s been proven to drive leads, and this is what we want!

    Improving your companies SEO and increasing the amount of traffic to the website via organic searches, has proven to also be effective when constructing your website to be appealing to search engines. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, and the agency you chose should be an expert in the SEO tactics that will speak to marketing your brand.

    “Google gets over 100 billion searches a month” (Mashable, 2015).

    Although these revenue-focused marketing tactics are proven to be effective in growth and revenue, agencies are expected to be creative and inventive in marketing the brand. We can’t forget about those tactics! The quality of work the agency provides, understanding the businesses culture, and sticking to the budget are not to be forgotten. So, when you’re ready to find that perfect agency, do your research, and find the agency that’s right for you!

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • The 7 Truths About Marketing and How To Scale Your Organization & Impact

    The 7 Truths About Marketing and How To Scale Your Organization & Impact

    With an ever-changing marketing landscape, it is difficult for organizations to understand where they should be placing their marketing focus. Organizations are putting increasingly more emphasis on marketing efforts and their impact on sales and the overall organization. However, the need for continued marketing success with increasingly fast landscape development can prove challenging or in some cases impossible. That is why we partnered with some similarly positioned marketing agencies to compile these 7 truths for you to keep and apply in your organization today!

    1. Content is King, But Engagement is Queen

    As you digest this high-quality content, it is probably easy to believe that valuable content drives visibility. However, the main objective of offering high-value content is engagement. Engagement is what turns viewers into advocates and participants. Your organization needs to be creating informative, valuable, and compelling content tailored to the interests and needs of your audience. Ensure your organization has resources and a blog section where users can digest content at will. These pieces of content also give your organization more opportunity to optimize your digital real estate for search engines. Once you have launched your strategy, your team capacity should be able to support consistent engagement with your audience through comments on social media and personalized emails. 

    2. Data-Driven Decisions Lead to Growth

    We are more confident than ever that data-driven decision-making in marketing is that ticket to organizational growth. Your organization must be using tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Moz to understand audience behavior. These tools are also used to understand and evaluate campaign performance as well as identify SEO opportunities and improvements across your organization’s digital presence. With these insights, question the effectiveness of your organization’s marketing efforts. Refine your strategies based on what you uncover and continue refining until you are focused on what works best for engaging with your audience and the results prove it. 

    3. Personalization at Scale is Achievable

    Managing engagement in a more personalized approach is the most effective method. However, most will tell you that it is tough to scale with personalization. Technology has proven this to be inaccurate. Organizations that think this way are not using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. CRMs like SalesForce and HubSpot help to segment your organization’s audiences and tailor your communications based on behavioral and preferential analysis. These are some of the most important interactions between your organization’s brand and audience.

    4. SEO is Your Long-Term Ally

    If you want to ensure long-term success for your organization you MUST have a clearly defined and funded SEO strategy. SEO and email marketing remain the top-performing marketing channels when measured by ROI. Hire a team member or agency that has SEO skill sets and experience to ensure that your website infrastructure and content is optimized for SEO. Your organization will also benefit from SEO copywriting resources for organizational content writing. With more optimized SEO content that is shared frequently, your organization will improve its search engine rankings. This will begin to attract more consistent organic traffic. SEO packages and costs vary depending on the depth of your efforts and usually the size of your organization’s website. Conduct due diligence on providers and the services they are including. Short-term SEO fixes and audits can be completed by freelancers but we recommend an agency for a longer-term strategy.

    5. Social Media Multiplies Your Reach

    Social media platforms are invaluable to organizations. These platforms in our digital age have created more avenues for expanding the reach and impact of an organization. Your organization must have an active value-based approach to social media networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and X. These platforms provide channels to engage with audiences, share valuable content, and funnel interested parties through to your services or product offerings. Social media networks also provide analytics for performance which should be used to fine-tune strategy.

    6. Collaborations and Partnerships Drive Innovation

    Partnerships with other organizations and thought leaders introduce your brand to a new audience. These partnerships are often thought to also drive fresh perspectives into your marketing efforts. These types of partnerships can look and take various forms such as co-hosted webinars, joint-giving campaigns, partnered matching campaigns, and more. Consider organizations on a local and regional basis first and then expand beyond. There is a benefit to having team members who are assigned these tasks as part of their job function. 

    7. Adaptability is Key to Sustainability

    As mentioned before, the marketing landscape is constantly changing and evolving. This means that your marketing strategies need to be as well. Interact with thought leaders and retain knowledge for your teams which allows everyone to stay informed on trends, technologies, and best practices. When your organization finds itself struggling in its approach, consider why there are challenges and pivot as needed. 

    Michelle Sulzer

  • Creating Engaging Social Media Campaigns for Causes That Matter

    Creating Engaging Social Media Campaigns for Causes That Matter

    Nonprofits should leverage social media to connect with audiences and boost community engagement.

    Crafting social media campaigns that resonate with audiences and drive support for nonprofits is both a technical skill and an art. To stand out in a crowd, nonprofits must create unique, original, and interesting content.

    Why Should Nonprofits Create Engaging Social Media Content?

    Engaging social media content can help nonprofits perform critical functions like:

    • Raise funds
    • Recruit donors and volunteers
    • Increase awareness of their cause
    • Build a community around the nonprofit’s mission
    • Communicate important information to many people quickly

    Examples of Successful Nonprofit Campaigns on Social Media

    In 2022, Hurricane Ian struck the southeastern United States, the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida since 1935. The American Red Cross leaped into action to help those affected, and they launched one of the most effective nonprofit campaigns on social media to raise funds for their work.

    The campaign focused on the good, primarily by showing videos of those affected by the hurricane telling their stories. Videos showed hurricane survivors talking about how they had been taken care of by the Red Cross, how they received meals every day, and how the volunteers even took the time to play with children affected by the hurricane.

    The campaign was highly effective because it connected the nonprofit’s target audience (the people watching the videos) to the hurricane victims and how the Red Cross helped those victims recover from the storm of a lifetime.

    What Does it Mean to Create Cause-Driven Content?

    Cause-driven content is defined as content that immediately connects the viewer to the nonprofit’s cause. An excellent example of cause-driven content can be found in a social media campaign launched by Save the Children.

    In this campaign, rather than quoting statistics on the number of children suffering worldwide, Save the Children narrowed in on a handful of children and profiled their experiences before and after being contacted and helped by the nonprofit. 

    The social media campaign was effective because it clearly showed viewers the pain these children were experiencing daily, which emotionally connected viewers to the cause. The campaign also showed viewers how Save the Children was helping make a difference in the children’s lives, which inspired viewers to donate to the cause.

    Sulzer Inc. Has the Tools to Help Nonprofits Drive Community Engagement

    Historically, nonprofits have used in-person events to encourage engagement and persuade communities to donate and volunteer. But in the 21st century, community engagement means more than hosting events, workshops, and volunteer beach cleanups. Today, community engagement almost always begins online. 

    Sulzer Inc. helps nonprofits grow their brand and increase their visibility online and beyond. The result? Significant brand elevation, new supporters, donation increases, audience growth, and more support from the community. Contact Sulzer Inc today to get started.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • Digital Marketing Strategies for Nonprofits on a Budget

    Digital Marketing Strategies for Nonprofits on a Budget

    Nonprofits can find unique and creative ways to promote their good works to the public, no matter their budget.

    Digital marketing comes in all shapes and sizes and at all price points. Some aspects of digital marketing, like Google’s Pay-Per-Click ad feature, are as effective and helpful as one is willing to spend money on them. However, some digital marketing techniques can produce incredible results with little financial cost.

    Nonprofit Digital Marketing

    Nonprofit digital marketing is essential for nonprofits to stand out, inform the community of their good works, and earn support through donations and volunteer hours. But as the internet becomes increasingly competitive, nonprofits must get creative in securing visibility.

    The Importance of Online Visibility

    Achieving online visibility can seem challenging at first. Google reported 1.13 billion online websites, with as many as 50 billion individual website pages.

    Google also recorded about 1.48 million 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the United States. The competition for the coveted attention of online audiences is high, and garnering online visibility has never been more important for nonprofits. No online visibility means no attention from an audience, which in turn means no support, donations, or volunteer sign-ups.

    Five Budget-Friendly Strategies for Branding a Nonprofit

    The internet is now the primary location where nonprofits showcase their work. That can take many forms, from a well-designed website to an interactive app, email newsletter, digital ad campaign, and social media posts. Some digital marketing tools can be expensive, but budget-friendly strategies for promoting a nonprofit exist, including tools and strategies like:

    • Asking for reviews and testimonials. Social proof is everything in the online world, and it costs nothing to ask someone who has worked for, volunteered with, or been helped by a nonprofit to leave a review or write a testimonial.
    • Opting for email campaigns over print mailers. Email templates are endlessly customizable, and for a small monthly subscription to an email hosting service, one can send emails to thousands of subscribers for a fraction of the cost of using print mail.
    • Posting often, but being intentional about it. It costs nothing to create social media profiles, and it’s free to post. Nonprofits should build an online presence via frequent social media posts, but they should be intentional about it and only create unique, original, and interesting content.
    • Encouraging online engagement. Every time a nonprofit posts on social media, they should encourage engagement by asking followers to like, comment, and share.
    • Writing a blog and posting it on social media and in emails. Websites with frequently added blog posts rank higher on Google and become more interesting and relevant to the nonprofit’s audience. One should write a weekly blog post and include it in the newsletter. Mentioning the blog in social media posts is also a good idea.

    Sulzer Inc. Creates Cost-Effective Digital Tactics in Nonprofit Marketing

    Nonprofits focus most of their available funds on their mission and purpose, so it’s not uncommon for such organizations to hit budget constraints when it comes time to market and brand the organization’s activities and good works. Thankfully, Sulzer Inc. can offer cost-effective digital tactics for nonprofits.
    Sulzer’s mission is to help nonprofits by tapping into the passion and drive that fuels them while simultaneously leveraging time-tested, strategic experience to publicize the supreme goodness of nonprofits for all to see. Nonprofits who work with Sulzer observe significant brand elevation, a rush of new supporters, regular donation increases, record audience growth, and higher engagement. Contact Sulzer Inc today to get started.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • Food For Thought – measuring success

    Food For Thought – measuring success

    Gauging campaign success is part of every great marketers toolkit. However, determining what and how to measure can look a lot differently depending on who you’re talking to, what vertical they’re communicating to, who their target audience is and what they’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t fall into this bucket, there’s no time like the present to get started. 

    When determining how to allocate your marketing budget, it’s a whole lot easier when you have measured past campaigns and spend against predefined metrics. If not, you can back into metrics by first building out the classic OGST(M) framework.

    • O – Objectives
    • G – Goals
    • S – Strategies
    • T – Tactics
    • M – Metrics

    Think first about what your high-level Objectives are. Write them down. These Objectives are in turn supported by Goals. What Goals are set that support your Objectives? Write them down. After setting Goals, you can begin to list out all Strategies that you will implement to help you reach your Goals. Write them down. 

    Now, here’s where a lot of marketers actually begin: Tactics. Tactics are really meant to support Strategies, which in turn support Goals, which in turn support the overall Objectives of your organization. A tactic may be “post 3x per week on Facebook”. However, if deciding a Tactic based on “this is what we’ve always done”, or “this is what our competition is doing” is your methodology, you should pause long enough to determine what the tactic actually supports. It may very well support a Strategy and you can greenlight it. But if it doesn’t, perhaps it should be scrapped, or altered. Once Tactics are determined, you can decide how you would like to measure their effectiveness. It may be that a metric of success is that a project was liked by management. A social media campaign may have multiple metrics that are measured, such as engagement, newsletter sign ups, or even target revenue. 

    Once you have developed the OGSTM framework, you’ll need to allocate budget to each line item to determine what tactics your budget will support (or how much budget you’ll need to ask for to accomplish everything on your plan). Another benefit of this is to help you negotiate an increased budget or help senior leadership understand what you can accomplish and what it will take to reach the company’s Objectives.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

  • Social media strategies for marketing your business in today’s market

    Social media strategies for marketing your business in today’s market

    Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media platform, with 79% of American users. Wow! That’s a high percentage! With this percentage in mind, marketing your business via social media can effectively raise brand awareness and generate leads. Therefore, creating the right social media strategy for your business is what will set you apart from the others.

    In order to create a social media marketing strategy that is specific to your brand, it is important to have your goals and objectives in mind, and the tools you plan on using to achieve them. With that being said, that is the first step to your marketing strategy, establish the objectives and goals you plan on achieving. Instead of focusing on getting more likes or retweets for your social media ads, focus on leads generated and the conversion of those leads into sales. It’s important that as you establish your goals, you create an audience that is specific to the demographics and interests that you plan on reaching out to.

    Now that you have your goals and objectives set, it’s time to create or edit your social media presence. Each social media outlet has an audience that is specific to each outlet. Depending on the brand of your business, some audiences may work better than others. Because at the end of the day, you want to optimize your profiles for SEO and generate more traffic online, right? Getting the right information out to the right audience plays a large role in generating the best possible results.

    In case you were wondering what content will get you the most engagement, looking to leaders in your industry and their social media content, will raise inspiration and help give you the tools to distinguish yourself amongst the others. So, what type of content will be right for you?

    Well, this is where the content calendar comes into play. The most important tool to your marketing strategy. Because without relevant content, you will get lost in the crowd. When your designing your content calendar, think of your target audience and how you want to promote the content to them. What type of content is going to engage your consumer? By using software such as Sproutsocial or Hootsuite, this will help organize your day-to-day posts and provide analytics and reports on your activity via social media outlets. This will let you know what’s working and what’s not.

    And last but not least, test your strategy out and adjust accordingly. Social media is constantly changing, so be prepared to revise or rewrite your strategy need be.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • Visual Storytelling for Nonprofits: A Guide to Impactful Design

    Visual Storytelling for Nonprofits: A Guide to Impactful Design

    Visual storytelling is both an art form and an essential tool in conveying the mission and purpose that drive nonprofits.

    Words form the foundation of how humans interact with each other and assimilate information. By themselves, words can drive narratives in a compelling fashion that inspires a reader to take action. Even better, combining words with video footage and audio elements creates a trifecta of nuanced, inspiring messaging that nonprofits can leverage to garner support.

    What Does it Mean to Create an Impactful Design?

    Visual storytelling is an art form, but it has to produce a result, too. When done right, impactful design in visual storytelling engages the audience in a persuasive narrative arc that portrays characters and messages associated with the nonprofit and its good work. 

    Visual storytelling can be poetic and artistic in its flow and visual/audio effects, but it should be consistent and well-structured to be impactful.

    Practical Tips for Nonprofit Storytelling

    When a business promotes goods or services, it relies on tested marketing and advertising practices to convince viewers to buy. In nonprofit storytelling, however, no one’s trying to sell products or for-hire services. Rather, the nonprofit’s goal is to garner support from the community so it can better pursue its mission.

    Because the goals of a nonprofit’s visual storytelling are quite different from those of a for-profit entity, visual storytelling for nonprofits will look quite different. For example:

    • It should be relatable. Visual storytelling produced by the nonprofit should connect with the audience on a very basic, human level and be relatable to them, something they can associate themselves with.
    • It should be honest. Nonprofits already have a great story to tell, as they’re doing good work within their communities daily. Honest, clear, compelling, and dynamic depictions of the nonprofit’s work in the community make for incredible visual storytelling.
    • It should be inspiring. Nonprofits strive to meet an unmet need, be it environmental, social, economic, humane, or educational. Visual storytelling from nonprofits should detail the crisis they’re trying to solve, but such storytelling should also be inspiring to the audience by showing how the nonprofit is working to solve that crisis every single day.

    Visual Communication: A Critical Way to Get Your Message Across

    Visual communication from nonprofits should accomplish three key tasks, ideally in this order:

    • Identify the challenge or crisis the nonprofit is working to overcome.
    • Clearly delineate each of the primary ways the nonprofit addresses that crisis.
    • Directly connect the viewer to the crisis on a personal level and inspire them to take action and get involved.

    Sulzer Inc., Creating Effective Design Elements for Nonprofits

    Design elements in visual storytelling are effective in conveying a nonprofit’s narrative when they are intentionally and purposefully created by a firm that specializes in uniting nonprofit passion with strategic expertise. That’s where Sulzer Inc. comes in. 

    Sulzer identifies and accentuates the passion that fuels nonprofits through visual storytelling, all while leveraging strategic experience to showcase the nonprofit’s purpose and mission for all to see. The result? Nonprofits who work with Sulzer become well-known within their communities, experience brand elevation, attract new supporters, and accrue more donations. Contact Sulzer Inc. today to get started.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • Why branding is at the heart of your business

    Why branding is at the heart of your business

    When brand(ing) comes up in a meeting, it often means different things to different people, and many executives, entrepreneurs and staff speak of brand(ing) as a startup exercise. They may be thinking branding is complete once the logo, color pallet, fonts, tag lines, icon, etc. are determined. The reality is there is some confusion surrounding the meaning of brand(ing) and how it should be executed and operationalized within organizations big and small.

    In order for a successful brand to happen, there needs to be a well thought out idea developed through strategic brainstorming to formulate the best brand that distinguishes your business and sets you apart from your competitors.

    Sulzer Inc believes brand(ing) is a concept not fully understood, and very often under appreciated. At Sulzer Inc, we are experts at helping businesses find their brand. Our agency has helped guide a wide range of organizations, from passionate startups and not-for-profits, to fortune 1000 brands define and unlock the power of their brand. We’ve helped refresh and reposition mature brands and built new brands from scratch. We are most often hired by the entrepreneur, marketing director, CMO or executive team. On occasion we assist venture firms or private equity groups in driving the business to help explore and define the brand’s relevance and reason for being. After working with so many different teams to develop and refresh brands, Sulzer has come to the realization that brands are living and breathing things. They are complex, and like great people, great brands have a soul, personality and behaviors that differentiate them from others. They leave impressions and invite folks to engage. Great brands are interesting and clearly articulate why people need them.

    Brand(ing) has many parts.

    Why do so many entrepreneurs and leadership teams who talk about brand(ing) not understand its full potential as a business asset? Many see it as a single thing instead of its entirety. Many mistakenly see brand(ing) as the logo, fonts, ad campaigns or what the packaging graphics look like. They fail to recognize the power that a fully articulated brand strategy holds when deployed across all areas of the organization.

    Take a minute to think about an event or a performance that stands out to you, that made an impression on you. You thought about that event for days afterwards. Now think about why it was so memorable? Why are some people so fascinating, so memorable? The impression we create when we meet other people is formed by the way we act, the way we talk, look and dress and the value we deliver. In the same way we form impressions about people, we form impressions about brands. Brand(ing) is the impression we have of a product or a service and is based on all our experiences and interactions with it. Everything a brand does matters.

    Brand(ing) is a living thing.

    Like humans, brands are alive and have personality and character. Think of a brand like a person living with a real purpose, adding value to people’s lives and operating with a set of guiding beliefs. Brands first need to be clear on why they exist and what they are trying to accomplish. Once you have a brand’s purpose, then you can work on messaging that is relevant and memorable. Just like a person who operates with integrity, a brand should have a clearly defined set of principles and values that guide how it operates. The principles form the foundation of the brand. Those combined with a clear mission and a clear strategy, give the brand a working foundation and strategy that supports and drives the organizational agenda and mission.

    Brand(ing) differentiates.

    Just like memorable people, brands that stand out from the crowd do so because they draw interest and are memorable and different. Interesting brands are relevant, engaging, informative and often, brave. They take a stand for or against something and have the confidence to stand up for what they represent. People remember compelling brands and know what to expect from them.

    Your brand is one of the most important assets you possess to drive and differentiate your business. If your brand is not clearly defined, understood and articulated by the entire organization, it will never realize its full potential to impact your organization. It’s important to ensure that there is understanding and clarity around what brand(ing) means in business terms and what it can do to drive innovation. Your brand is one of the most powerful drivers for engagement and performance across all areas of your business.

    Brand(ing) does not belong to marketing.

    Every CEO must be the leading brand ambassador and ensure every department head understands how to bring the brand to life. Many executives believe branding is the responsibility of the marketing director and his or her department. But just as culture isn’t the sole responsibility of HR, brand(ing) is not the sole responsibility of marketing. While the execution of many dimensions of brand(ing) typically reside with the marketing department, the entire executive team has the responsibility to ensure they understand and promote the brand every chance they get. Every department in the organization has a role to play in following through and executing on the “brand promise.” Having an effective brand can give you a competitive edge in a competitive marketplace.

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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  • How to use AR in your marketing initiatives

    How to use AR in your marketing initiatives

    The use of augmented reality, or AR, has surged in popularity in the last few years. Now marketers are beginning to innovate exciting ways to use AR for brand acceleration. According to e-Marketer, the average smartphone user in the US spends 190 minutes per day on their device! And 90% of that time is spent in apps! Let that sink in for a moment. Yes, go ahead and re-read it… we will wait… So, if the average smartphone owner spends that much time on their device (and the number is growing annually), how can you capture some of that attention? AR might be the option for your brand to explore.

    While AR has been around for several years now, it is often confused with virtual reality. However, there are major differences between the two technologies. Augmented reality combines something virtual with the real world. Think, for example, of the well-known “rabbit ears” face-filter on Snapchat. Alternatively, virtual reality is removing the real world completely from the experience and re-creating a totally separate reality.

    Before diving into committing your resources to develop AR, make sure it has a purpose. After all, you don’t want to develop AR if you don’t have a good reason to.

    • AR as a brand differentiator Think first-mover advantage here. When 19 Crimes introduced the first wine labels with AR, their revenues increased by 70%! While the novelty may wear off, it can certainly get people talking about your brand and introduce new consumers to it.
    • AR to decrease friction You should be asking yourself, how can AR help inform or facilitate a better user experience (UX) for my target audience? You should be thinking about alleviating pain points in the buying cycle. This will lead to a more informed purchasing decision in less time. Sherwin Williams has done an excellent job of immersing its target audience with its ColorSnap® Visualizer by helping them see what their paint choices will look like after the project is complete.  
    • AR to educate Is your product or service something that needs to be explained to your target audience? If you need to educate your buyer, AR may be used to help your buyer understand more about your brand.
    • AR as an experience AR can be a great way to place a product or experience into a real setting. When StubHub introduced AR in Super Bowl LII, their goal was to help attendees familiarize themselves with the stadium and the surrounding City of Minneapolis.


    Our Client, Wish Farms, Augmented Reality and App

    Some brands are creating unique filters to use in social media, while others are using them to segue into an app. When Sulzer brought the idea of AR to Wish Farms owner Gary Wishnatzki, he loved the possibility of bringing their “Misty the Garden Pixie” mascot to life right on the labels we were rebranding. The fact that Misty could talk to kids, parents and consumers about their delicious berries was an exciting leap forward for the industry. Coupled with an app that could be built upon incrementally, the concept was given the green light.

    The initial goal of the project was to help Misty the Garden Pixie speak more directly to consumers. As part of the execution, the label was designed to easily change the type of berry highlighted as well as the season of the year. This would allow Wish Farms to develop campaigns around each of their four berry categories and their respective selling seasons.

    The Wish Farms AR & app combo checks multiple boxes for how a company can use AR to accelerate their brand: differentiation by being a first mover in fresh produce, educating how they are giving back to the community, along with bringing a more inviting and personal experience to their app. Users are enticed to frequently revisit the app through a rich experience of recipes, surveys, backstories on their farmers, and even a game (trick-tac-toe – we dare you to give it a try).

    When Wish Farms became the first in the berry industry to include augmented reality back in October 2019, they showcased the feature at the top produce conference in the world, astounding consumers and competitors alike with the futuristic new way of connecting with customers.

    If you decide to move forward with AR for your brand make sure to set goals and targets first. Build the use case around your target market, stay focused, and good luck!

    francis@godogoodtogether.com

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