general marketing
Psychological Marketing for your Brand
Psychological Marketing is based on how customers think, feel, reason and select between different product and services. Different psychological factors influence how and why specific customers purchase certain goods. So why would you choose to build a strategy based on the psychological needs of your customers? Well, when we combine Marketing Strategy and Psychological Marketing, a business can expect higher profits and sales. This is the essence of how you can create emotional feedback or responses from your audience, also known as an emotional appeal.
Through emotional appeals, you are able to connect and relate to your customer by using a variety of methods. Harvard Business Review recently published an article that identifies common high-impact emotional motivators. These motivators, listed below, can be used to build a strategy that will make your brand stand out.
1. The Feeling of Importance to Create Urgency for Your Customer
Firstly, remembering that all your customers want to feel important and special. By promoting exclusivity based on an individual’s self-esteem can go a long way. Promoting your product or brand’s exclusively is a way that essentially creates desire and urgency. Introducing wait lists, loyalty programs and setting time limits are ways to create urgency.
2. Your Customer’s Ideal Self
Secondly, by marketing your brand based on your customer’s ideal self is another emotional tool that can be used to create a more effective strategy. Every person has a perception of an ideal self. Depending on your audience, you can use this tool to make individuals buy a certain product based on what they strive to be. For example, when owning a fitness collection, it is likely that a business will promote their brand through the use of fit and healthy models. This fulfills a desire for ongoing self-improvement and essentially, they believe that when purchasing your brand, they will be able to live up to their ideal self-image.
3. Enjoying a Sense of Well-Being
Enjoying a sense of well-being signifies that no individual enjoys the feeling of stress. By creating a marketing strategy that promotes your product or services in a way that will reduce a person’s stress, can make people feel like everything is under control. Being in a state that reduces conflicts or stress can create balance and the feeling that life measures up to society’s expectations.
4. Socially Conscious Customer
Nowadays, individuals are growing more environmentally conscious. By knowing that we are now living in a more socially aware society, you can use this to formulate your marketing strategy. Targeting towards your audiences’ beliefs and values, individuals will feel a connection to your brand and as a result, they are more likely to become a loyal customer.
5. Appreciating and Valuing Your Customer’s Diversity
As said previously, customers want to feel special. Providing a variety of choices can help your customer express themselves in a way that they feel unique. Appreciating that your brand projects a unique social identity, your customers will essentially feel like they can stand out from the crowd. Purchasing a product that is catered to the specific needs of an individual, can also increase brand loyalty. Essentially, feeling an emotional connection to a brand guarantees that your customer will be more loyal to your brand.
Psychological appeals are more effective than basing your strategy on functions. Although the function of your product or brand is important, it can be seen that basing your strategy solemnly on this is not enough to convince your customer. Essentially, implementing these emotional appeals will ensure that your marketing strategy is convincing to your customer.
Keep up to date with our latest news
7 Things to Include Before Building a New Website
If you’re sitting in front of your website and thinking that it’s probably about time to give your website a much needed redesign, then you’re not alone. There are plenty of businesses that designed their website initially without putting too much thought into the customer experience and the design. Just like updating your brand, you should also consider updating your online presence as it will benefit your business by providing trust, improving your credibility and strengthening your online brand awareness.
Here are our top tips to consider before building a New Website.
1. Newsletter Signup
Adding a sign-up form to your website is a great way to increase your customer database. Customers that love your brand and your products and services will want to be in the know for the special promotions, new releases and special events. Also developing your customer database, means that you have direct access to your target audience to advertise promotions to.
2. Clear & Beautiful Images
Always use high quality and professional images for your website to show off your products. It’s a fine line where you want make sure that your website images will download quickly and won’t impact your website speed, but you also don’t want images that are pixelated. Using photoshop, you can easily set the pixel size for your website and also amend the resolution of the image. Still not sure, then get in contact with a graphic designer to help you.
3. Testimonials
Get in contact with your customers to find out if they will provide a testimonial from you. The best time to grab their testimonial is straight after they have used your product or service. It doesn’t need to be long, but try to get them to mention the name of the product and service they purchased and their experience. You can also use testimonials from Facebook or from Google Reviews for your website. Testimonials are an extremely powerful way to add credibility and build trust for your brand, products and or services and will often be a driving force to converting customers when they’re sitting on the fence about a product or service.
4. Your business’s contact details
If you have business, that involves a fair amount of customer contact, for example a medical clinic, restaurant or hotel then it’s fairly important that your contact details particularly email and phone number are easy to find and clear to read. For example you may want to consider placing the contact number of your business in the navigation header design of your website. Adding a Google map plugin with a location marker on your contact us page, will help customers in finding your business. Along with this, if you’re business is located in a shopping centre, make sure that you give clear instructions on where they can find you. You can also upload images of your storefront to Google My Business, so they know what your business looks like from the outside.
5. Blogs and News to Improve Website SEO
Take your SEO up a notch by regularly writing a news article or blog about one of your products or services. Blogs are a form of inbound marketing, which means it’s content that draws people to your website. Writing more on products or services add credibility and trust to your brand and also positions your business or yourself as an authority on that topic which leads to more people trusting your products and more likely to purchase your products and or services. In terms of SEO, make sure that your articles are long form articles and also include keywords or terms that your customers would be searching for.
6. Check mobile friendliness on your website
Mobile optimisation is about ensuring that visitors that access your website have an optimised experience while using that device. Every year, an increasing amount of people are using their mobile devices more often to access information. So it’s no surprise here that mobile optimisation is a the top of the list when it comes to designing and building a new website.
Site design for a mobile is important, particularly for websites that have page banners, customers need to be able to clearly read the information no matter what device they are using. Our top tips for mobile site design, include not using flash, no pop ups and design for a fat finger for a better touch screen experience.
7. Use Colour Psychology
Using the colour red on your website is a powerful way to draw the eyes attention to a price or a sale. Red is synonymous for being associated with a sale, which in turn to most consumers means value. So why not create attention to products by changing the price to red or increasing the font size so that its clear to the site visitor. Some websites use green for their add to cart buttons, as green is associated as being safe and ready to go. Depending on your site design, colour can play a special part in the customer experience.
Keep up to date with our latest news
6 Essentials For Marketing Campaign Success
Marketing campaigns or as we like to call it Masign (Marketing + Design) is essential for business growth and for promoting your services and products to your customers. Essentially marketing campaigns are planned promotional activities designed to promote products and services delivered through a range of channels to deliver results.
Successful marketing campaigns are able to elevate your business to the next level by incorporating marketing strategy alongside design prowess. Our Masign Marketing Campaigns incorporate a range of sophisticated tools, comprehensive planning and research to ensure that results are achieved.
In this blog we’ll cover the 6 essentials for driving a successful marketing campaign.
#1 Set Your Campaign Goals
The first step of delivering a successful campaign is developing and setting your campaign goals. Your campaign goals are the overarching key performance areas of your marketing plan. This may including driving traffic to your website, increasing online sales or increasing your average customer spend. Aligning your campaign to your goals is critical as it provides focus for each campaign to help you deliver results.
#2 Understand your audience
Define your customer audience into segments will help you deliver strategic campaigns that connect stronger with your customers. Defining customer segments can be based on either behavioural or demographic elements. For example you may want to separate your customers based on their purchase behaviour and target customers that rarely visit your business to encourage them to engage with your business. Alternatively you could target customers dependent on their residential status, perhaps a letterbox or and a digital campaign targeting customers located within a 10km radius to your business.
#3 Personalisation matters
In a crowded room, personalisation is an excellent way to break through the noise of all the marketing messages being sent to customers. Through personalisation, you can increase your click through rate and open rate through emails, thus by ensuring that your key marketing messages are being delivered.
#4 Innovative Campaign Strategies
Stepping out of the box and delivering campaigns that are different from your competitors is not only critical but equally difficult for the ill-prepared. Utilise your customer data to better understand their behaviour, their interests and what makes them tick to best communicate with them. Taking a sales focused approach may work during big sales periods such as Black Friday or Christmas, but your campaign planning should also include campaigns that build your brand and focus on elements that builds customers loyalty and brand trust. Delivered through a multi-channel strategy, you’ll see results in no time.
#5 Multi-Channel Centric Planning
Mobile, Edms (email marketing), website, brochures, posters, social media, direct mail are just some of the channels that could be implemented as part of your campaign strategy. Map your plan around which channels to utilise to ensure great results. Significant amount of planning goes behind ensuring the the messaging is consistent and making sure that they are all scheduled in to communicate effectively.
#6 Schedule Your Campaigns
Planning is the critical element of Masign (Marketing Campaigns), without it none the above points would be effective. Map out each campaign aligned with your key goals to a definitive timeline that both provides you flexibility to make changes and keeps everyone in the loop as to what the campaign is about. The time and resources it takes for each marketing campaign is so important, that its essential that deadline management is adhered to to ensure an effective and successful campaign.
Keep up to date with our latest news
The Tips You Need to Know Before Applying for the QLD Digital Grant!
Did you know that Queensland Small Businesses can apply for the Small Business Digital Grants Program? This Digital Grant Program offers matched funding of up to $10,000 from the Queensland Government to help assist eligible Small Businesses access much needed digital technologies.
Applications for this grant are now open and closes at 5pm on 11 April 2018.
TIP #1 You must be eligible to be be a successful applicant for the small business grant.
To be eligible the business must:
- Have fewer than 20 employees at the time of applying grant
- Have an Australian Business Number and be registered for GST
- Have Queensland headquarters
- Have a turnover of $2 million or less in the last financial year
- Not be insolvent or have owners or directors that are an undischarged bankrupt.
TIP #2 Devise a Digital Marketing Plan!
Ensure that your Business has a plan to use the grant for an acceptable reason. There are four key areas that the small business digital grant should be used for.
- Content Development: content development includes web pages, mobile applications, visual and audio media.
- Traditional e-commerce websites: receiving online payments or selling online such as online stores.
- Specialised Digital Technology or software.
- Digital Planning: marketing strategy development and training
These areas are specifically chosen to help create opportunities for small businesses to increase competitiveness and productivity by creating access to the latest digital technologies. This can be used for multiple purposes if eligible including expanding market reach, becoming more innovative, and training on new technologies that can benefit small businesses. Purchases of hardware, software and services such as digital coaching are a great way to use the Small Business Digital Grant if eligible. The Small Business Digital Grant ultimately allows Small Businesses grow and potentially advance to a medium sized business1.
TIP #3 Know what NOT to use the Small Business Digital Grant for.
Knowing what won’t be funded is a great way to start to plan how you would like to use the grant appropriately.
The Small Business Digital Grant will not be given if :
- fees for services provided by related parties;
- franchise fees or related costs;
- maintenance of existing digital technologies;
- non-project related assets (stock);
- salaries;
- general business operating costs (bookkeeping etc.);
- payments for expenses already incurred for work already undertaken;
- subscriptions and
- all work must be completed within three months of date of approval.
TIP #4 Finish with Project Reports
Provide a Project Report on completion of the project detailing how the funds once received were spent and the impact it has had on the business. This can give you insights on how successfully the business has changed with the opportunity the Small Business Digital Grant can give.
Click here to find more information on the Small Digital Grants Application Process.
At Desketing, we are a team of Design and Marketing specialist experienced with the Small Business Digital Grants application and can give businesses sound advice during and after the application process. Our team is successful in helping businesses drive growth and engage with the global community.
Desketing can offer multiple services that can help your small business benefit from the Small Business Digital Grant including digital marketing plans, digital marketing training, online advertising and website design and development. Our services provided can help your business use technology more effectively, allow the business to work smarter whilst simultaneously expanding online presence.
Desketing can offer invaluable insight on how to successfully complete the application and effectively use this digital grant. For a consultation with our design and marketing experts contact us on 07 32203962 or click here.
Keep up to date with our latest news
Branding is the second most important part of your company (after your product or service, of course!). Professional branding makes you look reliable, appeals to your market demographic and helps you sell. If you haven’t nailed your branding yet, we suggest you make it your aim for 2018. To help you get started, we’ve got our top 4 ways to nail your branding.
#1 Define your niche
This is possibly the most efficient way you can improve your branding. If you offer too many products or services, you position yourself as a ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’, and no one wants that kind of service. When customers are searching for a business or product, they want the very best – the experts. It’s best to choose one, or a few, niches that your company does exceptionally well. This way you can be seen as the specialist and focus your marketing content, share some of your knowledge and speak directly to your target market. You’ll find by choosing a specific target market and building a brand to attract them, you’ll yield better results because you’ll attract the right kind of clients and customers – those that you love to work with.
At Desketing we practice what we preach. As a brand, we intentionally focus on three niches: Property, Retail and Hospitality. There are plenty of other industries we that we serve, however, we made a decision to work focus on industries we excel in. There are other marketing companies similar to us that focus on other niches. For example, Industrial Ideas from Melbourne focus purely on industrial marketing.
#2 Stand out
When you are looking to establish a brand, think outside the box. You might think that playing it safe is the best way to appeal to a mass market but actually, you run the risk of looking like a ‘me too’ brand. If you’ve followed step one, you’ll have chosen a niche demographic, so you can establish your unique identity that represents your business well and attracts the right kind of customers.You’ll also find you attract more referrals too because your customers likely hang out with other people just like them that are also a good fit for your brand.
#3 Be cohesive
This is a biggy: be cohesive across all platforms. One of the best ways to get your brand out there is to use social media. It’s likely you already have a Facebook page for your business along with other social platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and a Pinterest, but are you using them cohesively? Take some time to make them all look and sound consistent so people understand who you are as a brand and what you stand for. Use your branding colours, logo and imagery consistently across your social media accounts and write in the same tone.
4. Use social media right
While we’re on the topic of social media, make sure you are using it right. Once you’ve got your target market set you can start personalising your posts to appeal directly to them. You can be fun, playful or more serious – whatever works for you as a brand! Just make sure that you are offering fresh, interesting content and interacting with potential customers. No one wants to follow pages that are all sales pitches and ads!
So there you have it, 4 ways to take your brand to the next level on 2018. You’ll notice there’s a theme going on: finding your brand niche! It really is an important step so if you only take away one thing from this article, let it be that! Here is the Brilliant Brand Checklist that will also help you get started.
Keep up to date with our latest news
Create a memorable brand that differentiates your brand from your competitors. A brilliant brand encourages customer loyalty and in turn, creates the magic that is word of mouth advertising.
So, what does it take to develop a lasting brand? Creating a brand is more complex than simply redesigning a logo. It’s about creating a brand identity and having an effective brand strategy in place. We’ve identified 11 elements of a brilliant brand to help set you on the right path to grow loyal brand followers.
1. What Does My Brand Do Best?
A successful brand is a brand that successfully communicates a reason to inspire your customers to connect with you. Stand out from your competitors by identifying the purpose of your brand and what your brand does better than anyone else.
2. Could I Improve My Brand Identity?
A truly memorable brand has a unique and professional representation of their business. Brand identity consists of a primary logo, secondary logo, simple colour palette and fonts. It’s important that these elements match your audience’s perception of your brand and reflect the personality of your brand.
3. What is the Perception of My Brand?
Don’t ignore the way customers perceive your brand or how they associate your brand. If you want to project a brand that is desirable and trustworthy, it’s vital that your business delivers on its branding promises. If those perceptions or associations are negative, it may be time to review your customer service strategy or how processes are run. Make sure that every interaction (both face to face and online) is a memorable and positive experience. Don’t make it hard for customers to purchase products or services from your business.
4. When is My Brand More Than Just a Name?
Think about your favourite brands and then think about the feelings that you have for them. Are they personable, fun, exciting, knowledgeable or innovative? Develop a brilliant brand by identifying the qualities, values and customer experiences associated with your business.
5. Are My Staff On Board?
Building a credible brand, means training, educating and involving your staff so that they have a clear understanding of your brand values. Your front-line staff are crucial because they are very much the face of your brand. It’s important that you have their co-operation and their support if you want your branding to be effective
6. Is My Brand Visually Effective?
Give your brand a personality, but also make sure that it visually matches your identity. For example if your brand is cheerful and fun, choose visuals that are engaging and colourful. Review your marketing collateral such as brochures/flyers, business cards, website, signage, social media and posters and make sure that it is consistent with your brand personality, brand identity and key messages. If you need support in this area, get in contact with a design team that can help you.
7. Am I Consistent With My Brand Messages?
Create trust by being consistent with your brand messages. Create a set of consistent brand messages that focus on the qualities, values and experiences that customers associate with your business, its products and services. Keep these simple and easy to communicate.
8. Do I have Stories to Tell About My Brand?
People genuinely love stories. Make your brand memorable by sharing those stories and communicating them through your staff and marketing materials. Giving your customer’s insight to your business, shapes how they view your brand and also encourages customer loyalty.
9. Do I know How to Launch My Brand & Generate Brand Awareness?
It’s time to attract customers and to tell them about your brand. Make sure that you allocate time and budget to launch your branding. We can help you launch on a small scale or make a huge impact depending on your target audience. Consider your budget whether you want to include local mail drop leaflets, social media campaign, digital advertising, email marketing and or public relations.
10. Do I Have a Plan In Place to Communicate My Brand?
Don’t let your customers forget your Brand. Keep your brand front and center by developing a communications plan or promotional schedule to help you sell your products and services. An effective 12 months communications plan will help you generate leads, build rapport, drive traffic to your website or business and convert sales.
11. Do I Reward My Customers for Their Loyalty?
Loyal customers are the final objective of developing a brilliant brand. As your brand reputation grows so will your database of loyal customers that continue to return and act as your brand cheerleaders (learn about converting customers into brand ambassadors). Show your appreciation and encourage your customers to share your brand with others by putting in place a loyalty and or rewards program. A loyalty program with rewards and gifts is a great way to boost your reputation as a brilliant brand and also to keep your customers coming back.
Keep up to date with our latest news
The Beauty of Email Marketing
Email marketing is a key tactic in most marketing plans because it works. It also has a larger reach compared to social media channels.1,5 You may not have a Twitter or Instagram account, but chances are quite high you have an email account – unless you absolutely do not have an online profile. Email marketing is also relatively cheap and effective, resulting in a higher return on investment.1,2,4,5 It also really helps, you can target audiences, track performance, review campaign metrics and use that to better understand your audience and achieve your marketing goals.1,3,4,5
5 Tips to Buff Up your Email Marketing Campaigns
1. Mobile friendly emails please 7,9
With the growth of mobile users, this has got to be a given that your emails must look great on a mobile device. You can reinforce this by implementing a single column template, a good sized call-to-action button and ensuring your text can be easily read at the right size. 7
Jack Spade‘s single column template, use of a large visual to drive the main message of that sense of urgency with a clear call-to-action button. The message communicated simply, directly and quickly.
2. Compelling, clear email header and sub-header lines 6,7,9
JCrew’s Halloween Email Marketing Newsletter. Catchy header and sub-header lines – captures the reader’s attention and encourages them to take up the call-to-action.
Keep subject lines simple, clearly calling the user to action. It should support and fit well with the message content and be under 50 characters’ length. Craft your email headers and sub-headers to work cohesively, instigating the user to open the email and question themselves if they should act. Some good examples are J.Crew’s Halloween mystery sale newsletter and Brother Moto’s launch party.
BrotherMoto Email Marketing Campaign. Example of a question that engages and prompts the user to think if they should act – “WHO WILL WIN THE CX1?”
3. Keep the reader engaged. Tell them a story 5,9,10
It is important to balance the mix of images and text content. The content should appeal to the user, be relevant, helpful and really easy to read – as if you are conversing with them. Where possible, segment your audiences, personalise their experience. It makes readers feel their needs are important and being looked after. A good example here is Callaway Golf’s newsletter highlighting Callaway golfers.
Callaway Golf Email Marketing Campaign. Appealing to their audiences’ interests, giving them helpful, relevant information about what they may like to know. What is in Jim Furyk’s bag could also be in your golf bag.
4. Send that email at the right time 6,7,8,9
Experiment sending out your emails on different days and times to test and gauge what works best for your audiences. Optimal times for different customers and industries will vary. Test and compare to find that optimal window of time to send.
5. Purge your subscriber list 6,8,9
Low open rates affect email delivery levels. It is wise to purge your list to ensure an engaged, robust subscriber list. Think about automating your unsubscribed emails to filter out disengaged audiences like HireVue.
HireVue’s automated email to unsubscribe.
Last Thoughts
Email marketing can and will create more opportunities for your business. It is a great channel to use to inform and interact with your consumers. It is also a great tool to develop deeper relationships with a large audience at a relatively low cost. So why not revisit your email marketing campaign strategies and call Desketing if you need help. We’ll be happy to chat with you.
References
- Campaign Monitor. 2016. Why Email Marketing. [ONLINE] Available at https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/why-email/. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- Inc.com. 2016. Top 5 Reasons Why Email Marketing Still Works. [ONLINE] Available at http://www.inc.com/peter-roesler/top-5-reasons-why-email-marketing-is-still-works.html. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- Forbes. 2015. 10 Reasons To Use Email Marketing (As Told By Small Businesses) [ONLINE] Available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/constantcontact/2015/09/17/10-reasons-to-use-email-marketing-as-told-by-small-businesses/#338fe9387eba. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- Fatrabbit Creative. 2016. 5 Key Benefits of Email Marketing. [ONLINE] Available at https://www.fatrabbitcreative.com/blog/5-key-benefits-of-email-marketing. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- MarketingSherpa. 2013. Email Marketing Benchmark Report Excerpt [ONLINE] Available at http://www.desketing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/EXCERPT-BMR-2013-Email-Marketing.pdf. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- Hubspot. 2016. 15 of the Best Email Marketing Campaign Examples You’ve Ever Seen. [ONLINE] Available at http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-examples-list. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- The HuffingtonPost. 2014. 11 Remarkable Email Marketing Tips You Need to Implement Right Away [ONLINE] Available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-collis/11-remarkable-email-marke_1_b_5710091.html. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- 2016. Best Practices for Email Marketing [ONLINE] Available at http://kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/previews-and-tests/best-practices-for-email-marketing. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- CIO. 2016. 15 ways to improve your email marketing campaigns [ONLINE] Available at http://www.cio.com/article/3057992/email/15-ways-to-improve-your-email-marketing-campaigns.html. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
- Kissmetrics. 2016. Rethinking Email Marketing. [ONLINE] Available at https://blog.kissmetrics.com/rethinking-email-marketing/. [Accessed 09 Nov 2016].
