If you’re reading this, you’re probably struggling with trying to tell your brand story. One that is rich yet concise, aspiring but humble, and visionary with a touch of reality. You want this messaging to resonate externally, align internally, and provide a strategic-framework for decision-making. No, you’re not asking for too much. In fact, we’ve outlined 14 questions you MUST ask to check off all the boxes you want to address. So if you’re struggling…
BRAND STRATEGY Great brand strategy revolves around clearly articulating your differentiation against competitors. You must continually push these differentiators to customers. One of the best ways to achieve this is by aligning your branding with your unique value propositions. CREATE A NEW VALUE CURVE The Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas advises that you compete on attributes that your competitors have failed to serve. For years high growth companies have entered markets by first catering to an underserved niche market. Netflix started…
How is it that companies like Apple can come out with literally anything (TVs, phones, watches, etc.) and people come out in droves to buy them? Is it their product? Maybe. But more likely, it’s branding, branding, and more branding. With all of our projects at Figmints, we always recommend branding as an essential starting point. Want a new website? An engaging testimonial video? A new digital marketing strategy? We love it—but the success of these projects are…
I recently read an article, “The B2B Elements of Value,” from Harvard Business Review that describes different values you can appeal to in order to acquire new customers—but I think it also speaks volumes about customer retention. This is especially important because acquiring a new customer is five times as expensive as retaining an existing one.1 It all comes down to whether we are providing value to our customers in endways that matter to them….
One of the biggest mistakes we can make in marketing is to go after all prospects in the same way. Companies that understand this are embracing Account-Based Marketing [ABM] and are learning to look at their prospects through distinct lenses. For a long time, marketers have chosen to use outbound or inbound marketing exclusively. Whereas an outbound approach once took precedence, just in the last 15 years, we’ve seen the pendulum swing to inbound. It…
Today’s marketing allows you to build your pipeline in ways we never could have five years ago. There have been people over the years who have promoted a singular tactic to drive sales but where we are settling in is exactly where we should be – looking at integrated tactics that marketing and sales can tackle together. It is called Account Based Marketing [ABM] and, if done right, it is a game-changer for companies. It…
Inbound! Inbound! Inbound!! For awhile there, it was all anyone was talking about. Far too many online marketing companies were making it sound like inbound was all any company needed, the proverbial “magic bullet” of marketing solutions. Now, it’s easy to see the appeal. Inbound can be less expensive and fairly easy to implement. Combined with some decently researched SEO, and an inbound focus can help companies -especially smaller firms- gain some leads and overall visibility. But… that’s about it. In…
From the very beginning of my days at North Star Marketing, one thing that made me successful then and still today is my respect and love for sales people. As a marketer, that is unfortunately unique. It is with that spirit that we have developed marketing with an eye towards today’s marketing and sales landscape. Today’s marketing and sales landscape Sales people struggle with the limited amount of hours in a day and all they…
The Life of the Marketer in 2010 In 2010, I spoke with over 150 CMOs and heads of marketing. For many, it was not a fun time to be in that role. They were all feeling some degree of pressure in these four areas: 1. Due to budget cuts and decreasing staff they felt they were more reactive than proactive when it came to marketing. 2. They often felt like an outsider with no “seat at the…
With 91% of B2B marketers using content marketing, it’s pretty clear that it’s more than just a fad. From blogs, white papers, videos, webinars, case studies, events and a whole lot more, B2B companies are generating staggering amounts of content. But how do you know that your content is reaching the right audience at the right time? Enter content strategy. Content strategy is the glue behind content marketing. While content marketing focuses on generating content…
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