Five Things Your Competitors Know About Authentic Online Marketing

Authentic: We hear this word often in business, not only when it comes to online marketing.

Build authentic relationships.
Create authentic marketing messages.
Send authentic letters or notes.

The reason we hear this word throughout all facets of our business is because authenticity stretches across every person in your company.

But how can brands show their audience that they are authentic without coming on too…inauthentic?

Let’s see what consumers think about authenticity and brands online.

86% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like and support.
81% of surveyed consumers said that they need to be able to trust the brand in order to buy from them.
66% of consumers think transparency is one of the most attractive qualities in a brand.
77% of consumers buy from brands who share the same values as they do.
79% of people say that user generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions.

These numbers are astounding. And for a business owner like yourself – they should impact how you position your brand online.

What Exactly is Authenticity?

Webster defines authentic as “not false or imitation: real, actual” – which sounds simple enough. But how do we translate this throughout your online marketing.

Here’s Five Things Your Competitors are Doing that You Should be Too!

Do you watch your competitors online marketing and wonder why yours is falling on flat ears? Keep reading.

1. PEOPLE Are the Heartbeat of Their Business

One of the best ways to build authentic marketing campaigns online is to show the backbone of your business, your employees.

Your employees not only serve your customers but they are the difference in a thriving business and one that well, isn’t thriving.

Likewise, consumers want to support businesses that care and support their employees. Pulling down the sheet to show the back-bone of your business and integrating your employees throughout your marketing messages builds authenticity online.

2. Understand How to Serve Your Audience

Authentic online marketing stems from the understanding of your audience. Answer these questions before creating content online:

Who is your audience?
What do they like/dislike?
When they make purchased, what do they value the most?
When it comes to your brand, what means the most to them?

By identifying what matters to your audience your brand can build authentic, relevant content that inspires, educates and helps your audience.

3. Humanize Your Tone of Voice

Do you know what drives a consumer mad online? Seeing the same generic, bot responses to any questions that are posted to their brand.

Allow your social media managers to craft responses that are both authentic and human. Not only does this humanize your brand on social media – it builds great customer service and leaves a lasting impression.

Automated, generic responses are one of the most inauthentic things your brand can do online.

4. Consistent Content Creation & Publishing

Whether you content is on social media, YouTube, blog content or Podcasts – having consistency builds authenticity online.

Why?

The content your brand creates and publishes should serve your audience. But, if you go MIA for a few weeks, it leaves “some not-so-good tastes” in your consumer’s mouths.

Your audience follows you on these channels because they are interested in your brand. When you provide inconsistent content for them, it shows where your priorities are.

5. Support Non-Profit Causes

Does your business support non-profit organizations? This is a great way to build authentic messaging and get your audience involved.

Consumers want to feel that they are doing good when they spend their money. Showing them how you support different causes and organizations is just one way they know your brand is one they want to support.

However, inviting them to support the organization with you builds a human connection with your audience that drives an authentic approach.

Cut Through the Noise

When it comes to cutting through the noise in today’s online marketing arena – be authentic. Transparent companies that are considerate, compassionate and honest with their consumers build authentic online marketing campaigns.

Brands that are authentic in everything that they do seeps into their marketing messages online.

About Backstage Digital

Backstage Digital is a digital marketing agency specializing in lead generation for their clients. We create custom digital marketing campaigns that generate results for our clients. More importantly, our clients have a 24/7 dashboard to review the ROI of all digital marketing campaigns. Contact us to learn more.

April 6, 2021September 10, 2021

5 Great Questions to Ask a Digital Marketing Agency Before You Hire Them

Written By Brittni Castilaw

When it comes to hiring a digital marketing agency partner, there are several things to consider. If you’ve interviewed a potential agency, you probably have certain questions you’d like answered. We’ve outlined a few to add to your list to ensure you find the right fit for your business.

How Long Has Your Digital Marketing Agency Been in Business?

Learn more about the agency’s background by asking about their history. While there isn’t a magic number of years that gives you a hard yes/no during your interviewing process – what you’re looking for is expertise in the digital marketing field.

Even agencies that are newer have the potential to bolster your business. Use this question to learn about the expertise of those who will be working on your project and what they can bring to the table.

What Type of Clients Does Your Digital Marketing Agency Work With?

Most often, digital marketing agencies work with specific niches. It is important to understand if this partner has experience in your business area. This can give you assurance they will be able to meet the objectives of your campaign.

This question also opens the conversation to allow the agency partner to expand on what type of results they have garnered for businesses like yours.

How Quickly Can Our Project Get Started?

There is likely lead time for most digital marketing projects. This will depend heavily on what type of project (website, SEO, Social Media, Etc.), how quickly contracts are signed and access is given to the agency. Lead time could be 1-2 days or a couple of months.

Understanding the timeline helps keep everyone on the same page and under the same expectation. Digital marketing agencies work with several clients so understanding how your project aligns with their timeline is important when deciding.

Do you have any case studies?

We like to call it “the proof is in the pudding” – because that is exactly what this is. Ask them for previous work results. You want to see that they have delivered results for their clients in the past.

This will build trust between you and the digital agency partner which is essential prior to jumping into a business relationship.

How Often will I see Results?

If an agency does not provide any type of reporting, this should be a red flag. Having monthly reporting should be the minimum. What’s better is when a client offers technology that delivers 24/7 digital marketing reporting for their clients.

Backstage Digital’s client dashboard giving you 24/7 access to your digital marketing results.

Transparency in your digital marketing spend is a factor when seeing results. Having a digital marketing agency partner that delivers results and timely reporting is an important factor. Learn more about how to track ROI for your digital marketing efforts here.

Digital marketing agency partners provide valuable strategies, deliver impeccable results and can serve as a right hand to your business. Selecting the best fit is essential to having a successful partnership. Contact us to see if we can help propel your business forward with digital marketing solution.

About Backstage Digital

Backstage Digital is a full service digital marketing agency based out The Woodlands, TX serving clients across the US. Our goal is to be an extension of your business while delivering leads utilizing online marketing channels like social media marketing, SEO, paid advertising (Google Adwords, YouTube and Social Media Advertising) and Content Marketing. If you are interested in partnering with our team, fill out the form here and we can jump on a quick call to see if we should work together.

September 28, 2020June 2, 2021

Email Marketing: 4 Tips to Launch Successful Email Campaigns

Email Marketing: 4 Tips to Launch Successful Email Campaigns

Did you know that 49% of consumers would like to receive promotional email marketing from their favorite brands? _(Oberlo.com)

Sometimes you might wonder, “what do I have to say to my list of contact?” There are so many things that are email worthy when it comes to your business like:

Product / Services Updates
Sales, Promotions or Specials
Upcoming Events
Educational / Helpful Content
Internal Behind the Scenes or Happenings

Here’s Why You Should Consider Email Marketing

I know what you are thinking, great…another marketing channel I need to figure out and keep updated. But let’s look at the data.

Conversion Rates

Get this, conversion rates for emails are higher than social media, direct traffic, and search _{(Smartinsights.com)}.

Wait – go back and read that one more time.

Conversion rates for your email campaigns are higher than several of your current digital channels. Meaning, investing time, resources and energy into delivering consistent and strategic email marketing campaigns will amplify your business.

Cost Effective

Email marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to market your business. Platforms like Constant Contact and Mailchimp offer plans for SMBs that allow you to grow and won’t break the bank.

Most email providers charge based on the total number of contacts in your database, so you have the power to control your costs associated with this marketing channel.

Email Marketing Automation

You might have heard about automation and wondered if it was worth it?

It is no shocker that custom automation workflows have the highest click-through rates. _{(Omnisend.com)}

Email automation can be as simple or complicated as your business requires. Typically for an SMB, a simple 3-step email automation campaign will benefit your business. Build out campaigns that align with your customer’s journey and where they might be in the buying process.

Pro Tips for Launching Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

Make a Plan

Don’t even open your email software without already planning out your email campaign. Put your pen to paper first to plan. What are you going to say and who are you going to say it to? We recommend drafting email content in a Word Doc with the goals listed at the top for easy reference during your planning.

Take this a step further and align your email marketing plan with your other marketing channels to keep messaging consistent across social media, website, email and any direct marketing you are executing.

Pro Tip: Brainstorm a list of topics and keep it running for your email marketing campaigns.

Automate Your Email Marketing Campaigns

If a prospect from your email database opens your first email, have emails in place that send out within a few days to continue the conversation surrounding that topic.

This not only builds efficiencies with your email campaigns, it allows consumers to flow through your marketing channel from awareness to conversion with the help of educational, promotional and sales content throughout your email campaigns.

Pro Tip: Several email software platforms have this capability in place for 2 or 3-step email automation campaigns.

Video, Video, Video

Adding videos to your email can increase click rates by 300%._(Oberlo.com)

Keep video first when putting together your email marketing campaigns. In today’s digital landscape, we expect video content from the brands we purchase from. Videos can be a simple explainer video or some shots of your product “In action” – it depends on the overall message of your email campaign.

Focus your target persona at the forefront of your video strategy when combining video and email marketing for the ultimate win!

Keep it Consistent

Can you believe that your customers want to hear from you? Keeping things consistent is essential to keeping your brand at the top of their minds.

49% of consumers said they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis. ^_(Oberlo)

When we talk about consistency with a brand, we always recommend starting small and building from there. Starting with a monthly email campaign, then increasing to a bi-weekly might be the perfect fit for your audience.

Whatever you do, keep things consistent vs the “every-now-and-then” approach.

Email marketing can seem overwhelming because there are several factors to executing a successful email campaign. These are just a few short tips to ensure you launch a successful email campaign for your brand!

November 28, 2017

Should Your Business be on Social Media?

Is your audience made up of humans?

If you answered yes, then social media isn’t just an option for your business, it’s essential. However, being stretched across every social media channel to market your business isn’t what we recommend either.

Social media is a channel to communicate and educate your audience. It has extremely targeted capabilities to allow you to promote your content to those who are more likely to be interested in your products and services.

From Instagram to Pinterest to Facebook, choosing the right combination of outlets is important. Here’s what to consider:

Your Audience

Always consider your audience when choosing any marketing channel, digital or not. Certain social channels are great for reaching the 12-20 age group while others lean towards women 25-45. No social media channel will hit all of the groups, so always consider the best combination to target your efforts towards.

Bandwidth

If you are tackling your social media marketing alone – bandwidth is important. Being “present” across 15 social media channels, yet lacking consistency, powerful content or responses to comments hurts your brand more than helps it. Don’t stretch yourself thin when it comes to social media, devote the energy and resources needed to each individual channel to be successful.

Budget

The days of growing a social media audience for free are way back in our rear-view mirror. Facebook algorithms, privacy settings and changing audiences have made competing for eyeballs easier said than done.

Facebook, for example, looks at the quality of the content, the engagement after a short period and several other factors to decide if the post is worth showing to more people. Boosting posts and running ad campaigns are not only effective, they generate quality leads when done right.

The short answer to asking if your business should be present on social media is yes, but to impact your bottom line, you’ve got to be more than present on those channels. Social media gives brands a platform to tell their story, humanize their brand and engage with their audience to not only build a stronger brand, but build revenue across these platforms.

November 14, 2017

Building Content for where your Prospects are in the Buying Cycle

Your clients move through a funnel every time they look to purchase your products or services. While the acceleration can vary greatly between each person, the steps are typically the same.

So how can you meet your audience right where they are with the exact message that they need? Using content marketing, you can generate content and promote that content to specific segments of your prospects based on what stage they find themselves in.

Awareness

Prospects are just starting their journey of needing something that you provide. They go through their typical steps of finding a company to work with. They might do a Google search, post on their social media profiles or even discuss with a close friend.

The awareness stage in the buyer journey is all about high level insight into the product they are looking for. Some of the best types of content include:

Educational content – Videos, blogs, social campaigns and events are great channels to distribute your educational content to this audience.
Data – This could encapsulate several different areas of your business, but think “big-picture statistics” that you can incorporate into your content that reinforces your messaging.
Opinions and Insight – During their research, they might have stumbled across your website (thanks to great SEO) and begin digging through your resources. Keep the insights high and make it easy for this audience to find this type of content on your website.

Consider implementing these content examples in your awareness campaigns:

How-To’s
Infographics
Webinars
E-Books
Checklists
Tip Sheets

Consideration

When your audience gets to this stage, they are asking questions, looking for pricing and perhaps have already reached out to your team. This is your chance to show them your business is the best option for them, opposed to the competitors they might also be considering.

Trust – Can you do what you say that you can do? If so, how does your audience know that with just a website that lists the services? Build trust through your content that proves that you can help solve a need.

Service – During this stage, most prospects reach out for more information. How quickly did you respond and better yet, how did you respond? 9 times out of 10 a prospect reaches out to more than 1 company for the same service, you don’t want to lose the business because you took 3 days to respond or came across short and unhelpful.

Some of the best types of content to plan for this segment include:

Case studies
White papers
Testimonials
Product Demos
Fact Sheets
Samples
FAQs

Intent

One of the best stages for sales reps and business owners. A prospect found you (likely online), researched your business, might have a quote and is basically ready to move forward. Now, it’s closing time. Here is what this specific audience is looking for:

Free Trials – If you sell software, own a facility that charges a monthly fee, you can give them a taste of what they get when they purchase. This is a great time to offer this type of content because they are primed to move forward with a purchase.

Contract Negotiation – From a B2B standpoint, you might have more of a contract based business, so this is when you are able to add things on, give a cut in pricing or a slew of other things that benefit both parties to seal the deal.

PRO TIP: At this stage, your audience is talking to you, analyzing final questions and getting ready to sign. Customer service is a large part of this stage – so keep that top of your mind.

47% of customers would take their business to a competitor within a day of experiencing poor customer service (24/7)

Purchase, Loyalty and Advocacy

When your prospect becomes a client and purchases your product or service, it’s not the end. You want to generate positive word of mouth, loyalty and repeat business from that client. So what can you do? From a content standpoint, here are some ideas:

Email Campaigns – At this point, you have their email address so use it. Do you have a monthly or weekly newsletter? Stay in front of your previous buyers and offer them education, give them incentives to share and spread the word about your business.
Client Video – Shoot a short video of the client and have 3-5 short questions that they can answer. This video content is great for testimonials and building trust across your brand.
Social Campaigns – If you are a B2C business, generating social media content using the same information from the above helps nurture your followers as they move through the buyer journey.
Referral Programs – Build advocacy with a referral program for your clients. Depending on your business, you can tailor the program to benefit both your company and the client.

Make your content relevant to your audience, based on where they are in the buyer’s journey. Nurture them through the funnel and deliver timely, relevant content that converts into revenue.

Taking this a step further, delivering this content through a marketing automation platform like Marketo, Infusion Soft or Pardot gives you a wealth of control, analytics and ROI from your efforts.