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The social network landscape is constantly changing, and Instagram is currently the fastest growing social network. There are 1 billion active users on Instagram, so it’s no surprise that marketers should take part in this growing phenomenon.

While Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are still great ways to connect with customers and build relationships, Instagram is quickly becoming one of the most important social media channels for businesses.

Instagram is especially great for small businesses that want to increase their customer base without spending much money on advertising. It’s also an excellent platform for B2-B companies looking to reach potential customers in their industry.

With

Create An Instagram Business Account:

You probably already have a personal account, but you need to create a separate business account if you want to promote and sell products on the platform.

A business account gives you access to tools that make it easier to manage your profile, including analytics and insights that can help you grow your audience.

Additionally, you can use it to share photos with your customers and fans and engage with them more personally.

You can get one by following these steps:

• Go to www.instagram.com/business/. Click on “Create an Account” in the top right corner of the page. 
• Fill out all the required information on this page (e-mail address, username, and password).
•  Select whether your business will be verified or unverified (verified accounts are recommended).
• Choose whether you want to link your Facebook page with your new Instagram account (do this if you have one). 

Once all of these steps have been completed successfully, you’ll be able to log into your new business account.

Identify Your Ideal Audience:

The first step to any successful marketing campaign is knowing who you’re selling to. While Instagram’s user base is more prominent than ever before, it’s still a very niche platform. Determine who is most likely to buy from you and what they are looking for.

This can be done by looking at the demographics of your target customer base and identifying their interests and behaviors.

The above analytics shows everything age, gender, and most active times so businesses can engage with their audience more effectively.

And once you have identified your target audience, it’s time to tailor your content accordingly. This means creating content that appeals specifically to those users rather than posting the same thing across multiple platforms or accounts.

Tell A Compelling Story:

Storytelling is one of the most effective ways of connecting with people and building an emotional connection with them. It can be used in advertising campaigns, product descriptions, and even social media content.

The best brands on Instagram have a compelling story that speaks directly to their audience and makes them want to engage with the brand.

The key thing is knowing what kind of story will resonate with your target audience. Here is an example of @coastalcollectivemarketing agency:

Coastalcollectivemarketing is a digital marketing agency. This brand sells various services to its clients. To make their audience engage with their brand on a personal level, they are sharing a back story on this post.

The story should be easy to understand and delivered in an interesting way that appeals to different kinds of people, including those who aren’t familiar with your industry or products yet.

Write A Bio:

Writing an Instagram bio can feel like a daunting task when you think about how many people will read it, but your bio is essential to creating a successful profile on Instagram.

Not only your Instagram bio is the place to make a great first impression, but it is also a place to appeal directly to your target audience and showcase your brand voice.

When you have a clear idea of why you’re using Instagram, it becomes easier to write a bio that communicates who you are, what you do, and why people should follow you.

You have 150 characters in your bio. To make it outstanding, try adding the following:

1. Include a call-to-action (CTA) if possible
2. Write short copy that’s easy for followers to read
3. Be authentic and transparent with your brand voice
4. Include relevant keywords to your industry
5. Use hashtags

Here is an example of a Content Marketing Institute Instagram bio:

As you see, the Content Marketing Institute community made it clear in just a few words who they are, what they do, and what benefit you will get from paying a visit to the site.

Write Great Captions:

One of the best ways to get more comments on Instagram is to write a good caption. Captions can be up to 2,200 characters long and include emojis and 30 hashtags. That’s a lot of space to work with!

However, writing a good Instagram caption can be challenging and tricky. After all, your followers are bombarded with posts from friends and family every day, so how can you make them stop and pay attention to what you have to say?

Here is a trick you can use to write an outstanding caption:

The first thing to consider when writing a caption is your audience. Who is going to read this caption? The caption should be catered towards them and what they will find interesting.

Here is a great example of @Whole30recipes:

Take a look at the caption. It explains almost everything about the image you need to know. For example, it shares the ingredients and uses a convincing tone that makes you want to try this recipe out.

This is the amount of information that you should include in your caption section to engage your existing and new audiences.

Use Eye-Catching Images:

Some of the best Instagram accounts are those that use eye-catching images. This is especially true for accounts that post regularly and have a large following. Posts with images stand out from the crowd and attract more attention than those without them.

It’s because, before anything else, the audience will be looking at the image. And in that first split second, they decide whether they want to continue reading (scrolling) or move on.

To stop people from scrolling and get them to read your text and take action on it, you will need some attention-grabbing images that describe the business you are running.

Let’s take a look at an example:

Here is an excellent example of all that I mentioned above. Travel & Food blog uses outstanding images describing the purpose of their Instagram blog. You don’t need to read any captions to understand that.

Use Related Hashtags:

Another easy way to increase Instagram’s audience is by using related hashtags.

Hashtags are used on Instagram to search for content and are critical to growing your account. In fact, posts with hashtags receive 12.6% more engagement than those without them.

Hashtags are words or phrases that describe a post. And since Instagram is a visually-driven platform, it makes sense that visual content like photos and videos would be categorized by hashtags.

By using relevant hashtags on your posts, you can reach new people who don’t follow you on Instagram yet but are interested in seeing content like yours.

The example of @dunkindonutsperu makes it easier to comprehend:

Here are some effective ways to use hashtags for your business:

Related hashtags: Use hashtags that relate directly to your niche and expertise.

Specific hashtags: Be as clear as possible when using hashtags, especially if you’re in a crowded niche.

Branching out with geographical and lifestyle-based hashtags: Using these can help you reach new audiences by making your brand more relatable to people who aren’t already familiar with what you do.

Try looking at top Instagram blogs in your niche and see what kind of hashtags they use more often.

Geotag In Posts:

One of the things Instagram does, which is so great for travelers and photographers, is to allow you to Geotag your Instagram posts. Using geotags on Instagram is a great way to gain followers.

Because people are interested in what’s going on around them, they may search for posts in their area, and if you’re posting them, they will be able to see your content. This helps increase engagement with your content.

If you are on Instagram to help users find your business or brand, geotagging is also a great way!

Here is a great example by @GloriaJeans to look at:

Gloria Jeans is an international coffee shop. Here in this post, you see they are using location tags to help visitors know where they can benefit from this fantastic offer!

How to geotag your Instagram post?

Step 1: On Instagram, click on the filter icon below the caption field. When you do, you will notice an option to add your location. Tap “Add Location” and type in the name of the area you want to geotag with.

Step 2: When choosing a location, make sure it is associated with your content. For example, if you post a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, then tag that specific landmark or place.

Step 3: Once you save your image and post it, your Instagram followers can now see exactly where you are when they view your photos in their feeds.

Keep Your Audience Engaged:

Followers are important, but engagement is even more valuable. If you want people to take action on your posts, whether buying something or commenting on your content, you need to make sure they’re paying attention and are engaged with what you’re posting.

The best way to do this is by creating relevant and timely content. For example, if your brand is launching a new product, share the news immediately so that your followers will be notified. 

@MINISO is doing a great job over here:

Get creative with your posts, and keep them fresh so that followers continue seeing value in what you have to say.

Another excellent way for brands to engage with their followers is through contests and giveaways.

Use Instagram Stories:

Instagram Stories are a way to share moments from your day in a slideshow format that disappears after 24 hours. They’re great for sharing short, quick moments of your life, such as what you’re doing or where you are.

You can use the Instagram story feature to enhance and add value to the content you wrote on Instagram. So, if you have recently published a post, it’s a good idea to share some key takeaways or behind-the-scenes footage of the piece being created as part of your Instagram story.

Here are three ways to create stories for your Instagram blog:

1. Share The Main Points Of Your Post
2. Create A Q&A Session
3. Test Content Ideas

Build Relationships With Other Users:

Building an Instagram following takes time and dedication, but just like any other social network, it can be a great place to connect with people in your niche and build relationships with other users.

Here are some ways you can use to connect with users:

Follow people in your industry: 

This is a good way to build relationships on Instagram. Go ahead and follow people who are doing the same thing as you. If they don’t follow you back, that’s okay; it’s nothing personal!

Once they receive your follow request, they’ll likely visit your page and see what your account is all about. If they like what they see, they’ll probably follow you back.

Comment on others’ posts:

Commenting on others’ posts is an easy way to get noticed and show them that you care about their content. 

Make sure your comment isn’t generic and will stand out amongst the rest. For example, “Love this” or “Awesome photo” won’t help much.

Like other people’s photos:

Liking photos might seem like a simple task, but it can make a big difference in building relationships on Instagram. By leaving likes, you give them a reason to notice you and visit your account.

Conclusion

If I have not disclosed the fact already, there are many avenues above that you can take advantage of to market your business on Instagram. 

Hopefully, you got some insights from the tips above to help you further your Instagram marketing tactics.

Social media is a great way to generate traffic and brand awareness but it is not so easy for instant conversions or lead generation.

Inherently, social media platforms are tough for marketing because people use social media to get entertained and distracted from work. They may not be too willing to think about their business, even if they are decision makers.

Here are a few ways to drive traffic and convert it into conversions, sales and leads from your social media channels.

1.

Ads

Set up your social media profiles

This is a fundamental step a surprising number of businesses are missing: Make sure your social media profile provides a clear way to learn more about your company, read clients’ testimonials and contact you.

Instagram

Instagram bio allows a single clickable link, so it is a bit limiting, especially if you want to highlight several products or link to your other social media channels. Yet, there are tools that allow you to easily create social-media-friendly landing pages that are well branded and engaging, for free.

Link In Bio by Lightricks is a free tool that helps you maximize your bio by letting you create a beautiful, easily customized, and mobile-friendly landing page to promote whatever links make the most sense at a given moment – campaign-specific content, seasonal offers, more social profiles, a newsletter signup, etc.

Linkedin

When it comes to B2B, Linkedin is one of the best social media platforms to utilize. Yet, while most businesses have at least some Linkedin presence, they take surprisingly little care about what their profiles look like there.

For company profiles

• Set up your custom URL
• Add a detailed description
• Add your logo and header image
• Create a custom button (i.e. your CTA to direct people to your lead generation form)

For employees’ profiles

Those of your customer-facing employees (like sales people, customer support team, outreach agents) should have:

• A real and professional profile picture
• Job description
• A business email address for people to be able to get in touch

Twitter

Like Instagram, Twitter doesn’t give a ton of options as to modifying your business or personal profile page. You can add a profile picture, a header image, a short description and a link. You can use the same Link In Bio link here as you use on Instagram to allow your prospects to choose how they want to engage back with your business or its representatives.

2. Foster brand recognition

A recognizable brand is a long-term asset that will make any aspect of your brand easier, from organic rankings to lead generation, and social media is one of the most effective tools to build your brand.

They say, one needs to see something at least 8 times to remember it, so make sure you do a lot on social media, across multiple channels, to pop up in your target customers’ feeds again and again, until they remember you.

Plenty of your prospective customers will encounter you in various channels. They’ll see your posts on Twitter and Facebook, and see your Instagram updates, and if your content is inconsistent, it will muddy their impression of you. Keep things clear, and your brand will benefit.

If you are still planning to launch your platform and working on creating a digital marketing strategy, make sure to find a brand name that is available across several social media channels. Namify is a tool that will help you with that step:

From there, make sure your social media profiles match your brand identity, and your content has some brand-driven elements as well.

For visuals, Venngage offers “My Brand Kit” where you can save all your brand identity visual elements to easily apply it to the image content you create. 

With tools like these, every piece of content that gets published on your social media profiles will remind people of your brand building awareness and recognition. It takes time to build your brand, but focusing on engaging your social media audience will soon start making a difference.

Creating a recognizable brand benefits both SEO and sales, and social media is one of the best tools to do that.

Social media is a colorful, inviting place. It revolves around images, art, and innovation. As such, it’s important that you steer into this creative focus with your own company’s content. You can do this in multiple ways, such as:

• Creating quality content: If you quickly snap a photo and slap it up on your Instagram account, no one is going to notice it. However, carefully thought out images that are designed to stand out can help you attract attention in a very saturated marketplace. Use bright colors, interesting backgrounds, and above all, be purposeful.
• Look for unique approaches to your content: Everyone’s taken a picture of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. At this point, it screams mundane. What if you’re the one company that posts a picture of an employee doused in cold brew, though? In other words, if you can find a unique angle to promote your products and services, it will help you cut through all of the white noise.
• Inspire users to be creative: Sometimes you need synergy to keep the creative fires lit. For instance, if you have a brewery, make a one-of-a-kind coaster for your brand. Then, encourage people who visit your location to create user-generated content by snapping a picture of the coaster and posting it on Instagram — after tagging you, of course.

Regardless of the specifics, if you look for ways to be creative, you’ll be far more successful in generating organic attention on your Instagram profile.

To that end, you should create a varied content calendar (and line up helpful tools) to steer your content-production efforts for the next year or so. It doesn’t need to be complete, and you should leave gaps for spur-of-the-moment work, but it should encompass the general topics you want to address plus the audiences you’re trying to reach with them.

Social media users are attracted to personality, spirit, enthusiasm, and humor. You’re trying to win them over with your brand, and if you seem boring or generic, that won’t happen. You can’t be lax, of course (there are major risks to veering away from your brand guidelines), but you can be informal.

3. Locate Your Target Audience

The economy of effort is hugely important in social media marketing. Even with powerful tools on your side, you can’t be everywhere at once (and if you could, it would prove counterproductive through making your brand seem intrusive). You need to find your prospective buyers so you can do whatever you can to target them specifically.

Awario will help enormously with this task, but it will still require a lot of manual effort. You’ll need to get involved in conversations, looking very closely at the exchanges taking place to discern how much value there would be in targeting them (for instance, rooting through a subreddit to gauge how heavily the users spend).

If you don’t know where you’re trying to sell, then your effort will all be arbitrary, and much of it will achieve nothing. You’ll also struggle to cater your messages as required. Accordingly, you should take as long as you need for this step, and only proceed to the next when you’re entirely confident that you know what you need to do.

Think about the companies that thrive on social media, and look into how they participate in conversations. Find the elements you like, and emulate them. It’s all about nailing down the fundamental limitations on your social selling so that everything beyond that can be creative.

4. Identify people behind companies

B2B is all about businesses selling to businesses but in reality those are still decisions and transactions made by real people. The best way to sell your product to a company is to reach out to people behind that company. 

When working on your lead list, make sure to keep record of:

• Company’s official social media profiles
• People who work for that company and their roles

Both Linkedin and Twitter can help you with the latter: You can find real people who may be decision makers (or may influence decision makers) and connect to those making either or both of the platforms.

On Linkedin

Navigate to your target company’s page and find your common connections with that page. If you or your sales-reps have well-connected Instagram account, you are likely to have some second-tier connections:

On Twitter

Create an account at Followerwonk and search for your target company’s handle. Make sure you select the “Search Twitter bios only” option. This will filter all the results to those profiles that mention that business name in the bio (so they are likely to be working there or have been working there in the past).

Reaching out to those people…

Once you know people behind your target company, follow them and identify some additional ways to reach out. Most of those people will link to their personal websites where you can find contact forms as well as maintain several active social media profiles.

Connecting on a personal level will help you get to know your target company and its decision makers more, and get a better response rate.

Finally, while it’s important that you create a buzz for your business online, often the work is already done for you. Take user-generated content as an example. While some content of this nature can come from deliberate marketing efforts such as working with influencers, a large portion of user-generated content begins naturally, and it is nearly always started by users who don’t follow your company on social media yet.

When you search for conversations on social media where users have tagged your brand, it can provide the perfect opportunity to organically jump into the conversation. Whether you’re addressing a concern or showing appreciation for a complement, tracking down brand conversations and using them to engage with potential new customers is a great way to stir up organic conversations for your business on Instagram.

5. Invest in retargeting ads

Finally, social media ads may not work that well in B2B, but using those social media ads to retarget to those prospects who already visited your site is a great way to get those prospects converted into leads.

Installing Facebook’s tracking pixel is pretty easy and you will start accumulating your data right away. Likewise, Linkedin offers a retargeting option as well.

Make sure you have a well set-up, mobile-friendly and fast-loading product page when you invest in social media advertising. Speed optimization tools can be of big help here.

When investing in retargeting ads, make sure to segment your audience to better personalize their experience. You can remarket to people who visited a certain page or performed a certain action (e.g. abandoned their cart).

This way you can match your ad to their previous engagement with the site and personalize their on-site experience. Remarketing is more effective if you:

• Shorten your sales funnel (to eliminate any barriers)
• Set up additional conversion funnels (e.g. free demo or a free download).

Look for ways to experiment and diversify your call-to-action and lead generation process. There may already be a lot of opportunities in your niche.

Conclusion

Social media can be a great lead generation channel which can drive direct conversions as well as act as a supplemental tool for your lead generation efforts. It takes a strategic approach for it to work though:

• Agreement that this is important
• Allocating dedicated time, resources and budget
• Openness to getting outside help or training
• Including it as an agenda item in key meetings
• Integrating it with other marketing initiatives
• Having articulated goals for the social media efforts
• Allowing for experimentation, creativity and failures
• Accepting the possibility of some negative consequences (e.g. visible complaints, the occasional online faux pas)
• Tracking activities and results

Ensure that everyone is on the same page. A large social media marketing campaign needs a lot of people working on it, and everyone needs to know about your guidelines. If you let someone post without reading and agreeing to them, you’re asking for trouble.

It takes time to find best-working tools and tactics but with enough consistency you will see it work. Good luck!

By the end of 2022, people around the world will have spent more than 12.5 trillion hours online. Broken down, that’s six hours and 58 minutes per day for the typical internet user across all devices. What’s more, nearly three of ten U.S. adults say they use their devices “almost constantly.”

These numbers drive home the ubiquitousness of our digital world. They also speak to the fact that  marketers now more than ever must be digital marketing experts. But what does that mean? We tackled

Digital marketing defined

Let’s start with a clear definition of digital marketing — particularly because it regularly gets mixed up with inbound marketing. They are two very different disciplines! 

Digital marketing refers to the tactics marketers employ online. All forms of online marketing — for example, websites, social media, email and search engines — are leveraged to connect with prospects and customers. 

Inbound marketing is a methodology. It is used to proactively reach out to potential customers with offers of interesting content and experiences. The goal of inbound marketing is to build long-term connections with potential customers by being valuable and even solving their problems.

To meet ever-increasing demands, digital marketing is continually expanding into emerging tactics. While the tried-and-true tactics are still powerful — email marketing, social media and blogging, for starters — newer, leading-edge tactics have entered the picture — for example, Connected TV (CTV) ads and shoppable videos.

Connected TV Ads — Follow the Smart Money

If you’ve relied on traditional cable television commercials to promote your brand, the future is dim. 

The smart money is now on CTV ads. Here are some reasons why. 

Every year, more households are cutting the cord on cable TV. An eMarketer report found the following:

• Between 2016 and 2021, over 25.5 million households (50 million viewer) cut their pay TV cable accounts off.  
• This year (2022) over 55% of the U.S. adult population will cut their cable cord.
• By the end of 2023, fewer than one-half of households will retain a paid TV subscription, dropping the total number to 65.1 million.

As pay TV declines, CTV rises. According to the Motion Picture Association’s annual theme report:

• In 2021, the number of online streaming platforms (video subscriptions) in the U.S. grew to 353.2 million — a 14% increase from 2020. 
• Virtual pay TV subscriptions, like YouTube TV and Hulu, grew to 14.5 million in 2021 — an 18% increase from 2020.
• At $40.2 billion in revenue, online video subscription revenue surpassed that of satellite TV.

It’s clear that CTV ads are the future of TV advertising. It’s now time to look for marketing opportunities on platforms like Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock, to name a few of the many digital channels available today. 

When launching CTV ads, your approach will be different than deploying traditional cable ads. Here are five best practices that will improve your CTV advertising results. 

• Strategy. Don’t think of CTV ads as solo tactics. Think of them upper-funnel ads as a way to enhance your lower-funnel tactics and drive higher conversions. 
• Platform. CTV ads are purchased through a demand-side platform (DSP). You need to choose the right DSP for your campaign based on a variety of factors, including technology, functionality, reporting, analytics and cost, and platform partnership. 
• Measurement. There are many ways to measure CTV ad performance, including reach, impressions, cost per completed view (CPCV), video completion rate (VCR) and view-through conversions. One of the most important is the video completion rate, which is the number of times a video is viewed to the end. Aim for least 75%. 
• Ad Length. Go for variety, including 15, 30 and 60 second ads, to maximize your reach, lower CPCV and improve your video completion rate.  
• Frequency. This is how often a single viewer sees one of your ads. The rule of thumb is to set a frequency cap per person versus per device. This will help prevent viewer fatigue while still allowing your ads to reach new viewers. 

For inspiration on creating CTV ads that work, check out YouTube’s Top 10 list of the best CTV ads in 2021. The number one CTV ad is for Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital. 

Shoppable Videos — Click-to-Buy Convenience

Pre-pandemic consumers were making a slow but steady shift from shopping in physical stores to social shopping online. But during the two years of the pandemic the shift accelerated by about five years. What’s more, the volume of social sales is expected to hit $101.1 million as early as 2023. Results like these have paved the way for higher participation in one of the newest digital shopping trend — shoppable videos. 

Shoppable videos feature specific products and include embedded links that allow viewers to click on them, learn more about the product and purchase it immediately without leaving the video. 

The superpower of this advertising format is the video component itself. Video marketing isn’t cooling off anytime soon. In fact, over 84% of shoppers reported that they have purchased a product or service after viewing a branded video.

This Ikea interactive video is a great example of a shoppable video. While guiding viewers on how to choose items for a small space, it provides clickable elements that give shoppers details about the items being viewed, along with the option to immediately purchase them.

Some leading best practices for producing high-performing shoppable videos include:

Inform viewers that they are watching an interactive shoppable video. A few ways to do this include introducing the concept at the beginning of the video, adding voiceovers or narration, having a host speak directly to the viewers and announcing it in the video description.   

Include a shoppable link within the first seconds. Your viewers will be anticipating a clickable link, so give them one right away. It will enhance their interest and give them the chance to experience the feature. Then continue to add clickable links as the show progresses, even using more than one at a time now and then. 

Allow longer shots at clickable moments. Give your viewers more time to interact by extending the length of the product shots with clickable icons to a few seconds or more. 

Avoid crowding the shots with too many clickable options. It’s better to focus on a few items per shot than to overcrowd the frame. If you add too much to a frame, you risk confusing the consumer and missing the chance for them to decide they want the item. A good rule of thumb is to focus on two to three products per shot.  

Think full frame. This means shooting a product in the full frame versus getting too far away, too close or too abstracted. This will give viewers a better feel for the product and, as a result, improve sales. 

Work with digital marketing experts

While the latest and greatest digital marketing trends can present exciting new opportunities to reach consumers, they can also be challenging to produce and manage. Because you must traverse the learning curve, they can also be time consuming.Working with a digital marketing agency can help you rapidly expand your digital marketing footprint — and your pool of prospects. 

The Kuno Creative team can help in all these areas. We’ve helped companies we believe in develop their brand strategy, design websites that convert, create a content marketing plan to attract and educate buyers, and accelerate their efforts with paid advertising. Check out our case studies to see how we help our clients get results.

Rebranding an organization is a critical undertaking in the lifecycle of a business. Even when a company has developed a strong brand, there may still come a time when a rebrand is necessary to achieve several objectives, including to keep growing, expand product lines, tap into new consumer segments or refresh an outdated brand identity. 

Developing a brand is a complex process. Executing a rebrand is even more challenging. You need branding expertise, creative capabilities and experience with rebranding projects. To overcome the challenges of a rebranding initiative and produce a successful outcome, you should consider hiring a branding agency. While most agencies don’t specifically market themselves as “rebranding agencies,” many do have extensive experience in rebranding projects. 

To

Learn the Basics About Their Business

When searching for a branding agency, there are fundamental questions to ask upfront. This first round of questions will help you quickly eliminate agencies and whittle down your list to a few top contenders. Your goal here is to see if the agency is a basic fit for your project based on experience, capabilities and costs. 

Ask these essential first-round questions right up front:

• Do they have thorough knowledge of sales and marketing platforms like HubSpot?
• How long have the agency and its founders been in business?
• What is their primary area of expertise?
• What industries have they worked in?
• What is their track record of success?
• What is their fee structure and billing process?
• Will you be considered a major or small client among the agency’s accounts?

Look for an Agency with Rebranding Experience

This should be a leading criterion in your search for a digital agency. The agency you choose to rebrand your organization must have previous rebranding experience, because executing a successful rebranding program takes skills that are more specialized than just creating a new brand whole cloth. 

For example, rebranding requires being highly sensitive to the history of an existing brand and customers’ attachment to it. You don’t want an agency who thinks they need to start from scratch, eliminate all resemblance to your existing brand and create a totally new brand identity. 

To strengthen this rebranding experience objective, ask these questions:

• Do they have success stories of their work on other rebranding projects?
• If so, do the case studies demonstrate the type of rebranding project you’re looking for?
• Has the agency created any thought leadership around the topic of rebranding?

Explore Each Agency’s Culture

There are many kinds of digital agencies available in the marketplace. To choose the right one for your rebranding project you need to go deep to fully understand critical issues, such as how they work with clients and how they achieve their clients’ goals. It’s better to know as much as you can upfront to help avoid downstream surprises that negatively impact your rebranding project. 

One critical question to ask the agency is about their process. If they don’t have a rebranding process in place that should be viewed as a red flag. If they have a process in place, ask them to walk you through it step-by-step so you fully understand and know what to expect on your rebranding journey. 

Here are a variety of questions you can ask to get to vet a branding agency and get to know them better: 

• What is your approach for executing a rebranding initiative?
• How will your methodology help our organization meet our objectives?
• How will you measure results?

Meet the Rebranding Team You’ll Be Working With

Typically, a digital agency that handles rebranding projects from end-to-end employs a variety of branding experts, such as designers, content writers, producers, strategists, developers and project managers. They will be the people you work directly throughout the rebranding process. As a result, you want to be sure there is a strong personality fit. Having a good fit will help improve communications and lay down a solid foundation for dealing with any challenges when they arise. 

To help assess the fit between your team and an agency’s team, meet the team members and see how they interact with each other and how the agency team interacts with your team. Dive deeper with these questions:

• How long has each member of the team worked for the agency?
• How much direct communication do they provide during the project?
• What is their preferred style of communication with clients?
• How will they present ideas to your team?
• How will they incorporate your feedback into the work they do for you?

Make Sure the Agency Has Time for Every Stage of Your Rebranding Project

Digital agencies will want you as a new customer and will enthusiastically pursue your project. But you need to make sure they have the time available to do it right at every stage of the process. Taking on a branding project, particularly a rebrand, involves a long-running process to get it right — from research to analysis. 

Because your brand will be the most important project for your organization and your investment must have a high return, explore the agency’s commitment to the whole journey with these questions:

• How deep will they research your current brand, including the market perception?
• How much time will they spend developing the new brand strategy components?
• What elements will they produce during the new brand identity building phase?
• What are their action steps during the activation stage when the new brand is launched into the marketplace?
• How will they analyze the response and communicate the results back to your team?

Finding the right rebranding agency partner can be a challenge, but well worth the effort. Not only can an experienced agency help make your rebranding project run smoother and deliver ideal results, but also it can deliver the highest return on your investment. If you’re considering a rebrand in your future, we hope this checklist provides you with a solid starting point in your search for your perfect rebranding agency partner. 

Marketing Campaigns, Strategy, Consulting & Reporting: Kuno Can Help with It All

Whether you’re looking to dial up your current marketing efforts with campaigns, want to improve your demand gen efforts, or are having headaches with your current agency, the Kuno Creative team can help. Our consultants, design, content and HubSpot implementation experts have experience throughout the company lifecycle to help you wherever you are. 

Take some time to review our other articles, take a look around our website and reach out to our team today to see how we can help yours!

Soundscapes and music can trigger an emotional response, so a well thought out music plan to support your brand identity can help create stronger emotional connections to your brand. Stronger emotional connections stay top of mind and you want your customers and community to keep you top of mind! When that happens, the value you offer is easily accessible when the need for your solution arises. 

In this article, you’ll work through how to decide on the soundscapes of your brand.

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Tips to Using Music for Your Branding and Marketing Strategy 

These three tips dive into client point of view and holistic brand alignment. You’ll  explore how those factors apply to creating and choosing unique music for your brand. By going through this process you’ll have a sound music planning strategy so that customers can’t get you out of their heads. 

Tip 1: Put Yourself In The Clients’ Shoes

Sebastian, the singing crab from the movie The Little Mermaid, was on to something. Remember the scene where Ariel and the prince were floating on a boat in a lagoon? Ariel needed a kiss from her one true love to become human again. So Sebastian set the mood with—music of course! 

To get your customers to buy, you’ve got to set the mood. 

Music influences our mood for better or worse. You can support your target audience, influence their behaviors, and their perception of you with music. That is why it’s vital to get this part of your branding and marketing strategy tuned in. (See what we did there?) 

Scientific studies have shown the validity and importance of choosing appropriate music for branding to influence the behavior of your target audience. It’s no secret that background music influences how long patrons linger in your brick-and-mortar store. 

And if you’ve ever watched a webinar, you know that music changes how you feel about the presentation. If the music was upbeat and lively, you would probably give positive feedback. If the music was more like house-meets-hold music, you probably wouldn’t give more than a 3-star rating.

Tempo Shifts Shopper’s Energy

One study, from the University of Phoenix, explored music tempo and its effects on shopper responses. The researchers focused on high density retail shopping areas. What did the savvy researchers find? Contrast music to the general “vibe” of the place to keep customers happy.

For example, in a very crowded shopping mall people may become uncomfortable or stressed out. Calming music can balance that energy and keep them shopping longer.

The musical genres most aligned here would be classical, soft pop, smooth jazz, certain types of world music or folk music. The general idea can work the other way around, too. In a less crowded space you may want to keep the energy high to promote excitement, good feelings, and impulse buys versus creating a calming atmosphere which may put your guest in a sleepy or tired mood. A tired customer is probably going to head for the door to take a nap instead of finding more things to purchase after a long day of shopping. 

For many this idea is intuitive, as we’ve all been conditioned to have certain expectations in various environments. You’d never attend a gym that blasted lullabies over the PA system. Of course, if you did that might be your last time at that gym! However, in a yoga studio for example, you’d expect a more relaxed playlist of ambient music. 

Another study of theirs explored the correlation of background music volume and the effects on restaurant patron mood, which was found to influence their food choices. A study found that when customers are relaxed by low volume music, they are more likely to buy healthy foods. High-volume music, however, contributed to changes in customers’ levels of excitement, which enhanced their likelihood of purchasing unhealthy foods.

Tip 2: Be Authentic With Your Music Choices 

It’s important to consider your brand identity. Your brand’s identity is made up of all the various elements to attract your target audience. Most companies have a solid visual brand identity i.e., logo, color, design etc. and either a non-existent, unaligned, or most commonly the cookie-cutter audio identity which is not too different as having a non-existent soundscape. 

People accompany their lives with soundtracks either intentionally or unintentionally. We’ve all heard the cliche “they are playing our song” in some movie or even in real life by associates or close counterparts. This cliché confirms and perpetuates the point that music, certain songs, become so ingrained in our experience, contributing to the memories we develop, either positive or negative. 

As such, if your company uses a particular tune as part of a marketing strategy for branding, you’re in luck if that tune has either no sentimental value to anyone or positive association for many. The other group of people may have an association with a tune so dreadful it may produce a visceral repellant to your brand. You could have the best product or service in the world but if your best customers have an emotional aversion to your brand well you’re out of luck.

Music branding can promote an association with certain values, as often seen in political campaign advertising. 

Tip 3: Be Innovative 

Considering your brand identity, it’s advantageous to use unique music over stock music or overused samples. You want to create a new experience that only your brand provides. 

One big why, is simply claiming firsts. Everyone likes to be a first or only to something, the novelty and bragging rights gives people a sense of importance. Afterall, only the smartest and brightest can claim first rights, right? 

Companies who apply this idea to the music of their brand come away with unforgettable jingles that people automatically associate with your brand. 

The music of these brands is not pre-created, it’s created for you. You can do the task of creating music yourself with the help of educators on places like Masterclass or specialized interactive online courses. It helps to have someone with a background and knowledge in technical music to add that touch of expertise to your project to help elevate your brand or project. That is what you get at WorkFlora.

The theory at WorkFlora is that the best commercials and advertisements are treated like mini movies. Music is composed and orchestrated to provide that unique sound environment in which you want to invite and nurture your client. Those memorable magical musical moments that provide the foundation for a positive brand association. 

One of the most important and overlooked components of getting unique music compositions created for you is that these musical works can add revenue to your brand with intellectual property buyout agreements. 

Without boutique music created just for you, you can utilize certain royalty free music, from places like YouTube Audio Library which gives you a free license to use its music, so long as you follow its rules. The drawback to using the library however, is that you have to know the rules, and many people either don’t read the rules, misunderstand the rules or perhaps just ignore the rules. 

Sometimes, it’s just a case of too much to remember especially for independent owner operators who must make so many decisions in any given day. The ones for whom standing out in a sea of noise is imperative to one’s success. For large enterprises and small shops alike, attention to the audio signature of your brand provides that unforgettable factor. At WorkFlora we help brands of all sizes have one less thing to worry about by specializing in helping you be memorable. 

WorkFlora helps you realize your brand’s unforgettable potential with original music created to help you realize your customer journey with innovation and authenticity. 

Scott Cunningham

Scott is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Merchant Mastery, an 8-week intensive training and coaching program dedicated to helping Shopify store owners master advertising, email marketing, and conversions to grow their ecommerce empire.

He is also the Founder and Managing Director of Social Lite Communications, a full-stack digital marketing and design agency with expertise planning and executing lead generation campaigns for a wide span of industries in B2B and B2C sectors.

You can tell that Facebook has its sights set on Amazon, and the impact that it will have to social commerce is MASSIVE. Apple’s impact to Facebook ads is long passed the conversation. Meta is about to do something BIG, but how exactly are they going to take on Amazon? We’re glad you asked!

Lauren Petrullo is the CEO and Founder of Award Winning Marketing Agency, Mongoose Media LLC based in Orlando, Florida. She is also the Founder of boutique ecommerce store Asian Beauty Essentials, Chief Marketing Officer of eco-conscious baby swimwear Beau & Belle Littles, co-founder of chatbot service Bot Blondes, AND DigitalMarketer Academy Faculty Member. 

Lauren

Want to learn more about how eCommerce on Meta is going to sweep the competition? Become A Certified Ecommerce Marketing Master: https://www.best digital marketing agency in abuja rocksview digital hub.com/ecom-cert/

IN THIS VIDEO:

Social Media Ecommerce 0:35-1:20
Organic Traffic 1:20-1:29

Access to Data 1:29-1:50

EXTRA ECOMMERCE RESOURCES:

The Future of Ecommerce is THIS with Ryan Diess (VIDEO) – https://www.best digital marketing agency in abuja rocksview digital hub.com/blog/future-of-ecommerce-marketing/
Mobile Ecommerce: 15 Ways to Optimize to Increase Conversions – https://www.best digital marketing agency in abuja rocksview digital hub.com/blog/mobile-ecommerce-optimization/
The Best Way to Connect With Your Ecommerce Customers with Scott Cunningham (VIDEO) – https://www.best digital marketing agency in abuja rocksview digital hub.com/blog/ecommerce-customers-scott-cunningham/

Marketing automation platforms (MAP), like HubSpot, are supposed to make your life easier and allow you to focus your time and attention on other, more pressing matters. However, if there isn’t proper oversight on the assets you’re creating within your MAP, they can easily have the opposite effect. What was once a positive contributor to your marketing, sales and service processes is now a major deterrent to managing and executing your initiatives — requiring guesswork and hours of sifting through old assets just to accomplish the simplest of tasks.

If the above sounds like we’ve just described your day, you are not alone. If you’ve let your MAP get to this point it may be time to take a step back and do something no one enjoys

While all MAPs are not the same, there are some general guidelines we always recommend following when taking on this project. A key and often overlooked aspect of having a MAP is having one or two internal stakeholders/champions who can be a source of truth for any company’s protocol or best practices within the MAP, especially when an outside consultant comes in to audit and optimize the platform.

Permissions

Before doing anything, we recommend you take a look at user permissions within your MAP. This is often a major source of inconsistency within the platform as different people have different ideas about how things should work and operate from their own role’s perspectives and initiatives. 

To manage this, interview each department or user and determine what they need access to and what level of access is needed. Reorganize and document those permissions so that everyone in your organization knows who has access to what and why. Taking this approach should help alleviate any hard feelings over why the permission shuffle is happening and give everyone a better understanding of who they should go to when they need something specific accomplished. As a general rule, admin-level permissions (Super Admins in HubSpot) should be reserved for a specific group of power users, if not one person.

Naming Conventions

Now that permissions are squared away, it’s time to get those users on the same page with the MAP’s naming convention structure. Before actually touching any of the assets in the portal, it’s important to decide how you’re classifying different assets, how they’ll be tied together, and what detail should be expressed at a high level. What’s set and decided on here will do wonders for the future usability of the MAP and enable you to effectively navigate and report on the assets you’re creating and managing within the platform.

While there’s no specific naming convention structure we recommend, you should be taking into account things like campaigns you run, the timing of those campaigns, and any third-party connections you may have with your MAP. 

It’s also important to note this should be a discussion with the same users you managed permissions for. Provide a starting point based on your expert-level knowledge of the MAP, but tailor it to the users that are building/working within the MAP daily. At the end of the process, you should have a document you can share with your team that clearly dictates naming conventions to be used in different asset scenarios. Don’t be afraid to update as your business evolves, and be sure to communicate those updates/changes to the rest of your team.

At this point in the project, you’ve laid the groundwork for the actual work that will begin within the MAP. You know who can edit/create certain assets and have the structure determined that you would like to implement. At the end of the day, a MAP is meant to promote to, sell to and/or service contacts in your database. For that reason, we recommend starting with understanding how those contacts get into your database so you can follow the breadcrumb trail from creation to the eventual processes they end up in and then optimize along the way.

Forms and Landing Pages

When examining the current forms in your MAP, look for redundancies or forms that are no longer in use. Lean on statistics like when the form was last submitted, how many views the form has, and when the form was created/last updated to determine if a form is still active. 

While looking through your forms, document which landing pages they are attached to — can those pages be archived/redirected or are they in fact still in use/needed? Once that’s complete, look to consolidate your form structure. Utilize a funnel line of thinking to align content/submissions into buckets to help with portal maintenance and backend processes alike. 

The goal isn’t to have one master form, but rather a more manageable grouping (e.g. if you’re running webinars, are you creating a new form each time? If yes, consider having a master webinar form). Remember to employ the naming conventions you’ve decided on earlier in the process, as well.

Other Database Entry Points

How else are contacts getting into your database? Are there integrations (like Salesforce) in play that need to be taken into account? If yes, you will want to document and reassess the integrations and make sure any mappings and settings are in line with your new naming conventions and database segmentation processes. Are there frequent imports being made by users? If yes, spot-check some of the imports and make sure proper data hygiene is taking place before importing — are the right fields present? Are users creating double fields? If yes, locking down permissions even more may be in order, or consider providing users with an import template/process document to help standardize their importing actions.

However contacts are getting into your database, you should now have all needed fields, lists, pages and forms in front of you at this phase of the audit. Now it’s time to break out that delete button to get rid of any unnecessary properties (make sure to consolidate in duplication situations), lists, LPs and forms. If you’re squeamish about deleting outright, utilize folder structures to archive unneeded assets to put them out of sight and out of mind, but also have the ability to refer back to at a later date if needed.

In phase two of the audit, you’ll be looking at what happens to contacts after creation. Again, since the health of your database and contact experience should be at the heart of your MAP strategy, looking at it from the perspective of a contact’s journey helps you prioritize and make decisions on assets shaping that journey.

Promotional Processes/Automation

You’ll probably bump into message and nurturing automations in the forms section of your audit (and you may even want to consider them at that time as well) but now you’ll want to look at the automation delivering messages to your contacts. Actions you may choose to take in this stage may be:

• Making sure starting criteria is accurate (e.g. Since you’ve consolidated forms, do you now need to reference page names as well?)
• Ensuring the emails included in the automation are aligned with your present-day voice and brand since these could very well be from years ago
• Making sure the goals of the workflow are aligned with your new structure and database
• Deleting or archiving now-obsolete automations
• Reapplying naming conventions to match with the forms and lists that may be driving their enrollments

Operational Processes/Automation

We split operational from promotional automations only to drive home the fact that your primary concern should be about the experience of the contacts in your database — everything else should be secondary. 

Now that you organized contact-facing messaging above, it’s time to turn attention to one of the biggest advantages of a MAP, database and operational flows that help you automate tasks/notifications and standardize/clean your data. 

Here, you’ll be taking into account a lot of what you took into account with promotional flows but also pay attention to things like:

• Lifecycle stages and when/how they are being set
• Lead scoring
• Database hygiene strategy
• What internal notifications are in play and are there any gaps to fill?

With both promotional and operational processes, documenting is paramount for your MAP’s usability. Consider employing a tool such as Lucidchart to tie together your entire contact’s journey to ensure you’re not letting good leads die, be overpromoted to or otherwise get the wrong messaging. Likewise, documenting will allow you to identify and trim down to keep your systems running in optimum fashion and keep costs down, both in terms of hours spent, as well as keeping you under any system or subscription limitations you might have.

Every company’s MAP is different, and that means every audit will be different, as well. The practices outlined here are a solid starting roadmap to make sure you’re hitting the big areas, but be sure to customize them to your specific needs and priorities. Additionally, keep in mind that Marketing Automation Platforms are about more than just the areas mentioned above; your audit may very well expand into other areas/tools as well. In fact, it’s likely.

As a last piece of advice, if your MAP has become unmanageable, consider contracting with a partner like Kuno Creative to help unravel any digital tangles and get your platform back on track. Leaning on experience garnered across multiple platforms and industries is an invaluable level-up to your team’s knowledge and skill sets and can accelerate your timeline to platform zen!

Ready to connect? Schedule a consultation where we can discuss your marketing needs.

If you’re building a video marketing strategy, it’s easy to get caught up in the “Lights, Camera, Action” part of it. It’s exciting to think about the story you’re going to get to tell, and how you’re going to have the chance to show off your product or service. 

And why wouldn’t you be thrilled? Making videos is fun and can help your company gain visibility. The fact is, videos can work wonders for a business. According to a study done by the researchers at Wyzowl,

But when it comes time to produce your video, even if you think you’ve dotted all the Is and crossed all the Ts there are a few more things to do before you hit Record. Let’s break down this last minute to-do list so your video marketing plan is a success.

Get To The Point Quickly

Before you finalize your script, take a minute to make sure that you’re getting to the point quickly. As much as people love to watch videos, they also don’t like waiting to see how they’ll benefit from your information.

Our good friends at Vidyard recommend keeping your videos to about two minutes or less. The trick is to keep your story focused on the goal that you’re trying to achieve. 

If you’re explaining how a product works, don’t spend too much time showing how you make it. Get right to the good stuff! Show me how it works.

Another approach you can take is bite-sized. If you think there is too much to cover and you can’t get to the point right away, take your idea and break it down into  smaller, easier-to-digest videos. Assume your audience knows nearly nothing about your subject matter. This helps your video be more appealing to a broader audience.

Speak Slowly And Enunciate

Now that we have the story squared away, it’s time to think about how you’re going to talk. You can get caught up in thinking you have to be someone else when the lights are on and the camera is rolling, but don’t. 

Be yourself. Speak slowly and enunciate. And by all means, if you always talk with your hands, like I do, please talk with your hands.

Just be natural, as if you were talking to your friend at lunch. And leave the two-dollar words at home. Speak as if you’re speaking to a room full of 7th graders.

Be Mindful of Your Scene

Remember, the camera sees everything. So, have somebody look through the lens and check out the scene. Things to look out for, include:

• Tucking in your shirt
• Straightening your tie
• Make sure your blouse is lying flat
• Look for lint on your clothes – the lights pick up things you can’t see 
• Make sure the space is clean and organized
• Remove things that don’t need to be in the background
• Make sure your background is not distracting

A good background will provide a lot of depth. You want lots of room behind you, if at all  possible. And I’m not a fan of setting up an interview in front of a sign or anything else that may take my eyes off the person who is talking. It’s just something else to consider.

Video Marketing Done Right

Thanks to our smartphones, anyone can make a marketing video at any time. If you have a YouTube channel, you can have something posted in minutes. But there are a lot of strategies that go into planning, filming and posting a video that markets a business. And some of that planning goes right up until the second you’re ready to hit Record.

Our team at Kuno Creative helps clients with all facets of their video marketing. From story conception to locations, to media training, to filming and editing, we can help with any aspect of the process. If you’re interested in learning more about video marketing strategies and what we can do for you, don’t hesitate to contact us.