Scaling Smart: How Marketing and Operations Can Grow Together

People sitting around a conference table with laptops

Once upon a time, marketing and operations existed in separate universes. Marketing focused on brand awareness, lead generation, and campaigns. Operations handled logistics, fulfillment, and customer experience. But today, those old silos don’t reflect how businesses works. Everything is marketing, and the way your business operates directly impacts how your brand is perceived.

Whether you’re launching a new product or streamlining the customer experience, marketing and operations need to move as one. When they don’t, businesses struggle to scale effectively. In this article, we wanted to offer some critical insights we’ve learned from walking alongside our clients to ensure their marketing and operations teams work together in tandem. 

Why Marketing and Operations Need to Be in Sync

Here are a few reasons why getting these two teams in sync is essential:

1. A Marketing Disconnect Is Expensive—Really Expensive

Nearly 60% of companies admit they struggle to link their marketing efforts to overall business goals. The result? Wasted resources, disjointed messaging, and frustrated customers. If marketing is driving leads that operations can’t support, or operations are making changes that impact the brand without marketing’s input, growth becomes chaotic instead of strategic.

2. Silos Stunt Success

Businesses with aligned marketing and operations strategies are 67% more likely to outperform their competitors in revenue growth. When these teams collaborate, marketing efforts become more effective and operations can scale smoothly to meet demand. Simply put, alignment isn’t just a “nice to have”—it’s a competitive advantage.

3. Adaptability Is Everything

Markets shift, customer expectations evolve, and new competitors emerge. If marketing and operations are disconnected, your business risks falling behind. Companies that align their marketing and business plans can pivot faster, stay relevant, and seize new opportunities with confidence.

At the end of the day, the two can’t afford to operate in isolation. Marketing should drive growth, but operations should be equipped to handle that growth. Likewise, operations decisions impact the customer experience, which falls under marketing’s domain. 

4 Keys to Scaling Successfully with Marketing & Operations

So, how do you get marketing and operations working together for scalable success? Here are four essential strategies:

1. Know Your Ideal Customer—And Make Sure Everyone’s on the Same Page

Marketing is often laser-focused on generating leads, but what happens next? If operations isn’t prepared to handle an influx of new customers—or if marketing is attracting the wrong type of customer—it creates friction.

By aligning around your ideal customer persona, both teams can work toward sustainable growth. Marketing understands who to target, and operations ensures they can deliver on the promise. This prevents mismatched expectations and helps optimize the customer journey from first touchpoint to long-term relationship.

2. Align Your Tech Tools—Because Clunky Processes Kill Growth

Marketing and operations often rely on different software, from CRM platforms and automation tools to inventory management and customer service systems. If these tools don’t communicate, you’re left with inefficiencies, data silos, and frustrated teams.

While you don’t need a perfectly integrated tech stack, the core systems should work together seamlessly. When marketing and operations share aligned tools, automation becomes easier, customer data is more accessible, and teams can make faster and smarter decisions.

3. Use Data to Drive Mutual Decision-Making—Not Just Reporting

Both marketing and operations collect a goldmine of data. Marketing tracks campaign performance, customer engagement, and conversion rates. Operations gathers insights on fulfillment speed, product demand, and customer service trends. But raw data isn’t enough—it needs to be translated into actionable strategy.

The key is to define shared business objectives and determine which metrics matter most. What data points will help both teams make better decisions? By aligning on key performance indicators (KPIs), marketing and operations can create a data-driven culture that fuels sustainable growth.

4. Communication Is the Secret Ingredient

The biggest reason marketing and operations fall out of sync? Lack of communication. If these teams only meet once a year (or only talk when there’s a problem), alignment is impossible.

Instead, there should be a continuous feedback loop and ongoing communication between teams. Marketing should regularly update operations on upcoming campaigns, customer insights, and shifting market trends. Operations should provide marketing with data on product performance, customer feedback, and any challenges in scaling. Regular check-ins, shared dashboards, and open dialogue ensure everyone is moving in the same direction.

Need Help Aligning Marketing and Operations? We’ve Got You.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned at Green Apple Strategy, it’s that marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. To build a scalable business, marketing and operations must work hand in hand.

That’s why, when we develop marketing strategies for our clients, we make sure operations has a seat at the table. Because a rising tide should lift all boats—without capsizing one in the process.

If your marketing and operations teams aren’t on the same page, we can help. Reach out to us to learn more about our strategic approach and how we can support your business growth. 

How Businesses Can Use TikTok for Marketing

Photo of a phone on TikTok's TikTok profile on the screen

There’s no denying that TikTok has become the social media platform that’s garnished the most attention within the past couple of years. And it looks like it will continue to be one of the B2B social media trends in 2023 that businesses should consider. Whether you personally love it or hate it, business leaders and marketers are wrestling with the question, “Does our company need to be on TikTok?” 

As with any social media platform, investing in TikTok for marketing really comes down to whether it can help you reach and cultivate relationships with your potential customers. It’s also important to note that TikTok will continue to change and evolve as more innovations roll out, so you’ll have to stay updated on the changes to this platform.

4 Ways Businesses Can Use TikTok for Marketing

As we’ve worked alongside clients to determine how they can use TikTok for marketing, we’ve found a few helpful tactics that seem to work best for businesses. If you’re looking for a way to leverage TikTok for your brand, here are a few ideas to consider based on the latest trends: 

1. Post Educational Content 

TikTok can be a great way to educate current and potential customers with helpful insights about your products, services, or industry. According to Vidyard’s 2021 Video Benchmarks report, the most common types of business videos are product demos, followed by how-tos and explainers. Because of its visual nature, TikTok provides a way for you to create informational videos at a relatively low cost. You don’t have to invest in expensive cameras or editing software if you have someone with an engaging personality who is good at keeping people’s attention and teaching your audience. 

2. Find Your Target Audience 

One of the unique features of TikTok is the subcultures and threads that have been created around specific industries and areas of interest. For example, #BookTok and #MoneyTok are two distinct subcultures that make it easy for users to connect with like-minded people who share their interests and passions. One of the best ways to reach new customers on TikTok might be to invest time in developing a presence in a particular subculture that aligns with your business or industry. 

3. Invest in Influencer Marketing 

Sometimes the best TikTok strategy isn’t creating your own content but instead partnering with influencers who have already built an audience. The platform has proven to be a creative incubator for rising thought leaders and industry influencers. If you recognize that there is potential in reaching your target audience on TikTok, but you don’t have the time or resources to launch your own channel, it’s worth exploring how to identify and connect with influencers to promote your brand.  

4. Share “Behind-the-Scenes” Content 

In addition to providing the opportunity to educate customers, TikTok is also a social media platform that can humanize your brand. While every social media platform was created to help humans connect with one another, content that businesses create for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can still feel very corporate and sterile. In many ways, TikTok opens the door to reconnecting with your audience in a way that feels authentic and not overly formal. You might consider sharing “behind the scenes” content for your brand or creating a “day in the life” video that features an employee. You can also collaborate with current customers or community members to feature their videos on your profile.

Social Media Best Practices when Using TikTok for Marketing

As with any social media platform, it’s important to understand what makes marketing on TikTok effective. Here are a few basic best practices to follow when creating videos for TikTok: 

1. Make sure your content is authentic and represents your brand.

Becoming a thought leader in your industry requires authenticity and approachability, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Humorous, light, fun content works really well on TikTok. 

2. Engage with your followers so they feel valued. 

One way to increase engagement is to interact with your audience directly on the platform. People love to feel valued and heard.

3. Use data to consistently evaluate your investment. 

While you may not experience instant success, it’s important to always ask yourself, “Is this helping us work towards our larger marketing goals and objectives?” Asking the right questions to evaluate your social media content is an important way to make sure you’re maximizing your ROI.  

4. Test often to see what works and what doesn’t. 

You may be surprised by which ideas work and which ones fall flat. Don’t be afraid to experiment. 

While we don’t recommend TikTok to every client, it might be the best way for your business to get outside of your comfort zone this year. Once you’re ready to dive in, don’t forget to use TikTok Analytics to evaluate the success of your social media strategy and identify the type of content that can get you the greatest results.

Connecting to our Community: Thistle Farms

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Generosity and making an impact on our Nashville community are two values that shape our work at Green Apple Strategy. We don’t want to be an agency that’s simply known for our work. We want to be known for making a positive difference in our community. From the founding of our company we’ve offered pro bono services to nonprofits and organizations serving people across Tennessee. We’ve also encouraged our team to take time off to pursue volunteer opportunities. Our new partnership with Thistle Farms in Nashville combines both of those values into a relationship we’re excited to grow. 

Thistle Farm’s Mission & Impact in Nashville (and Beyond) 

Thistle Farms is a nonprofit social enterprise dedicated to helping women survivors recover and heal from prostitution, sex trafficking, and addiction. The organization was founded in 2001 to offer women sisterhood and a safe place to heal. Today, it supports hundreds of women across our community by providing a safe place to live, meaningful work, and other resources to gain financial independence. The organization has become a staple of our community in Nashville and is widely known for its remarkable self-care products and welcoming cafe. 

The company also supports women around the world through its social enterprise efforts that span 21 countries and support 1,400 artisans through product sales and small business development.

Green Apple’s Desire to Help Them Grow

While there are dozens of incredible nonprofit organizations in our area, we were particularly inspired by the way Thistle Farms raises up women in our community. Their mission is to empower women who have been through extremely difficult times. Thistle Farms’ commitment to helping individuals get back on their feet resonated with our whole team.

Green Apple began volunteering with Thistle Farms in 2022. As our relationship has grown, we wanted to provide additional support. Currently, we’re collaborating with leadership to envision how we can deepen our commitment through quarterly team volunteer days and ways to serve their mission. 

Thistle Farms has helped thousands of women flourish because its leadership recognizes that healing love is the strongest force for change in the world. It’s an honor to partner with such an incredible organization.

How to Strategically Think About Your Annual Marketing Budget

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Creating and getting approval for your annual marketing budget is one of the most important (and often difficult) tasks for an in-house marketing team. It takes a lot of time to analyze results from the previous year, gather anticipated costs for new ideas, and finalize a budget that works within the limits of your business. The challenge becomes even greater in seasons of economic uncertainty, and the threat of a recession can create budget cuts at any point.

Over the past decade, we’ve had the opportunity to walk with dozens of clients through the budgeting process. We’ve helped start-ups looking for creative ways to maximize their resources. We’ve helped million-dollar companies navigate uncertainty during the pandemic and make marketing budget decisions during a recession. If you think of an issue or question, we’ve likely faced it. 

How to Strategically Think About Your Annual Marketing Budget

For this article, we’ve asked Senior Client Relations Specialist Marcie Prescott to share the wisdom and insight she’s learned from decades of experience developing marketing budgets. Here are the four best practices that Marcie shared to help you think more strategically about your annual marketing budget. Her tips can help ensure you stay on track toward your goals: 

1. Make sure your budget is connected to your objectives, goals, and key metrics. 

Your marketing budget should be closely integrated with your annual marketing plan. Every line item in your budget should be connected to a tactic. It’s also important to identify the success metrics you’re going to use to determine if your investment was worth it. 

If you can’t look at your budget and answer, “What are we wanting to achieve with this investment?” then take a step back and clarify your annual marketing goals and objectives.  

2. Recognize the common pitfalls that sink your marketing budget.

A big part of managing your budget is knowing what obstacles and roadblocks to avoid. Here are a few common pitfalls that can sink your marketing budget:

  • Failing to identify your target market and audience. It doesn’t matter how big your marketing budget is if you don’t connect with potential customers. 
  • Putting too much effort into big budget marketing efforts. If you’re gambling with your marketing budget, you’re doing it wrong. Instead, it’s important to diversify your marketing spend so that you’re not putting too many eggs in one basket. 
  • Underestimating the amount of work involved in a marketing campaign. It’s easy to develop an annual marketing strategy and budget without recognizing all of the time, energy, and resources that it will take to implement. Before you finalize your budget, it’s important to ask, “Can we really do this?” Getting input from your team is also important.
3. View your marketing budget as a fluid asset. 

If there’s one lesson we’ve learned, it’s that your budget should be a fluid document that is reviewed and updated regularly. Neither your annual marketing strategy nor your budget should be written in stone. You can pivot your marketing without abandoning your entire strategy and make necessary changes to your budget. 

Fluid marketing budgets allow companies to redirect marketing to tactics that perform well and channels that suddenly offer new opportunities. This is even more important during a recession, when potential cuts may be required. 

4. Embrace a mindset of continuous improvement toward your strategy and budget.

Marketers should constantly be learning, testing new ideas, and finding ways to maximize the ROI of their budget. Rather than using last year’s budget or “institutional wisdom” to drive your decisions, embrace a mindset of continuous improvement to develop a marketing budget based on where your business is headed. Just because something worked well five years ago doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to connect with today’s customers.

You don’t have to wait until the end of the year to be more strategic with your marketing budget. Whether the year is winding to a close or just getting underway, it’s always a good time to think about your budget and consider how you can be more strategic with the resources you’ve allocated.

Our Top 10 Marketing Insights & Topics from 2022

2022

2022 provided its fair share of challenges for marketers. Many businesses were still navigating the ripple effects created by the pandemic — whether it was learning how to promote new services or balancing business development needs with operational capacity. Economic obstacles and the fear of an impending recession caused some companies to tighten their marketing spend or focus on fundamental strategies. Companies learned how to embrace the “new normal” of virtual team meetings and hybrid work models.  

Despite these challenges, our team at Green Apple, and the clients we serve, have discovered valuable insights to propel our work forward. As Albert Einstein once summarized, we’ve found that “in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

As we reflect on everything we’ve learned from 2022, we wanted to recap the insights and articles that our audience found most helpful throughout the year. As you’ll see, they cover a variety of topics in almost every aspect of marketing. We believe this goes to show the integral role that marketing plays in every area of the business. Without further ado, here are our most popular blog posts from 2022.

1. What Not To Do During a Zoom Meeting

We’ve all seen or experienced our fair share of Zoom faux pas over the past few years. But an embarrassing interaction isn’t the only thing that can derail a Zoom meeting.

As a virtual agency, our team has learned A LOT about maximizing Zoom for productive team meetings. This article outlines some common mistakes to avoid. 

2. 7 Key Elements of Eye-Catching Content

Marketing has always been about capturing attention. How can you do that in our world that seems busier and noisier than ever? This article highlights some helpful design tips to consider whether you’re creating a social media post, print ad, or sales collateral.

3. Why Corporate Social Responsibility Should Be on Your Radar

Social responsibility platforms have become a priority for businesses in almost every industry. How can you leverage it to connect with customers and prospects in a more meaningful way? This article outlines a few key ideas to consider. 

4. 5 [Virtual] Client Appreciation Gifts for 2022

The pandemic created the need to find ways to show appreciation virtually. But as the way business has evolved, virtual appreciation gifts are also great for clients you might have in other parts of the country. This article highlights five of our favorite ideas. 

5. Frustrated by the Fact That Marketing is Constantly Evolving?

We understand that it’s easy to get frustrated by the constantly-evolving nature of marketing. This article offers some encouraging reminders for business leaders or marketing managers who are frustrated by the fact that nothing seems to be working like it once did. 

6. Is Print Advertising Still Viable?

Print advertising isn’t dead. In fact, we’ve found that print advertising has some advantages over digital features depending on our client’s target audience and goals. This article shares a few benefits of print advertising and strategic ideas for integrating it into your marketing efforts.  

7. Enneagram and Marketing: The Creative Beauty of Type Fours

The enneagram has become one of our team’s favorite tools and topics to discuss in recent years. This article describes how an Enneagram 4 — also known as “The Individualist” – provides the much-needed creative ideas and spark for your marketing. 

8. 20 Questions to Ask Yourself That Will Improve Your Customer Profiles

It’s essential that you know your customers if you want your marketing to resonate. As a result, every business should develop customer profiles or buyer personas for their key target audience. This article unpacks 20 different questions that will make that experience more effective. 

9. 4 Factors for Creating a Customer-Centric Culture

The experience you provide customers directly impacts your bottom line. How do you go about creating a culture within your business or organization that values the customer experience? While the specific tactics or strategies may evolve, this article shares four key factors that you need to create a customer-centric culture.

10. Enneagram and Marketing: How Type Threes Move Mountains

Enneagram 3’s (also known as The Achiever) offer essential traits and skills that can be helpful for managing your marketing efforts. This article unpacks the traits of The Achiever from one of the Enneagram 3’s on our team, our Founder and Chief Strategist, Samantha Pyle. 

Get the Latest Marketing Insights & Trends

At Green Apple, we’re constantly looking for new sources of marketing inspiration for our clients. We typically share what we’re learning each month through The Core, our monthly newsletter. Sign up to get the latest marketing insights and inspirations delivered directly to your inbox. 

5 Best Practices for Marketing Project Management

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Let’s be honest – managing all of your marketing efforts is tough. There are dozens of steps to move a single project from an idea to a completed deliverable and requires collaboration between multiple parties. While there can be a lot that can go wrong, the good news is that there’s a way to bring order to all the madness that marketing campaigns bring with them – marketing project management!

Project management is more than a way to make sure your team is staking on time and budget, it actually increases the ROI of your marketing efforts. Marketers who plan projects are four times more likely to be successful.

At Green Apple, we’ve learned quite a bit about the foundational principles and best practices for effective marketing project management. While some of the lessons we learned the hard way, others were discovered through the creative problem-solving of our team. Today, we’ve built a team of gifted client relations specialists whose primary focus is to execute an effective project management process. 

For this article, we’ve asked one of our assistant client relations specialists, Kayla Reyes, to share a few insights she uses when it comes to “keeping all the plates spinning” for our clients.

5 Best Practices for Marketing Project Management

There are dozens of elements that go into managing your marketing projects effectively. From creating your overall structure and procedures to defining the communication processes, there’s a lot to consider. But how do you go about implementing these foundational principles for marketing project management? Here are a few best practices we’ve learned over the years:

1. Hire the right people.

Many of the tasks and responsibilities of a project manager require a certain mindset and skillset. Some people are big vision, whiteboard dreamers. They typically make better strategists that project managers. 

At Green Apple, we use a couple of tools to assess a team member’s project management acumen. For example, we have several enneagram ones who embody the characteristics of being honest, detail-oriented professionals. We also use the Culture Index to evaluate the interpersonal skills that are required for project management. 

2. Find tools to help.

Once you have the right people in your project management role, it’s important to equip them with tools that can help them be successful. In today’s digital-first world, this often means finding the right project management software for your team. As a hybrid marketing agency, we’ve found a lot of success in using tools like Basecamp and Asana for project management and collaboration with clients. 

3. Build consistent processes and systems around your tools. 

Investing in project management software is only helpful if your team knows how to use it. It requires intentional planning to discover how the match the features that are available in a project management tool with the internal processes and structure of your team. Training is another important factor to ensure everyone has what they need to fulfill their task and nothing slips through the cracks during a project. 

4. Take a detail-oriented approach to execution.

Organizing and streamlining ideas and projects is essential to keep on track with deadlines. This is even more true in a fast-paced agency environment when you’re serving multiple clients at once. 

While moving a project through the stages of development is one key, making sure it’s done well and nothing is overlooked is another. The people who are really great at what they do focus on executing – not just the big things but also on all the little details. A good project manager recognizes that even the tiniest details matter. They make sure everyone has what they need for their specific task and address any mistakes that are made along the way.  

5. Periodically ask what’s working and what’s not.

Consistently asking, “is this working?” is just as important with your project management process as it is with other areas of marketing. At Green Apple, we make sure our project management approach integrates with our client’s internal processes. We’ve found it helpful to host quarterly meetings with our project managers and Orchard members to identify ways to improve our project management processes internally. 

“As a project manager, I love getting into the weeds to help our clients launch a strategy or create a campaign that makes a tangible difference in the world,” Kayla described. “It’s always meaningful to look back and celebrate the hundreds of steps that are taken — and all the people who are involved – to execute all of the marketing efforts for our clients.”

You can learn more about Green Apple’s unique approach or connect with our team to discover how we can become your marketing partner. 

B2B Social Media Trends for 2023

Phone with Instagram Aanalytics on the Screen

B2B marketing is often a complex and complicated practice. This can especially be true when it comes to social media. As the social media landscape has evolved over the years, B2B marketers have to determine which social media approaches  to implement and which to leave out. As we look towards 2023, B2B marketers will still need wisdom when it comes to deciding how to use social media to connect with customers.

Before we get into the trends, it’s important to remember a key principle: Consider social media marketing trends carefully and identify the best platforms to engage customers and foster customer relationships. Does your company need TikTok? Maybe. You should only be on a platform if it helps you connect with your customers. 

Here are a few social media trends for 2023 to be mindful of: 

Trend #1: User-generated content continues to produce engagement. 

Sharing content from customers or followers has become an increasingly popular tactic because of social media’s increasing role in cross-channel B2B marketing. This content is known as user-generated content (UGC). Currently, 85% of consumers find UGC more influential than branded content. This includes testimonials, case studies, reviews, or other assets produced by your customers. 

So how do you go about obtaining and sharing user-generated content? Here are a few ideas for reaching out for testimonials or content ideas from customers. 

Trend #2: Find creative and unique ways to partner with influencers.

One of the biggest B2C trends that made its way into B2B successfully has been influencer marketing. But identifying the right influencers to partner with is essential. The good news, especially for B2B marketers, is that you don’t need to find an influencer with millions of followers. Instead, consider the voices in your industry that customers trust. Don’t discount the importance of micro-influencers.

Trend #3: Continue to create shorter, more visual content. 

The average human has an attention span of just 8.25 seconds, according to recent studies – 4.25 seconds less than it was in 2000. This is evident if you take one look at your social media feeds. 

At Green Apple, we’ve been exploring ways to create shorter, more visual content for our clients. The social infographics we’ve created have generated significant increases in reach and engagement. 

Trend #4: Be strategic with your social advertising budget.

As attention on social platforms becomes increasingly competitive, paid advertising will play a more significant role in B2B social media marketing in 2023. According to recent studies, 84% of B2B marketers use paid social for their content marketing efforts.

Most businesses still have a limited social media advertising budget, so it’s important to invest your money wisely. The good news is that you can be incredibly targeted with your ad spend on popular B2B platforms. As you advertise on platforms like LinkedIn, be sure to use targeted ads based on data like location, industry, company, and job title.

Trend #5: Focus on metrics that matter. 

Measuring social media efforts has always been important, but determining the true impact of social media is key. Measuring the right metrics is key. In addition to tracking metrics such as follower growth, engagement, and reach—consider the more qualitative insights such as relationships that have been developed or customers that have been served through social media. 

New B2B social media marketing trends surface every year. Some trends have been there for a long time but have evolved. As a B2B marketer, you need to be prepared and ready to adapt to new changes in your industry. Hopefully, this post helps you get up to speed!

7 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in the New Year

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The new year often provides a fresh start for people and companies. This is especially true for marketing. Many companies start the year with a fresh marketing plan (or at least a few adjustments from their current efforts). Most of the time, there’s a level of energy and excitement as you start the year with 365 days to achieve your marketing goals.

As marketing continues to evolve, it’s important to understand and implement the basic principles for earning attention and inspiring action. Failing to embrace the core principles of marketing might lead to mistakes that cause you to invest time, energy, and resources into marketing tactics that don’t move the needle. 

7 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in the New Year

After more than two decades in the industry, here are a few common marketing mistakes that businesses are prone to make in the new year:

1. Focusing on “tactics” rather than your strategy.

One of the most common mistakes business owners make is to focus too much on tactics and not enough on strategy. As a marketing agency, people often reach out to us and ask for help building a new website or a stronger social media presence. While these are admirable goals, they must be based on a strategic plan to truly return the best ROI for your business. 

If you’ve struggled to generate results and wonder why your marketing isn’t working, it likely has to do with prioritizing tactics over strategy. 

2. Getting comfortable with the status quo.

“The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.” – Seth Godin

Doing things the way they’ve always been done is tempting because it’s safer. But in a world that’s changing faster than ever, sticking with the status quo only creates an opportunity to get left behind. 

It’s important for B2B companies and marketers to get out of their comfort zone. Embracing a mindset of growth and change is one of the best ways to ensure your marketing efforts continue to produce results year after year. 

3. Failing to recognize how marketing is interconnected with other areas of your business.

At Green Apple, we often say that “everything is marketing.” This is a mindset we bring to every meeting and every marketing strategy we create for clients. Failing to recognize how marketing impacts sales or operational decisions could quickly create breakdowns in other areas of your business. Additionally, developing a marketing strategy without considering other key initiatives in your company might lead to a lot of “spinning your wheels.” 

4. Being too rigid with your marketing plan and failing to adapt.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years, it’s that businesses must be willing and prepared to adapt. In some cases, you can pivot your marketing tactics without abandoning your entire strategy. Sometimes, if there’s a major shake-up in your business or industry, you might need to overhaul your entire plan. 

5. Defining what your customers want without asking them. 

Marketing is all about helping customers understand how your business can help solve their challenges. It’s relational. And every good relationship is built on communication. If you want your marketing to resonate with customers, listen to them. Taking time to understand their challenges and create messaging built around their current reality is key to creating a more customer-centric culture. 

6. Talking about your products and services in a way that confuses an audience. 

Using complex phrases or industry jargon is one of the quickest ways to lose potential businesses. Customers will disengage if they can’t understand or relate to your message. 

If you work in a detailed industry, it’s important to find effective ways to explain the complex products or services that you offer. Making it simple for people to understand how they can become a client or customers is one of the easiest ways to gain potential business. 

7. Identifying the wrong KPIs or forgetting to measure results. 

Successful marketing initiatives often require the use of lessons learned from previous experiences. This means identifying the marketing metrics that matter most to the overall success of your business and developing the habit of measuring them on a regular basis. 

Green Apple Can Help Your Business Avoid Costly Marketing Mistakes

Everyone, from professional marketers to small business owners, makes marketing mistakes. But even if you make some mistakes, you should be ready to learn from them. If you’re looking for a way to take your marketing to the next level or simply need help managing everything that is required for reaching your goals, our team can help. Contact us to learn more about our unique approach and schedule a discovery call with our team. 

Setting Your 2023 Marketing Goals: A Guide

Setting the right goal is the backbone of an effective inbound marketing strategy. It can provide a foundation for how you develop your marketing approach. It can also help you identify milestones to track as you make progress toward important business objectives. 

While business leaders and marketing managers recognize the importance of setting marketing goals, defining them is often easier said than done. Where do you start? Which goals will truly help you move the needle? How much should you stretch while still identifying SMART marketing goals that are attainable? These aren’t easy questions to answer.  

7 Steps to Identify The Right Marketing Goals for 2023

After hundreds of conversations over the years, we’ve discovered a few best practices that can help you set marketing goals that align with your overall business objectives. Whether you’re just starting the process of defining your goals or finalizing your marketing plan, here are a few helpful steps to ensure you set the right marketing goals for the year: 

Step #1: Evaluate and Analyze This Year’s Goals 

Taking time to reflect on your experience over the past year is the best place to start. What were your goals at the beginning of the year? Were they helpful in moving you toward your ultimate business goals? Were you too ambitious in some areas? Were there certain obstacles that kept you from achieving your goals? Which goals would you keep and which would you jettison?

These are all incredibly helpful questions to help you develop smarter marketing goals for the following year. At Green Apple, we often encourage our clients to include other stakeholders in the process of evaluating goals. Whether it’s capturing anecdotal feedback or conducting a thorough SWOT analysis, it’s important to approach the conversation with honesty and candor.  

You won’t be able to improve if you don’t take the time to identify your current reality. This leads to the next step. 

Step #2: Define Your Current Position and Barriers to Growth

Defining the proper marketing goals requires an accurate understanding of your current reality. It’s important to consider your current growth level. You shouldn’t expect to grow by double digits (without a significant shift in budget or strategy) if you’ve averaged 2-3% growth. This also means making an honest assessment of your limitations. Every marketing tactic requires time, energy, and resources. One of the worst mistakes you can make is to set audacious marketing goals without the ability to make the necessary investment to achieve them. 

Step #3: Incorporate Your Business Goals and Initiatives into Your Marketing Goals 

One of the best ways for your marketing efforts to impact your business is to ensure your goal supports the overall direction of your company. This is an often overlooked but essential step in setting your marketing goals. As we partner with clients to develop their marketing strategy, we take time to identify any business objectives marketing should support. Often, this requires collaboration between the C-suite, marketing team, business development team, and even customer service and operations. 

The point is to understand what your company is trying to achieve so that you know where to invest your marketing budget.

Step #4: Identify Your Priorities

If you could only focus on three or four marketing goals for the year, what would they be? If you could only focus on one, what would it be? Asking these two questions can help you define your priorities. Biting off more than you can chew is a common mistake when it comes to setting the right marketing goals. 

Ranking your priorities can ensure you focus on what’s most important. It can also provide clarity if you’re forced to make budget cuts or other business decisions that might impact your overall marketing campaign. 

Step #5: Set Clear, Written Objectives and Key Results 

Based on the insights you gain from the first four steps, you’re ready to define your marketing goals. Writing your goals down is also important. According to research from CoSchedule, marketers who write down their goals are 376% more likely to report success than those who don’t. 

It’s important to have a timeline for each goal or objective. For example, 

  • Goal: Grow our social media following
  • Objective: Increase social media audience by 30% by April 1, 2023
Step #6: Detail Your Milestones and Metrics for Success

The best way to drive your results and keep your team motivated is to break down your annual goals into quarterly and monthly milestones. This can also be helpful if you work in an industry where certain times of year are busier than others. 

For example, if you have a Q2 sales goal that’s higher than normal, you might want to set a Q1 lead generation goal that can support it. 

Step #7: Determine How to Translate Metrics into Actionable Insights 

If you want to achieve your end goal, it’s important to be able to translate your marketing results into actionable insights. This shift in the way you approach marketing metrics can make a huge difference.  

If you’re struggling to identify the right marketing goals for your business, you’re not alone. We’ve worked with businesses in a variety of industries, and each has its own unique set of challenges when it comes to setting the right goals. 

Let Us Help You Achieve Your Goals

If you need help setting the right goals or designing a marketing strategy to help you achieve your business goals, our team is here to help. 

Mood Boards: The Secret to Successful Branding & Creative Marketing

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Branding and creativity are two core elements of successful marketing. While most people think the creative direction is the fun part of marketing, the reality is that making a final decision on creative elements for clients is hard work. You have to consider brand perception and how to differentiate your client from competitors. Getting everyone aligned around a final decision can also be challenging. 

Over the years, we’ve learned a few tips and tricks to navigate the complicated creative process. Mood boards have become one of our favorite tools. Mood boards can be a valuable tool whether you’re looking to refresh your entire marketing plan or find the next angle for your marketing campaign. 

What is a mood board and why are they effective?

In short, a mood board is a visual representation of ideas gathered from a variety of sources to help you find the best idea for your creative marketing project. 

While most companies utilize mood boards for big branding projects, they can also be helpful when redesigning your website, developing your social media calendar, or for something as simple as designing a company t-shirt. 

Here are a few reasons why we love using mood boards with our clients:

1. Find and cultivate inspiration.

The best creative ideas come from collaboration. Because everyone has a unique perspective, certain images, words, or colors might resonate differently with your audience. Mood boards provide a way to capture a variety of ideas that can help you build a creative campaign that reaches different audiences

2. Get everyone on the same page.

Collaboration is an essential part of marketing. Ideas need to be heard and considered by every member. A mood board supports the collaboration process by providing a framework for people to operate within. It provides clarity within the collaboration process that ensures everyone is working in the same direction. 

3. Ensure you’re developing a cohesive approach.

It’s important for your marketing to tell a cohesive story. Mood boards help by allowing you to see how various elements work together to develop a narrative. 

4. Make it easier to gain buy-in from stakeholders.

Making a final decision can be one of the most challenging aspects of a branding or creative project. Your design team could work for hours only to get an idea nixed by the CEO or final decision-maker. A mood board mitigates that risk by gaining buy-in early on in the process. It also provides a more visually appealing way to present your ideas. Mood boards can help you explain your ideas or direction in ways that words can’t. 

How to Create a Mood Board

There’s no one right way to create a mood board. But here are a few helpful steps to maximize your effectiveness: 

1. Find a tool that works for your team.

It’s important to find an approach that works best for your team. You can create a physical mood board in your office. There are also a variety of online tools that make it easy to create digital mood boards. These are helpful if you’re working remotely or hiring a freelance designer for your project.  

2. Define your goal and audience.

Taking a moment to identify who you’re trying to reach and what you’re trying to achieve can provide clarity for your team. Doing this on the front end can help save a lot of time and ensure everyone is working in the same direction. 

3. Identify elements to include in your mood board.

What you include in your mood board will depend on the nature of your project. Most mood boards include images that convey the look and feel you’re hoping to recreate with the final product of that project. But you can also add colors, font families, or certain keywords or phrases that capture what you’re trying to communicate. 

4. Invite others to share inspiration.

Once you’ve set some parameters, it’s time to invite others into the collaboration process. Encourage participants to include anything they find that feels like a visual representation of your brand. While this might come more naturally for some than others, don’t discount the feedback and perspective from people you might not consider to be the most creative individuals on your team. Invite everyone to look for marketing inspiration that is all around them. 

5. Identify trends. 

After everyone has had a chance to add ideas, it’s time to start narrowing your focus. Are there certain visuals or elements that seem to stand out more than others? What elements might work well together and appeal to your audience? Take this time to cut any ideas that might seem out of place. 

6. Balance a final decision with continued inspiration.

Once you feel like you’ve narrowed down your mood board to its final stage, ask yourself: Does this provide enough clarity and direction to begin executing our project? If so, you’re ready to get started. 

As an aside, some companies curate mood boards to capture ideas on a regular basis. These can be helpful to use as guideposts for driving brand and design decisions in the future. 

Feel stuck in your branding efforts or creative marketing project? Our team can help. Connect with Green Apple to learn more about our unique process. We’d love to discuss your needs and develop a strategy based on where you want to go.