A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Green Apple’s Approach to Building a Marketing Strategy

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Green Apple Strategy was founded as a full-service marketing agency built on the idea of serving clients differently. Rather than leading with marketing services, such as building a website or managing PR, we set out to be an agency that approached our work with a “business owner” mindset. Rather than thinking about marketing in its own silo, we wanted to come alongside our clients to strategically consider how marketing could impact their entire business—and alternatively, how other areas of their business impacted marketing. We wanted to be an agency that worked to build marketing strategies with the entire business in mind—not just the immediate marketing needs or sales goals. 

This is one reason why “strategy” is intentionally included in our name. Whether it’s onboarding a new client or renewing our annual contract with an existing partner, the strategic planning process is an integral part of our approach and one of the primary ways we add value to our clients. We build our marketing plans with a focus on strategic planning and then develop our tactical approach from it. This has given us the opportunity to learn some important best practices when it comes to building a marketing strategy. 

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Our Approach to Building a Marketing Strategy

Here are a few best practices we’ve incorporated into our approach after crafting hundreds of marketing strategies over the past decade:

1. Make sure the right people are in the room as you build the strategy.

One of the dangers of building a marketing campaign in a silo is that the strategy isn’t aligned with the direction that sales is headed, or it ends up creating headaches for other areas of the business.

Developing your marketing strategy with input from important stakeholders is one of the keys to creating a plan that supports every area of the business. At Green Apple, we are passionate about getting the right people involved. It’s not helpful to work solely with the VP of Marketing when the CEO needs to sign off on the strategy. At the same time, we want to include people who might be impacted by the strategy and tactics. 

Defining the right people depends on the unique characteristics of each company. Depending on who is making the decision and who will be impacted, we’ve worked alongside CEOs, COOs, CFOs, marketing leadership, and service-line managers to ensure our marketing strategies benefit the direction of the entire company. 

2. Coordinate with key stakeholders to help them understand where marketing is going and collaborate around areas of impact. 

Getting the right people in the room is one thing. Intentionally listening to their needs, thoughts, and questions is another. While we don’t expect a CFO or COO to understand everything about marketing or know specific best practices, we also recognize their perspective on how our strategy impacts their role is important. 

Oftentimes, we’ll host a listening session as we share our initial thoughts and strategy with key stakeholders. We want their feedback because they all have different perspectives on the business. This coordination and collaboration allow marketing to hear updates that might be happening in other areas of the company. These insights can be important for finding your next marketing angle or designing a strategy that will truly move the business forward over the next year. 

For example, if Operations is planning on rolling out a new product or service line—that’s a key tactic to consider. If a potential merger or acquisition is happening in the next year, that will drastically impact your marketing plan. Gathering as much information and perspective for where the entire organization is headed in the next year ensures marketing can fulfill its role and address the specific needs of the company—whether that’s brand management, sales-enablement, or enhancing the customer experience.  

3. Set realistic expectations and goals based on what’s realistically possible.

Unless you are Amazon or another major Fortune 500 company, the resources and budget you can devote to marketing are limited. That’s important to remember as you build your marketing plan. It’s easy to get so caught up in the excitement of all the possible tactics and strategies that you forget what’s actually possible with the resources you have available. 

That’s why it’s important to set appropriate expectations as you finalize your marketing strategy. You need to recognize everything that is going to be required to execute the strategy, including your budget, resources, and timeline.

Having this sort of honest and transparent conversation with clients has been one of the keys to our work at Green Apple. Over the years, we’ve worked with clients who only want us to develop a strategy they can execute internally. Other clients ask us to develop a strategy and then hire us to execute it. Because of our strategic emphasis and full-service capabilities, we’re able to provide value to both types of clients. We don’t rely on pushing a specific tactic or service. In every strategy session, we work with our clients to help them define the difference between what they should do or want to do and what they realistically can do.

4. Make sure stakeholders have a clear understanding of how marketing reaches your target audience.

One of our favorite parts in every strategy session is the moment when people realize how all of the marketing ideas and tactics work together to move their company forward. Whether it’s gaining clarity around their target audience or recognizing how all of the various marketing platforms create an omnichannel presence to reach today’s consumers, we love the “light bulb” moment when all the key stakeholders recognize the synergy a good marketing strategy can create. 

For example, one of the ways we support clients is by gathering customer feedback and testimonials. This becomes helpful for improving areas of the business, but it also provides an opportunity to create “customer spotlights” the company can promote through blogs and social media. These customer spotlights also become valuable sales tools that the business development team can use in proposals or pitch meetings. By creating a throughline, we’re able to leverage one simple idea to improve multiple areas of the business. 

5. Embrace the opportunity to learn and make adjustments as you go. 

Recognizing potential changes and creating space to learn and adjust are key to developing an agile marketing strategy that can evolve throughout the year. A marketing strategy should help you set a direction, but it should also give you the ability to evolve and adapt. Our marketing strategies include a process of continual learning so that we can optimize what we’re doing throughout the year. We also plan for the unexpected so that we can pivot if there’s a new service line or business need that arises. We’re not afraid to deliver a marketing strategy and then come back a few months later after analyzing the results to say, “We’ve identified a better way to do this.” 

Every marketing strategy should be developed with a long-term mindset that includes a process for looking at the data. We’re committed to changing directions if there is a more effective way to help the company succeed. 

Work with Us to Build Your Next Marketing Strategy

At Green Apple, our competitive advantage lies in our approach to strategic planning. If you’re interested in learning more about our process or discussing the specific ways we can help you, feel free to reach out to our team.

10 Spot-On Marketing Quotes

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Finding new sources of inspiration and creativity can be one of the most helpful ways for marketers and business owners to stay proficient at their craft. You never know what might spark an idea or help identify the angle for your next marketing campaign.

At Green Apple, we like to keep ourselves inspired when it comes to new and better ways of marketing. Our team is constantly searching for creative practices and marketing ideas to incorporate into our work. It’s not uncommon for our team to share highlights from the latest marketing books we’ve read or quote thought leaders we’ve heard on podcasts during a whiteboard session.

10 Spot-On Marketing Quotes 

Here are ten marketing quotes we’ve shared that do a good job of capturing the essence of marketing, where it’s headed, and how companies can maximize their effectiveness when it comes to reaching customers and inspiring people to take action:

1. “Marketing strategy will impact every piece of your business, and it should be tied to every piece of your business.” – Brandon Andersen

I love this quote because it speaks to the new reality that marketing integrates with every part of your business and vice-versa. This is a key mindset in the way we approach marketing strategy at Green Apple. 

2. “The new reality is that sales and marketing are continuously and increasingly integrated. Marketing needs to know more about sales, sales leaders need to know more about marketing, and we all need to know more about our customers.” – Jill Rowley

Sales and marketing alignment is absolutely essential. This quote perfectly addresses the new reality of how the two teams should work together. 

3. “As marketing converges with customer service and sales, marketing today is more about helping and less about hyping.” – Joel Book

Marketing tactics aren’t the only thing that’s evolved. As marketing continues to work closely with customer service and sales, it’s important to adopt a helping mindset.

4. “Every email is an opportunity to test a different benefit or angle.” – Heather Morgan

Because of the nature of email, it’s an wise tactic to continually test your emails and collect analytical data to see what messages (and approaches) resonate most with your audience. 

5.​​ “Great marketers don’t use consumers to solve their company’s problem; they use marketing to solve other people’s problems.” – Seth Godin

The best marketing campaigns are built around what potential customers are thinking and how to help them solve their problems. That’s the way you earn trust and attention. 

6. “Marketing is about becoming part of people’s stories.” – Bernadette Jiwa

One key to successful marketing is to position your brand in a way that makes your audience’s life better. Recognizing what customers want (and how marketing can help) is a key strategy to incorporate into your marketing approach. 

7. “Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” – Joe Chernov

Great marketing campaigns make the customer feel like the hero. Whether it’s through the blog content you write or the monthly email newsletter you send, it’s important to focus your marketing content on your customers, not just highlighting your brand. 

8. “The new wave of marketing is scientific marketing. It’s not about the big idea—it’s about making course corrections every day.” – Sharad Sharma

One of the best things about marketing in today’s digital age is the ability we have to constantly measure and tweak our efforts. Being able to optimize our campaigns has been one of the most beneficial practices we’ve implemented over the past ten years. 

9. “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” – Tom Fishburne

People don’t like to be sold to. The gift of effective marketing is that you’re building trust with customers and giving them the inspiration to take an action that will help improve their lives.

10. “There are a lot of opportunities that you can discover by listening closely to what your customers are saying.” – Joei Chan

Customer surveys and testimonial requests are some of the most effective marketing tactics we’ve deployed for our clients over the years. It’s amazing how the feedback provides valuable information about sales, customer success, product development, and operational processes.

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.  

Last-Minute Holiday Marketing Advice to Stand Out This Season

The holidays can be one of the busiest—and most stressful—times of the year for marketers. Target audiences and potential customers are busier than normal and bombarded with messages and advertisements during the holiday season. All of the hustle and bustle also comes at the end of the year when you’re making one final push to meet your annual marketing goals. 

Developing an intentional holiday marketing plan can be one of the most effective ways to keep you and your team on track during November and December. And if you’re just now recognizing the need, that’s ok. Putting a little thought and effort into your holiday marketing strategy can go a long way. 

After working alongside many of our clients to design holiday marketing campaigns, we wanted to take a few moments to provide some last-minute advice to maximize your marketing efforts during the holiday season. 

1. Be sure to express gratitude to your current clients and customers. 

The holiday season is a great time to show your clients how valuable they are to your business. This is a simple and effective way to surprise and delight customers and keep them loyal to your brand. You could ship the same holiday gift to all your customers or take the time to send a custom gift to your top clients based on something you know about them.

If you’re running short on time, there are plenty of virtual client appreciation gifts that you can send last minute. 

2. Be creative and fun when incorporating holiday-themed messaging into your content. 

The competition for attention is at an all-time high during the holidays. One way to stand out is to take advantage of the spirit of the season by sharing light-hearted content. There are literally hundreds of ways to execute this. You could create a “12 Days of…” brand campaign on social media or send a funny online greeting card for your monthly newsletter that highlights your company’s human side.

3. Don’t let warm leads go cold during the holiday break.

While it may be difficult to schedule meetings during the end of the year, the holidays can also be a great time for closing new deals. With Q1 and new budgets around the corner, decision-makers are finalizing their vendors and goals for next year.  

Developing an intentional strategy to keep leads from going cold during the holidays could make a tremendous difference when it comes to hitting your annual goals or starting the new year with a lot of momentum. 

4. Find simple ways to give back to others.

More and more companies are adopting corporate social responsibility as a way to stand out and give back to society. Studies show that 84% of customers in the US will most likely buy from brands supporting the social causes they care about. If your company gives back in some sort of way during the holidays, don’t be afraid to share that through your marketing channels. 

Whether you’re looking for ways to connect with customers at the end of the year or need a fresh approach for the new year, our team at Green Apple Strategy can help. Contact us today to schedule a consultation to discuss your needs and learn more about our approach.

How To Write Subject Lines That Increase Your Email Open Rate

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Do you remember the last email you opened from a brand or company compared to one you automatically deleted? More than likely, it was the subject line that was the difference. In today’s digital age, effective subject lines are essential for writing the perfect marketing email. 

Why Effective Subject Lines Are Important for Email Marketing

Here are a few reasons why your email subject lines matter more than ever: 

1. Your audience is flooded with emails every day.  The average person sends and receives 121 business emails every day. The emails you send have significant competition when it comes to earning the attention of your audience.

2. Your subject line is the primary driver of email openings. According to research, 64% of readers make the decision to open an email based on the subject line alone.

3. Bad subject lines could impact your deliverability rates.  69% of email recipients report emails as spam after reading the subject line. If your subject line could potentially be considered spam, your deliverability for all other emails moving forward could suffer. Spam traps can cause your domain or IP address to be denied, affecting your email deliverability rates and sender reputation.

4. Emails are still the most effective way to stay top-of-mind. While it has become increasingly difficult to stand out in your audiences’ email inbox, email is still the primary way you can stay top-of-mind for potential customers. In fact, 99% of email users check their inbox every day, with some checking 20 times a day. Of those people, 58% of consumers check their email first thing in the morning. Your email could be the first thing they see when they wake up.

5 Types of Subject Lines You Can Use

Now that we’ve outlined the importance of crafting the right subject line for your email, let’s talk about some various tactics you can try. Here are a few different types of subject lines we’ve used with our clients over the years:  1. Listed Subject Lines  There’s a reason lists have grown so common in content marketing: they work. Lists provide content in a short, simple, and skimmable format. As human brains are naturally drawn to digits, lists are an easy way to pique a reader’s attention. 2. Scarcity Subject Lines Humans have a deep fear of missing out—on anything. Email subject lines that mention scarcity tend to perform well because they create a sense of urgency for your audience to open the email. 3. Personal or Local Subject Lines People are looking for content that is most relevant to them. This is why crafting email subject lines with unique and specific information can create a sense of personalization. 4. Clever & Witty Subject Lines A witty subject line can stand out among the scores of boring ones around it. If you know your audience well, a clever joke can get your email opened and shared. 5. Emoji Subject Lines Recent studies show that emails with an emoji in the subject line show a 56% increase in open rates. Using emojis can help your subject line stand out, as long as you don’t overdo it.

5 Keys to Craft the Perfect Subject Line for Your Marketing Emails

We’ve identified a few different directions you could take with your subject lines. But how do you know what will work best for your audience? Here are a few best practices to craft subject lines that will stand out and elevate your email marketing campaigns: 

1. Take Time to A/B Test Your Subject Lines Effective marketing is all about experimentation. This includes the subject lines you use in emails. Constantly experimenting and analyzing your subject line strategy through A/B testing is a great way to optimize your email campaigns. Compare open rates, and try to understand why some subject lines are more effective than others.

2. Use Segmentation and Personalization As we highlighted above, personalized subject lines can be a great way to stand out. This is where segmenting your audience based on location, preferences, or interest can be a great way to add personalization to your subject lines. According to Campaign Monitor, using the recipient’s first name in the subject line increased the chance of the email being opened by nearly 15%.

3. Make It Short and Sweet (and Mobile-Optimized) Most people’s attention spans are very short—so generally it’s a good idea to keep your subject lines brief and to the point. The most effective subject lines are typically no more than five or six words. It’s also important to remember that people are most likely checking email on their phones. Brevity is especially important since most screens only display 30-40 characters in a subject line.

4. Start with Action-Oriented Language Actionable subject lines can often inspire people to click on your email by instilling urgency and excitement. For example, in an email inviting people to an open house at your new office, the email subject line might read, “Enjoy free drinks at our new office!” rather than a more generic (and less actionable) “You’re Invited to our Open House.”

5. Tell Your Audience What’s Inside the Email If you want people to take action, it’s important they know what to expect if they open your email. Make it clear what’s waiting inside the email. This is something your audience wants to know, and it can be the difference between an email that is opened and one that isn’t.

Email Marketing Strategies That Stick

At Green Apple, we’re constantly working alongside our clients to stay updated on the latest email marketing trends as they evolve and change. By using some of our tips, we hope you can come up with creative and engaging subject lines of your own. Reach out today if you need a reimagined and effective email marketing strategy.

Case Study: How We Increased LinkedIn Followers 5X in 6 Months

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LinkedIn is an essential platform for many B2B companies, and there are several reasons why:

  • 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions.” (Source)
  • 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to research purchases. (Source) 
  • 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. (Source) 

There is no denying that LinkedIn is one of the most effective social media lead generators for B2B marketers. Since LinkedIn allows users to generate content and create engagement, it makes sense for those involved in the B2B industry to remain active on LinkedIn. 

Recently, our team at Green Apple collaborated on a strategy to enhance our LinkedIn presence that increased our followers by more than 500 in less than six months. 

The Challenge: Testing Ideas to Transform Our Strategies

We often help clients use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and find effective ways to optimize B2B LinkedIn pages for business. We also believe to serve our clients effectively, we should always be looking for ways to test ideas and strategies ourselves. Understanding the ways brands use LinkedIn gives us insight into how we can integrate new approaches into the social marketing strategy we create for clients.

In May 2021, we sat down to develop a year-long plan that would help us learn new tactics and achieve specific growth, interactions, and engagement goals. We started with a little more than 100 followers on our LinkedIn page. 

Our Approach: Collaboration & Content to Accelerate Connection & Growth

To test ideas and strategies, we worked through the same strategic marketing process we use with our clients: 

  • We identified a goal and created a feasible strategy — We started by setting a goal to have 1,000 followers by May 2022. This seemed like an audacious but achievable goal. We also wanted to develop a strategy that would be reasonable for our team to execute. We know our team is primarily focused on client goals, so we collaborated on a feasible strategy that was highly achievable. 
  • We used our team strengths to devise a plan — The strategy we created was built to maximize our team’s unique strengths and gifts. One of the things that makes Green Apple unique is that our team is diverse in experience and expertise. We wanted to highlight this by encouraging team members to be present on LinkedIn. We also wanted to give our insights into the marketing industry, share what our team members are learning, and highlight the milestones our team reaches. 
  • We created a team-oriented approach — We knew that collective buy-in would be essential for achieving our goal. From the very beginning, we rallied the team behind the goal and provided ways to engage with our content, share their own content, and grow our network. We also wanted to share content highlighting the “everyday” aspects of our team — including behind-the-scenes photos and personnel updates from the Green Apple Orchard. 
  • We evaluated and re-evaluated our content each month — It’s important to constantly measure your efforts and tweak your strategy based on what you’re learning. Each month, our team would spend time reviewing the content we posted. The insights we discovered based on the performance of the various topics or types of posts allowed us to adjust our strategy along the way.

The Results: Discovering the “Link” Between Intentional Effort & Exponential Growth

Six months into the strategy, we’re well on our way to achieving our annual growth goal. We’ve also experienced exponential growth in our engagement. We’ve increased our reactions by 4,872%, comments by 7,800%, and shares by 2,566%. Along with these quantitative results, we’ve also created deeper, more meaningful connections with people on LinkedIn we hadn’t experienced before. 

If you want to learn more about our approach or discover how you can leverage LinkedIn for growth, reach out to us to help establish a strategic social media plan. Also — if we haven’t connected on LinkedIn yet, we’d love to share our content with you. You can find our LinkedIn page here.

A B2B Guide to Marketing Automation

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As a brand, connecting with your target audience is crucial. In order to connect with your target audience effectively, you need to know what content resonates with your target demographic, their sales cycle, and what they value most about your product or service. This type of in-depth research can be difficult to reproduce at scale, but marketing automation can be a powerful tool. Marketing Automation can help you identify your potential customers’ needs, establish several touchpoints on their sales journeys, and bring more sales to completion.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation refers to a set of tools and processes that are used to communicate with existing leads, bringing them closer to the point of buying. Any time a customer adds an item to a cart, leaves the page, and later receives an email with “Forgot Something?” in the subject line, that’s marketing automation at work. Setting up a series of processes, emails, reminders, or follow-ups can help you increase communication with your customers without taking the additional time or requiring you to hire new talent. Instead, marketing automation uses well-designed processes to help you discover potential customers, replicate high-performing practices, and encourage repeat purchasing behaviors. 

Marketing Automation Saves You Time and Overhead

Marketing automation has numerous benefits, but the most important is the time you save by streamlining your sales cycle. Rather than spending hours identifying and contacting qualified leads individually, it gives you the capacity to reach out to leads at the ideal point in their purchasing journey. There’s no need to manually import customers into your database. Instead, an automated marketing tool can identify and label leads for you by tracking a user’s interaction with your brand. 

Marketing Automation Can Strengthen Your CRM

Marketing automation also increases the power of your customer relationship management (CRM) tool, such as Salesforce. In tandem with a CRM, marketing automation can help you build a customized onboarding process and follow-up communication for clients in order to strengthen your customer relationships.

Especially in B2B industries, having a personalized connection can make or break a sale. Because automation analyzes your audience’s actions, it actively nurtures your leads by personalizing their experience and automatically segmenting their journeys. Marketing automation can monitor behaviors such as clicks, site visits, or purchase histories and provide your leads with information and opportunities that are customized to their needs. You’ll see improved conversion rates, and you’ll be able to assess and improve your sales pipeline with actionable data. 

How You Can Implement Marketing Automation

While marketing automation can be immensely effective, you need a strong foundation to see powerful results. This includes a reliable contact list, an up-to-date website, active email marketing tactics, and social media management. If you need a starting place, try refreshing your current marketing by conducting client interviews or researching SEO best practices.

Once you’ve established reliable groundwork, you need to indicate your specific goals. Your goals may include an increase in subscribers, clicks, sales, or page likes. After you’ve determined your goal, decide what platform you want to use.

There are several MA systems available, but consider your preferred budget, ease of use, type of marketing automation, and customer service when deciding which one is best for you. Finally, you should determine if you want to implement alone or hire a professional marketing company to begin your process. 

Iterate and Improve Your Marketing Automation

Nothing works as well in a silo as it does when combined with other tools. To continue achieving marketing automation goals, you should pair MA with inbound marketing and CRM tools to increase its reach.

You’ll also want to include other team members in setting up and improving your processes. Sharing reports with senior executives and data with your sales team will allow you to collect and implement their insights into the sales funnel. With the feedback and assistance from various departments, plus the results from your marketing automation tool, you can optimize your content, messaging, and strategies to retain your current customers and attract more.

Need Help Getting Started with Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is a powerful tool that can be complex to implement. Green Apple Strategy is a full-service marketing agency that helps clients communicate effectively to their desired audience. Are you interested in learning more about how we can help you start your marketing automation journey? Contact us today for a consultation! 

Hit the Mark: How to Align Your Marketing Goals with the Big Picture

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Setting annual marketing goals can often feel like a game of darts in the dark. You might have a general idea of where you want to aim, but without a clear understanding of the big picture, it’s easy to miss the mark. For many small to mid-size businesses, identifying the right goals is challenging. Goals might not align with overall business objectives, or silos between departments leave marketing disconnected from the company’s bigger picture.

At Green Apple, we believe that effective marketing goal-setting requires a holistic approach: evaluating what’s worked before, collaborating with key stakeholders, and aligning your goals with broader business strategies. The following secrets will help ensure your annual marketing plan stays focused and realistic.

Pro Tips for Building Smart Marketing Goals

1. Get a Clear Understanding of the Previous Year

Reflecting on the previous year is essential. Start with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to review which campaigns performed well and where there were gaps. Use data and performance metrics to understand what drove success—and more importantly—what didn’t. This will help you avoid mistakes and double down on what worked.

For example, if email marketing campaigns generated the highest ROI, you’ll want to incorporate them into your updated strategy. If social media ads fell short, dig into why. Was it the platform, targeting, or creative? Reflection is key to building smarter goals.

2. Make Sure You Understand the Big Picture

Marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum—every part of your business affects (and is affected by) your marketing efforts. Your marketing goals need to align with key business objectives in order to be successful. Think about how marketing connects with operations, customer service, and product development. For example, if the business aims to scale operations, marketing needs to focus on lead generation or brand awareness campaigns in a way that can support sustainable growth.

It’s essential to align your marketing goals with what’s happening across departments. When marketing, operations, and customer service are in sync, it’s easier to ensure a seamless customer experience and create a brand that customers love.

3. Review Your Mission and Vision Statements

Everything you do should reflect who you are as a company. Ask your team and yourself questions like, “What do we value?” “What differentiates us from the competition?” or “Why do we exist?” It can be easy to get caught up in following trends, but don’t forget about what makes you stand out from the competition. Your annual plan should always incorporate concepts that demonstrate your differentiators. 

4. Get All Stakeholders Involved in the Process

You don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen, but it’s critical to involve the right people when setting marketing goals. Collaborate with decision-makers who can offer input on key priorities. This includes leaders from other departments—like sales, operations, or customer support—who can inform your strategy.

Additionally, make sure you have buy-in from the leadership team. It’s frustrating to finalize a marketing plan only to discover the CEO’s vision wasn’t factored in. Involving stakeholders from the start ensures alignment and makes it easier to execute your plan with confidence.

5. Set Realistic, Achievable Goals

Ambitious goals are great, but it’s essential to be mindful of your resources—such as team size, budget, and time. A single marketing person wearing multiple hats won’t be able to launch a robust, multi-channel campaign without proper support.

Set specific, measurable marketing goals that stretch your team without overwhelming them. Use the SMART framework—goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. A good example might be, “Increase website traffic by 15% in Q1 through targeted content marketing efforts.”

6. Think Beyond Sales—Focus on Engagement and Brand Awareness

While revenue is often the end goal, not all marketing campaigns need to focus on immediate sales. Some of the most effective strategies aim to build brand awareness or increase customer engagement. If your business is planning to enter a new market or launch a product, creating awareness might be more important than direct conversions.

Consider how marketing efforts like thought leadership, social media presence, or community involvement can contribute to long-term success. These types of campaigns build trust and loyalty, which will ultimately drive future sales.

7. Stay Flexible and Adapt Throughout the Year

No matter how well you plan, things will change. Market trends shift, new opportunities arise, and unexpected challenges can disrupt even the best-laid strategies. Build flexibility into your plan so you can pivot when needed.

One way to stay agile is by setting quarterly check-ins to evaluate your progress and make adjustments. If a campaign isn’t delivering the results you expected, don’t hesitate to tweak it or try a different approach. Flexibility ensures your goals remain aligned with both business needs and market conditions.

Five Questions to Fine-Tune Your Marketing Goals

Here are some questions to help you align your marketing goals with the big picture:

  • What worked well last year and what didn’t?
  • How do your marketing goals align with the company’s broader business objectives?
  • Are there any operational or customer service challenges that marketing can support?
  • Which stakeholders need to be involved to ensure alignment and buy-in?
  • What metrics will you track to measure success throughout the year?

These questions will help you identify gaps, refine your goals, and ensure that your marketing efforts support your company’s larger goals.

Closing the Gap Between Marketing and Strategy

Setting annual marketing goals that align with your business strategy doesn’t have to feel like guesswork. With thoughtful reflection, collaboration, and a focus on realistic, actionable goals, you can build a marketing plan that supports both short-term wins and long-term growth.

Need help aligning your marketing efforts with the big picture? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to learn how our strategic planning services can help your business grow and thrive. Let’s work together to build a plan that makes next year the best one yet!

 

How to Generate More Google Reviews

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In a world where word of mouth and consumer feedback guides the decision-making process, Google reviews are critical when it comes to driving business to your company. As if a positive response from current customers isn’t enough, these testimonies can also go beyond their original purpose and be doubled as free marketing content for your other platforms. Who doesn’t love a twofer?

We’ve sourced some helpful directions on how you can generate more Google reviews, today. Let’s get started. 

Understand Google My Business

To begin with, be sure your business is registered and that you have taken all of the necessary steps that are needed for someone to be able to leave a Google review. Already have that under control? Great! If not, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered here.

Ask Directly

The answer is always no if you never ask, right? If you know or realize that a customer is satisfied with their purchase or service, simply ask them if they could leave a review about their experience. You can also use your social media accounts to invite people to leave a review, this isn’t as direct as an in-person request, but is still beneficial if you have a loyal and engaged audience. 

Make It Easy

When you’re asking for a review, you’re asking for someone’s personal time. In order to make the reviewing process as simple as possible for your customers, plan out a user-friendly process that will quite literally take them one minute of their day. 

Here are a few methods to try that save consumers time:

  • Texting or emailing a direct link after their purchase
  • Utilizing a survey platform, such as Typeform or Loyalty Loop
  • Creating QR codes that lead directly to your Google Review page

Utilize Your Platforms

Strategically place and plan where to include a review request. You can encourage your customers to leave reviews without being pushy. 

  • Digitally: Incorporate your Google review links in your email signatures, website, or landing pages.
  • In-person: Use QR codes in your waiting rooms, check-out counters, or menus. 

Ready to Plan a Reputation Management Strategy?

If you need more help creating your digital PR strategy, we’re ready to help you build your new marketing plan. Contact us today to schedule a consultation. 

How to Find the Angle for Your Next Marketing Campaign

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Have you planned your next marketing campaign? 

Your brand’s growth is reliant on a comprehensive set of tactics to educate and engage your clients. How you plan your campaign, and how you execute that campaign, will make all the difference in your brand awareness, sales, and customer retention. But, how do you find the best angle? How will you catch your audience’s attention? 

We’re here to help. When you sit down to plan your next marketing campaign, use the following tips and points to guide your strategy. 

Find Your Audience’s Pain Points

When you put yourself in your audience’s shoes, you can begin to determine what their pain points are. Try to identify what motivates them to buy your product or service and what problem of theirs you’re trying to solve. 

At the foundation, your campaign should speak to those pain points to show your audience that: 

  • You understand their issue
  • You’re here to solve it, and 
  • You can do it better than your competitors. 

Before you can present yourself this way, you must first thoroughly understand how your audience is feeling. If you’re having trouble putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, try building a customer profile with these 20 questions. 

Lean on Your Analytics

The numbers don’t lie! Your analytics can serve as a guide as you build your campaign. Review your numbers across all tactics (e.g., email marketing, blogging, website visits, social media, etc.) to analyze what is working, what isn’t, and where there are untapped opportunities. 

From these numbers, you can see which topics and conversations garnered the most interest from your audience and what fell flat. Are your customers most interested in a certain area more than others? Maybe that’s a good place to start when planning your next campaign. 

Talk to Your Audience

Market research is now easier than ever, thanks to social media platforms and survey strategies. When planning your campaign, look to your audience to learn what they want to see from you and what they would benefit from. Depending on your social media platform of choice, this will look different. For example, if your audience frequents Instagram, you can easily set up a series of stories that poll your followers. However, on LinkedIn or Facebook, that may look more like starting a conversation with those in your industry. 

Take a Look at Your Competitors

Though you don’t want to emulate your competitors, you do want to make sure that you have a good understanding of what they’re offering your audience. This analysis helps you see what you can improve upon and how you can take your offering a step further. 

Put Your Differentiators at the Forefront

Your brand’s differentiators are what sets you apart from the crowd. It’s crucial that they’re at the forefront of your campaign, as these are your primary selling points. No matter how this campaign takes shape, ensure that your audience is always aware of what makes you different and how those differences serve them. 

Have Fun with It

Create a campaign that they’ll love! Your customers have enough of the mundane in their lives. By creating a marketing campaign with an element of surprise and delight, you can engage your audience and make them excited about the customer experience—and set them up to look forward to what they can expect from your brand in the future. 

Need Help Planning and Executing Your Next Marketing Campaign?

Are you looking for a strategic, full-service marketing firm to plan and execute your next campaign? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation. Our team is happy to sit down with you to discuss your goals and how we can help you achieve each and every one of them.

How B2B Companies Can Refresh Their Marketing

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It’s that time of year again! Spring is beginning to bloom, prompting us all to reach for the  “refresh” button on both our personal and professional home pages. After a year of learning and growth from our successes and failures, now is the time to regroup and refocus our efforts. What better way to initiate this process other than an annual marketing refresh? It’s time to change with the seasons!

Aside from the restlessness of Spring, how do you know it might be time for a marketing refresh for your B2B company? Declining or plateaued rates of white paper downloads, social media engagement, and webinar signups are all telltale signs that it’s time to reevaluate your approach to client engagement. 

In this article, we will outline specific strategies to include within your marketing refresh that can lead to successful client engagement and clear brand representation.

(Re)Examine your Audience

It’s important to remember that your client base consists of living, thinking, and changing beings, rather than a stagnant population you can define in only general terms. Your initial evaluation and definition of your client base may have started out as something that is wholly different than the reality of people you now serve. This is why it is vital to your company’s success to reevaluate your audience every 3-5 years. 

Great methods to reevaluate your audience include the following:

  • Conduct customer interviews
  • Interview your sales teams
  • Conduct thorough buyer research

Mind your Messaging House

There are two important elements to updating your marketing messaging: core messaging and a brand guide. Your company’s core messaging includes how you talk about your company; your brand guide encompasses all elements of how your company looks to others—fonts, colors, logos, etc.

An important note on updating your company’s look: it’s important to stay current with aesthetic trends and to ensure that the way your company looks accurately reflects your messaging; however, it is important to try and only change the company aesthetic every 3-5 years. Changing the look of your company too often makes it nearly impossible for your branding to become synonymous with your name.

Reuse and Repurpose

Recycling and repurposing is an important part of Spring cleaning! Just because you are revamping your content does not mean you have to abandon all the content you’ve previously published. After all, research has shown that SEO can take time to “mature.”

We recommend that you spend some dedicated time and resources strategically updating old blog and social media posts. Be certain to study new keyword rankings and incorporate them into your content to improve search algorithm ranks. Additionally, it is worth the time and effort to spend time link building—replacing old links with more relevant and current information. This will prove to your potential clients that you are abreast of the most current industry technology and trends.

Create a Current Value Proposition

Every B2B company needs an easy and effective way to quickly communicate why they would greatly benefit a potential client. A value proposition is a marketing content tool used to quickly win over your clients. Research shows that, on average, you have seven seconds to make an impression that will seal the deal with a new client. 

A successful value proposition will include the following:

  • Clear communication of specific results your company can provide
  • Explains how your company differs (and improves upon) the competition 
  • Can be read and understood in about seven seconds

While crafting your company’s value proposition, consider what sets you apart in the industry. Use the information you have previously gathered from customer interviews; consider their complaints and qualms with competition and how you worked to alleviate these concerns.

Refreshing your marketing strategy might seem like an overwhelming project, but we are here to guide you through the process, and dare we say, make it fun? You have put a lot of heart and passion into your business, let’s work together to make certain that this is obvious to your audience.

Are you planning a marketing refresh for your business? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.