Our Readers’ Favorite Blogs of 2021

Lady working a laptop with a cup of coffee
When it comes to powerful marketing tools, we’re a huge proponent of the power of blogs. A successful blogging strategy can provide a huge SEO boost for your website, scale up your Google ranking by providing more content for the algorithm to sort, and can strengthen your brand identity. We practice what we preach, and our 2021 blogging strategy has brought us an increase in website visitors, new qualified leads, and content to use on several different marketing channels. Here are our readers’ favorite blogs of 2021: 

1. Four Factors for Creating a Customer-Centric Culture

In this blog, we give our top suggestions for building a brand culture that focuses on bringing your best to your customers. By animating your team, centering on your purpose, and understanding who you’re serving, you can bring unparalleled experiences to your clients and customers. 

2. Meet Our Owner/Chief Strategist Samantha Pyle

Our second most popular blog this year served as a quick introduction to Green Apple’s leader Sam Pyle. Her extensive experience in marketing and PR gives her the vision and clarity to guide our team. We love working with Sam every day. Through this introduction, you just might see why!   

3. 7 Key Elements of Eye-Catching Content

There’s no question: more eyes on your content means more leads and more engagement. How can you craft content that captures and keeps attention? These seven tips can serve as a guide when you’re planning future content.  

4. Enneagram and Marketing: How Type Ones Accelerate Your Strategy

We love all that Type Ones bring to our team, including organization, prioritization, and an eye for detail. Type Ones can also be a significant asset when you’re building a marketing strategy—here’s how they can activate your approach. 

5. Green Apple Goes Hybrid

This update on our move from in-person to a hybrid work model explores the benefits of switching to a more flexible working model, especially as the workplace changes in response to the pandemic. 

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

Types Fours are creative, original, and insightful. They’re wonderful for bringing new ideas to a team’s approach and process, which makes them valuable in any industry—including marketing. Take a deep dive into all that the Enneagram Type Fours can offer in the workplace through this blog.

7. Enneagram and Marketing: How Type Threes Move Mountains

It’s not a surprise that another blog on the Enneagram and marketing made it on our top ten list. This article explored how Type Threes energize and motivate when they’re implementing a marketing strategy. Our fearless leader, Sam, is a Type Three (as is our Marketing so we get to see (as is Senior Content Strategy, Skylar). We love to watch how Type Threes bring the best of their talents and skills to marketing. 

8. 5 Books to Read When Looking for Your “Why” in Marketing

There’s so much research out there that suggests that purpose is essential when it comes to finding motivation for your work. The same is true in marketing. In order to successfully share the benefits of your brand, you’ve got to dig deep into why you’re in business, what you can offer your customers, and how your purpose animates all that you do.

9. How Enneagram Type Sevens Bring Energy to All they Do

Enneagram Sevens are known for their extraversion, optimism, and verve, and they bring all these traits to the workplace as well. If you work with a Type Seven, they’ll feel a natural draw towards processes they can reimagine, clients they can woo, or venues where they can serve as a spokesperson for your brand. 

10. What Makes an Enneagram Type Five a Marketing Asset

At Green Apple, we use the Enneagram for team building, during the interview process, and to understand what roles and responsibilities are a natural fit for our team members. This guide to Enneagram Type Fives explores a Type Five’s drive for mastery and excellence, and how that can benefit a marketing team.

Harness The Power of Blogging For Your Brand

Want to learn more about how a keyword-driven blogging strategy can activate the power of your brand? Let Green Apple Strategy craft an innovative approach to your brand’s blog so that you can start targeting and attracting customers today.  Reach out to us today for a consultation.

3 Action Items to include in your Holiday Marketing Plan

pen and agenda

As the weather is slowly cooling down, the holiday season is quickly approaching. It always kind of sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? This year, your company can take advantage of the seasonal magic in the air and start designing your holiday marketing plan early. We’ve shared a few ways that you and your team can stay ahead of your competition by incorporating a few new elements into your marketing plan.

Curate Email Campaigns

Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep a potential customer engaged. Email is also one of the most influential ways to drive business and earn ROI (especially with Millennials). Plan and strategize your email content including specific promotions, engaging graphics, and the timeline that these should be distributed. Be sure to create a sense of urgency to make customers act fast (and be proud of their quick decision-making skills).

Design Festive Freebies

Whether content is available to current clients or is an incentive for new subscribers, free resources are always appreciated. Who doesn’t love free, valuable information? Add some holiday cheer to the mix to make it even more captivating. Think about your goods or services and customize some themed content that will help your customers solve a pain point. 

Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

  • Shareable “good to know” information
  • Holiday checklists 
  • Interactive illustrations
  • Expert advice for the season

Show Your Appreciation

There’s nothing quite like receiving a corporate token of appreciation—you feel like your business truly matters. Spend the time to learn what your customers would genuinely value (even in a virtual world) and invest in the relationship.   

The holiday season is also an incredible time to give back to your community or international nonprofits that your organization admires and supports. Utilize social media to raise awareness for the causes that your business believes in, and encourage your audience to help, strengthen and give back to others. 

Ready to Implement?

Feel like your marketing plan involves details you’re not sure how to implement? Contact us today to schedule a consultation and give your customers what they want this holiday season.

How to Write a Case Study that Brings in Business

woman smiling giving a presentation

On your list of marketing goals, building trust with your audience should be somewhere near the top. As most customers will not consider working with you without thoroughly vetting others’ experience with your company, customer reviews are your first step. But, what if you want to take it a step further? That’s where case studies come in.

Case studies are some of the most beneficial assets that your company can have in its marketing toolbox. Not only are you featuring a positive experience with your company, but you’re explaining to your audience exactly how that customer benefitted—with statistics, quotes, and visual elements. To help you build your next case study, we’ve put together a few things that you should consider along the way, including how to get started and how to use it to attract new leads. Here’s how to write a case study that you’re proud of.

First, What is a Case Study?

A case study is an in-depth response project that allows you to highlight your business, products, or services and your real-life customers to share their experiences.

The opinions and stories of customers have incredible power over your prospects. Based on what people see or hear about a brand determines what judgment they have or what action they will, or won’t, take. Over time, by incorporating positive and genuine feedback into your various marketing strategies, you will gain more customers and drive more revenue.

Where Can I Use a Case Study?

You can use (and reuse) your case study in numerous forms that will attract your ideal client. The beauty of case studies is that it’s not what you are sharing about your service or product, it’s about what others are sharing, automatically creating an element of storytelling. 

Prove to potential customers that you have what they need by accentuating positive evidence through your:

  • Website: Often, your website is the primary location where potential consumers research information. By supplying helpful and authentic testimonials, you can help attract your ideal audience.   
  • Marketing Collateral: When creating your collateral pieces, use statistics or quotes found from the study to build your credibility. 
  • Social Media: You can design engaging graphics by utilizing takeaways or numbers found in your study.
  • Videos: Videos on all social platforms are becoming more and more popular each day. Repurpose your study results into movement creations with animated infographics, typography videos, or testimonials. 

Where Do I Start?

You first want to determine the purpose of your case study. In most cases, the purpose is to demonstrate how a common issue of your target audience is solved. An efficient way to determine what these issues are? Ensure your entire team is actively collaborating to compare existing or potential problems. 

After establishing the purpose, other key elements you want to implement are to:

  • Find the right candidate: The person or company you choose to focus the study on makes or breaks your case study. Choose someone who is willing to (enthusiastically) provide you with all the necessary information.
  • Emphasize your product or service: Be sure to let your audience know exactly which services or products you utilized in the case study. This way, they will become more familiar with your brand, and which features they are initially interested in pursuing. 
  • Be creative with your visuals: Did you help with a business’ website? Did a client have a transformative impact? Include content, photos, or screenshots of the candidate results to make the case study easier to follow and more attractive to view. 
  • Display numerical results: Numbers don’t lie, so it’s important to incorporate the “hard” facts into your final study. Present your impressive stats with pride, there’s a reason people like you and others should know that, too.  

Build a Reputation Management Strategy with Green Apple Strategy

Interested in taking your case study to the next level? Green Apple helps businesses like you improve their marketing strategies. Contact us today to schedule a consultation. We’re happy to learn more about you and help you accomplish your desired marketing goals. 

B2B Companies: How to Get the Most Out of Your LinkedIn Presence

man-using-linkedin-on-ipad
Are you struggling to get engagement or reach on LinkedIn?  Social media strategies aren’t what they once were. The formula for success is no longer simply “post more often,” or “interact with your content,” which we’re sure you’ve heard countless times. Especially for B2B companies, social media is a different animal—it doesn’t play by the same rules as its B2C counterparts. Not to worry, though. With a well-planned LinkedIn strategy, you can increase your following, engagement, brand awareness, and even encourage teamwork among your employees.   Here’s what you’ll need to get the most out of your LinkedIn presence: 
  1. A current and engaging business page
  2. Digestible content that speaks to your audience’s pain points
  3. Diligent and proactive engagement with your audience
  4. An employee-centric content and engagement strategy
  5. A budget for strategic paid ads

How to Get the Most Out of Your LinkedIn Presence

1. A Current and Engaging Business Page
When was the last time you revisited your LinkedIn business page? Chances are, a lot has happened in your business since you first created the page. On top of that, standards for what makes a good business page have changed. Review your page to ensure that all your information is up to date.  You may also consider switching up your “About” content to speak directly to your audience. Rather than a simple description of what your business does, capture your audience’s attention by telling them how you can solve their problem specifically. Tell them who you help, what you do, and what your differentiators are. This allows your audience to quickly identify that you’re the right fit. Tip: LinkedIn only shows the first two lines of your description without the user having to click to read more. Make those two sentences count!
2. Digestible Content that Speaks to Your Audience’s Pain Points
This is always the tricky one, right? Engaging your audience through eye-catching content. You must find a way to speak to your audience’s needs, while also giving them content that they can quickly digest. That may include graphics, original blog content, thoughtful insights, or shared content from other reputable sources. Try to create (or find and share) content that your audience can learn something from very quickly as they scroll through their feed.  Tip: Always tag any relevant people or businesses in your posts. Also, make good use of your hashtags to help users find your content.
3. Diligent and Proactive Engagement with Your Audience
We know you’re busy and have very little time to watch over your social accounts. But, engagement is one of the most important elements of your LinkedIn strategy. Ensure that you always answer comments or proactively engage your audience in conversation by asking a question in the first comment on your post. To further encourage engagement, you may also consider tagging someone in the comment who you feel may have particularly good insight on the subject.   Tip: Set a calendar reminder to help you remember to check your LinkedIn and engage at least twice per day. 
4. An Employee-Centric Content and Engagement Strategy
Involving your employees is a great way to build teamwork, making your team feel more connected to your audience and to each other. Here are a few of the ways you can encourage your team’s help with your LinkedIn strategy: 
  • Request that each team member spends ten minutes per day engaging on LinkedIn
  • Tag team members in content they helped create or contributed to
  • Create branded cover photos for your team’s profiles 
  • Share content congratulating team members on their accomplishments
  • Tag team members to ask insightful questions 
Tip: Ask team members to create content of their own that they would be proud to share with their LinkedIn connections. 
5. A Budget for Strategic Paid Ads
Organic reach is always the goal, but in today’s social media environment, you often have to pay to play. Consider your business’s primary goals, and set a budget for each that you can use for paid LinkedIn ads. If that’s hiring, for example, you may boost a job advertisement. If it’s brand awareness, you may put your money behind case studies. Whatever you choose, make sure that your ad spend correlates with your team’s goals. Tip: To get the most out of your ad spend, you may prefer to hire someone to help you with this area of your strategy.

Ready to Build a Lead-Generating LinkedIn Strategy? 

Your LinkedIn content has the power to paint a picture for your clients, prospective employees, and anyone coming in contact with your brand. Let’s make it count. 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.

10 Ways to Promote Your Upcoming Webinar

working-on-a-laptop-with-headphones
You have plenty of wonderful ideas and expertise to share with your audience. What better way than a webinar? The thing is, though, that a hefty amount of thought, planning, and design goes into creating a webinar. And, after all the work you’ve put into building this resource, wouldn’t it be great if someone attended? Of course, we know you want as many people as possible to see your webinar. So, we put together a list of ways that you can promote your upcoming webinar.   

1. Send an Email Blast 

First up, send an email to your newsletter subscribers. Because they already follow you, they’ll be interested to see that you’re providing them with helpful content. You can increase your chances of a successful email by adding an eye-catching subject line and segmenting your list to narrow in on those who would be most interested. In your email, make sure to include all necessary details along with a clear explanation of the benefits of attending.

2. Add a Line to Your Email Signature

Consider adding a line about your upcoming webinar to your email signature. That way, you always have a reminder there for clients and prospects. Be sure to add a link so that they can find more information! 

3. Feature it On Your Home Page

Try featuring information about your webinar on your Home page. When clients land on your site, they’re already looking for insight. Imagine how excited they’ll be to see that you’re offering to share your know-how!  

4. Create a Paid Social Campaign

Help your followers find your webinar with a paid social campaign. Before you put money behind your ad, make sure that you determine which of your social media platforms performs the best and where your audience spends the most time.

5. Write a Blog 

Writing a blog to announce your webinar and feature a high-level overview will give you a multi-purpose piece of content that you can use on your website, social media, and in your emails. It will also be great to send to those who ask for more information.

6. Add a Pop-Up to Your Website

To draw even more attention to your webinar, try adding a pop-up to your website. You can use this as an opportunity to encourage visitors to sign up or learn more. 

7. Collaborate with Influential People or Businesses in Your Industry

Many people in your industry have access to your target audience—social media personalities, podcasts, industry experts, and bloggers, just to name a few. Connect with these people to offer your insight on their next project (e.g., guesting on their podcast) to create an opportunity to plug your new webinar. Since your audiences are so similar, you’ll find that many of their followers are there for precisely this type of content.

8. Hand Out Flyers at Your Next Event

Have a trade show coming up? Design an engaging informational hand-out that you can give to attendees who may be interested. These events are also an excellent opportunity to collect email addresses from those who would like to receive more information.

9. Post Consistently On Social Media

Add a consistent routine of posting about your webinar on your social media accounts. Feature fun, informative content that lets the user know exactly what they would gain by attending.

10. Tell Everyone You Know

Word of mouth is a more effective marketing strategy than some may think. Tell everyone you know about your webinar, and be sure to send them follow-up information if they seem curious.

Need Help Building or Promoting a Webinar? 

Green Apple builds and promotes webinars for clients in various industries, and we find that it’s an incredibly robust marking tool with a high return on investment. Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

5 Books to Read When Looking for Your “Why” in Marketing

stack-of-books-with-cactus-plant
Discovering your why when marketing your business should always be step one. It’s the foundation upon which you can build your entire brand—because people don’t create a business without a reason. They create a business because they are passionate about providing something to their audience or solving a problem.  This is especially important for your marketing strategy because when you fully understand what drives you and your company, you can explain it to others. Marketing is primarily storytelling, and you need a story to share with your audience. So, when you’re discovering your why, especially as you inform your marketing direction, where do you start? If you’re a bibliophile, we recommend these five books to find the true drive behind your company’s efforts.

1. Robots Make Bad Fundraisers: How Nonprofits Can Maintain the Heart in the Digital Age

For the nonprofit organizations that live on fundraising, your why is essential. People give their time and their money because they feel good about where those resources are going, and they want to make a difference. By discovering the heart of your organization and telling that story in the strongest way possible, you can insight passion in others and boost your fundraising goals.  In Steven Shattuck’s book, Robots Make Bad Fundraisers: How Nonprofits Can Maintain the Heart in the Digital Age, he ventures to answer an important question: Has technology actually gotten in the way of building a personal connection with our supporters? He would argue that, yes, the more digital our world becomes, the less our hearts are in it, and the further we stray from our purpose. We rely on these technologies to fuel our growth, but, in reality, they are allowing us to lose focus, and we aren’t telling the passionate story of purpose these organizations were founded on. This nonprofit-focused marketing book actually has an interesting lesson to teach us all, even in the for-profit sector—how to keep the donors you have, inspire new donors to give, and maintain your team members’ sanity.

2. Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story

A business’s purpose always circles back around to the most important person: the customer. We build these businesses because we want to help our audience overcome a challenge or feel a certain way. It’s only right, then, that we keep our customer at the heart of the brand story. Miri Rodriguez’s book, Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story, helps us do just that.  Rodriguez guides the reader to use storytelling to trigger the emotions that humans are driven by. She explains how to analyze, pull apart, and rebuild your brand’s story in a way that focuses the business as the “sidekick,” putting the control in the customer’s hands, allowing them to be the key influencer.

3. This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See

“Great marketers don’t use consumers to solve their company’s problem; they use marketing to solve other people’s problems,” says Seth Goldin, Author of This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See. This book description could stop here, as that’s the perfect way to describe what it means to discover the reason behind why you do what you do.  Goldin draws upon his many years in marketing to explain how marketers can make the world a better place through powerful marketing elements: empathy, generosity, and emotional labor. He walks the reader through identifying their viable audience, drawing on the signals to position their offering, building trust, telling a meaningful story, and giving people what they need to achieve their goals. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Right?

4. Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

Does your message matter if your audience isn’t listening? In his book Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen, author Donald Miller shares his method for connecting with customers—helping them understand the benefits of using a brand’s products, ideas, or services. By simplifying your brand message, your audience will grasp it more quickly and be motivated to move forward. Miller helps readers do this through seven universal story points that all humans respond to.  When building our messages, we must keep our messages clear and engaging. And where does that message begin? You guessed it: your why. Your understanding of your purpose allows you to build a clear message. Miller can help you get there.

5. Marketing: A Love Story: How to Matter to Your Customers

We search for our why because we want to matter to our customers. That moment when you think, “I have this great service. Why is no one taking advantage of it?” It’s because you know how great it is, and your audience doesn’t. In her book, Marketing: A Love Story: How to Matter to Your Customers, Bernadette Jiwa explains that we “have no shortage of ideas, but we struggle to tell the story of how they are going to be useful in the world.” We couldn’t agree more. By posing a series of thought-provoking questions, Jiwa helps the reader dive into what about their brand will resonate and how to craft a message that will matter.  Are you looking to take your marketing to the next level? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

5 Marketing Tips for Information Security Professionals


Information security is a highly technical and fast-paced industry. Its audience members range from technical novices to highly-skilled chief information security officers and other IT professionals. So, how do you speak to both? And, what is the best way to reach these two sides of your target audience? In this article, we’ll share the best ways to connect with your current and potential customers. 

The Most Important Element

When you’re in the information security industry, the most crucial element of marketing is to educate your audience. They are looking for an expert, and by positioning yourself as a thought-leader, you can show them that you are that expert. Especially as security awareness continues to grow and companies understand the weight of a potential security issue, you’ll find that customers will gravitate toward the company they see as most established and knowledgeable. How can you present yourself as both? 

1. Invest in content marketing. 

Content marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tactics that information security professionals can use to build their brand and position themselves as experts. With content marketing, you achieve multiple goals at once. You educate your audience, improve SEO through targeted keywords, and build informational pieces that can be used in various ways—social media, email marketing, blog articles, and more. This piece of your marketing strategy is integral to your overall success. And, with a well-designed strategy, you can create a platform that speaks to several different segments of your audience. 

2. Educate your audience through webinars and podcasts.

Traditional content creation isn’t the only way to reach your audience. In fact, widening your audience through multiple platforms could be the key to broadening your reach. Your company’s team of experts has insight into a variety of topics that others are searching for online. Webinars and podcasts are the perfect way to get the word out. These platforms not only educate your current and potential customers, but they also allow you to generate leads and boost your brand awareness. 

3. Become a guest on blogs, webinars, and podcasts. 

While creating your own content, you can also connect with other industry professionals and influencers to become a guest contributor on blogs, webinars, and podcasts. This tactic puts you in front of potential customers, positions you as an expert, provides you with content to share on your own channels, and creates backlinks for your website (an important element of your SEO strategy). Being a guest contributor has several of the same marketing benefits as creating your own content. It’s one more way to illustrate to your audience that you can take care of them. 

4. Boost your online presence through local SEO. 

Local SEO efforts are crucial to the success of information security professionals. It’s up to your marketing team to ensure that your company is discoverable in a comprehensive set of ways—your web presence is a significant part of that plan. By focusing on local SEO, you help your audience find you quickly online, showing up in their “near me” search results and increasing your local awareness. Among the many ways to keep your website’s SEO healthy include updating your website consistently as well as updating your Google My Business profile. Your customers want someone local they can trust. Local SEO efforts can position you as that company. 

5. Make your website easy to navigate and include resources. 

When your audience finally lands on your website, keep them there. Make your website easy to navigate with informational resources that will paint a positive picture of your brand. Your website is at the center of your customer experience, and so it’s an integral piece of your marketing puzzle. Ensure that your website is a clear representation of what you do and why you do it while giving your customer several ways to contact you, order your product, or begin using a service. 

Marketing within the information security industry can be a different ballgame—one that is much easier to play with a marketing team that has experience with this particular audience. If you need help boosting your marketing strategy, contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

10 Marketing Questions to Answer Before Launching a Product or Service

hourglass-timer


Dreaming up a new idea for your business can be an exciting and rewarding process. You are about to offer your audience something they need or want, and so you’re helping people while growing your company. But, we can get swept away into dreaming about our ideas sometimes, can’t we? In all the excitement, we can lose track of the reality of a launch. 

We want to help you think through how you can launch your new products or services in the most timely, cost-effective, and successful way. Here are ten marketing questions to answer before launching a product or service. 

1. Does it align with my company’s goals? 

When we add elements to our company’s repertoire, it’s crucial to ensure that they align with the vision we have for our brand. Because no matter how small, each product or service says something about your business—and could very well change the trajectory of your brand’s growth. So, it’s first and foremost important that you choose your additions wisely. Picture your business in two to five years. Does this product or service still fit into that picture? 

2. What problem does it solve for my audience? 

The primary reason to build a new product or service is to solve an issue for your audience. Does this idea address a common pain point for your customers? If the answer is yes, you may have just come across your next big seller! If not, you may need to return to the drawing board.

3. How can I build strategic messaging around it? 

Once you have your golden idea that aligns with your brand and solves a pain point for your customer, you’re ready to craft messaging. This is an involved process, but every second is worth it in the end. You can use your answer to question two, “What problem does it solve for my audience?” to inform this process. Once you have the answer to that question, you can begin building your messaging strategy. 

Identify the key messages that you’re sending to your audience and hone in on what your tone will sound like. In general, you’ll use this time to map out how you will communicate your offering to your customers so that they will not only understand it but will then want to take action. 

4. Which platforms should I use to announce the launch? 

Using your messaging strategy, you will send your messaging to customers on the most appropriate platforms. Take a moment to review your analytics for different channels to decide where it will be effective to spend your most effort. You should not ignore the platforms that aren’t performing quite as well, but this step will help you choose your priorities.

A few platforms to consider are:

  • Email marketing
  • Blog articles
  • Social media
  • The local and national media (i.e., press releases)
  • Paid advertising 

For tactics that haven’t performed well in the past, maybe this is your chance to redesign your strategy to build your audience before your launch. 

5. Have I updated my website and social media profiles? 

Launching a new element of your business is a wonderful opportunity to review your website and social media profiles. Whether it’s updating website headers and social media profile graphics or description content, you’ll want to ensure that these channels are updated to reflect the most current and accurate information about your brand. You can also take this chance to boost your website’s visibility by reviewing your SEO practices. If your site is a local brick and mortar, optimize it for “near me” searches. Otherwise, focus on overall SEO, which is a powerful tactic, no matter what type of business you have. 

6. Which customers of my audience will be most interested in this? 

By identifying which customers will be most interested in this new product, you can again position your priorities. Identify where this customer spends their most time, what they care about, and how you can speak to their pain points. Customer profiles are a useful tool when exploring your customers’ wants, needs, and habits. With this information under your belt, you can build targeted messaging for the customers who are dying to have your product or use your service. 

7. How will I continue the product or service’s success following the launch? 

Marketing is an ongoing effort. So, it’s essential that you plan for success not only as you prepare for launch but also for as long as your business is in operation. You can follow proactive marketing principles to monitor the success of your marketing campaigns continually. All the while, you must find new and creative ways to keep your current customers interested and entice prospective customers.  

8. Are my marketing and sales teams aligned on the launch details? 

At Green Apple, we often discuss sales and marketing alignment with our clients. Your launch’s success will largely depend on the streamlined communication in your business, so your sales and marketing teams must be telling the same story. When their message is aligned, your customers know what to expect and view your business as one trusted, unified front.

9. What services should I invest in for the highest return on investment? 

Your return on investment depends on the efforts that go into your launch and the effectiveness of those efforts. But, it’s important to realize that you can’t do it all. You can, of course, but professionals who specialize in those efforts may be able to do them better, faster, and cheaper than you can. For example, you may spend twice the resources to build something internally that an outsourced partner could do in half the time while delivering a much more professional and effective product. Take a second to consider what your team is not fully equipped to handle and identify the best partners to work with to fill those gaps. 

10. How do I market the new product or service to my employees? 

A massively important element of marketing that many companies overlook is internal marketing. It’s just as crucial that you market to your employees as you do to your customers. When your employees fully understand your business and are excited about what you’re selling, they will be more excited to share that with others to help your customers succeed. Your employees are your most valuable asset, so ensure that you spend a great deal of time supporting their knowledge about and overall satisfaction with your brand.  

Do you need help building a robust and effective marketing strategy for your brand’s product or service launch? We can help. Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

What You Should Know About Marketing to Millennials and Gen Z

Millennials-looking-at-computer-outdoors
By 2025, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?  This statistic shines a bright light on how our marketing lens should shift as generations age. Before we knew it, Millennials will be three-quarters of the workforce, and in the blink of an eye, Gen Z will be right behind them. So, how do we market to these audiences? What makes them tick? In this article, we share what you should know about appealing to these two age groups.  But first…

Is generational marketing worth it?

Though many brands are hoping to attract an audience of any age, some are surprised to find that they are only seeing individuals who fit the same profile. Of course, one may think, “Well, that’s the audience that is attracted to our business.” While, yes, there is some validity to that, you may be missing entire generations of people who would be interested in what you have to offer.  If you’ve noticed that you aren’t attracting the younger Millennial and Gen Z generations, consider these tips. 

5 Things You Should Know About Marketing to Millennial and Gen Z Audiences

1. Your brand story should be authentic.  
Your audience can spot “fluffy” marketing campaigns from a mile away, especially Millennials and Gen Z. They have grown up with a surplus of information on their computers or at their fingertips, giving them years of practice at filtering out what isn’t worth their time. Tell a story that speaks to their motivations and their needs. Provide them with a practical reason to engage with your business because, trust us, this audience wants to feel good about the companies they support. You can allow them to feel connected to your message by crafting an authentic story they can care about.
2. Email marketing is still effective, even for Gen Z. 
Most people assume that Gen Z’s attachment to social media makes it the best, or only, way to reach them. However, according to a recent study by Campaign Monitor, 58% of those surveyed check their email multiple times per day—so there is very little competition for space in their inboxes. Don’t be too quick to assume that traditional marketing tactics are lost on younger generations—those may just be the avenues we need to grab their attention. 
3. Use your limited time wisely.
Make your marketing count. A widely-used and often disputed marketing statistic is that Millennials have a 12-second attention span, whereas Gen Z has eight seconds. Many believe that the issue is less about the ability to pay attention and more about an overwhelming amount of options. Whichever you feel is true, the goal is the same: your time is limited, so use it wisely. Let’s imagine that you only have eight to 12 seconds to make these younger audiences notice you. How are you going to stand out from the countless competitors vying for their attention? 
4. Hone in your customer experience. 
As we discuss the importance of authenticity and helping your audience feel connected to your brand, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention customer experience. Millennials and Gen Z have higher expectations than generations before them—not in a way that feels demanding, but rather they want to feel taken care of by the brands they’re trusting with their hard-earned money. Younger generations are more selective and want to believe that you want to help them solve a problem or meet a need. Analyze your customer experience to ensure ease of use and that each customer feels special and supported throughout the process. After all, who wouldn’t want that in a buying experience? 
5. Focus on diversity, inclusivity, and equality. 
Millennials and Gen Z help us identify areas in our society that need to be more diverse, inclusive, and equal. Though these challenges have long been fought for by many generations, these two age groups are using their social platforms to raise awareness about these issues—and it’s changing our expectations for the companies we support.  Take brands like Aerie and Target, for example. They identified that their customer base wanted to see more representation. These brands answered society’s call—embracing the idea that humans are diverse, and we deserve to see that in the brands we support. Both retail chains have begun to show greater representation in their marketing, including more diversity in body shape, race, and gender. You’ll notice this change in other areas as well, such as mannequin sizes and clothing options.  Though these are specific examples, we can learn from Aerie and Target when considering how to speak to our Millennial and Gen Z audiences—through supporting causes they care about and making a genuine difference in the world. 

We Can Help You Reach New Demographics

If you take one lesson from this article, let it be this: these generations want to feel good about where they spend their money. So, let’s do everything we can to show them we’re worth the effort. Do you need help finding the missing pieces to your marketing demographic? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.

Should I Hire an Internal Marketing Team or Outsource to a Local Agency?


Marketing is crucial to the success of a business. It helps you meet your sales goals, increase your brand awareness, and tell your story. Though many understand the importance of marketing’s role in growing a business, few are sure of how to go about it. Should you hire an internal team, or should you outsource to a local agency? For the most robust, effective marketing strategy, we recommend outsourcing. Let’s talk about why.

In this article, we’ll cover a few reasons to consider outsourcing, including:

  • Staying ahead of the curve
  • Getting more out of your marketing budget
  • Having a comprehensive marketing team without searching for employees
  • Focusing on your core business operations

With an outsourced marketing agency, you can…

Stay Ahead of the Curve

A marketing agency lives and breathes innovative tools and effective strategies. They are working daily to research new methods, test the effectiveness of a tactic, and identify the best way to connect with your audience. Not only do agencies stay ahead of the latest trends, but they also invest the time into learning about your internal operations and your target audience’s expectations and needs. 

Agencies live in the marketing mindset, whereas internal teams are living inside of your industry’s world. When you outsource your marketing, you know that you’re working with a team that will identify your vision, build a strategy, monitor that strategy continually, and do everything in its power to deliver results. 

Get More Out of Your Marketing Budget

Can you believe that hiring an external marketing team could actually make your budget stretch further? When you think of it in terms of overhead, you can skip hours of searching for an internal employee and the countless dollars you would spend hiring, training, and managing that new person. 

Having an agency on retainer also ensures that your marketing strategy will not be put on hold when someone leaves your team—allowing you to continue growing even during times of turnover. Finally, consider the continual training costs necessary for professional development, such as conferences and classes, and industry organizations’ membership costs.

All in all, agencies bypass your overhead costs and provide you access to a diversely talented and well-trained marketing team that always has a finger on the pulse. 

Have Access to a Comprehensive Marketing Team without Hiring 

An agency removes the need to hire someone to fill every role—content, digital marketing, graphic design, photography, web development, and so on. You will have access to each of these skills, all in one place. It’s as simple as that. In Green Apple’s case, we approach each new client strategy by handpicking a team of marketing professionals to fit your business’s specific needs. We serve as a full-service, one-stop-shop for all things marketing, and you’ll find that it takes the stress off your plate. Rather than piling marketing tasks onto your to-do list, you know that an agency is already five steps ahead of you. 

Focus On Your Core Business

Your business’s core operations are where you want to spend your time. If you’re a roofing company, for example, you don’t want to spend your days wading through marketing tasks, nor should you have to. When companies have the internal capacity to tackle their core focus, that’s when they reach their highest potential. An agency identifies that potential and makes sure that your marketing aligns appropriately. You, on the other hand, focus on what you know and what you love doing. We take care of the rest. 

Are you ready to take your business goals to the next level? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation. To have marketing insight sent straight to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter—The Core.