From Reactive to Proactive: Navigating Need-Based Marketing Planning

“There’s more than one way to bake a cake… but every great cake requires certain ingredients.”

In the dynamic world of marketing, one size rarely fits all. For many small businesses, a short-term campaign-based strategy is usually the go-to. While this approach has its merits, it also creates some unique pitfalls. One of the primary challenges is the risk of reactive marketing. When only immediate needs drive marketing efforts, there can be a lack of overall direction and coherence in brand messaging. This reactive approach can also limit the potential impact of marketing campaigns, as they may need more time to gain traction and build momentum.

Marketing planning isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. While we typically collaborate with our clients to create comprehensive annual marketing plans, we also recognize the need for short-term targeted campaigns for specific initiatives. In this article, we’ll delve into the best practices for needs-based marketing planning.

Defining “Need-Based Marketing” and When to Use It

Need-based marketing planning is a more agile and adaptable approach to marketing planning that is typically used by smaller marketing teams. It involves identifying and addressing marketing needs as they arise, rather than developing a comprehensive annual marketing plan in advance. A need-based strategy might include who, what, when, where, why, and how, along with goals for the strategy. 

This approach is often necessary for smaller businesses with limited resources or that operate in rapidly changing markets. Here are some instances when a needs-based marketing approach is more suitable than a comprehensive annual marketing plan:

Dealing with limited resources.

Small and mid-size businesses often need to direct their resources to other priorities than marketing. A needs-based approach allows a business of this size to focus its marketing efforts on the most critical activities without developing a comprehensive annual plan.

Launching a new product or service.

When introducing a new product, service, or initiative, a needs-based approach allows you to focus on a targeted and short-term campaign to create buzz, generate interest, and gather initial feedback.

Entering a new market.

When businesses enter a new market, they may not have the resources or time to develop a comprehensive annual marketing plan. A needs-based approach allows them to focus on the most important marketing activities in the short term.

Facing new competitive challenges. 

If your business faces strong competition or emerging rivals, a needs-based strategy allows you to swiftly counter competitive threats and seize opportunities as they arise.

Managing budget constraints.

If your marketing budget is limited or uncertain, you can allocate resources more effectively by concentrating on high-impact, short-term initiatives.

In these scenarios, a needs-based marketing approach provides the agility and adaptability required to navigate changing circumstances and capitalize on opportunities.

Best Practices for Need-Based Marketing Planning

How can you ensure your needs-based planning aligns with your overall business objectives to prevent slipping into a more reactive approach to marketing? Here are a few best practices to consider:

Make sure your short-term initiative is aligned with your overall marketing objectives. 

Need-based marketing should align with your overarching brand narrative strategy. Before diving into the specifics of your needs-based marketing plan, take a step back and clearly define how it connects with what you’re hoping to achieve overall. What specific campaign, initiative, or opportunity are you addressing? What do you hope to accomplish with this plan? 

It’s also important to note that the absence of a comprehensive annual plan should not equate to a lack of strategic direction.  Even if you don’t have an overarching marketing strategy, it’s important to ensure that your marketing activities align with your overall goals.

Set clear goals.

It’s essential to take a similar approach to need-based planning as you do to annual planning. You’ll still need to set measurable marketing goals and a timeline of when you plan to reach them. Define specific and measurable goals for each opportunity or need. Doing this will allow you to evaluate success and impact more effectively.

Identify high-impact opportunities. 

When your budget or time is limited, you especially want to focus on opportunities that have the potential to make the most significant impact on your business. This could include opportunities with high ROI, strong alignment with your target audience, or those that address critical business needs.

Focus on customer-centric marketing. 

Put your customers at the center of your marketing strategy and focus on meeting their needs. What are their pain points? What are their goals? What are they looking for from a business like yours? You can develop more effective marketing campaigns by understanding your customers’ needs.

Use data to drive your decisions. 

Refrain from relying on intuition or guesswork when developing your marketing plan. How will you track progress and measure the impact of your marketing efforts? By defining metrics upfront, you can make informed decisions and refine your plan. This will also help you to make more informed marketing decisions in the future.

Embrace testing and iteration for continuous improvement. 

When implementing needs-based marketing plans, consider starting with smaller resource allocations and conducting tests, especially for uncertain or high-risk opportunities. This approach allows you to gather valuable data and insights without overcommitting resources. If initial results are promising, you can gradually allot more resources and refine your strategies based on the data from each test. This iterative approach will help you optimize your marketing efforts and maximize the impact of your needs-based campaigns.

Leverage external expertise for enhanced effectiveness.

If you find yourself stuck in a reactive approach, consider outsourcing your marketing planning or implementation to an agency. One of the most significant benefits of hiring a marketing agency is that they offer access to a broader pool of expertise, fresh perspectives, and specialized tools that may not be readily available within your organization. When finding the right marketing agency, you want to find a partner who can help you take a more proactive approach rather than simply offering services that meet your immediate requests. 
 

Prioritize Proactive Planning over Reactive Marketing

While needs-based planning often involves responding to immediate opportunities or challenges, it’s essential to prioritize proactive planning whenever possible. You can develop more strategic and effective marketing campaigns by anticipating potential needs and opportunities.

At Green Apple, we love collaborating with clients to develop any and every type of strategy. If you’re curious about how our team can help you achieve your goals, schedule an exploratory consultation. We would love to learn more about your business and see if we’re the right fit for you!

Marketing Outside of the Office: 5 Ways to Be A Successful Marketer Without Being Stuck at a Desk

Can you be a marketer without working a traditional 9-5? The answer is a resounding “YES!” Today, more and more marketers are finding success—for their careers and for the brands they represent—without spending all day behind a desk. 

Modern, untraditional marketing initiatives take many forms, including influencer, affiliate, guerilla, stealth, and street. I’ll unpack each of those in this blog post so you can learn more about how the marketing landscape is changing to include new techniques that largely occur outside of the office.

Influencer Marketing

If you’ve spent time on social media, you’ve encountered influencer marketing. This type of marketing is highly effective, relying on endorsements and product mentions from individuals with a dedicated social following who are viewed as experts within their niche.

For example, a popular fitness vlogger may be asked to post a video on TikTok promoting certain supplements or athletic gear. She then creates content around the product and shares it with thousands or even millions of followers. Because they already trust her expertise, they will be more likely to purchase the product she is advertising. 

Influencer marketing is effective because it relies on the relationships the influencer has previously established with her audience. Instead of the brand building trust with the audience directly, the influencer’s endorsement does that for them, quickly creating a bridge between the audience and the brand. 

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing refers to sharing a link to a good or service on your website or blog and earning a commission each time someone purchases the product from that shared link. 

This type of marketing involves little to no startup costs, as most affiliate programs are free to join. Plus, there are several different paths to choose from as you’re getting started, including promoting your link in search results or through email marketing, developing your own influencer program, or creating a website based on product reviews or coupons.
 

Guerilla Marketing

Less intense than its namesake guerilla warfare, guerilla marketing relies on the element of surprise to create wonder and awe in the day-to-day lives of potential consumers, both in person or online. It requires less upfront costs than many traditional marketing methods. But, what guerilla marketing lacks in costs, it makes up for in hands-on execution and creativity. 

Consider Bounty’s surprise gigantic messes in the streets of New York City – think an oversized popsicle and a huge spilled coffee cup – to advertise the effectiveness of the paper towels. Out-of-the-box ideas like this are noticeable and thought-provoking, meeting potential buyers where they are and leaving a memorable and positive impression. 

Stealth Marketing

In contrast to guerilla marketing’s eye-catching techniques, stealth marketing aims to fly under the radar. Brands want to showcase a product or service, but in a more indirect campaign that drives awareness more than sales. 

A popular form of stealth marketing is product placement (i.e. when a product is strategically placed in a T.V. show or movie). However, it can also occur via reviews, company partnerships, and web content produced or endorsed by a third party. The most important part of a stealth marketing campaign, or any marketing campaign, is to be genuine or risk ruining your reputation. 

When done well, stealth marketing can create excitement and conversation around a brand. It can make a brand more memorable and help potential customers feel empowered in purchasing decisions. 

Street Marketing

Street marketing is the close cousin of guerilla marketing. Like guerilla marketing, effective street marketing can be accomplished on a low budget if it’s big on creativity. 

A key difference is that while guerilla marketing occurs in person and online, street marketing is limited to just that: the street and other public places like sidewalks and transit stations. 

Street marketing includes tactics like placing static ads in unexpected places, such as an ad for Roto-Rooter on a manhole cover or using enthusiastic brand ambassadors to pass out product samples. 

Develop the Best Marketing Strategy

Our team at Green Apple has years of experience developing modern strategies for brands throughout the United States. If you’re ready to move your marketing outside of the office, reach out and let our team put together a plan that will stop your audience in their tracks.

From Idea to Impact: How to Develop a Memorable Brand Story

Every successful company started as an idea. 

Whether it was a concept sparked by a business conversation or originally written down on the back of a napkin, every brand has a story to tell about how it evolved from idea to impact. As a marketer or business leader, your ability to tell that story (i.e., brand storytelling) affects how well your potential customers remember who you are, connect with your mission, and care about your products or services. 

Brand storytelling not only explains how you differ from your competitors; it also humanizes your brand in a way that allows people to relate to it. It helps customers understand who you are and why your business exists. 

For example, Green Apple Strategy was founded as a marketing and PR agency that builds marketing strategies with the entire business in mind. Rather than offering “one-off” marketing projects like creating a website or managing social media, we come alongside businesses to develop and implement marketing strategies with their “core” business areas in mind. As a result, a big part of our work has been helping businesses find their “story” and tell it effectively in today’s digital age. 


Develop a Blueprint for Memorable Brand Storytelling

After working with dozens of clients in various industries over the years, here are a few best practices we’ve learned when it comes to developing your brand’s story:

Discover your why.

To borrow the famous adage from Simon Sinek, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Discovering your why when marketing your business should always be step one. Rather than leading with your products, services, or solutions, take a step back and examine the motivation behind your actions. It’s more than just making a profit (or at least, it should be). It’s the big, bold vision that motivates your company.  

Help your audience see themselves in your story.

While your brand story unpacks your origin and unique differentiators, it’s essential to remember that the best marketing makes your audience feel like the hero in the story. It’s important to make sure your audience can see themselves in your brand story. That means highlighting their specific challenges or obstacles and why you care about helping them solve the problem.

Make sure your brand story aligns with your business goals. 

Your brand story should align with your business goals and integrate into all areas of your business—including marketing, sales, and all internal and external communications. Potential goals to build your story around include revenue growth, clarifying what your business offers, differentiating from other companies, or growing brand awareness. 

Don’t forget to be human. 

Remember, people connect with people. Your brand story should have personality. Boring books don’t attract readers. In the same way, your brand story should be inspired by the presence of people who participate and develop your company — written with the specific personality that represents your company. 


Questions to Help With Brand Storytelling

As we work with brands, we get to know their history, unique value proposition, ideal target audience, and dreams for the future. Each of these impact the brand story we craft. While it’s important to create a unique narrative, here are a few helpful questions that could help you identify the important elements and narrative arc of your brand story: 

1. How and why was your company founded? What inspired its creation?

2. What were the specific challenges or problems your company sought to address in the market? How does that connect with the problems you seek to address today?

3. Were there any significant events, experiences, or turning points that shaped the early days of your company?

4. What were the core values, principles, or beliefs that guided the founders in establishing the company?

5. Did your company experience any transformative moments or breakthroughs that set it apart from competitors?

6. Who is your target audience? How does your product or service positively impact the lives of your customers? 

7. What is your company’s vision for the future? How do you plan to evolve and make a positive impact?


Take Your Brand Storytelling to the Next Level

Creating a compelling brand story is worth it because it becomes something to reinforce in every marketing campaign. If you’re struggling to identify a brand story or marketing message that resonates with your audience, our team can help. Reach out to our team to learn more about our process or schedule a time to chat. 

How to Audit Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Our analytical approach shapes everything we do at Green Apple. Regularly scheduled marketing audits are an essential component of any good marketing strategy. No matter how small or big your brand is, or how robust your returns are, you should regularly test and assess your strategy because marketing is always changing and evolving. While one approach may work for a particular quarter, that approach may need to change as you collect more data. Taking time in the middle of the fiscal year to audit your digital marketing strategy is a good practice. Here’s how to dive in: 


What is a Digital Marketing Audit?

A digital marketing audit is simply an analysis of all the practices, strategies, and outcomes of a brand’s online presence. The purpose of a digital marketing audit is to get an overarching view of your digital marketing campaigns and learn how (and if) your digital marketing strategy is meeting your business goals.


Why Are Audits Important?

In this ever-changing digital world, trends and updates are as frequent as a fast-paced TikTok routine. That’s why we run monthly audits to keep our clients’ strategies aligned with the latest developments. By assessing our progress, we can also make necessary adjustments to stay ahead of the curve.

A comprehensive audit helps to benchmark baseline metrics, identify opportunities, outperform competitors, and drive more business. 

“Conducting mid-year audits helps us stay ahead and be proactive for our clients. One example I have is when we conducted a mid-year audit and decided to change the size and type of graphics we did for a client’s social media content. We saw an uptick in engagement because we were adapting to the changing social media algorithms,” explains Katie Shayotovich, Green Apple Content Marketing Specialist. 

These digital audits not only help us fine-tune our clients’ strategies but also enhance the overall customer experience.


Digital Marketing Channels to Audit 

A digital marketing audit will examine several channels, depending on your goals. You can follow these steps to get started:

  • Review your website 
    • 75% of your website’s credibility comes from its design. An audit will ensure your website is designed to catch the eye of any potential customers.
  • Audit your SEO
    • Auditing your site for SEO helps boost your website’s ability to rank in the top three positions on the first page of a search engine. Since search algorithms are always changing, it’s important to perform an SEO audit multiple times throughout the year. 
  • Run a content marketing audit
    • Content marketing is a strategy used to attract, engage and retain potential customers and helps build brand loyalty. Start your content audit by pulling data for your website to determine what content is performing the best. Look for what is working and what’s not, then optimize your content moving forward based on those results. 
  • Run a social media audit 
    • Social media is an integral part of content marketing, so you’ll want to audit all of your social media profiles. 
  • Perform an email marketing audit 
    • Despite being one of the oldest email marketing channels, email remains very relevant. Be sure to audit email performance metrics such as your click-through rate and open rate to optimize your overall engagement.

Who Conducts the Audit?

At Green Apple, a marketing audit typically involves multiple team members and is a collaborative effort. To ensure comprehensive and specialized insights, our approach involves not only our dedicated full-time team but also a network of skilled freelancers known as “The Orchard.” Each member of The Orchard possesses expertise in a specific area related to the audit, contributing valuable perspectives and knowledge to the process. Our team reviews the audit findings and offers actionable feedback to enhance our clients’ marketing strategies. 

By leveraging the expertise of a team with specialized skills and a commitment to delivering actionable insights, we strive to ensure that our clients receive a comprehensive and high-quality marketing audit. This approach allows us to address various facets of marketing and provide our clients with the guidance they need to refine their strategies and achieve optimal results.

Looking to grow your business with an effective digital marketing strategy? Schedule a consultation with us today.

5 Keys for B2B Content Marketing Strategy that Drives Business

Sticky notes on a board

Content marketing has become a crucial component of nearly every B2B marketer’s strategy. In fact, 91% of B2B marketers say they use content marketing in their overall strategy. The good news is that content marketing has become a proven way to reach ​​customers, earn trust, and impact the bottom line. The challenge for many marketers is identifying the right tactics and channels that work for their business and within their budget. It seems like everyone is competing for attention or popular keywords, and artificial intelligence is changing content creation.

 

In this blog post, we wanted to explore a few best practices we’ve used with clients when it comes to developing a content marketing strategy that directly impacts business development.

 
1. Take time to truly understand your audience. 

The first step in developing an effective content marketing strategy is to understand your target audience. If you want your content to resonate with potential customers, you need to know who they are, their daily pain points and challenges, and what type of content resonates with them. This ensures you develop content that addresses their specific needs and interests rather than guessing if you’re creating valuable content. 

 
2. Make sure your content is aligned with your overall business goals.

What are you hoping to achieve this year? Are you launching a new product or hoping to increase customers in a particular area of business? If so, you should incorporate those goals as you develop your content strategy. One key factor in this approach is giving yourself plenty of runway to educate and inspire your audience to take action. As the old saying goes, the moment you’re tired of talking about it is likely the time your customers are starting to recognize the message. Give your top-of-the-funnel content marketing plenty of time to work before you start expecting results. 

 
3. Be strategic as you diversify your content. 

In addition to creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience, it’s important to diversify the format in which you share it. Today’s digital landscape offers a variety of channels that allow you to get more out of your content marketing. For example, you can turn a white paper into a podcast or webinar. You can break down a blog post into a social infographic. As you explore ways to diversify your content, it’s important to remember what formats your audience prefers. The good news is that diversifying your content allows you to meet the different preferences and consumption habits of your target audience.

 
4. Don’t forget to promote your content.

You could write the most amazing blog post in the world. But it could quickly fall by the wayside without an intentional promotional strategy. B2B marketers must ensure that their content reaches their content audience by promoting it through a variety of channels. This includes strategically thinking about how to promote content on social media, email marketing, paid advertising, and influencer marketing. Promoting your content is essential for amplifying your reach and increasing the ROI of your content marketing efforts. 

 
5. Let data inform your decisions. 

Measuring the effectiveness of your efforts is an essential part of marketing. But often, evaluating content marketing becomes anecdotal and causes you to question how to adapt your strategy. This is why evaluating the data and adopting a more agile approach to content marketing is key. Which content pieces are most popular with your audience? What promotional tactics seemed to be most effective? How can you use these insights to plan your content marketing and areas such as product development or customer solutions? These are all helpful questions that provide valuable insights for your business. 

 

Need Help with Content Marketing?

At Green Apple, we’ve used these principles to help dozens of businesses develop a content marketing strategy that creates a pipeline for business development. ​Our strategic, full-service marketing firm can help you plan and deploy an innovative content marketing approach to court customers and build brand loyalty. Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation. Our team is happy to sit down with you to discuss your marketing goals and how we can help you achieve each one of them.​

Our Top 10 Marketing Insights & Topics from 2022

2022

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

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

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

1. What Not To Do During a Zoom Meeting

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

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

2. 7 Key Elements of Eye-Catching Content

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

3. Why Corporate Social Responsibility Should Be on Your Radar for 2022

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

4. 5 [Virtual] Client Appreciation Gifts for 2022

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

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

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

6. Is Print Advertising Still Viable?

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

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

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

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

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

9. 4 Factors for Creating a Customer-Centric Culture

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

10. Enneagram and Marketing: How Type Threes Move Mountains

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

Get the Latest Marketing Insights & Trends

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

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.

Surprising New Marketing Trends that Work

Every January, marketing pros come out with their “top trends” to watch for the upcoming year. These are popular and helpful resources since marketing always seems to be changing, and it can be difficult to keep up with all the trends. But we rarely take time to look back and highlight what marketing trends actually worked.  

At Green Apple, we’re constantly looking for new ideas or strategies that might help our clients achieve their goals. We also recognize that one of the most helpful tactics can be to stop and reflect on what’s working and what’s not. As we head into Q4 of 2022, we thought we’d take some time to reflect on the first nine months and highlight the marketing trends that have been most effective so far this year. 

7 Surprising New Marketing Trends that Work 

While AI, visual content, and personalization were all hot trends heading into 2022, here are seven tactics we found to be most helpful for our clients this year: 

1. Flexible Strategies that Pivot

Most companies head into a new year with a comprehensive marketing plan that lasts 12 months. The problem occurs when the strategies and tactics fail to produce results. Then what?

The one trend that everyone can depend on is that tactic effectiveness will change and shift throughout the year. We’ve found that developing flexible approaches that anticipate changes can be one of the most valuable ways to pivot your marketing efforts without abandoning your entire strategy. 

2. Surprise & Delight 

Consumers are seeking comfort and delight as they emerge from the pandemic. This year, we’ve seen incredible results from taking time to show appreciation and bring joy to someone’s day through surprise and delight strategies. These moments work as a brand differentiator, and they can also be a highly effective strategy for fostering long-term customer loyalty.  

3. Adapting Content Strategies to Meet Changing Consumer Habits 

The way people consume content has changed. While video-based content and social media were at the forefront of the discussion this year, it’s particularly important to consider your audience’s preferences when crafting your content strategy in 2022. A decade ago, most marketers focused primarily on written content, whether online or in print. Today’s businesses must consider the way content marketing and consumer habits have evolved. 

4. Promoting Your Corporate Social Responsibility Platform

As conscious consumerism continues to gain steam, many companies have made social responsibility part of their company DNA. On a large scale, we saw numerous companies highlight their plan to reduce their carbon footprint in 2022. But even on a smaller scale, we’ve seen the power of highlighting your company’s desire to make a positive difference in your community. 

5. Employee Engagement

In today’s digital world,  it’s essential to make an effort to know your customers on a personal level. Without it, your digital marketing efforts are likely to fall flat. Getting your employees involved in your marketing has become a powerful strategy. Shifting your marketing strategy from product- or service-centered to people-centered could be a helpful strategy as you look for ways to connect with your audience in Q4 and beyond. 

6. Micro-Stories & Bite-Size Content 

Tiktok and other video-based marketing channels were all the rage at the beginning of the year. And while they’re influence has undoubtedly grown, we’ve seen the “micro-content” trend expand to nearly every marketing channel. For example, we’ve seen incredible success in helping our clients reformat content into micro-infographics for media. In short, the easier we can make it for people to read and digest our content, the more likely they’ll share it. 

7. SMS Marketing 

Text campaigns were one of those surprising trends that no one was really talking about at the beginning of the year. And yet, it seems like so many companies have turned to SMS marketing as a way to reach customers. SMS messages have an open rate of 98%, making texts the superior marketing channel. While many B2C companies have used SMS for product alerts and promotions, we’re curious to see if there are ways B2B companies can utilize it to engage customers as the tactic continues to evolve. 

While you might not be able to predict which channels and tactics will really work next year, you can embrace the timeless principles and strategies that are behind them.

Copywriting Tips that Inspire Your Customers to Take Action

Two Women Typing on Laptops

Inspiring customers to take action is the goal of any marketing campaign. Achieving that goal requires knowing the words that will resonate with your audience and motivate them to take the appropriate next step. This is why copywriting is such a powerful part of marketing.

There are dozens of things to take into account whenever you’re writing marketing copy. You’re thinking about your audience, the medium you’re communicating through, and what you’re trying to achieve. You’re also trying to determine what will capture their attention and keep them engaged. Most people don’t realize how challenging it is to accomplish such a feat.  

How do you inspire your audience to take the action you want in a way that doesn’t come across as a hard sell? In this post, we wanted to highlight a few tips from our writers in Orchard when it comes to creating marketing copy that inspires people to take action. 

Copywriting Tips That Inspire Your Customers to Take Action

1. Identify and solve a problem.

Great marketing copy creates tension that resonates with the audience and then provides a release. During the attention-grabbing phase, it’s essential to identify your audience’s needs or problems so that you can ultimately present a solution.

2. Use short, simple sentences.

You need to make it easy for people to read your content. This is especially true for writing copy that will be published on digital platforms. Reading from a screen is hard. When you write long, meandering sentences, your readers have to work harder to make sense of it. 

3. Don’t bury the lead.

This old adage from journalism also applies to marketing copy. While creating tension is important, you also don’t want to lose your audience’s attention. If you want to inspire action,  it’s best to get to the point. Your audience should know the next step they should take to resolve their issue within a few minutes of reading. 

4. Make sure to emphasize the benefits your customer will experience. 

A common reason marketing copy doesn’t inspire action is that the focus shifts from the audience back to the product or service. While it may be important to highlight the unique features of your product or service, your audience cares more about how it will benefit them. 

It’s important to start with benefits before you dive into whatever features you want to highlight in your copy. 

5. Read what you write out loud before posting.

The best marketing copy makes you feel like you’re having a conversation. It’s personable, relatable, and easy to follow. Reading your copy out loud before you post it is one of the easiest ways to improve your copywriting skills. 

6. Put yourself in your readers’ shoes. 

Many times, marketers can be so close to their product or service that they forget what it’s like for their audience to experience it. This is where it can be helpful to take a step back and try to read your content from your audience’s point of view.

As yourself…

  • Would I click this link?
  • Would I find this helpful?
  • Would I enjoy this content?

Any response other than a quick “yes” might indicate that you need to spend more time on your copy.

7. Provide an appropriate call-to-action.

Part of our role as marketers is to guide people through the buying process. In the same way, you don’t ask someone to marry you on the first date, it’s important to know the appropriate “next step” to offer your audience. 

Writing copy that inspires customers to take action is both an art and a skill. It requires that you understand your audience’s core challenges and needs. It also involves knowing how to guide them toward the right next step. 

If you’ve struggled to inspire potential customers to take action or you suspect that your website copy might be a reason you’re not attracting new business, our team can help. You can subscribe to our newsletter for marketing tips or reach out to learn more about the ways we can support your marketing needs.  

How to use SEO Best Practices to Get More YouTube Views

Video is no longer just another tactic to help you get the most out of your content marketing. It has become an absolute must if you’re serious about getting your product or service in front of the right people. According to a recent Hubspot report, video was the most commonly used form of content marketing in 2021, overtaking blogs and infographics.  However, simply creating videos doesn’t mean your customers will find or watch them. Developing a strategy to increase YouTube views is just as important as creating videos. This is where understanding YouTube SEO best practices come in handy. YouTube SEO, as the name suggests, is optimizing your videos to rank higher on the YouTube search engine. 

4 SEO Tips to Get More YouTube Views

If you’re looking for a way to increase your YouTube views, here are four SEO best practices as you add and upload your videos:
1. Incorporate Keywords Strategically
Keywords play a valuable role in any SEO campaign. Whether you’re optimizing your website or uploading videos, identifying the right SEO keywords for your business is the first step. When it comes to YouTube, there are several places you want to strategically incorporate keywords for your videos. You want to include your keyword in the video title, description, tags, and file name. It’s helpful to identify one or two main words that describe your video and feature them prominently in your description and title.
2. Add a Custom Thumbnail Image, Cards, and End Screens to Your Video 
The video itself also plays a key role in SEO for YouTube. A custom thumbnail image for your video can make a drastic difference in the click-through rate.  Cards and end screens are also helpful images to create and add to your video. YouTube cards are preformatted notifications that encourage people to take desired actions during your video. End screens appear after a video finishes and tell a viewer what they can do next. Both cards and end screens can optimize the viewing experience and encourage viewers to watch another video or take further action when they’ve finished.
3. Use Subtitles in Your Video
Using subtitles and closed captions is another tip for success in YouTube search. Both subtitles and closed-caption files contain the text from the video in a transcript. This is where using keywords while talking is important. By including keywords in your video and adding subtitles, you’re able to reach our audience and increase your rankings. Make sure you provide accurate captions and subtitles and don’t indulge in keyword stuffing.
4. Creating Engagement and Ask for Comments to Increase Rankings
Engagement is one of the biggest factors in your video rankings. Comments on videos also appear to be an influential ranking factor. As you create your videos, consider how you might ask for feedback or comments. Another thing you can do to increase engagement is directly replying to comments on your videos. Responding and creating a dialogue will help you create a community from the ground up.  All these components may seem a bit complicated, but they’re incredibly easy to deploy. Remember: there’s a huge audience on YouTube, and when you optimize your videos for YouTube, you also increase your chances of your brand reaching your target demographic. Discover our unique approach to helping small businesses optimize their SEO efforts through Green Apple’s SEO Silo.