Branding Archives | Page 2 of 2 | waveSpawn Marketing

September 27, 2010

Reinforcing your value proposition with social media marketing

Well thought out sales and marketing plans are critical for most small businesses. There are many strategies to leverage in order to meet specific revenue goals. However, decision-makers should not lose sight of establishing a unique value proposition which clearly differentiates the product or service from competitors.

What differentiates you from your competitors? Why should prospects buy from you or utilize your services? These are the types of questions that you need to answer before generating your sales and marketing plan. Your value proposition should support your brand. As discussed in an earlier topic, your brand is the personality that identifies your product, service or company. Specifically, this image should represent the heart and soul of your organization as it relates to your customers, employees, partners, and investors.

If you don’t focus on your unique value proposition, you’re likely to get lost in the shuffle with your competitors. Understand what makes you better and use it to your advantage. This could be customer service, quality, cost, innovation, a niche market, core competency, or something else. Incorporate that same strategy into everything you do – including both internal and external communication. Consistency in your message will help establish a clear vision. More importantly it’ll define who you are.

Ultimately, you want customers and prospects to recognize you for something – best quality, lowest price, fastest delivery, most helpful, dependable, etc. That same competitive advantage should be leveraged in your marketing and communications strategy – including social media. Social media offers endless innovative and creative possibilities for businesses to exploit. Learn how to leverage these tools to your advantage. Know your target audience, share your value proposition, and consistent follow-through are all keys to your success.

September 18, 2010

Succeeding in Buffalo with social media marketing

Small business owners in the greater Buffalo area have a lot of marketing options to leverage. Many of these are changing by the minute. Services such as Groupon, foursquare, Yelp, Facebook Marketplace, Yahoo Places, Twitter, and too many others to mention are waiting for local retailers to exploit. With GPS technology and mobile apps at consumers’ fingertips, local businesses can create more visibility than ever before. By harnessing the power (of a combination) of these social media platforms, Buffalo businesses can successfully generate brand awareness, in-store traffic, product buzz, and ultimately revenue.

Many of the strategies and underlying concepts of social media marketing are derived from traditional marketing; however, there are many new tactics and technologies to incorporate. Businesses need to open their minds and be creative. Innovation is paving new opportunities for businesses to market themselves and secure customers. Integrated marketing campaigns with direct mail and PPC advertising can yield even more significant results. Whatever your objectives are, social media can be a powerful communication tool to help spread your message.

waveSpawn is a pioneer in social media and located right here in beautiful Buffalo, NY. We are proud to work with a number of local businesses and assist with their marketing efforts. Please feel free to download our white paper on Understanding Social Media ROI. For specific questions or information, please feel free to contact us.

August 3, 2010

Market your regional product or service with foursquare

foursquare marketing If you haven’t familiarized yourself with foursquare yet, it may be worth your while. Foursquare is gaining popularity quickly. Many businesses are leveraging it to create customer loyalty programs. It’s GPS integrated features allow people to “check-in” when they are at or near your business. This allows you to track frequent visitors. You can structure incentives for your targeted community. For example, if you run a pizza shop, you can offer a free pizza to the member who “checks-in” the most within a given timeframe (month or week). If you have a hair salon, you can give a product away for every 10 check-ins. You can be creative in your offers, but it’s an ideal way to entice potential prospects and reward existing customers.

A powerful feature of foursquare, like most social media platforms, is that it shares information with all of a user’s friends. This creates instant viral marketing. If someone checks-into your establishment, everyone in that person’s network will get updates. It’s like a free plug for your business. As frequent users strive to collect prizes or discounts, this creates competition between various patrons. The better the prize, the bigger the interest. It’s almost like a virtual scavenger hunt.

When you have time, “check-in” to foursquare and see for yourself. If you have questions or not sure where to start, waveSpawn can help…

March 1, 2010

Maximizing Social Media ROI

There’s no denying the magnitude and increasing impact that social media is having upon the business world. Marketing professionals in every industry are reevaluating their business plans and strategies to incorporate this growing phenomenon – which is clearly here to stay. Sometimes this means including a Technorati claim token: G3J8CMQZPY79.

Social media ROI is arguably the hottest topics in the social media eco-system as it relates to marketing. Social networking is changing the way businesses and individuals connect. Online communities create an immediate forum for solicited and unsolicited customer feedback, commentary, suggestions, referrals, and yes even slander. These consumer messages can be powerful and detrimental at the same time. Organizations should give careful consideration to the variety of vehicles and response options available when implementing a social media program.

Each social media initiative takes time, planning, and attention. Perhaps the biggest mistake organizations make is thinking that these accounts can function on autopilot. A blog is created, a Facebook account is activated, Twitter is turned on… and then nobody adds content or monitors these sites. They fail to execute a plan or strategy. In my opinion, neglecting social media accounts is worse than not being involved at all. It’s a direct reflection of a business’s lack of follow-through.

What constitutes effective social media marketing? More importantly, how can marketers accurately measure the results of past social marketing campaigns and how can they predict future results? waveSpawn has compiled a white paper which presents a framework for businesses to better understand and measure the ROI of social media. It outlines the key dimensions of marketing metrics which are critical to determining the success of each social media campaign. It will also help marketers to learn from social media, react to what consumers are saying, and help influence future results.

Download the entire white paper here.

February 4, 2010

Brand yourself – build your own brand

The today show featured an interesting segment on branding yourself. It emphasizes the importance of standing out in the crowd. Especially those people who are looking for employment. In today’s job market, it’s more important than ever to create a way of being remembered. Be unique and build your own personal brand. They suggest focusing on your best qualities – become known for one thing that you do well. It all starts by defining who you are and who you are not.

While this sounds like an interesting concept, it takes time and effort. Most importantly the brand needs to be realistic and believable. Let’s be honest, most people can’t just decide they want to be a rock star, and poof, they morph into Bono status. No, the focus is building an attainable brand. One that accurately represents you and that you can be proud of. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this topic… have you built a personal brand? If so, how?

February 2, 2010

Photo editing just became a Picnik

Picnik photo editing with waveSpawn I’ve heard of the photo editing site called “Picnik” before. I just read their press release announcing that one billion photos have been edited through their service.

“How much is 1 billion? If we viewed all these images, it would take us over 100 years to see them all!”

Because of the hype, I figured I would give the service a test drive for myself. It’s worthwhile to mention that I’ve been a professional Photoshop user for several years. I’m an expert user and very familiar with photo retouching and the various options that are available. With that said, I think Picnik has delivered a quality web-based photo manipulation tool for the masses. It has a simple and intuitive interface that any generation can maneuver. I think it will accomplish 90% of what most people would have the need to do. Furthermore, Picnik has added some great themes for Valentines and other holidays to quickly spice up your photos and create unique scrapbooks.

It’s also worth noting that tomorrow – February 3, 2010, Picnik is opening up their premium services (typically a paid service) to everyone for free. The promotion runs from Wednesday 2/3 at 9am PST through Thursday 2/4 at 9am PST.

“In addition, the person who edited the billionth photo on Picnik will receive Picnik Premium for life and will be featured on Picnik in the month of February.”

Give them a try at http://www.picnik.com and share your feedback with us.

February 1, 2010

Michael Jackson 3D tribute during the Grammy Awards just a primetime advertisement

Michael Jackson 3D Grammy Tribute A live 3D event which aired on the 52^nd Grammy Awards last night seemed to be nothing more than a publicity stunt for American Paper Optics, LLC, Sony, and Target. I happened to view the event with some 3D glasses leftover from seeing Avatar a few weeks ago. It was a lame attempt at trying to plug their latest 3D television devices. It certainly didn’t add any visual impact to the Michael Jackson tribute. It was much more fizzle than pizzazz.

It’s one thing to honor someone for their creative and lasting contributions to the music world. The focus should have been on Michael Jackson and his talented legacy within the industry. Instead it was somewhat overshadowed because it was sponsored by large corporations that needed to get their plugs mentioned.

I’m all for creative marketing techniques, but I think there are more appropriate and tactful ways of doing it. I was going to ask, what’s next – funeral sponsorship? But that seems to be done already by a guy from Chicago who designed his casket as a Pabst Blue Ribbon can. Let’s see who tops that…