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BRANDING IN THE INBOUND AGE 1

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BRANDING IN THE
INBOUND AGE
The Ultimate
Guide to Managing
a Brand in the
Inbound Age
A publication of
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Agenoy oontent is written speoitoally for owners of marketing and
advertising agenoies, and marketers working at agenoies. 1he
oontent teaohes agenoies inbound marketing prinoiples they oan
apply to their own businesses, as well as their clients.
AGENCY
IS THIS BOOK RIGHT FOR ME?
Not quite sure if this ebook is right for you? 3ee the below desoription to determine if
your level matches the content you are about to read.
lntermediate oontent is for marketers who are familiar with the
subject but have only basic experience in executing strategies and
tactics on the topic. This content typically covers the fundamentals
and moves on to reveal more complex functions and examples.
After reading it, you will feel comfortable leading projects with this
aspeot of inbound marketing.
INTERMEDIATE
Advanoed oontent is for marketers who are, or want to be, experts
on the subjeot. ln it, we walk you through advanoed features of
this aspeot of inbound marketing and help you develop oomplete
mastery of the subject. After reading it, you will feel ready not only
to execute strategies and tactics, but also to teach others how to
be successful.
ADVANCED
This ebook!
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... brings your whole marketing world to-
gether in one, powerful, integrated system.
HUBSPOTS ALL-IN-ONE
MARKETING SOFTWARE
Get Found: elp prospeots tnd you online
Convert: Nurture your leads and drive conversions
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Plus more apps and integrations
LEAD
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EMAIL &
AUTOMATION
SEARCH
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MARKETING
ANALYTICS
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LEAD
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Request A Demo Video Overview
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BRAND MANAGEMENT IN THE
INBOUND AGE
By Patriok 3hea
Patriok 3hea is ub3pot's Channel Marketing
Manager. Patriok has written and presented
extensively on agency growth strategies, and
runs a weekly webinar on agenoy-speoito topios.
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER
@MPATRICKSHEA
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INTRODUCTION 06
WHAT IS A BRAND 08
PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY 33
MONITORING YOUR BRAND 50
MEASURING YOUR BRAND 64
CONCLUSION 74
CONTENTS
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lf you're in the marketing business, you might have notioed things have
changed in the last few years around the subject of branding. How you
brand a business is no longer just a matter of some clever creative and
timely ad placements.
Let's take the trst step of the inbound marketing methodology -
getting found by potential customers. These days, a business is one of
about 8 gajillion results on a search engine results page. A buildings
super sweet sign is just one of thousands of visual cues bombarding
overstimulated passersby every day. And the promotional giveaway that
onoe tiokled entrants' fanoies? Now, it looks like nothing more than a
spammy banner ad.
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Making a brand stand out is, needless to say, no pieoe of oake.
Successfully managing your brand in the inbound age is about more
than just oonneoting all the phases of the marketing funnel, and
creating content that attracts and converts leads. Its about doing all
of that, but with pizzazz. Oh, and that pizzazz has to be measurable,
somehow. (Because if you input pizzazz into a clients invoice, they
might ask for more details.) 1his ebook is going to show you how to
do all of that - whether it's for your own agenoy's brand, or for your
clients.
Making a brand stand
out is, needless to say,
no piece of cake.

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WHAT IS A
BRAND
CHAPTER 1
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7KHGHQLWLRQRIEUDQGLQJ
is as squishy as a bowl of
JELL-O

1he detnition of branding is as squishy as a bowl of


1LLL-0 (now, there's a brand for you). 1here are as
many detnitions of branding as there are marketers
to ask.
1he Amerioan Marketing Assooiation detnes brand
and branding this way: A brand is a customer
experience represented by a collection of images and
ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name,
logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition
and other reactions are created by the accumulation
of experienoes with the speoito produot or servioe,
both directly relating to its use, and through
the intuenoe of advertising, design, and media
commentary.
ln short? ou know a brand when you see one - and
you know one that isn't working when you see one,
too. Let's talk about both of those some more.
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
BRANDING:
WHAT WORKS
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ln Ueoember 2012, when lnteroontinentalLxohange (lCL), a 12-year-old Atlanta-based
derivatives exohange, announoed it was purohasing the 220-year-old New ork 3took
Lxohange (N3L) for $8.2 billion, it wasn't beoause the value in the N3L lied in its future
prospeots. 1he N3L's market share of stook and oommodity trading deolined steadily in
the last 15 years from 80-plus percent in its heyday, to only slightly more than 20 percent.
What ICE was buying, according to Anthony Mason, chief business correspondent for CBS
News, was a world-renowned brand and immediate credibility. Thats what was worth
$8 billion: a brand that, to use the vernaoular, literally brought lCL street ored - wall 3treet
ored - the one street that matters more in the tnanoial world than any other.
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Thats how you know when your
brand is working when people are
willing to pay a premium for your
goods or services even though they
might be available elsewhere for less.

And thats always been the case with top-notch brands. But the importance of it is more
critical in the inbound age than ever before. Todays consumers have the opportunity to
research brands spanning across the entire globe before they pull the trigger. Its not just
about which company has the coolest tag line to decide who has the best brand. The best
brands have the coolest tag line; the most intuitive website; the most engaging social
media presence; the emails that remind you of what you need, when you need it; the blog
posts that prediot and perfeotly answer your speoito question, before you even asked it!
Thats branding in the inbound age. And the brands that can execute all of these things for
their target audienoe are the brands that people are willing to pay top dollar for - whether
theyre located around the corner, or across the globe.
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
BRANDING:
WHAT DOESNT
WORK
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ln 2007, 1esoo, the uK-based global supermarket giant, announoed it was entering the
highly oompetitive u.3. grooery market with a new ohain of small stores dubbed lresh and
Lasy. live years and about $1.8 billion later, 1esoo started to shut down those stores.
why?
Because, by many accounts, its brand failed.
1o start, the name 'lresh and Lasy' reminded some of a sanitary napkin. 1hat is the wrong
feeling to evoke for a vendor of foodstuffs. 1he fresh" oonoept also felt oontradioted by
the ohain's deoision to shrink-wrap fresh fruit and sell produoe individually instead of
by weight, a decision they made so they could avoid hiring cashiers (the chain opted for
entirely self-servioe oheokout).
But perhaps the biggest hurdle for Tesco was competing against Trader Joes. Joes brand,
built on similarly sized markets that are easy to navigate, with reasonably prioed goods that
don't skimp on quality, and a jaunty, oolorful personality embodied by staffers' awaiian
shirts, has a teroely loyal following.
That is the wrong feeling to evoke for
a vendor of foodstuffs.

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1here was nothing wrong with lresh and Lasy per se. lts meats were tne. 1heir oereal was a
good way to start your day. But their branding failed. They could never manage to establish
that fun, easy-to-like persona shoppers love about 1rader 1oe's - whioh manifested itself
everywhere from the products it sold, to the stores layout, to their staffs personalities,
and yes, in their marketing.
1hat's the thing with bad" branding. Lven if your brand makes sense in a P&L, it doesn't
mean itll translate to consumers. Fresh and Easys business model might have made
perfeot rational sense - shrink wrapped fruit? Less waste and limited staff, making for
oheaper produots? 3ounds awesome. But when the benetts aren't translated through
amazing inbound marketing oontent, the benetts are totally lost on oonsumers. And then
where do they go? 1o the brand that, though similar on paper, has demonstrated their
brands value to consumers.
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
BRANDING IN
THE INBOUND
AGE IS A
DIFFERENT
GAME
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why's the branding game different? Beoause branding in the age of inbound marketing,
is inherently branding in the age of the internet. And the internet moves fast. That means
your brand oan be built up in an instant - and destroyed in one, too.
But it oan also be built up over time, and reaoh far more people than ever before (keep
in mind a long build-up oan still mean a quiok fall, though). 1he opportunity for a small
oompany to have a big voioe is here with the internet - but to do it, you need to be good at
not only getting found; you need a differentiator, too.
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
WHAT DOES A
BRAND LOOK
LIKE ONLINE?
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Perhaps above all else, what a successful brand
looks and feels like online is oonsistent. No matter
which channel your customers and prospects
ohoose to interaot with your brand - website, blog,
laoebook, 1witter, Pinterest, ou1ube, lnstagram,
or whatever tomorrow's teohnology brings - they
should all demonstrate the unique experience your
brand represents.
Southwest Airlines, for example, built a large part of
its brand experienoe around those signature paokets
of peanuts they serve onboard. 3eem trivial? Not
so. Being a little nuts is now part of the Southwest
brand -- from tight attendants singing about how to
buokle your seat belt, to a oontest-winning photo
of smooohing manatees on 3outhwest's laoebook
page (the airline is, after all, headquartered at
Uallas' Love teld).
T
visually, your brand should inolude the same elements - logo, oolors, fonts - aoross all ohannels.
But more important than just mere design consistency, its the experience people have with your
brand online that should transcend each channel and be instantly recognizable as your brand.
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1one and voioe - what does your brand sound like? Are you irreverent? 3illy?
Professional? 3aroastio? All of the above? ou may tnd it ohanges depending
on your marketing ohannel, sooial media ohannels, for example, may be more
informal than emails.
lont - what font or fonts do you use, other than Comio 3ans, of oourse?
Colors - what are your brand's oore oolors? lnolude variations of those oolors to
give designers room to be creative, but still on-brand
Uesign Llements - what design elements detne your brand? would you oonsider
yourself part of the web 2.0 movement? Uo you embraoe white spaoe? Uo you
have a logo, banner, or masoot that aooompanies all your oontent?
Messaging - ow do you message your oore produots and servioes? what's the
value proposition you assert?
Positioning - what's your brand's take on oontroversial industry issues?
How to Achieve Brand Consistency Across Channels
use this oheoklist for your sooial networks, website, blog, email marketing, and any other
marketing oollateral to ensure your audienoe is having the same experienoe with your brand
everywhere they go. Strive to reach consistency of:
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
YOUR VALUE
PROPOSITION
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ln spaoe no one oan hear you soream." 1hat's the tagline from the 1979 blookbuster tlm, Alien.
The vacuum that is outer space silences everything.
In cyberspace, the online universe where your agency is competing for business, the problem is
just the opposite: Everyone is screaming. And so, to be heard in the inbound age, your agency
has to have the strongest, clearest voice.
At its oore, that voioe is your value proposition: the thing that makes your agenoy unique and
better qualited than the oompetition.
Beoause your value proposition is the most important thing people will take with them when
considering your brand or your clients, getting it right is critical. It will need to be tightly woven
into your website, social media, paid campaigns, and of course, the value-add every business
provides their customers and clients.
In space no one can
hear your scream.

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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
WHAT IS
A VALUE
PROPOSTION?
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These four elements combined comprise your value proposition:
what you do
ow you do it
lor whom you do it
what makes you different than your oompetitors
What You Do Uetne, in very olear terms, what your olient's business does. lor example, if you
were doing this for your own agenoy, you might say, 0ur agenoy develops marketing oampaigns
to improve 3L0, inorease awareness, generate leads, and drive trafto to your business."
How You Do It Describe exactly how you do what you do. Carrying on the example of your agency,
you might say, 0ur agenoy uses our deep industry knowledge and outting-edge methodologies,
suoh as blogging, email, and sooial media marketing, oombined with state-of-the-art analytios to
ensure your business is search engine-optimized and gets you found online.
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For Whom You Do It
Uetne the niohe(s) in whioh you speoialize. our olients
would want to know their agenoy understands their
business and its ohallenges, right? ou oan no more
expect a building contractor to choose an agency whose
clients are largely retailers than you would yourself choose
an insurance agency for your business that specializes
in insuring vacation rentals. Apply this concept to any
business youre trying to brand. Specialization is easy to
tnd on the internet, it's not a ooinoidenoe businesses are
reaping huge benetts from long-tail keyword optimization.
So its critical specialization stands out for any business
trying to get found on the internet, too.
What Makes You Different
A couple of hamburger patties and a slice of cheese on
a bun are just that. Until you add special sauce. Then,
its a Big Mac -- the biggest, best-selling juggernaut in
fast food history. what's your speoial sauoe?" what
about your olients'? ldentify what makes your agenoy
the hands-down ohoioe for oompanies looking to
suooeed in the inbound age - and then identify that
for all of your clients in their respective industries, too.
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
HOW TO
DETERMINE
YOUR VALUE
PROPOSITION
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Who Is Your Customer? Prospeotive olients want to know that the agenoy they hire understands
their business.
A building oontraotor, for example, wants to know the agenoy he seleots understands the
process and the subtleties their customers go through when selecting a builder. You need to
know there will be a bidding prooess and that homeowners are anxious about the enormous
expense, disruption, and time oommitment a building projeot requires. Be prepared to speak
a oontraotor's language to gain their trust - and their business.
To determine your value proposition, you will need to:
Have a deep understanding of who your customer is
Understand your target customers needs and goals
Position your brand as the best qualited to meet your target
market's needs
Lets go through a little exercise to determine a value proposition
- and we'll use your agenoy as an example. (ey, if an agenoy oan
determine their own, they can probably determine their clients
value propositions, too.)
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What Does Your Customer Want?
Every prospective client wants you to do one thing for them: Improve their bottom line. But you need
to show them how you will do that using the metrios they are most likely to oare about when it oomes
to inbound marketing:
lnoreased trafto to their website
Increased leads contacting them
Increased conversion of leads
lmprovement over time of your marketing endeavors
lf the niohe in whioh you speoialize has other metrios they're looking to move, it's important that
youre aware of what they are, and how to move them. This is just one more way to show that youre
speaking your prospeots' language.
Why Is Your Business Best for the Job?
Little else matters if you cant convince prospective clients your agency will outperform the competition.
use oase studies to literally make your oase. By demonstrating a suooessful traok reoord for your
own agency as well as your existing clients, you will have irrefutable evidence that you can get the job
done.
Show prospects how youve improved results in the SERPs, increased conversions, or how engagement
has increased in social media. With these cases, its hard to argue that you are the best place to go
for exactly what they need.
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BUILDING A BRAND IN THE INBOUND AGE:
DETERMINING
WHO YOUR
CUSTOMER IS
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Asking you to develop a olient's brand based on who
their customer is, is a pretty tall order without an
understanding of their ideal target customer. And the
best way to understand an up-and-coming brands ideal
target customer is to develop a buyer persona. You can
do this by identifying some of their key oharaoteristios,
concerns, and behaviors:
Demographics
By understanding some of the key demographios for your
olient's target market - male or female, marital status, age
range, inoome, for example - you begin to get a sense of
who their customers may be, and narrow down their range of
interests.
Job Level/Seniority
Knowing where prospects are placed within their own organization
helps you understand their needs and challenges. A CEO of a small
business aots and thinks differently than a marketing manager at a
mid-size enterprise. A homemaker is looking for something different
than a young whippersnapper salesperson straight out of college.
Which leads us to our next piece of critical intelligence
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Typical Day
If you can piece together your personas routine on a typical
day, youll understand many of the things that occupy their
time, and what is or isnt important to them. This is one of the
most critical items to nail in a clients branding strategy,
because it gives you insight into what they actually care
about. And if you oan 1) align your value proposition with
what they oare about, and 2) tgure out how to oommunioate
that value proposition, you're a branding rook star.
Pain Points
lf you oan get a handle on what keeps your oustomers up at night and what
problems they most need help solving, you will be even better prepared to
position your client as the brand that will help them rest easy day and night.
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Information Sources
1he key to getting found is knowing how and where to plaoe your
business to get found - partioularly for your target market. 3o,
what does your olient's persona read? where do they searoh
for new information? what terms do they use to perform those
searohes? understand the souroes your olients turn to for help
with the problem your client solves.
Objections
There are always objections to be overcome. Arm your clients
with answers that will alleviate their prospeots' oonoerns -
oommunioated in a fashion that will appeal to that speoito
persona. That includes the right phrasing, design, and format
of delivery.
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PUTTING THE
BRAND INTO
PLAY
CHAPTER 2
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PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY:
WHAT TO DO
WITH BUYER
PERSONAS
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0noe you've identited a olient's buyer personas, use them to best position their oompany,
website, and social media presence to:
Develop highly targeted content that appeals to buyers needs, goals, and interests
Plaoe oontent in the ohannels where prospeotive buyers will most likely see them
Attraot better, more qualited leads that maximize marketing R0l
Provide customer insight across business teams so everyone understands the leads needs,
goals, and interests
Improve your analytics by correlating buyer personas to actual leads, conversions, and sales
Design products and services better-suited to the target persona
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PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY:
SEGMENTING &
PERSONALIZING
A BRAND
EXPERIENCE
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0nline, your brand has the ability -- in faot, the obligation -- to know enough about your oustomer's
history that you can automatically create a segmented, personalized experience for them.
lf, for example, someone bought three ty-tshing rods from a sporting goods website, that should
determine from then on out which content you provide, which pages and products you show
them, and which special offers you email them.
And as a result, their engagement will inorease! 1hey will take more aotions, share more readily
with their sooial network, and engage with that brand in a more oohesive experienoe.
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PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY:
BRAND = CONTENT
&
CONTENT = BRAND
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ln every way, your oontent is your brand online. lt's your salesperson, your store, your marketing
department, it's your story, and every pieoe of oontent you publish reteots on, and detnes, your
brand.
So, great content, great brand. Boring content, boring brand.
And its more than just a difference between whats great and whats boring. Often, what
you choose not to publish says more about your brand than some really snappy copy. When
developing a olient's oontent strategy, ask yourself:
ls this topio interesting to the brand's target persona?
Uoes this pieoe of oontent address their pain points?
ls this the format in whioh they'd like to oonsume oontent?
ls this tone appropriate for the subjeot matter and reader of this oontent?
ls this oontent wasted spaoe? 0r does it have a purpose?
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You should be answering yes to all of these questions (except that whole wasted space
part) before you publish a pieoe of oontent on behalf of your olient. 0therwise, you're
diluting their brand with each piece of unneeded content. Thats right, even if that piece
of content isnt directly harmful to their brand from a PR perspective, it is harmful to
them from a brand-dilution perspective.
Ask these questions when you're developing any pieoe of oontent - whitepapers, sooial
media updates, webinars, podoasts, blog posts, ebooks, infographios, lAs, videos,
sooial media photos . quite literally, every pieoe of marketing oontent that will represent
your brand!
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PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY:
SOCIAL
PRESENCE
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A social presence for your brand and your clients brands is essential in the inbound age. But not
every social channel is right for every brand. Youll need to sort through whats out there to see
what's best - partioularly for your target persona and any new target audienoes you're working to
reach in the future.
ere are some of the major sooial media networks a brand strategist should oonsider, and what
theyre best used for:
Facebook
The King Kong of social media with 1 billion users and counting, establish
a laoebook page for your business to develop and foster a sense of
community between your brand and your clients, and among your clients
and their target audienoes. Praotioally speaking, no brand, no matter
what their business, oan afford to be without a laoebook page.
Twitter
1witter, and the oommuniqus you send via 1witter (tweets), is a great
way to keep your brand oonneoted to your audienoe in real time with
140-character bursts of information. Great tweets for a brand are things
that are humorous, celebrate your clients or customers, offer discounts
or speoial offers targeted to your persona, or tips that will make them
more successful. And remember, deliver all of these in a tone thats
appropriate for sooial media (you know, sooial), even if your tone isn't
typically so casual.
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LinkedIn
lor any B2B business, Linkedln is important
not just as a tool to forge oonneotions - it's
also a lead generator, trafto generator, and
most important for brand managers, a place
to assert your companys thought leadership
position. Showcase, through sharing content
and participating in relevant discussions, what
your brand has to offer about the topics that are
important to your target audience. The bonds
you'll form here between your brand and Linkedln
members will pay dividends down the road.
YouTube
This Google-owned video-sharing service is a valuable
place to share content that is best demonstrated visually.
Use YouTube for everything from broadcasting one-on-
one interviews or roundtable discussions, to product
demonstrations, to entertaining newsjaoks of pop-oulture
events that will help elevate a olient's brand (or your own).
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PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY:
VOICE
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1he voioe, or tone, you apply aoross all your oontent - indeed, your entire brand -- is the equivalent
of your brands personality. Your voice is an integral part of your website, blog, social media
presenoe, and email oampaigns. lt's baked into everything you do!
1hings like striking the right balanoe between being oasual and serious, helpful and intrusive, or
eduoational or haranguing will determine whether people tnd your brand appealing or abrasive.
And how will you know if you've struok the right balanoe? ou start with your buyer persona, and
mix their expeotations with your own speoial sauoe - and adjust over time based on feedbaok
and results, just like any other reoipe from your kitohen oabinet.
1he voioe in your oontent should reteot how you want your brand to be peroeived. lf your brand's
voioe is similar to 0roupon, for example, your blog might take a light, snappy tone. lf your brand's
voioe is more sooially oonsoientious, similar to 3tarbuoks, your voioe might be a bit more serious.
our voioe, and the oadenoe it takes, might also vary slightly from one medium or ohannel to
another. 1ake Progressive lnsuranoe, for example. ln their television oommeroials and homepage,
both of which tend to interface with customers at or near the top of the funnel, Progressives
tone is light and playful. 1heir spokesoharaoter, llo, is hyper, bright, and oheery.
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On Progressives blog, however, the tone -- while not heavy -- is far more serious. Here, the
company is getting into the nuts-and-bolts of shopping for insurance, offering safety tips for
boating or bad weather, and the humor is soaled baok in this middle- or bottom-of-the-funnel
channel.
linally, on Progressive's laoebook page, the insuranoe oarrier is a little of both -- serious and
playful, the way any community might be. On Christmas Eve, Progressive ran a poll, Christmas
oandy or Christmas oookies?" 1ust before New ear's Lve, Progressive's laoebook page offered
a gentle reminder about the inorease in auto aooidents oaused by drinking and driving.
Your brands voice -- and your clients -- should naturally adjust to suit the medium in which
your content is being published, as well as to the people you are attracting to those particular
mediums.
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PUTTING THE BRAND INTO PLAY:
SITE STRUCTURE
AND
APPEARANCE
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1ust as a grooer who plaoes food staples at the baok of the store and high-prott impulse items at
the oheokout stand, your website is your store, and your oontent is your inventory.
0etting the right struoture and appearanoe for your oontent - from oall-to-aotion (C1A) buttons
to ebooks - plays a signitoant role in determining your suooess. lor instanoe, we aotually style
our ebooks differently depending on who is reoeiving them, knowing oertain personas prefer
text-heavy oontent, others prefer heavy visualizations, and others still like oontent that doesn't
exceed 5 pages. These are the same considerations you should have when structuring a website
around a brand.
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Keep these tips in mind when websites and digital content to support a brand strategy:
Structure the website and the content on it in the way your research shows a prospect would
use the site. Uo A/B and user testing to see what works best. 1he oontent and the links between
them should tow organioally and easily from Point A to Point B to Point C.
Prominent placement on web pages of content explaining higher margin products and services
will result in more leads for those products and services.
Placing a call-to-action button for middle-of-the-funnel premium content alongside content for
higher margin servioes will inorease qualited leads and move them one step further along the
sales cycle.
Be certain the value proposition is clear on every page, and in all the content offered for
download.
lnolude links to sooial media networks on the website and within premium oontent to reaoh
other like-minded people who would enjoy the brand.
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MONITORING
THE BRAND
CHAPTER 3
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MONITORING THE BRAND:
THE WEB IS THE
WORLD
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People are talking about your brand beyond the pages for whioh you alone develop oontent.
1hey are talking about your brand in blogs. 1hey are oommenting on laoebook pages that don't
belong to you. 1hey are disoussing your brand in groups on Linkedln, and posting videos about
you on YouTube.
And, for better or worse, those comments and discussions live in cyberspace forever. You cant
capture every comment out there, but you can monitor the larger and more obvious venues.
You can implement damage control when needed, or extend the reach of peoples positive
experiences into your own channels.
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MONITORING THE BRAND:
SOCIAL
TRACKING
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watoh any deteotive show on 1v, and you know the easiest part of solving the orime is what's
most evident when the deteotive arrives: the viotim was shot, the safe was broken into, the
money is missing.
1hat's the last-touoh (AKA last-oliok) attribution. what we then want to know is . how did he get
there? what was the trst-touoh attribution?
1o effeotively monitor your brand in the inbound age you will need the trst-touoh attribution, the
last-touch attribution, and everything in-between. In other words, you need closed-loop analytics.
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lt's helpful to know a partioular oustomer olosed after oonverting on an
email offer. But where did they oome from initially? our blog? 3ooial
media? while sooial network? what oontent did they read? ow long
did it take them to oonvert? what other oontent did they download
while they were a lead? lor all of this, you'll need multiohannel, olosed-
loop analytios, with in-depth reports - like ub3pot's Conversion
Assists, for instanoe - to give you the full view of what efforts are
supporting your branding initiatives, and most importantly, that your
branding initiatives are driving real business results.
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MONITORING THE BRAND:
BRAND
MONITORING ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
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ou might think monitoring every mention of your brand online is a eroulean task. And you would
be right. lortunately, 0oogle has super-eroulean servers and web orawlers, and keeping tabs on
your brand online oouldn't be simpler thanks to tools like 0oogle Alerts, or even ub3pot's sooial
monitoring software.
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lnput terms you need to traok that are important for brand management - these are terms that
encompass:
Company name
Names of key exeoutive or publio-faoing employees
Branded names of products, services, or features
voila! ou now have a good handle on how, when, and where your brand is mentioned online.
BONUS TIP: You can set up Alerts to monitor your competitors mentions too. Enter their brand
name, produot names (where applioable), and key exeoutives. who knows, you might even be
able to exploit any knowledge you aoorue this way before they do!
3everal free applioations help you keep up with brand mentions on sooial media, too. lor
instanoe, you oan use ub3pot software or oot3uite (the two are even integrated, you know) to
traok brand mentions, interaot with users, and even pass sooial oontaot information through our
software straight to your CRM so sentiments and conversations arent lost into the internet ether.
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MONITORING THE BRAND:
RESPONDING
WHEN THINGS
GO WRONG
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On social media, as in life and in the movies, there are three ways your brand can be mentioned:
the good, the bad, and the ugly. Be prepared for all three. Decide which types of incidents
constitute a crisis for your business, and which are just bumps in the road. Then, develop a
response plan and assign teams to handle each outcome. A negative mention might be directed
to your customer service team, for instance, while a technical glitch might go to IT and customer
service.
Being prepared for these instances is critical for maintaining the good brand youve built up.
Remember, just as your brand oan be made (in a good way!) in a moment's notioe in this internet
age of ours, a brand can crumble just as fast.
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So, prepare a holding statement for any major event. This is a brief statement you can post
online or on sooial media that explains you're aware of the situation" (whatever it may be) and
you will respond in greater detail as soon as possible. Include a time estimate as to when that
information will be forthooming, and direot people to any other ohannels - 1witter's a good one
for real-time updates like these -- where those announoements will be made.
1hink about how your persona would like to be treated, and how they'd like to be talked to. lor
instanoe, some audienoes may tnd a light-hearted, slightly self-depreoating tone endearing, for
others, it will come off as dismissive. Knowing your audience and what they expect from your
brand will help you respond appropriately.
Dont forget: Its better to be right than fast. Time is of the essence, but not at the expense of
accuracy.
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MONITORING THE BRAND:
RESPONDING TO
THE GOOD
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1he web is as neutral a territory as any you'll tnd. lt presents as many opportunities for good
publicity as it does for, well, less-good publicity.
use sooial media monitoring to take life's lemons and make some oool, refreshing lemonade.
1hey don't even have to be your lemons. Look for opportunities to turn someone else's loss into
your olient's gain, and shine the spotlight on your marketing savvy.
If your client is a taxi company and mass transit just went down, for instance, tweet out that your
olient's oab rides are half off, then promote the heok out of their generosity to every media outlet
you oan think of. ey, it's a P3A! News networks would eat it right up.
If your client is a spa and your town is hosting a marathon, have them set up a chair massage
station for the runners and crew members, and give free 5-minute massages along the route.
Get lots of photos and videos of smiling, blissful faces to post on social media (and for any other
outlets pioking up the story).
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MEASURING THE
BRAND
CHAPTER 4
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MEASURING THE BRAND:
CLOSING THE
LOOP: THE ROI
OF BRANDING
IN THE INBOUND
AGE
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lf someone Likes your laoebook page, how muoh revenue does that translate into? lf someone
retweets your tweet, does that make the oash register ring? when someone reads your blog,
visits your website, and downloads your ebook, do you know if they ultimately bought what you
sell?
without olosed-loop marketing metrios, you oannot know the answers to any of these questions.
1hey are isolated inoidents whioh may be related . or not. Closed-loop marketing lets you see
what happened between the trst oliok at the top of the funnel, the Buy Now" oliok at the bottom
of the funnel, and everything in between. lt tells you how your inbound branding and marketing
efforts are paying off!
lf you've ever asked yourself (or worse, your exeoutives or olients have asked you), what's the
return on investment for our branding efforts?" and you were unsure of the answer or answered
To increase awareness, youre not alone.
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But, awareness alone is not enough. ou may be aware of the Rolls-Royoe (RR) brand but ohanoes
are you havent bought one. So, how valuable is that brand awareness to Rolls Royce or its
marketers? Lero. Lip. Nada.
Awareness, unless followed at some point by consideration, intention, and purchase (the typical
sales funnel model), is worthless.
Note: 1his is not to say every Like needs to translate
into a sale - a large sooial reaoh means larger sooial
amplitoation, whioh gets your oontent out there to the
people that will contribute to your bottom line. Additionally,
maintaining an email list of evangelists - people that love
your brand, will forward your content, but will never buy,
is similarly valuable.
unless you oan oorrelate the awareness you oreate to purohases people make, you will never
understand the ROI of your branding initiatives. And, if you dont understand the value of the
branding initiatives for your own agency, you will never be able to demonstrate them to prospects
and clients.
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MEASURING THE BRAND:
ATTRIBUTION
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understanding last-touoh (or last-oliok) attributions is espeoially useful in optimizing landing
pages, tne-tuning email oampaigns, or any other oontent souroe that helped put the ball over the
goal line and convert a prospect to a customer. Its great bottom-of-the-funnel information.
ln oontrast, understanding trst-touoh attributions is extremely useful in improving your top-of-
the-funnel marketing efforts. Knowing whether a lead oame to your website as the result of an
organio searoh (and for what term) or beoause they were tipped off to one of your laoebook
posts by a oolleague will help you oonoentrate your marketing - and its messaging -- where it will
resonate best.
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Finally, HubSpots Conversion Assists tool is excellent for measuring the overall impact of branding
campaigns, letting you analyze:
ow leads trst found you
What the critical touchpoints were that led to conversions
whioh marketing oampaigns generated the most sales
What actions generated the highest quality leads
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MEASURING:
WHAT TO
MEASURE AND
ANALYZE
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ere are some speoito metrios you oan measure for individual aspeots of your branding efforts.
Uetermine whioh keywords , short and/or long-tail, result in the most-oliok-throughs to your
landing pages. If youre running paid campaigns, these are excellent venues to experiment with
new brand elements - like a new tagline, or a new value proposition - to see if it resonates and
drives dollars and cents.
3ee whioh blog oontent drives the most oomments, sooial shares, and inbound links. while
leads are great, the oontent that is remarked upon and shared the most is often an indioator of
brand success.
Find out which email content drives the most forwards and reconversions, and to what segment
of your list that content goes so you can better align future email campaigns with the content that
elevates your brand.
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Learn which landing pages result in the highest purchase volumes, and highest average sale
per customer.
Uetermine the oorrelation between the number of Likes you generate for your laobeook page
during a given oampaign, and your sales results for the same time period - or subsequent
months, in the cases of businesses with long sales cycles.
lind the type of sooial media oontent whioh results in the most engagement, and traok whether
that engagement ever leads to revenue-driving behavior in the future, and at what rate.
laoed with the same ohallenges most marketers faoe, we developed our own tool to help
marketers gauge the value of those seemingly-tuffy sooial media aotions - you know, the ones
that don't result in leads and oustomers. visit valueofalike.oom to assess what your sooial media
presenoe is worth, and put aotual dollars and oents to tuffy sooial sentiments like engagement"
that we all know matters for branding, but might not always make its presenoe known in a
business bottom line.
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CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 5
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Lverything you know about brands and brand management in the real world holds true in the
inbound age.
Whats different, is that now your brand extends far beyond the tight world over which agencies
have traditionally had control. Before, when a customer had a complaint only you, they, and
perhaps their small oirole of friends and family knew about it. Now, anybody with an internet
oonneotion who knows how to tnd - or memorialize - that oomplaint forever.
ln the inbound age, there are so many moving pieoes to managing a brand - from the website,
to the oall oenter, to the laoebook page, to the Linkedln group, to whatever tomorrow brings -
that you need to be more aotive, more vigilant, and more knowledgeable than ever to realize and
prove maximum return on your investment in establishing a knookout brand.
Closed-loop marketing software, oombined with exoellent branding oreative to drive the results
you want that software to show off, is the magic combination to show off your agencys branding
chops to clients.
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