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Relationship Management: How to Keep Leads Warm Without Selling

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Relationship Management: How to Keep Leads Warm Without Selling

As businesses begin to re-open, it is more important than ever to prioritize relationship management and be mindful of how each business approaches potential buyers. Your business’s ability to adapt to an empathetic marketing strategy will have an impact on customer conversions. 

Trends suggest that how a business communicates with clients during a time of crisis will directly impact the brand’s reputation for the foreseeable future. The goal is to design a communication strategy that leads with empathy from an honest place. 

Using empathy as a tool and not a recovery plan

Understanding your client’s perspective is essential to your success. By listening to your customers needs, you can better provide them with whatever services or products could help them. You want to be their problem solver for the immediate, and need to present longer-term the value in your proposal. 

By now, you should have your post-pandemic marketing strategy in place. However, there’s a high possibility that clients may still be uncomfortable with spending. Although sales are down for a majority of businesses, web traffic has increased significantly since March. Marketing Gong's Head of Content, Devin Reed believes customers aren’t making purchases, but they’re gathering information about who/how they want to spend when the time comes.   

Positive and creative communication

HubSpot Marketing trends reveal email open rates are increasing and holding steady, but sales are down. Now what? Nurture these leads with a kind voice & helping hand so that when they reach financial recovery (individuals or businesses), they choose to purchase with you. Listen to your clients’ needs and only beneficial information. Deliver value first.

Remove words from your messaging that carry a negative connotation. However, don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Try new + creative email campaigns geared towards providing your clients with helpful resources. Response rates are 25-50% lower and sales open rates have tanked. The idea is to pull, NOT push your clients to you. Lead with relatable and positive messaging and don’t be afraid to add a little (tasteful) humor. 

Utilize some of our Post and Courier Marketing Blogs and incorporate them as selling tools. We’ve written dozens of articles in an effort to help small businesses with tons of useful information pertaining to crisis marketing + other free tools we’ve created to help local businesses at this time. 

 

 

 

driving customer conversions during coronavirus

Driving customer conversions during coronavirus

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Stay at home orders mean more eyes on your advertising and a drastic increase in impressions. So how can you turn those impressions into increased conversions, and retain those spenders?

You’ll have to focus on improving your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). This means, addressing all of the ways people are observing your brand and optimizing those channels around the increased eye traffic.

Drive Social Media Conversions

People staying at home and working at home are undeniably engaging more with social media. In a time of separation and distancing, we’re more desperate than ever to see what our peers are up to.

Hopefully, you’ve gotten ahead of this and already started increasing your organic and paid social media presence. Any impression is a good one, but targeted social advertising will give you the most valuable impressions. These leads will take the least amount of work to convert into spenders, since the social platform’s tools have already narrowed down your audience to your desired one. 

Keep wording simple

One of the ways you can make your posts and social ads even more digestible is to simplify your wording. Don’t complicate your verbiage with words like “utilize” instead of just “use.” No matter how much you want to appear professional, social media isn’t the place to worry about that. 

A valuable tool to help you simplify your messaging is the Hemingway Editor. This website and app reads your wording, grades its readability, and suggests simpler words and improved phrasing. This can be particularly handy if you need to stay under a character limit.

Don’t forget the CTA

Because the goal is to turn a viewer into a spender, you need to always have a fitting and powerful call to action. The person needs to understand what they’re getting into when they move from ad to website or form. The clickthrough needs to align with the content they stopped scrolling to read, after all. Deception is never the answer.

For advice on developing strong CTA’s, such as ones with urgency, check out this post.

Prepare your website for the traffic

Once people take action and click through or search up your website, the experience needs to be good. Between beefing up your site’s stability and designing it for usability, now is the time to give your website some love.

Speed up your pages

The masses are flooding the collective internet with clicks and scrolls right now. Even if your website isn’t being greatly impacted by increased traffic, it’s still a good time to focus on optimization. The last thing you want a new potential customer to see when they visit your website is a lack of graphics, or even worse… an error code.

Your website, and all others, are hosted by a web hosting company that surely hosts hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other websites. Your website’s stability is dependent on that host’s ability to deliver your site to users. So as all websites within the world wide web get bogged down together, your site needs to be ready for potential slowdowns.

Start by auditing your site’s speed. You can do this yourself by visiting your pages, but a full professional audit will allow you to identify the speed pain points slowing you down. This can include things such as image files that are unnecessarily large and plugins that would work just as well as an embed.

Be mobile friendly

As an interactive medium, most of your web traffic is going to come from social click throughs. This leads us to the important fact that almost all social media usage is done on a mobile device. Data shows that people use their mobile device 80 percent of the time for social media.

This means that as people quarantine, your mobile traffic is likely going to outweigh desktop traffic. Which makes a mobile friendly web experience more important than ever. As an added bonus, mobile friendly websites rank higher in google search results.

Whatever website builder or hosting platform you use for your website already likely takes mobile design into account. But this is an automated process. And the best mobile websites were built with mobile in mind first, then desktop. 

Similar to load speed, give your site a mobile friendliness audit. This can even be done on a desktop by shrinking your browser’s window size down to look like a phone. As a tip, the aspect ratio size for most recent phones is 18:9. Older phones (pre iPhone X, for example) are 16:9, which still works on newer sizes. 16:9 phones are also the same size as standard monitors and television sets, just oriented vertically.

Give your web pages a look at this vertical sizing and see how your assets adjust and resize. Are your buttons and links large enough for a finger to tap on comfortably? Do your logos and images resize in a way they are still readable? 

The truth is, internet-goers are becoming subconsciously used to pages that were built first for mobile, but viewed on a desktop. This is why most articles you read compress content into the middle, leaving a ton of whitespace around the sides. You likely have been finding websites to look cleaner over the last few years, without even giving thought to why. It all comes back to mobile.

Analyze your conversions

In the end, the most important thing you can be doing is looking at your data. Where are people coming from when they visit you online or in person?

Where did they discover you? How long are they spending on your feed or content? You have to track your customers’ journey. Google has shown that the top 10% of well-tracked accounts on google ads have a conversion rate of over 20%.

Your conversions should be easily trackable if you’re utilizing the right tools to drive clicks and other forms of direct engagement from prospective customers. So build up your online presence for both your website and social channels, and keep an eye on your conversions. This is an investment, and the current world circumstances might be setting you up for long term success.

Stimulus Checks Strategy for Businesses

Stimulus Checks Strategy for Businesses

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Stimulus Checks Strategies for Businesses

How to promote business and capture new + existing customers as stimulus checks are received

This week, stimulus checks are being distributed into the pockets of consumers. Trends already show that people are spending their stimulus money on food, utilities, and gas. It shouldn’t be ignored that many folks receiving this check are looking for the financial support they need to simply survive the economic strain the coronavirus has caused. However, as a small business owner it is important that you market wisely to generate income during this time, too. 

Small businesses are a pillar to the economy, and generating revenue is crucial to reviving the economy.

The way businesses choose to market and capture their audience + keep them engaged throughout the year is imperative. The saying, “business is business” has never held a truer meaning. As a business owner you cannot change the status of your customers’ bank account. But, you can put your best foot forward by inviting customers to spend with you and offering yourself as a useful resource.

Positive thinking related to business is very important right now. In order to implement a productive campaign, you must be willing to take some creative risk and pivot the company’s direction as needed. In a recent article, The Washington Post acknowledges that financial planners have urged people to use the money to buy basic necessities or pay off debt.  Spending trends have already shown people are spending on essential goods. So if your company is non-essential, how do you market to potential customers? 

First, think about who your ideal customers are. Then, consider what the company provides that could be beneficial to them right now and why it is helpful.  The customer needs to trust you, and pitching something useful plays a part in that. 

If a business is non-essential, promotions should incentivise the customer.

Furthermore, enrich the client database by capturing simple marketing information like an email address. Then, continue to engage these clients throughout the year with business updates and other promotions. 

For example, perhaps your business decides to run a contest. The contest is to win a discounted service, which means the company still earns revenue. To enter the contest, the client must enter their email address into a form, which is then captured and organized into a CRM system. Utilize this same idea with a survey- the customer completes a survey which benefits the company by providing feedback. Upon completion of the survey, the customer is entered for their chance to win a small service/product. This same contest method can be implemented on social media as well. The client motivation should still be a reward, and the business incentive is customers (or in this case, followers/audience). 

The idea is the customer provides useful information to the business, and they’re rewarded by the company. Therefore, potential revenue from customer growth + increased engagement = the ROI.

Lastly, create a way for people to give back to your company. Not everyone will have the finances right now to shop your product or afford your service. However, there are a lot of folks looking for ways to give back in amounts that are feasible to their wallet. And, you can’t leave out those who are financially stable and want to give back. Erin Lowry of Acorns suggests,

“If you’re fortunate enough to have job stability and an emergency savings fund that can cover anywhere from 4 to 6 months worth of expenses, you could spend some or much of the money to support small businesses and charitable causes you care about."

There are numerous ways to receive donations online. Keep the door open for those who want to come in! If you’re lucky enough to fall under this category, check out The Post and Courier Charity Guide for ways to give back.

 

 

5 creative ways businesses are advertising during COVID-19

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

The coronavirus pandemic has caused major disruptions in the advertising world. As this crisis affects everyone in different ways, remaining sensitive to all potential customers’ situations is challenging.

It’s important to keep capturing the attention of anyone who still needs your business right now, in whatever way you’re able to serve them. If you’re looking to come up with clever advertising strategies to reach customers living the stay at home life, the following examples might inspire you.

Lowes’ #BuildThanks advertising campaign

Lowes is one of the larger retail stores that has had the good fortune of remaining open throughout the pandemic. As an essential business, Lowes continues to sell products that help people maintain the home they’re stuck in. But instead of showing off the things it has to sell, Lowes is dedicating its advertising efforts to thanking frontline workers.

Lowes has committed $170 million to coronavirus relief and is asking customers to make and show off DIY thank you signs. They’ve even built a campaign around #BuildThanks. It’s a campaign that doesn’t compel people to spend money on products, but instead compels them to spend their time at home thanking modern-day heroes.

If your business already serves the work from home lifestyle and doesn’t need to advertise new products or services, consider dedicating your advertising to positive messages like this. Let your products speak for themselves and use this time to build your brand’s image.

J.P. Morgan is proud to be working from home

This commercial, highlighting J.P. Morgan Financial Advisors showcases how its employees are continuing to serve customers from home. The spot shows advisors utilizing their home office setups to work with customers. 

This example shows that your messaging doesn’t have to center on your customers. You don’t just have to talk about how your products or services can suit the work from home life. Showing that your employees are operating from home allows you to lead by example.

Anheiser Bush advertising hand sanitizer production

Anheiser Busch is one of the countless alcoholic beverage companies dedicating their production chain to creating hand sanitizer.

 

This is a great example of repurposing products that aren’t as essential in the world we’re currently living. Perhaps your business has the ability to rework cloth supplies into facemasks. Anything that allows you to fill a demand that every customer has during these times. 

Coca-Cola gets creative on social media

The world of social media advertising has always allowed for more creativity and unique messaging. Coca-Cola came up with the idea of handing over the keys to its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to health and welfare groups.

Scrolling through the brand’s Twitter page, you’ll exclusively find retweets from organizations like The American Red Cross, United Way, and The Salvation Army. The company admits that its reach is best used to spread important messages from these groups right now. It’s a humble move that is surely creating powerful positive-will with customers for the Coke brand.

The takeaway for businesses here isn’t that you need a massive audience to spread positive messages, it’s that selflessness is more important than ever. Any move you can afford to make that tells customers you care more about a good cause than selling products, will elevate your brand.

Old Spice makes an old advertising new again

Old Spice got creative and efficient by repurposing old content in a way that supports stay at home efforts. 

This ad, featuring Terry Crews was actually filmed and ran years ago. But in lieu of getting Crews back for a new commercial shoot, they simply had him record new lines which were then dubbed over the original video.

This advertisement keeps on-brand with the tongue in cheek style Old Spice has been pushing for years, while addressing the important message of staying home.

We can help you be the next source of inspiration

Your business and the way you run it is unique. As your local business partner, The Post and Courier is here to help you during these trying times. We can be the bridge between you and the customers that need to hear from you, more than ever. Contact us to get started on your next creative advertising campaign.

Webinar Takeaways: Marketing your Business in a Time of Crisis

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

History shows: Don’t stop advertising!

Smart businesses excel in a crisis. From the Great Depression to September 11th, companies have found ways to thrive during tough times. As your competitors stop spending on advertising and your consumers spend more time consuming media, now is the time to put yourself out there.

During recessions, consumer confidence drops, but demand does not. Find out ways to alter the way you do business right now, and avoid being lost to history. 

Data shows that businesses want to maintain or increase ad spending

Local businesses with greater experience in marketing plan to spend more on advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic. Media consumption rises by 60% when people are asked to stay at home. This includes both entertainment and news consumption. During this time, you have a larger audience and less ad clutter to compete against.

Consumers are seeking credibility

Consumers are paying more attention to local media right now, in an effort to confirm what they hear elsewhere. Advice and ideas for advertising to these consumers can help get your message communicated clearly and empathetically. Messages from non-essential and at-risk businesses have to be creative.

100% of customers need to be communicated with right now. People need to know the status of their surrounding businesses and how they are operating. 

There are 3 main opportunities to consider. You can: sell new products to old customers, sell old products to new customers, or sell new products to new customers. Find out which is best for you and communicate that to everyone.

This is not the time to get your messaging wrong, find a marketing resource to help you find the right way to communicate.

Examples of effective messaging

From American Airlines and Uhaul to local dermatology doctors, businesses are thinking differently about their operations and messaging. Address the short term and long term. Advertise both what you’re doing to stay in business now, and what you can do to keep your customers spending when life returns to normal. Discounts and future offers are great for this.

Adapt your messaging to the unique environment of the world right now. Lean into the fact that people are working from home. Professional attire companies found a creative way to market clothes that keep you “looking sharp from the waist up” for a video conference.

You also need to be careful with your messaging. Companies should not make light of the situation or lean into the wrong aspect of this crisis. For example, a restaurant shouldn’t be offering free toilet paper with their delivery meals. That creates a bad look and might push away customers, even though it is timely and comes from a good intention.

Don’t assume your business is useless right now 

Find ways to reframe your business or shift services. For example, a dog kennel service might appear useless right now with everyone staying home. But a smart way to shift this would be to deliver dog food or give out tips for taking care of your dog. 

As another example, real estate professionals should be working harder to reach customers right now. This might be a tough time for people financially, but at the same time some people are being displaced or looking for a cheaper living situation.

Bring your product or service to the consumer. Don’t wait for the buyers to come back to you months from now, when we can leave our homes. Give people a reason to think about what you do and how you fit into the current environment.

Sticky Notes: A Customizable Advertising Solution

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Sticky Notes:  A Customizable Advertising Solution

As we look for efficient ways to market businesses via print methods in the year 2020 and beyond, Sticky Notes can be an effective resource that provides a quick read with a lasting reference. Although it may feel like an all-digital world, 81% of customers like brands to communicate coupons and offers in both print and digital in order to not miss out on savings.  

Moreover, 60% say seeing an offer in both print and online makes them more likely to make a purchase. These eye-catching coupons take immediate attention from the newspaper reader on the front page, which is rare real estate. Sticky notes are sometimes a company’s only opportunity to appear in such a prime spot. 

How can Sticky Notes be a smart investment & marketing solution? Not only are these fun stickers customizable and double-sided, but they also have a tendency to travel. Because of their design, Sticky Notes frequently move from newspaper to refrigerator and then (hopefully) into the wallet of a client, leaving a direct impression and feeling of exclusivity.

On the front page, there is no competition with other ads. Sticky Notes deliver high visibility and an immediate impact. Adding newspapers to a campaign boosts ROI by nearly 3 times, on average!

Ask yourself, “What are your company’s primary methods for gauging effectiveness of the advertising sales?” If the answers include increased customers, sales, and traffic, this would be a useful solution for you.

Ask your sales representative how your company can get involved - fill out the form below and our team will be in touch with you promptly!

Let’s chat about customizable marketing solutions:

The Benefits of Newsletter Sponsorship

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Newsletter sponsorship is an advertising opportunity not all businesses consider, and can come with some unique advantages. This branch of email marketing allows you to get in front of dedicated audiences that trust the source. You can use that trust and brand loyalty to your advantage to grow your own audience.

A prime spot to advertise

So why do users subscribe to newsletters in the first place? The most common reason is that the user doesn’t want to miss anything from the company. Between news updates, sales, or events, a newsletter offers valuable information delivered to an inbox. Users don’t need to dig through the clutter of the internet.

It’s this very idea of avoiding the clutter that makes advertisements in email newsletters so valuable. People get bombarded with ads on many sites that they visit today. It can certainly be cheap and affordable to purchase a small ad spot on a website. That space is unlimited and always available.

But newsletter sponsorship provides premium brand placement that locks in the reader’s attention. This ensures you aren’t competing with a dozen other ads on the same page of content.

Readers have a positive perception of sponsors

As with any sponsorship opportunity, the perception audiences take away from your ad is typically more positive than a traditionally placed advertisement. 

Depending on how highly the reader thinks of the company delivering the newsletter (being subscribed to a newsletter in the first place means they probably like the company), they are likely to see your sponsorship as a sort of endorsement.

Consumers are becoming more aware of these types of B2B relationships thanks to things like social influencers and podcasts. But the effect trusted endorsements have on audiences is still powerful. 

When the reader trusts the source, like New York Times newsletter readers do, they are much more likely to spend time and money invested in what they’re reading in their inbox.

Block the ad blockers

With more than 615 million devices out there using some form of ad blocking software, strategies need to be built around this. While technologies are being applied to detect and work around ad blockers, email sponsorship is a strong way to ensure you’re appearing in front of the audience you pay to reach.

Of course, a popular approach to avoiding being blocked is to create native content pieces to market yourself online. This remains effective, and resonates well with younger audiences, but it does take up either more time or money from a marketing campaign.

If you already have a digital advertising campaign created, including artwork and trackable links, you can simply take that content and adapt it to a newsletter sponsor spot. Sometimes the work might even be as easy as providing your logo to be placed under the newsletter’s logo with a “sponsored by” tag.

Find the right audience

Some organizations offer a variety of newsletter topics to their audience, allowing you additional targeting tools. 

A company with a large, dedicated audience will likely have a few different newsletters to sponsor. This means that the user respects the organization and trusts it as their go-to source for information on a certain topic. They chose that company over another dedicated entirely to that topic.

At The Post and Courier, we are launching a newsletter focused on South Carolina military updates. This Military Digest newsletter opens up new targeted opportunities to reach an audience that craves military news and content. 

The benefits of being a sponsor for content like this are unique to broad appeal newsletters. The open rates will likely be higher percentages than general newsletters since the readers are specifically seeking out that content. This means they will also have higher trust in the content of the email. This makes your brand stand out even more.

Introducing the Military Digest Newsletter

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

What came first, South Carolina or our nations Declaration of Independence? This isn’t a trick question. Approximately 100 days before our founding fathers signed the Declaration, the colony of South Carolina adopted its first Constitution. But the colony did not officially enter the union for an additional two years. 

South Carolina’s dedication to the military

A centuries-old governmental presence and temperate climate make the state ideal for military. South Carolina has 8 major military bases and is impressively the 9th most populous state for military retirees. Though these statistics are impressive, the  majority of people impacted by state military policy feel dramatically uninformed.

The solution is a news outlet that encapsulates all things South Carolina military. 

As the 6th fastest growing state in the country, our economy has benefited from the military and contracting industries here. Currently there are 55,396 active and reserve service members. And 416,666 jobs have ties to the Department of Defense.

In a state with a population over 5 million, 9.44% of South Carolinians have a heightened personal interest in our military’s state of affairs. 

Newsletter content audiences want

Up until now, these men and women have found themselves in the unique situation of existing without a centralized source of military and veteran focused reporting. The Post and Courier plans to change that. We’re launching the weekly Military Digest newsletter

Spearheading this project will be Thomas Novelly. With over half a decade of journalistic experience and several blood and non-blood filial ties to the armed forces, Novelly is well-equipped to confront the news South Carolina military personnel care about. 

Over the course of his reporting, Novelly noticed an information gap. Not only was it evident when it came to the hard-hitting stories plaguing the press, such as veteran affairs and dilapidated on-base housing, but also in the day to day happenings and locally centered stories.

Fostering a dedicated community

Readers can enjoy a touch of anecdotal trivia, namely “This day in South Carolina Military History” and a featured “Veteran of the Week” chosen from reader nominations. Through this newsletter, we can expect to have our most topical and pressing questions answered, creating a niche community connected by shared experiences, civil discourse and thought provoking discussion. 

Every Tuesday, plan to see how state leaders and their policies impact veterans, armed service members, contractors, the state economy, or even how the Citadel plans to prepare the next generation of our nation’s bravest men and women. 

Enjoy the news you need, as well as tales from days gone by, with The Post and Courier’s new South Carolina Military Digest. Sign up here.

Prioritizing Your Marketing in 2020

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

With the start of a new year (and a new decade), now is the perfect time for Charleston businesses to evaluate their marketing needs. Whether you’re a new or old business, you’ve probably already given thought to ways you want to market yourself. The options can likely be overwhelming, and it can be tough to decide where to put your dollars first.

Breaking down the marketing services available to you and understanding what applies best to your business is crucial. Should you prioritize your website design? Should you perfect your branding and logo before focusing on search engine optimization? The answers to these questions might just depend on the size of your business and who your audience is.

We can break down the options for expanding your audience into 3 key pillars. Advertising, agency solutions, and events cover all of your potential needs. Let’s start by analyzing advertising solutions.

Advertising

Print

In a time when digital spending clearly leads the charge, businesses tend to overlook the benefits of print advertising. 

Your business needs to identify how its brand fits into either of these ecosystems. Always consider who should see your message and how you want to impress upon them.

Are you making a new push for strong local recognition in 2020? Print is ideal for this because the reader knows that the publication is a window into local interest. While digital advertising can still be used to great effect on local audiences, print advertising is innately local because the publication itself already is local.

Print advertising is a great starting point for businesses that just need to get their name out there. It simplifies the advertising options down to when you want to appear and where in the publication you want to advertise. Options like front page messaging and insert ads are still available to consider, but the print method is generally the most straight forward approach.

Digital

Businesses who are ready to take a more targeted and aggressive approach to advertising should go digital. There’s more tactics to consider in this space, but the potential for reaching new audiences is great. 

Digital ads have the benefit of being adaptable to your audience’s browsing habits. Ad placement can be directly determined based on the context of the host page. Or delivery can be determined on the fly using location data and data driven insights.

When it comes to choosing the right digital strategy, not only does the choice depend on your business’ size or industry, but it also depends on what’s leading at the time. Digital marketing strategies evolve every year. New tactics can pop up at a staggering pace.

With 2019 coming to a close, we can look back at what dominated the digital marketing world last year and how that will impact 2020. 

2019 saw voice automated artificial intelligence (AI) rise to prominence. Families became comfortable with welcoming voice assistants into their home, and forward-thinking companies entered this market on the ground floor.

This trend will continue in 2020. In fact, voice search is expected to be a $40 billion channel in the next two years. will likely branch out from just voice assistants. AI can be utilized in a variety of ways to market products or services. 

When it comes to marketing, the core benefit of AI comes from its ability to learn about customers. Data powered by machine learning fuels things like audience targeting, web design, and branding decisions. A new year is a great time to gather up data and build a fresh approach to targeting your desired audience.

Agency Solutions

An effective marketing strategy includes a variety of marketing channels. These tactics should run together and build off of the data gathered from each other. Enlisting the help of an agency is the best way to begin firing on all marketing cylinders.

Traditional wisdom says that you should just hire a marketing person to do all of these tasks and keep the work in-house. While it can be nice to have that resource person existing in your office on a daily basis, this might not be the most cost effective plan.

Turning to an agency allows you more control over the amount you spend on marketing services during a given period of time. If you see progress coming from the money you spend on Search Engine Marketing in one month, you can put a greater amount into the next month. Or add on things like Content Marketing services or Social Media management, if you haven’t already.

Additionally, consider the fact that an in-house marketer would need access to specific programs and tools in order to effectively do their job. An agency already has these programs and the knowledge of how to get the most out of them. They’ll have dedicated team members for each marketing solution, rather than a single person or small team. Don’t rely on a jack of all trades, master of none.

 

Events

It is important to know your end goal when participating in events to market yourself. Charleston is a hotbed for B2B, industry and recruiting events. Having a physical presence at things like these can help you achieve a number of growth objectives. Any level of brand exposure is good for small businesses.

Sponsorship

This is easily the most common and most directly effective way of utilizing events. Audiences are familiar with this relationship and don’t think twice about it. This concept exists in all types of events, from live sports to trade shows.

Determining your right level of investment in event sponsorships is simple and always comes down to budget. Spend more, get your logo placed more prominently or announced more often.

Booth Presence

The level of sponsorship you pay for might also afford you a physical booth presence. Naturally, this is great for interacting with potential customers or clients. 

This is the place to build your database. You’ll want to have a way to take down people’s info, through something like a raffle or contest. Gather up as many business cards as you can.

Aside from making new connections, attending events or having a sponsorship presence is always useful for retaining existing customers. It can serve as a reminder that you’re the local business in their market. Data shows that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70 percent, compared to a 5-20 percent chance of selling to a new prospect.

Being on the floor at industry or recruiting events is also ideal. This could be the place your next business partner or agency. It’s not always about staffing up. Events can help connect you with other local leaders and experts.

Make a plan for 2020

Not all of the above strategies are going to be right for your business right away. If you’re just finding your place in the local Charleston market, contact us to talk to an expert about where your money is best spent. Soon enough, you’ll see what does and doesn’t work for you and you can tackle your annual marketing plan with confidence.

How to Promote your Award-Winning Success

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Award season in Charleston is upon us and we wanted to help winning businesses highlight their success. The Charleston community nominated and voted for the top businesses in a variety of categories. Now is the time for you to highlight your honors and give your business the extra boost that awards can provide.

Here in Charleston, customers are always on the lookout for Charleston’s Choice honors, as it shows a business is the best of the best. And this goes for all types of awards any business might be recognized for. Let your community know you’ve been recognized through these branding and promotional strategies.

Brag in your email marketing

You’ll want to make sure that you’re bragging about your award everywhere you can. Emails are a great place for that. You can make specialized emails focused on your award. Or simply add in the honors to your existing communications.

If you have a regular newsletter, dedicate a special edition to announcing the honors. Make an event out of it and catch subscribers’ attention by detailing how and why you won.

What makes your customer relations the best in the business? Why is your business the top tourist hotspot? Awards carry prestige by nature. But customers want to know just why you’re the best.

This is also a good place to start incorporating the award logo into your branding. This would be temporary and wouldn’t be applicable in all branding locations, so there’s no need to rework your logo. So find the best way to pair your logo with the award branding and place that naturally in your emails. Have employees update their signatures to include that your business is an award winner.

Show off the award with pride

Take advantage of this time to promote your award in the digital and physical space. SEM campaigns can show web searchers that you are a business worth looking into. And traditional web page ads catch the attention of audiences in your area, if you are employing geomarketing capabilities.

Businesses with a customer-facing storefront will have an easy time showing off their award. On-location signage promotes your success to all potential customers or clients. 

But businesses located within a large office complex in their own suite don’t have the opportunity to flaunt as much. Local billboards are a good substitute and open you up for even greater reach.

If physical ads by the side of the highway aren’t your thing, you should at least be showing off your victory on your website and social media pages. Update your website’s hero image and fancy up your homepage for a few weeks to celebrate. Maybe even run a contest to show you want to celebrate with your customers, not just tell them how great you are.

Other benefits of winning awards

If you haven’t gotten your business entered into awards, consider the added benefits outside of attracting new business. The prestige of being an award-winning organization affects all aspects of business.

Awards can bring growth to your business internally as well. It’s not always about showing off the award to the public. Current staff will be able to take pride in the work they do and the company they belong to. It’s an opportunity for a great boost in company morale. So even just putting up the award logo around the office can have great effects.

The celebration events for the awards themselves can also be a great opportunity for employees of winning businesses. Award parties can be a place to network with other winning businesses and build new business relationships.

Our Charleston’s Choice celebration brings together local businesses and gives them a chance to show the community why they were selected for the top honors. Restaurants and beverage companies can share their award winning creations with attendees.

There is always value in building your face-to-face engagement with your community. Event sponsorships can enable you to directly reach your community and professional peers. It is a great way to build your brand image.

Signs, advertisements and published announcements are the wide-reaching way to show off your accomplishment. But, an event sponsorship gives you a more intimate way to connect with potential customers or partners.

Finally, it should go without saying that a little time to unwind does wonders for everyone.