Måned: juli 2023

Do you ever question whether your marketing material is delivering the right message? Are you developing the right type of content? Are you activating on the right channels? We all strive to stand out from the crowd and effectively communicate our distinctiveness, but how can we ensure we’re achieving this goal?

At Project Neon, when we start working with a new client, we kick-off with a “discovery” phase. This involves holding a workshop to explore the client’s business, goals, understand their offerings, the value they deliver, their target market, and more. Armed with this knowledge we then conduct a marketing audit, as a crucial part of this process. But what exactly is a marketing audit?

Defining the marketing audit

A marketing audit comprehensively evaluates a company’s marketing messages, activities, strategies, and assets. It involves a systematic and objective analysis of the different marketing materials and channels, and their alignment with the organization’s goals. Consider it a thorough check-up of your marketing endeavours, aiming to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The purpose of a marketing audit

The primary purpose of a marketing audit is to gain a holistic understanding of the current marketing landscape (establishing a benchmark) and identify areas that can be improved or optimized (how you can grow). Our goal is to see whether your marketing activity reflects and delivers, based on the information shared in the workshop. It explores your marketing approach, allowing us to give you our expert opinion and advice. Then you can make informed decisions and course corrections.

The value of a marketing audit

This audit is more than just a paperwork exercise. We ensure that marketing audits deliver valuable insights and create clear actionable outcomes. Here are some of the key benefits of conducting a marketing audit:

1. Evaluating your message:
   Your marketing messages serve as your brand’s voice, shaping how your target audience perceives you. Does your message resonate with your intended audience? Is it effectively conveying your unique value proposition, and differentiating you from competitors? Is it easy to understand? Are you delivering the same message across your different marketing channels, or do they differ? By looking at what you’re saying and how you’re saying it, it’s possible to evaluate your messages’ clarity and consistency, you can refine your communication strategy for maximum impact.
   
2. Assessing target market alignment:
   Understanding your target market is crucial for successful marketing. A marketing audit examines whether your current marketing efforts align with your target audience’s preferences, needs, and aspirations. By assessing what you are doing now we can help you refine your strategies to better connect with your ideal customers, driving higher engagement and conversion rates.
   
3. Optimizing marketing channels: In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses utilise numerous marketing channels, from your website, social media, to email campaigns and content marketing. A marketing audit assesses the effectiveness of your current channels and how they connect you to your target market. There’s no point in spending hours on Facebook content if your customers aren’t there. Equally if you’re investing in attending an event, then are your other channels strategically aligned to maximise exposure? By reviewing and allocating resources strategically it’s possible to leverage the proper channels, maximize your reach and improve your return on investment (ROI).
   
4. Reviewing marketing assets:
   Your marketing collateral, such as websites, brochures, ads, and videos, represent your brand visually and verbally. A marketing audit evaluates these assets’ quality, consistency, and relevance, ensuring they align with your brand identity and effectively convey your message. This review helps identify outdated or ineffective materials which need to be refreshed or replaced to maintain a strong brand presence. Equally it can identify gaps in your toolkit.
   
5. Identifying growth opportunities:
   by taking a step back and taking a clear look at what you’re doing, it’s also possible to see where there are gaps in your marketing strategy. It helps you see where you can expand your reach, penetrate new markets, or capitalize on emerging trends.

Fundamentally a marketing audit benchmarks your current efforts and gives everyone the insight needed to evolve and improve going forward.

They say knowledge is power and to us, at Project Neon, having this information about a client’s existing marketing efforts from the start, helps us add value and do our role more effectively. Since every company is different a rounded understanding lets us ensure the work, we do for a client is specific to their needs, not just based on generalisation.

What do you think a marketing audit on your company would tell you? We’ll leave you think on that…

If you want to grow your online audience, start by creating great content.

Straight forward enough? Not necessarily…

Creating great content can be both time and cost consuming – and that’s before you’ve even figured out what constitutes great content for your brand. A quick google will soon tell you there’s no shortage of answers.

Ultimately, ‘great’ content engages, entertains and/or educates your target audience (If you can do all three, you’re on to a winner).

For the purpose of this article, let’s fast forward a few steps: You’ve created your shiny new piece of content and it’s approved for publication. Let’s say you’ve produced a case study to highlight a particular product or area of expertise within your business. You post it on your website and share a link to it on your social media channels.

Job…done? Not so fast.

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into creating your case study. Now it’s time to make the content work for you. Here’s how to turn one case study into multiple shareable content pieces.

Infographics

Go through your case study and extract the most valuable insights. It can be key stats, numbers, facts – even half a dozen can make for an impactful infographic design. Use it to grab people’s attention on your social channels and direct them through to the full case study.

Social proof

If your case study contains a quote or input from a happy customer/client; shout about it! It could be as simple as a graphic featuring the quote and their name/title or, time permitting, arrange to film 30 second video clip of them talking about your product/service.

Pro tip: If using a static graphic; include a headshot of the person attributed to the quote. Tag the person and their company in your LinkedIn post and encourage them to both share, like and comment on the post (the algorithm favours these interactions).

Create a video

A case study that is technical in nature, or perhaps describes a specific process/service, can benefit from a video or animation asset. It doesn’t need to capture everything; focusing on one aspect can be an effective way of introducing the product/service to your audience.

Pro tip: Boost your LinkedIn marketing – keep your video/animation to 30-60 seconds and where possible, add subtitles for optimal performance. Oh, and a square video format works best!

Create a deck

Distill your case study into a few slides and use it for your next client pitch, in-house presentation or annual review. That way you’ll always have a concise and presentable summary to hand should you need it.

Pro tip: Save your PowerPoint file as a PDF and feature it on a LinkedIn post. Why, we hear you ask? Because the LinkedIn algorithm loves PDFs and will give your post a boost as a thank you.

Paid advertising

Your infographic, customer testimonial, video or animation can all be used to support audience growth through paid social media advertising. Take LinkedIn for example; there are options to suit all budgets. Select your target audience/region input the length of the campaign. You’ll be presented with a list of prices and the results they’ll deliver – then simply adjust your spend upwards and downwards until you find a budget vs reach that suits you.

Media publications

Could your case study lend itself to a feature in a trade publication? Utilize any media contacts you have in order to reach a wider audience. You’ll also boost your own SEO by having your content feature on the website of a reputable publication.

Send an email

Email marketing is an excellent content distribution tool – so don’t forget to hit send! Share your case study with your database in the first instance. You can also maintain a steady stream of clicks by updating your email signature to feature a well-designed banner that links to the case study. Every little helps!

Create once, distribute forever

By re-purposing and distributing your content across a variety of channels, you can maximize its reach, engage a wider audience and ultimately improve your content marketing output. By turning it into multiple assets you’ll also extend the lifespan of the content, enabling you to spread it out across monthly and annual content plans.

Events serve as a powerful opportunity to raise brand awareness and increase visibility. By attending relevant industry events, B2B businesses can position themselves as thought leaders and industry experts, boosting their credibility. Whether it is a trade show, conference, or product launch, events enable your businesses to highlight your service offerings in an immersive environment, allowing attendees to experience the brand firsthand.

Furthermore, events attract a diverse range of attendees, providing businesses with the opportunity to tap into new markets, reach potential customers, and generate leads. When executed effectively, event marketing can create a buzz around a brand, spreading awareness through word-of-mouth and social media.

But preparing for a B2B event involves more than the stand logistics and event day itself. To maximise your attendance, it’s critical to take proactive steps to help ensure that your business achieves a higher return on investment (ROI).

When planning your event, here’re some actions to consider, to maximise brand awareness.

Harness social media

Use your company social media channels to promote your event attendance. Inform your network about the event and provide booth location details. Actively engage and comment on social media posts. Leave genuine and thoughtful remarks to increase visibility by asking questions, sharing insights, and tagging others.

Pro tip: Look for the official event hashtag and use it. Usually, you can find them on the organizer’s website or social media. By using the event hashtag, you will ensure that your post will be at the heart of the conversation around the event, allowing you to interact with like-minded attendees. Boost your reach!

Multi-channel event communication

Add a page to your website, share an event email signature banner for staff to use in the weeks preceding the event, issue an email update to key clients. There are multiple communication channels which you can plan to activate in the weeks before the event to share details of your stand.

Case studies

Sharing relevant case studies adds credibility and generates interest in the services. Have some case studies ready to share in the weeks before the event so that you have up to date discussion points with attendees. These success stories can also be displayed on screens at your booth.

Press and media

It’s not unusual for members of the industry or local press to attend key events. Do you have a news item you could share, or could you arrange an interview with a journalist and senior member of your team? Events are a good time to enhance your media relations and make announcements.

Demonstrations and Presentations

Providing attendees with a firsthand experience allows them to understand better what you have to offer, making your brand more memorable. Whether it’s showing your product on screen on physically, people love to witness the real thing.

We are all visual beings who learn from watching. Have high impact visuals or video content on your stand. But don’t forget to order the infrastructure to support the demonstrations. Nothing is worse than trying to do a live demo with a bad exhibition Wi-Fi connection!

Pro Tip: If your product is too large for a stand, then consider a 3D model. If a dedicated screen is unavailable, then grab an iPad which your booth staff can use in their interactions.

Audience engagement

At events you’re aiming to attract people onto the stand and encourage them to engage. As a result, consider ways in which you could do that – scheduled presentations, interactive quizzes, or even just coffee. It’s all about building a brand experience so where possible make it relevant to your brand.

Marketing collateral

The trend for having printed collateral on stands has shifted due to the environmental impact and lack of desire to carry them about / retain paper. However, marketing collateral can be a useful conversation or sales tool. So, consider having a limited number on stand for your teams to use and add QR codes so visitors can access a digital version if they want to retain the content.

Lead capturing and follow up

You are aiming to build a brand connection and follow up communications is a key part of that. Make sure that a pile of business cards doesn’t end up at the bottom of someone’s bag and nothing is done with them. Agree on how your team will capture stand visitor contact details and communicate with them after the event. A “thank you for visiting our booth” email after the show means that your brand will be brought back to front of mind once that person is back at their desk.

Get Ready

In a digital age characterized by virtual connections, physical events present unique opportunities for businesses to build connections, strengthen brands, and drive growth. By leveraging events, businesses can forge meaningful relationships, strengthen their brand, and pave the way for long-term success. However, to maximize the ROI of your event, it’s critical to start preparing in advance and consider all the ways to maximise brand awareness at the event.