Has your company ever been in this boat? You create a solid and creative marketing plan to take you the long haul, yet you assign a budget just to keep you afloat and then expect mega results? It’s all too common, and we’ve certainly been there. Many brands with tenured, smart stakeholders are sometimes sailing different seas as it relates to growth goals, resources, and expectations. 

Using stories in marketing allows you to share memorable and powerful messages that connect deeply with audiences and customers. Our job as marketers is to ensure our brand has a strong recall for potential customers when they have a need for our product or service. Here are a few ways to use storytelling to better reach your audience and convert more customers.

All good marketing starts with one question: Who is your ideal customer? Many business owners know the answer to this question. They have a general idea of who buys from them and uses their products or services.

But often, business owners don’t go deep enough nor do they have this information documented. They don’t think they need formal buyer personas -- and this is shortsighted.

Many brands struggle with video marketing because they don’t know how to get started. On the surface, video marketing can be intimidating. Coming up with budget, content, filming, editing, and publishing videos can seem like a big undertaking. But, it doesn’t have to be complicated or complex. Here is what you need to know to start using video marketing for your business.

Most anyone with a website uses Google Analytics to collect data on how people use your website and digital properties. If you do as well, you need to know Google Analytics is moving away from what we are currently using with Universal Analytics and into Google Analytics 4. You should also know you can’t sit out of this shift. There are a lot of positives though, including enough time to make the change and great new features.

How much should we spend? This is one of the most common questions in marketing. As brands put together strategies for how they can reach more customers and grow their business, they often don’t know how to set an exact budget.

For marketing to be effective, it needs a variety of aligned elements that work together to produce a cohesive brand, vision, message, and strategy. To give your marketing what it needs to succeed, here are the eight essential marketing assets your brand should own, manage, and regularly review.

If your brand is trying to reach new customers, social media platforms are THE place to get in front of eager audiences. If you want to break through the millions of pieces of content posted every day, and at the same time satisfy the platform algorithm to even show your content, you may need to incorporate social media advertising in your strategy.

As we get ready to wrap up 2021, we’re also wrapping up our Inbound Takeaways Series. Here is the best advice from our favorite Inbound speakers and how you can use their lessons to drive more success for both you and your brand in 2022.

After an insightful marketing conference hosted by HubSpot in September, this is Part 2 of our 3 Part series of actionable takeaways. We started last month with Content Strategy Priorities, followed by this handy comparison of inbound and account-based marketing, and will conclude next month with some leadership inspiration.