The Borenstein Group is pleased to share its latest B2B infographic with marketers entitled “Strategic Steps to Building Brand Trust in B2B and B2G in 2021 and 2022”.
Please feel free to download it or share it with your colleagues.
MarTech Outlook Magazine Names Borenstein Group a Top 10 Brand Management Agency in 2021
The Borenstein Group, a top Washington DC Digital Marketing & Branding Agency for B2B and B2G markets, was named a Top 10 Brand Management Agency by MarTech Outlook Magazine in their recent 2021 edition. MarTech Outlook, is the go-to resource for senior-level Marketing leaders and decision-makers to learn and share their experiences with products/services, technologies, and Marketing technology trends. The international digital publication shines a spotlight on profound insights, innovative technology, and novel solutions for CMOs and other suites of C-level executives in an ever-changing industry.
Agency Candidates for this prestigious annual award are nominated by companies with whom they have collaborated and seen results. In the case of the Borenstein Group, the magazine highlighted the agency’s mission to make creativity a science, our ability to make products appealing and believable, and the paramount level of trust established with consumers.
The decision was based on how brand management agencies have reacted to recent radical shifts in the industry. They looked for the ability to balance classic brand integrity with the need to exude a modern feel; thus, maintaining the trust of existing clients without becoming outdated. They also emphasized the growing importance of social media in digital marketing strategy.
Read the full article here.
How to Take Your B2B Marketing to the Next Level with a KPI Strategy
The best way to take B2B marketing to the next level is to make your strategic and creative processes scientific by basing them in data. However, the never-ending sea of raw data you can measure and draw from can be overwhelming; and not all data is helpful. This is where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in handy. Data is initially presented as metrics, anything and everything about your project that can be measured, but KPIs are filtered groups of metrics that are relevant to tangible goals. KPIs are tied to specific campaigns as objectives to gauge individual success.
Establishing KPIs for your project is never a one-size-fits-all process. Before using them, you must first:
- Define concrete goals you think the project can achieve
- Establish how success is best measured for these goals
- Create a specific plan to achieve success
- And scrutinize which metrics are actually relevant to analyzing progress
Working with your team to identify relevant KPIs, setting concrete goals for each of these, and measuring progress over time forces them to think through all of the minute details, making your plan more robust than ever. There are many groupings of KPIs that can be advantageous in the world of digital B2B marketing:
- Lead Generation KPIs: They help you gauge how many potential new customers your campaign is attracting. Metrics like monthly new leads, primary lead sources (where leads came from), marketing qualified leads (those attracted specifically by your campaign tactics), and cost per lead (total cost/total leads) can help you track lead activity over time and identify where costs can be cut.
- Website and Traffic KPIs: Your website is your most important tool in digital B2B marketing and metrics like monthly site traffic, returning vs. new users, click-through rate (how often users follow a specific link), and conversion rate (how many users complete the desired action out of total traffic) can illuminate what’s working and what’s not.
- SEO KPIs: Traffic driven towards your website is directly influenced by your Search Engine Optimization tactics. Analyzing your organic search traffic, leads/conversions from organic searches, backlinks (which unique domains are linking to yours and their reputations), google page rank, and keyword analysis can give your SEO strategy purposeful direction.
- Social Media KPIs: Many companies use their professional social media as they do their personal: sporadically and impulsively. Comparing different social media strategies with the change in traffic from social media, leads/conversions from social media, audience size growth rate, engagement rate, and return on social media investment allows you to bring order to your social media presence in a way that works.
- Project KPIs: Key Performance Indicators aren’t just helpful to clients. Lead time per project (time between project initiation and delivery), estimated vs. actual project time/cost, and utilization rates (time employees spend on billable tasks out of total time spent) can help an agency internally to perfect its practices.
The final step is deciding when to report which KPIs. Daily reports are utilized by an agency to quickly identify problems and troubleshoot. Weekly reports may be shared with clients and show broader trends in what is happening with their campaign in real-time. Monthly reports give an all-encompassing perspective on long-term projects and show the impact of your marketing activities over time.
B2B Social Media Industry Insights to Watch for in 2021
It’s no secret that social media is a necessity for businesses to thrive in the 21st century. Many take the same unstructured approach to their business account as they do to their personal account, but social media is a science. As platforms and user practices evolve, it’s important to stay up to date so that your business can maximize its return from its social media efforts. Here are a few insider insights that illuminate the most important social media trends of 2021: There are basic practices every business should adopt;
- Every platform has an algorithm that determines who sees your social media content. The key to manipulating these algorithms in your favor is consistency and intentionality. Algorithms reward consistent posting. Create a posting schedule so that at least three days a week, you can post original content at the same time of day. Around 11:00 and 5:00 are best because social media traffic spikes around lunch and the end of the workday. Don’t post just for the sake of uploading content. User engagement is just as important to algorithms as consistency. Create content that makes users stop scrolling, read more, open a picture, watch a video, or click on something.
- At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home protocols, social media usage spiked. Just over a year later, general usage has decreased but has stabilized at a higher level than ever before. Due to the radical shift in engagement, consumers are more likely to see ads on social media than any other traditional advertising method. An intelligent and structured social media presence is of paramount importance in 2021.
- More people are spending more time on social media than ever before. However, Americans distrust social media more than any other group in the world. Building brand trust (backlink to brand trust blog) is always challenge businesses face, but this is only amplified on social media. Your content needs to exude reliability, show that you listen to what consumers want, and demonstrate that your business tailors its actions towards their feedback.
- Social Media is beginning to rival search engines and ads seen on television as the most common source of brand discovery. Even though it is not the first, social media carries the most weight. Ads seen on social media are the most actionable to consumers, have the highest conversion rates, and conveniently give advertisers the most bang for their buck. They are an extremely cheap alternative to traditional advertising methods and certain platforms, like Facebook, have tools to target your ads towards very specific demographics by geographic location, age, etc.
- While it can be easy to use social media as a megaphone to describe why all of your products and services are the best, users don’t want to be sold something. A business’s social media presence is oxymoronic in that way. Users are most likely to engage with content that appeals to their emotions or sense of humor. The best way to attract potential consumers to your page is to creatively communicate your brand narrative in an eye-catching way.
- Effective strategies include cashing in on meme culture and responding directly to individuals. Memes demonstrate your understanding of your consumers and are simple and free to make. Gucci is widely known for its meme strategy of “making luxury relatable.” Responding to individuals also demonstrates a heightened level of consumer care. Netflix is perhaps the most notorious response account. Even when they are not tagged, Netflix often responds comedically to community conversations about their shows and movies.
- Influencers are frequently associated with vanity, beauty, and luxury, but new research shows that users are taking interest in far more lucrative categories. Influencer segments that are currently booming include travel, personal healthcare, fitness/exercise, wildlife/nature, DIY/home improvements, fashion, beauty/cosmetics, and charities/volunteering. Paid promotion through relevant influencers could be a useful strategy you never considered, so be sure to research which internet voices are the loudest related to your industry.
- Modern-day users expect demonstrated social responsibility from business accounts in a wide range of ways. Research shows that users favor business accounts that show care for employees, the environment, humanitarian efforts, and current social issues. They are expected to make statements regarding injustices in the news and tailor their content towards calendar celebrations (i.e. Black History, Pride, AAPI awareness months). Many businesses worry about alienating customers by taking political stances, but silence in the wrong situation can be just as damaging to a brand’s reputation. Keep in mind that when addressing these topics, users are looking for acknowledgment and accountability, not for a 280-character post to change the world.
- Facebook is the most obvious social media platform to prioritize, and as the most-used platform in the world, it should be a substantial part of your social media plan. However, this cannot be your sole online presence. Consider expanding to Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Frequently, the same posts can be uploaded on all four platforms with only minor modifications needed. An underutilized but extremely lucrative platform is Pinterest. It is known in the industry as a marketplace of “aspirational shoppers” because users turn to Pinterest for inspiration in the home décor/design, recipes/food/meal ideas, style/clothing/beauty, health/fitness, travel, and wedding/party/events categories. Often, when consumers take to Pinterest for inspiration, they are already dedicated to making some kind of related purchase in the near future.
- Social media platforms are beginning to incorporate e-commerce into their sites. Something like the Facebook marketplace is not particularly useful to a business as it is for local buying and selling between individuals. Conversely, platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok have created in-app e-commerce features where products can be sold without leaving the platform. They also offer services that let businesses tag their products in the foreground or background of a photo or video. That way, if a user sees something they like displayed in context, they can tap the item and be directed to an e-commerce page selling it. Don’t rely solely on the e-commerce integrated into your website. Use all of the tools available to sell your product or service.
The Surest Ways to Build Digital Trust for Your Brand in 2021; Performance Delivered Podcast Features Gal Borenstein, Borenstein Group CEO, for Strategic Insights
Gal Borenstein, founder, and CEO of the Borenstein Group, a top Washington DC Digital Marketing & Branding Agency for B2B and B2G markets, was interviewed on Performance Delivered’s latest podcast. He shared his industry expertise and scientific approach to building digital trust for a brand. B2B clients have instant access to endless online competitors. This means that your brand narrative needs to engage users as efficiently as possible. In as little as five seconds, a site must be able to answer the question, “Why should I trust this company?”
To accomplish this, Gal Borenstein reverse engineers the trust-building process:
- Ask what makes your product the best. Then, prove it. What metrics and data can you highlight to base your product’s superiority in science?
- Interview clients. Ask them the same questions you asked internally. What do they want? What is the value they see in your product? Where are the discrepancies between your evaluation and theirs?
- Do your homework on the brand messaging in the space. Knowing what your competition is saying allows you to test their narratives against each other to see what is successfully converting non-believers.
- Implement your new strategies and let the analytics tell you what’s working and what isn’t.
About Performance Delivered: Listen to Steffen Horst’s full conversation with Gal Borenstein, where he expands on these core ideas and offers insider advice at the link here. For agency owners and executives, the digital marketing landscape is always changing. With interviews with thought leaders and those “in the trenches” of the industry, the Performance Delivered digital marketing podcast will keep you up-to-date with current industry best practices… and also give you a glimpse into what innovations the future holds. Hosts Steffen Horst and Dave Antil are big agency “refugees” who know that the industry is going through drastic changes right now. And they offer insights you can use to stay on top. Learn more about the Performance Delivered podcast and listen to more on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on their website.