There’s this professional service category called the Fractional C-suite. And if you haven’t heard about it, you really should know about it. It’s something that small and medium-sized businesses are using today to grow and scale their companies against their competition.
Key Benefits of Hiring a FRACTIONAL MARKETING TEAM to Help Your Company Quickly Scale Its Marketing Activities
There are a variety of key benefits of hiring a FRACTIONAL MARKETING TEAM. One of them is…
You get A TEAM OF EXPERTS who can help you devise a solid marketing strategy at an affordable price.
For example, we were engaged by a client to help them with their branding, messaging, website, and marketing strategy and plan. During the time we were working on the foundational work an opportunity to attend an industry conference came up and the REBL Team was able to QUICKLY switch gears and get the entire team focused and aligned to prepare the strategy and all the deliverables needed for this upcoming event.
Setting Your Junior Marketer up for Success
A common theme for many business owners or CEOs today is their challenge with managing their junior marketing person or their only internal marketing person. This is usually a small to medium-sized business problem, where they have one marketing person or even an admin that’s doing marketing for them, and this person is struggling. The owner or CEO is pulling their hair out because they don’t feel like they’re getting the results they want. They feel like they’re spending a lot of time with this person giving them direction, but is it the right direction for marketing. I get it, we’ve all been there as a small business.
The challenge of working with a single junior marketing person in your small to medium-sized business
Podcast with Centri City
If a small business owner wants to grow their business, they have to rethink how they’re going to approach marketing and get out of the marketing lane, emphasizes Reb Risty, founder and CEO of REBL Marketing.
Marketing is getting more complex and it’s hard to know every single platform and type of marketing and tool and strategy. Being able to bring in knowledge and talent on a fractional basis to fill those gaps for you is essential to having a successful marketing function. The range of expertise that you’ll need to market your business successfully is too broad and dynamic for a small business to have an internal team of full-time staff do it well. The W2 full-time employment model is not agile and nimble enough to work for a small business.
Risty recommends that small businesses bring in a fractional CMO to take point and manage the appropriate specialists on a contract and project basis. Flexible working relationships are what the talent wants and the business can afford.
Listen to the end for a special gift Reb is offering our listeners that will help you get your marketing on track. https://www.centricityb2b.com/reb-risty-rebl-marketing-inc
5 Reasons to Use Video Marketing
I’m still flabbergasted at how many companies still don’t use video in their marketing strategy. It’s such a powerful tool and it’s not a nice to have, it’s a must-have. We’ve seen the results of video for ourselves and our clients. There are several reasons and statistics that prove businesses need to be using video today. Michele, what is one of the reasons businesses need to start incorporating a video strategy into their marketing mix?
1. Nearly nine out of ten people report wanting to see more videos from brands in 2021, making video an excellent tool for lead generation and brand awareness.
2. Video Content: It’s hard to believe that posts that don’t include a video receive 93% less traffic when compared to posts with at least one video. 93% less, people!! That’s a critical statistic to pay attention to.
How to Attract Top Talent with Video
The number one problem growing businesses have today is recruiting top talent. Why is this? The market is extremely competitive and talented professionals have a lot of choices and opportunities. Granted we’re in a unique situation coming out of the pandemic and many businesses are opening up again and that means large numbers of job positions are now available.
Video can help you recruit employees
If a company wants to stand out and attract top talent they have to be able to show their company culture and highlight it in a way that is attractive and engaging for professionals they are looking to hire. What’s the number one thing we recommend to our clients, Michele?
REBL Marketing Turnkey Video Marketing
The number one problem growing businesses have today is recruiting top talent. Why is this? The market is extremely competitive and talented professionals have a lot of choices and opportunities. Granted we’re in a unique situation coming out of the pandemic and many businesses are opening up again and that means large numbers of job positions are now available.
Video can help you recruit employees
If a company wants to stand out and attract top talent they have to be able to show their company culture and highlight it in a way that is attractive and engaging for professionals they are looking to hire. What’s the number one thing we recommend to our clients, Michele?
Why Email Marketing Still Matters
Though there are many avenues of reaching clients and potential clients, email marketing still remains one of the best ways to nurture prospects and keep your brand at the top of your clients’ minds.
After all, everyone has email, and despite the pervasiveness of new forms of media, everyone is constantly on email. While you should not bombard your clients with useless communications, developing a strategic email strategy is a great way to keep your brand relevant, recognizable, and engaging to your audience.
Emails are crucial to building brand recognition, so even if recipients do not click or read all of the content inside, your brand is still being reinforced. And if you are providing content that is valuable to your clients or prospective clients, they will read the content, appreciate it, and think positively of your brand! Either way is a win-win, so consistent branding through email can be critical to developing your holistic integrated marketing program.
What are some best practices for email marketing?
- Content first!
Keep things short, on topic, and relevant to what your brand does! That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with your emails, or have social blasts that reflect holidays or team culture. But the first step should be curating and developing content that is simultaneously relevant to your business and valuable to your audience. This content might include tips, education, updates, or even statistics that can help a potential client with their own business.
- Use a catchy subject line.
Your subject line needs to be interesting and attractive, since it is the first thing that will draw your reader in by grabbing their attention! Head REBL at REBL Marketing Reb Risty advises the “magazine cover methodology.” When perusing magazine titles, what sort of headlines stand out? Succinct, punchy lists, catchy headers, and interesting bits of information can all make a reader stop and open your email. The key is keeping it simple and to the point.
- Include a call to action.
If your audience likes what they read, how will they get in touch? What is your “ask”? Make sure that your email includes ample (but not overbearing) opportunities for your client or potential client to connect with you.
In all, valuable content, great subject lines, and calls to action can help your emails stand out and get the attention of potential clients.
Is email marketing better for some types of businesses than others?
Retail businesses will likely need to email more: if you are having a sale or have a special product release, for instance, you might send more emails and be more promotional, since that is imperative for your marketing tactic. However, if you’re a business-to-business company or more service-based, emailing once a week to once a month might be a better approach. Email frequency should be tailored to your integrated marketing program, which must consider your business’s goals and objectives. If email is an important part of your sales funnel, frequency is important, whereas for service-oriented businesses, emails serve the role of emphasizing education, branding, and staying at the top of your (potential) clients’ minds.
What are the best ways to gather contacts for email lists for email marketing?
Be sure to invite people to your list, not just add them! When you invite a contact to an email list, offer a welcome message that explains what they will get by joining your newsletter, along with an opportunity to unsubscribe if they choose. In the service industries, it’s important to be conscious about your lists. You do not need thousands of contacts: you need the right contacts.
All in all, emails remain a very important part of your integrated marketing program, though they shouldn’t be the only part. If you leave emails out, you are losing valuable opportunities to build brand recognition and potential client relationships. If you need help developing an email marketing strategy, give REBL a call today at (858) 848-7325! We would love to help you REBLutionize your brand.
Processes & Procedures for Your Agency with Reb Risty
Reb Risty, Head REBL at REBL Marketing, was recently a guest on Julia McLaughlin’s ‘Her Agency Toolkit’ podcast, a podcast designed to encourage and inspire women entrepreneurs working in digital marketing.
Reb discussed the importance of building processes and procedures for your agency, since as an agency owner herself, she is intimately familiar with the challenges inherent to the process.
You can listen to the whole podcast here:
Foundational Love For What You Do
Hi, I’m Reb Risty, Head REBL at REBL Marketing, and I’m here today with Mike Mance, founder and owner of Mance Creative. And we’re going to talk a little bit about marketing and branding and creative. Mike, for my audience, tell them a little bit about who you are and what you do.
MIKE: Sure thing. My name is Michael Mance. I own Mance Creative. We’re a visual branding and graphic design agency located in San Diego. We do everything from logo design, brand management, website design. You name it, we probably do it.
REB: We met through an accelerator program, a bootcamp, and one of my favorite things on your final presentation was that you’re a big theater buff.
MIKE: Yes, I do not hide that. I find that I just love the magic that theater has, and so that was part of my presentation. And to be honest, it’s quite the same thing we do when we’re doing websites and branding. It is magic. We have to create something from nothing and make it appear out of nowhere. And so that takes a certain talent, and so having a love for theater is also the same thing with graphic design too, as well.
REB: I love that. I guess your clients are a little bit of the characters and there’s a storyline, and you’re trying to tell that story. It’s the same with REBL. We’re always trying to do that too.
MIKE: Oh, absolutely.
BRANDING IS ABOUT TELLING THE COMPANY’S STORY
REB: How do we tell that story in a creative way. And you and I have been able to partner on some projects, which has been really fun. Take us a little bit through your process. You’ve made it so easy for us and our clients, and I don’t think a lot of people understand the whole branding process and it doesn’t have to be complicated, right?
MIKE: No, it doesn’t. And I love that fact that you love what we do, because I love what we do too as well. So I think you have to start from there, a foundational love for what you do. I think that’s really where the magic comes from, honestly. Really, our process is similar to yours. There’s a discovery period where a client comes in, they have a dream. We want to understand what that dream is, whether it’s a logo or a website or something even grander than that. We want to know. We want to know what their needs are, what their objectives are, and why we’re even doing this. So that’s the first step. And the second step is to just really research and see what’s out there, what we’re doing, and then really present something that’s unique to a client, whatever it is, a logo or a website.
I tend to like to push them a little bit beyond what they’re thinking, because there’s something that’s pretty normal with a logo or a website, but I really want to push them a little bit further along. And it’s fun to see the wheels turning with the client like, “Oh, I didn’t realize we could do that,” or, “That doesn’t look like me, but that could look like me in five years.” And so we do a bunch of that, rounds of revisions, and we plan for a launch or a dispersal of whatever it is. And we see how the process ends is just really a nice launch of whatever it is that we’re doing.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND COLORS
REB: I love it. And I think one of the fun things that you’ve taught me and our clients is the whole science behind color. Can you tell us a little bit about that. How do you explain the colors?
MIKE: Right. I have to explain these green walls in our office. They’re like, “Wow, this is really green.” So the psychology of color is pretty fascinating, and you probably know that blue is something that’s very safe and calm. That’s why IBM is blue, and that’s probably why FedEx has a blue color. But they also couple it with orange, which is very urgent. And so it fits well with their logo brand, is having a blue and orange combination of their logos. The green is actually pretty interesting. I chose it for a psychological reason. It’s because it’s the one color that both men and women really agree on.
REB: Really?
MIKE: Men favor blue and steely grays, and all that, and women tend to want more hotter colors, orange, fuchsias. But the color that they tend to agree on the most is green. That’s why I chose that.
REB: I love green. Green is a great color. And what I’ve also appreciated working with you is not just the primary color for the logo or the palette, but those secondary colors, and how you can take maybe a blue and then fire it up with an orange or a green.
MIKE: A lot of times people want to play it safe and say, “Oh, I want blue, and I want blue.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s great.” But for a modern spin, we usually want to introduce some sort of hotter color, like an orange, like yellow, whatnot, just so people can go, “Oh, what’s that over there.” So it really works well when you’re designing a website or a brochure to have a little, if your color scheme is entirely blue or cooler, to put some sort of hot color in there just to draw attention. So it’s a little bit of a psychological thing. If you want attention, give it a little bit of heat.
BRANDING ADVICE FOR 2021: MAKE SURE YOUR WEBSITE IS UPDATED
REB: I love it. Give it heat. Well, Mike, I always love working with you. It’s 2021. What is your advice for company professionals who are going out and thinking about redoing their brand or just updating their brand? What’s something that they should be looking at for 2021.
MIKE: Whoa, that is a big question. Really, since we’re in such a digital space right now, making sure your website is really up to date, it reflects who you are, has the technology to really carry you forward, not only this year, but in years to come. It’s really smart to invest in your website. So if it doesn’t really show who you are or attract the right kind of customer, you probably should really look at that. So digital space is probably where I would recommend you focus your efforts.
REB: All right, everyone, you heard that. Your digital space, work on your website. No, it’s hard because, like I just say, we went from the digital world to the virtual universe overnight, and if you aren’t paying attention to your digital space, you are going to get left behind.
MIKE: You just want to make sure that it looks good, presents well, and people are more interested in you. The power of branding is really something that you should look at it. It’s an asset, really. So if you’re ever going to sell your company or you want to partner with someone, they’re going to want to look at how you built your company, and the visual parts are very important too, as well. So websites are definitely important, but other things that you know are more touch points in your business, you should also look at those things too.
Give Mike a call at, (619) 269-8001 or visit www.mancecreative.com
Want to REBLutinize your brand, give REBL Marketing a call at (858) 848-7325 or message a REBL. You can work with both me and Mike, and we do everything and make your brand look amazing.