Grant Marketing Blog

6 Steps Towards Starting Your First Inbound Marketing Plan

Are you tossing around the idea of starting an industrial inbound marketing plan, but don’t know what the methodology is and aren’t sure how? Great news, there are clear steps to the strategy that you can easily learn!

Why Your Sales Team Needs to Be Your Most Authentic Brand Advocate

Are your sales and marketing functions copacetic? Or are they more like two ships that, if you’re lucky, pass in the night? Aligning your company’s marketing and business development functions:

• Unifies your team
• Builds strategic cohesion
• Keeps the sales pipeline flowing

Branding the Past for the Future—A Family Affair

Does your company have a distinct brand, based upon a thoughtful brand development process? Or is your company’s brand more of an extension of the founder’s personality?

Because Your B2B Brand Strategy May Still Need Fixin’

We hear all too often the strains of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” reasoning for not updating brand messaging or revising outdated websites. What you aren’t doing, in reality, is adhering to a consistent and congruent brand development strategy. But do you really know how many opportunities you may be missing out on by not making these changes? What is your gauge for broken? If you don’t remain relevant and contemporary, prospects may be passing you by because you look “broke” to them. Your assumptions may be shortsighted and costly. 

Your Logo Represents Your Company Brand

Nike’s swoosh, McDonald’s golden arches, and Apple’s semi-eaten apple. What do these three have in common? They are all widely recognized logos. When you see the swoosh, you know what it symbolizes. You might think that industrial brand strategy for your company doesn’t need to include a logo. But just how important is a logo for your industrial manufacturing company? The short answer is: a logo is very important.

Branding Basics

Forbes.com contributor Scott Davis puts it best: a brand must inspire how people feel, influence how they behave, and compel them to act. How do you achieve this? Through the successful implementation of a solid and focused brand strategy, of course! This applies across industries and business models—from B2C to B2B. It’s just as relevant for industrial manufacturers. A strong industrial branding strategy is the most important aspect of your marketing efforts. Indeed, it is the foundation that supports and informs all of your marketing messaging. Without an integral brand, your company will blend in with the competition. Use brand development to differentiate yourself from competitors and to communicate your promise to customers. Not only is it your brand’s job to deliver your brand promise, but it should also be directly connected to consumer needs, emotions, and competitive environments. After all, you want your brand to be distinctive to create value and connection among customers.

Emphasize Employee Awareness of Your Brand

Brand Development encompasses a complex and multi-tiered approach to showing the world who you are. It defines what your business stands for and explains how your products get delivered to and are experienced by customers. It also involves the “why” behind your customers’ purchasing decisions. More importantly, brand development backed by brand strategy helps you differentiate yourself from your competitors, which creates recognizable brand loyalty in customers’ lives. In industrial branding, it is important to keep your customers in mind. But, it is also crucial to get your employees involved.

Own Your Brand Development Strategy

Brands seep into our consciousness, support our lifestyle activities, and influence our spending. Heck, they help shape it all. You don’t have to be a specialist in brand strategy development to get a sense of what I’m talking about. Whether you are a company head worried about B2B brand strategy or a mom looking for the right educational toys for her tots, brand messaging is at the heart of your purchasing decisions. Often because brand consultants have managed to get to your heart.

Memories Through the Lens of a Brand Strategist

Having guided many companies through brand strategy development in a Boston brand strategy agency, I tend to see the world through the lens of a brand strategist. But I didn’t see this one coming.

Why Do Your Customers Buy from You?

You own a small manufacturing company and you think you have the greatest products and service in your industry, but do you really know why your customers buy from you? Do they buy on price, or is there some little nuance that differentiates you from your competition that your customers have discovered?

Companies buy from other companies for many reasons. Sometimes it’s about price; sometimes it’s about convenience; sometimes it’s about quality; sometime’s its about relationships. While you, Mr./Ms. manufacturing owner, have an understanding of what sets your company apart from other companies in your industry, do your customers share that same perception?

Can you answer the following questions?

• Have you discovered what differentiates your company from your competitors?
• Is your company distinction recognized by all of your clients/customers?
• Does your distinction have value to your clients/customers and prospects?
• Are employees in your company aware of this distinction?
• Are new hires trained to communicate your company’s distinction?
• Is your distinction communicated clearly to prospects?