You can’t make this stuff up.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Unbelievable. If the story of the year 2020 was written up as a movie script, it would be soundly rejected by every production house in town. They would lambaste it as ludicrous, chaotic and utterly implausible. Too many tragedies. Too many villains. Too many competing plot lines. Each one could be its own mini-series. Consider these storylines, all from 2020: An impeached President was exonerated, a deadly pandemic swept the world, a global economic recession followed, a series of police killings spawned urban protests across the country, the western U.S. experienced the worst fire season ever, and, of course, the nation endured the ugliest Presidential election in our history. I think I speak for most when I say: 2020, good riddance! And yet, while we can certainly put this year behind us, we can’t allow ourselves to forget all that happened. There are hard lessons to be learned, sure, but there were also bright spots to celebrate. Scientists, for example, created a vaccine in record-breaking time.

Despite the Covid-19 risks, the American people voted in record numbers. Racial equality became a genuine priority. Air pollution plummeted. So did noise pollution. People reconnected with old friends. And discovered new music. Cooking made a comeback. The world became more cooperative and virtually connected.

As we look forward to 2021, we at Brand33 are grateful for the people in our lives. Our Manifesto states: We believe that friends, co-workers and clients are the same thing. And that “thing” is a person to be treated with kindness, respect, and generosity. So, Happy New Year to you. And, here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2021 for everyone.

Branding or Bust.

Branding or Bust.

Every time a recession rolls around, so does the question of whether to dial back your marketing. One thing to keep in mind is, whether in boom times or a downturn, whenever you stop promoting your brand you inevitably begin to lose “mind share” with your audience. Mind share is that ever-changing level of brand awareness among your customers. Typically, when consumers think of a particular product or service, a limited number of brands come to mind. To survive in today’s over-saturated marketplace, it’s imperative that you keep your brand on that short list. Brands that protect their equity during a recession will be better positioned to rebound and grow when the economy turns around, while those that go dark may find that recapturing lost mind share is difficult and costly.

Of course, it’s important to keep promoting your brand regardless of the economic environment, but downturns present unique opportunities. Because most companies tend to cut their marketing budgets during recessions, the advertising “noise” level is usually lower, which means your message can better break through. This can give you a chance to grab more mind share while your competitors are relatively quiet and, in turn, capture more of the market.

One example of a brand that captured more market share during a recession happened in the early 70s. When the energy crisis hit, Toyota was not the leading import car maker in the United States. When gas prices spiked and the ensuing recession set in, many carmakers slashed their ad budgets. Toyota, however, stuck to their long-term marketing strategy, and by 1976, had overtaken Volkswagen as the leading import carmaker in the United States. There are other subtler benefits to marketing during a downturn, as well. Brands that continue marketing when times are tough will be viewed as strong and resilient. In addition, the cost of marketing often drops during a recession, so you can get more bang for your advertising buck. A downturn can also provide you with a good window in which to introduce a new product or even implement a re-positioning of your brand.

So, what actions should you take during a recession?

1 | Protect your investment
Start by focusing your marketing on the hard-won customers you already have. It’s far less expensive and less work to stay in touch with your existing clients than it is trying to capture new ones. So, keep engaging with your audience.

2 | Enhance your online presence
During a downturn, it’s important that all your customers and potential customers know that you are, indeed, still open for business. Keep engaging with them. Inform them of any changes you’ve made to the business, let them know about any recent successes, and be sure to announce any specials you’re offering.

3 | Revisit your budget allocation
You’ve probably been threatening to do a deep dive into which channels are performing well and which ones aren’t, anyway. What better time to make a few adjustments than right now?

4 | Consider “pandemic pricing”
With so many businesses struggling, a short-term pricing incentive help can lift sales and increase market share. You can restore your standard pricing schedule once the economy recovers.

As we at Brand33 say in our manifesto, “We believe every moment is filled with opportunity.” This holds true in times of recession, as well. Economic downturns can be tough, but they can also provide opportunities. Remember, regardless of the circumstances, there is always a way to do something positive.

What We're Doing After 8 Months

Dear friends,

Hard to believe that eight months have passed since the pandemic began. It’s been a year beyond our wildest imaginings. All of us here at Brand33 continue to work remotely, for the most part, and with cases of Covid-19 on the rise again, it looks like we’re going to keep working from home for months to come. How are we doing? All things considered, remarkably well.

Even before any of us had heard the word “Coronavirus,” we were operating on the cutting edge of digital communication. We often joked about it in the office, that although we were all in the same room, we’d Skype each other rather than simply turn our heads and speak. Yeah, we’re a bit quirky in that respect, but it’s serving us well now. In fact, we’re so comfortable working remotely, we’ve even helped our clients do it better. Recently, Gallagher needed to execute a series of virtual productions with their partners at Special Olympics, so we put together “ZOOM Kits” for them, complete with iPhone, tripod, lighting, microphone, transmitter, and detailed instructions on how to setup and record a successful ZOOM interview using the iPhone as a second camera. The interviews were a success.

We’re grateful to our clients and partners for working with us during these extraordinary times. We remain committed to providing you with the best service possible, and we hope you’re staying safe and healthy.

Sincerely,
Brand33

What We're Doing

Dear friends,

Like you, we at Brand33 are following the mandate and sheltering at home. We hope you’re all safe and healthy, and we’d like to offer a few suggestions for making the best of this situation. Of course, it’s not our place to offer tips for people to follow when, say, venturing out to the grocery store for essentials, but if you’re looking for ideas on how to keep your spirits up during this time, allow us to share some of the things our team has been doing when we’re not working on your projects.

To help ourselves stay upbeat, we are:

Catching up on feel-good movies, such as:

• When Harry met Sally

• Big

• Liar Liar

• Caddy Shack

• Love Actually

• Crazy Stupid Love

• 40 Year Old Virgin

• Silver Linings Playbook

Binging on great TV series, such as:

• Game of Thrones

• Breaking Bad

• Ozarks

• Madmen

• The Handmaid’s Tale

• The Sopranos

Listening to fun or informative podcasts, such as:

• Stand Up w/ Comedy Central

• Short Wave

• The Moth

• This American Life

• Radio Lab

• Serial

Staying in shape with free online classes, such as:

• Peloton spin classes

• Nike Training Club

• Corepower Yoga

• Zumba

• Online classes from your local gym

Catching up on our reading with classic books like:

• The World According to Garp

• The Hobbit and/or Lord of the Rings

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

• Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone

Finishing those home projects we’ve been putting off, like:

• Going through closets and starting a Goodwill bag

• Cleaning out the rain gutters

• Dusting ceiling fans

• Painting the bedroom

• Reorganizing the garage

Another suggestion we’d like to make is, whether you leave the house to buy takeout meals or use a no-touch service to have them delivered to your home, try to patronize the local small businesses you value. The big chain restaurants will whether this storm, but some of our favorite mom & pop shops may not. Again, in times like these it’s important that we support each other.

In case you live in the south bay, some of the small business we’re supporting are:

• Friends of the Vine

• The Crest

• The Green Temple

• La Capilla

• The Torrance Bakery

• Japanese Restaurant Honda

• Barans 2239

• Mickey’s Italian Delicatessen

We hope these ideas help you make it through the coming days in quarantine. From all of us at Brand33, be safe, be healthy, and be kind to one another.

John Diggins
Copywriter Brand 33

Thought Leadership Marketing

Marketing through leadership.

Most people are hesitant to do business with someone who claims to do everything. They don’t want a jack of all trades, they want a master of one. That’s just what a thought leader brand is: a brand that is recognized as an authority in their particular industry. And because they’re viewed as experts, people value their opinions and give them their business. Thought leadership marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow a brand today. Yet, establishing a brand as a thought leader is a long-term proposition that includes:

• Building a reputation as an innovative company

• Generating authoritative content, i.e.: studies or research papers

• Creating a blog and posting to it frequently

• Sharing industry insights through social media, videos and podcasts

• Attending and contributing to industry events Hosting workshops or seminars

• Supporting social causes

Even if a brand follows through on all of the above, it can still take years for it to be recognized as a thought leader. Genuine trust takes time. The benefits, however, can be huge, and include:

• Elevating the brand image

• Increasing overall brand value

• The ability to attract better talent

• Enhancing marketing efficiencies

• Creating new business opportunities

• Augmenting sales

One of our clients, Gallagher Insurance, has a proud 92-year legacy of integrity and innovation. In fact, they’ve been named one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies eight years in a row. Yet, before we partnered with them they hadn’t really established themselves as a thought leader within their industry. Overall, the brand was somewhat scattered and lacked a centralized marketing plan.

To help elevate their standing, we fast-tracked a full brand re-development initiative. Starting with a complete brand audit, we conducted multi-tracked research, and defined a clear thought leadership marketing strategy. By creating an authoritative new voice, an integrated look and feel, and by re-emphasizing the importance of producing relevant, leadership content, we were able to shift industry perceptions about Gallagher and re-position them as an ascending thought leader brand.

In today’s oversaturated digital marketing world, establishing your brand as a thought leader can help separate your company from industry competitors and make all the difference in generating long-term success.

John Diggins
Copywriter Brand 33

Market Small

Small? What ever happened to thinking big? Well, these days, with so many different channels of communication available to us, big audiences have been broken up into many smaller audiences. Gone are the days of the broad, shotgun approach. Today, the most effective marketing is small and precisely targeted marketing. In our fully interconnected world, a compelling idea can spread quickly. Rather than producing a general message to a wide audience—like TV still does— tailor a specific message to those few who really “get” your brand. Their passion for what you have to offer will generate the kind of attention that can help your brand take off.

At Brand33, we start by identifying a brand’s ideal customer. Its biggest fan. That fan is the source of the future groundswell. Where do they “live”? How do they speak with their friends? Once we feel like we know them, we craft a voice that speaks only to them. We create content that they find remarkable. Then, we make it as easy as possible for them to share it with the world. Sharing is key, which means social media is crucial. Sharing is how ideas spread and trends catch fire.

If the content is relevant and compelling, a small group of enthusiasts will form. With the right cultivation, that group’s enthusiasm will grow into a movement. That’s how phenomena such as Facebook took off. A small group of passionate users began to create a hubbub, and that hubbub began to attract attention as the world wondered what it was all about. A movement was born.

Want to grow your brand? Find its small market and start a movement.

John Diggins
Copywriter Brand 33

Brand Building through Content Marketing

Think about this: Most conventional marketing efforts, such as placing an ad in a magazine or on a website, or inserting a 30-second spot into a TV program, is like renting the attention of someone else’s audience and hoping they notice you. In other words, the person watching the TV is there to see a particular program, not to see your ad. But with any luck, he will see your ad and decide to take action. Content marketing, by contrast, is the long-term process of building your own audience, and owning their attention. That means creating content that they intentionally seek out. Today, content marketing plays a crucial role in any brand building initiative.

Seven Content Marketing Qualifications

Creating an effective content marketing plan involves touching several bases.
Content marketing should:

1] engage the audience on their own terms.

2] be based on interactions with your customers.

3] tell a continuous and engaging story.

4] fit the particular channel it’s being delivered on.

5] have a clear purpose or goal.

6] be created with a long shelf-life.

Building a content marketing program starts with brand awareness. Over 90% of all purchases begin with an online search, so make sure your SEO is solid. When your customers search for what you’re offering, your brand should be front and center. And when your content appears in their results, it better be worth the search. By offering educational content and demonstrating expertise in your industry, you can start building trust and nurture an ongoing relationship with your customers. This is also called thought leadership marketing. People are more likely to buy from brands they trust, so it pays to become a thought leader within your category..

Thought Leadership Content vs Sales Content

Brands establish themselves as thought leaders by charting a path into the future for others to follow. They look for ways to make best practices even better, and often create industry disruption in the process. They provide content that doesn’t necessarily push their own products, but rather offers their audience useful information and best practices.

Sales content, on the other hand, necessarily doesn’t offer best practices, but instead specific details about the products the company sells. While it can be tempting to run your products up the flagpole, target audiences will often view sales content with skepticism.

Generating Content

Creating content on a regular basis can be a big challenge. The type of content you create should depend largely upon the current priorities of your business. These priorities could be a branding initiative, a new product launch, or an educational piece. One way to come up with ideas for content is to ask your team members what kind of content might help them do their jobs. Also, feel free to ask your customers on social media what they’d like to see.

Some practices that can help enhance your marketing content include:

Being observant
Take note of what your target audience is consuming and sharing. It’s really the only way you can create content that’s relevant. If they relate to it, they’ll engage with it and connect with your brand.

Staying current
Follow what’s trending. Spend time each week to see what people are sharing. Whether it’s a viral YouTube video or a popular TED talk, stay up on the latest trends and see how it might relate to your business.

Providing updates
Good content should be created with a long self-life in mind, which means with regular tweaking it can stay relevant and appear high in search returns. So don’t be afraid to repurpose your past content. Plus, republishing, say, a blog post, can help attract new members to your audience.

Changing it up
Resist the urge to draw from your same old references. In our busy lives, we often get stuck in reading rut. Seeking out a variety of thought leaders can help broaden your content and add a new flare to your writing and your brand’s message.

By consistently creating and distributing content that is valuable and relevant to your audience, your content marketing initiative can attract and retain the type of customers that can increase profits and grow your brand.

John Diggins
Copywriter Brand 33

It’s alive! The enduring effectiveness of email marketing.

With all the buzz surrounding social media advertising, you may be wondering whether email marking is still a viable medium for promoting your brand. The social media numbers are impressive, certainly, with more than 2.45 billion active users on Facebook and 330 million active users on Twitter. Yet, there are 3x more email accounts than there are Facebook and Twitter users combined. Virtually anybody who is online has an active email address. So, email is not only viable, it remains the most powerful channel in a marketer’s bag of tricks. And while there are many benefits to email marketing, for this entry we’ve narrowed them down our top five:

1. Your customers get it.

Literally. According to a study done by Forrester Research, ninety percent of all emails sent find their way into the intended recipient’s inbox, compared with just two percent of your Facebook followers seeing your posts. Why? Because Facebook prioritizes paid advertising posts (isn’t it always about money?), so they limit the number of times your post appears in the news feed. Another reason is that, most likely, your email contacts opted in to receive your emails, so they’re far more likely to actually look at them. In fact, according to the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm, your message is five times more likely to be seen in an email than on Facebook. So if you have a choice between adding someone to your email list, or making a new Facebook friend, add the email contact.

2. Email is open for business.

As we mentioned above, Facebook adjusts its algorithm to prioritize posts that are paid for. Twitter, too, employs an algorithm-controlled feed. That means the vast majority of your brand followers will never see your posts in their social media news feeds. Email, on the other hand, isn’t controlled by anyone. It’s an open platform. So your email contact list is an asset you own, and will always be a reliable channel of communication.

3. Enhanced conversions.

The goal for any marketer, at the end of the day, is to convert potential customers into paying customers. And again, email is your best bet for this. In fact, email marketing drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including search and social. According to a study conducted by the research group Aberdeen, personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by a full 10%. In fact, the average click-through rate of an email is roughly 3%, while the average click-through rate from a tweet is a scant 0.5%. In other words, you are 6x more likely to get someone to visit your site via email than Twitter.

4. More bang for your buck.

Let’s face it, social networks are, well — social — used primarily to stay in touch with family and friends. Generally speaking, email is considered to be a more professional channel, through which you’d expect to receive info about products, services, etc. In fact, according to a study cited by MarketingSherpa, an online marketing research firm, 72% of people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17% who prefer to get it through social media.

Despite the ever-growing number of communication channels available to marketers, email marketing continues to offer the most effective results for promoting your brand and growing your business.

John Diggins
Copywriter Brand 33