Four States Small Business Blog

Your brand requires constant attention. That’s because it’s far more than your logo, tagline, or anything tangible — your brand is the sum of every interaction a consumer has with your company. It’s a living, changing thing you can’t entirely control, and it can mean something different from one customer to the next.

We talk a lot about the importance of branding on our blog. Your brand is what helps distinguish your company, products, and services from your competitors. A strong brand creates a connection between your company and consumers, and when it becomes familiar, your brand name helps increase your customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Radio is a rare media channel that reaches nearly all Americans at some point in the day, each and every week. Reaching 91% of Americans over the age of 12, radio provides mass reach, maximizes frequency, and in combination with the right psychographic and demographic data, offers effective targeting. But that alone shouldn’t convince you that radio is a good fit for your marketing strategy.

In a recent post, we shared questions to ask to determine if your digital marketing is working or not. If you’ve had trouble answering those questions or you’re dissatisfied with the answers you came up with, there are a number of potential factors that could be at play.

You may have heard that Facebook is making changes to its news feed algorithm. Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, says the changes are designed to give priority to content with “meaningful interaction” and reduce what he calls “passive content” such as videos, where users tend to sit back and watch, then move on, as opposed to interacting with the content. According to Zuckerberg, these changes in the Facebook news feed come in response to user feedback that indicated branded content was overcrowding posts from friends and family, reducing users’ ability to connect with others.

Are you familiar with the adage, you only get one chance to make a great first impression? Customer perspective — that is, the impression customers have of your business — plays a big role in the success of that business. You see, it isn’t enough to have great promises in your Joplin marketing campaigns; that only gets them to the door. And that’s where you only get one shot at convincing customers that your business is worth their time and money.

At a time when consumers are digitally-connected around the clock, radio continues to be a reliable source for many things and stands out above the digital noise. Whether it’s hearing familiar songs, jamming out to today’s latest hits, getting critical information during a disaster, the latest news, or learning about important events in the community, consumers trust their favorite radio stations and personalities to get them the information they need when they need it. Also, radio proves to be an important channel for businesses to communicate their message to their target customer.

And now we’ve come to the third and final installment of our series about achieving small business success by generating powerful results with their marketing. As we’ve mentioned, there’s a three-part formula necessary for producing that success, whether it’s for a nationwide advertisement or local Joplin marketing campaign: branding, a business website, and a 21-52 marketing plan. In Part 1, we took a look at branding for small businesses, and in Part 2, we discussed why you need a strong business website.

It’s a simple truth. Bad branding can mean bad business. It can give people a negative view of your company and negatively affect their experience. Branding is an expression of who you are as a company — your values, your integrity, and your mission. Brand management is vital to your company’s success because bad branding can cost your company in terms of perception and trust.

Welcome to our second installment of a three-part series that takes a good look how small business owners can run successful companies and generate results with their marketing. Last time, we mentioned that every company, whether they want to run marketing in Joplin, MO, or want to run a nationwide campaign, needs to enact a three-part formula for success — branding, a strong website, and a 21-52 marketing plan. In Part 1, we reviewed branding for small businesses.