Best of Brand Marketing Distilled is our weekly distillation of the best of brand marketing and business intelligence. We hope the ideas and articles are fuel for your organization’s planning and success.
This week we offer a distillation of the expert client divide, content considerations for inbound marketing, the potential power of social media and strategy integration.
- Stupid, Stupid Client: Getting Past the Expert Blindspot in Design
Clever piece by Jon Kolko in UX Magazine on experts losing their client in the weeds of the decision making process. To avoid a frustratingly iterative process for the expert and, importantly, for the expert’s client, then the expert needs to make sure their client understands the implications of design forks and how the decisions will impact the ultimate design.
- Eloqua Infographic: The Content Grid v.2
Inbound marketing focuses on having prospects find a business and then close sales from those prospects. The Eloqua Infographic Content Grid catalogues the types of content which are the bread and butter of inbound marketing efforts. What sets this graphic apart is that it provides a simple breakdown of what types of content interest prospects at each of the awareness, consideration and close stage of the buying process. The breakdown is a good reminder to ensure inbound marketing efforts don’t focus only on one type of content and ensure there is content which appeals to prospects at each stage of the buying process.
- What Social-Media Marketers Could Learn From Broadway
Ad Age piece on the power of peer recommendations (or in the Broadway context the ‘You’ve Got to See It’ Factor”) and how social media is a breakthrough opportunity for brands to leverage peer influence.
- Fast Company: In Social Media, Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail
This piece considers how social media is essentially channels and networks to communicate information. The interesting further point made is that most businesses are missing out on opportunities to use social media to their maximum benefit since social media has been relegated for use by marketing, customer service (and in some instances human resources) only, and the opportunities to use social media in other aspects of business to further integration and collaboration are being overlooked. The excellent example in the piece is how ridiculous it would be if email was introduced today and only used for marketing and not by all employees.
This Week’s Top Distility Rebranding Branding Content
- The Perils of Business and Brand Strategy Silos
Integrating your business strategy and your brand strategy decisions allows you to avoid being forced to use your resources on damage control for your brand.