Her Voice Blog

With more than 3 billion people now using the Internet, it is more important than ever to have a strong online presence.

‘Tis the season of giving, and businesses have an opportunity to show consumers they care.

Creating a clever icon design can be an effective tool to communicate your message.

Just as every person has a story to tell, so does every business.

How that story is told – and shared -- can make all the difference when it comes to capturing the attention of your audience and making an immediate connection with them.

The Pantone Color Institute^™ just released the color forecast for spring 2016, and it is full of emotion-evoking color suggestions for fashion, products, home décor and consumer campaigns.

Color is one of the most powerful branding tools due to its ability to evoke emotions across a broad spectrum of consumers. Since color can arouse different emotions, choosing the colors that resonate best with your consumer takes an educated and scientific approach. Extensive research has gone into figuring out how people react to color on an emotional and even physical level. For instance, viewing the color green will lower a person’s blood pressure.

Visual elements have become essential to public relations and marketing efforts. According to the Boston Globe, the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Even on Facebook, photos and albums drive up to 180% more engagement than a Facebook post without imagery. And visual content is so diverse – you have infographics, graphic design elements and photography, to name a few. Since it’s Photography Day, what better time to discuss how photography can be used as a branding tool!

“Think outside of the box.” This metaphor seems to be the epitome of “being creative.” I would argue that doing the opposite can yield a more creative result. Let me tell you why.

Who DIDN’T watch the game last week? International Business Times reported that an average of 114.4 million people viewed NBC’s Sunday broadcast per minute! And although seeing the best two football teams in America confront one another isn't often considered the place for 'softies', the ads featured last week certainly appealed to the 'softer' side of our emotions.

We market to women, and although that may seem like a small niche to reach (it’s not, read here), marketing in general can fall on deaf ears if any of these common brand messaging mistakes take place:

1. Not speaking to customers’ values: companies too often build messages around their products, not what’s most important to their customers. Align your message with their values for the most success.
2. Relying too heavily on buzzwords: Gamification? Clickability? Using buzzwords on a campaign that is targeting your customer can backfire in two ways – your customer doesn’t know what the words mean or they are so overused that the words don’t have an impact anymore. It is better to just stay away from them.
3. Failing to make your messages portable: Make your messaging simple yet effective so word-of-mouth can carry it on. Think of boiling it down to 2 sentences and use that as a central theme throughout all marketing materials.
4. Forgetting to excite: You are excited about your marketing message because you probably came up with it. However, many customers are on auto-pilot when shopping, making decisions, etc. so stand out and excite your customer in a new way.

Bring success to your new marketing campaign by avoiding these common marketing mistakes. If you need help marketing in the Knoxville area, give us a call today at (865) 249-8371.