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August 10, 2023

4 Tips on How to Effectively Use Marketing Budget

There is no shortage of marketing tactics and products you can invest in as a small business. However, not all are created equal. Your business is unique, and you know you need to pick the right media mix for your business for optimal results. If you’re investing a budget in marketing, you naturally want to find the right marketing tactic that will produce a return on your ad spend. However, this is all easier said than done. Many marketers and small business owners, unfortunately, just don’t know how to use their marketing budget effectively.

JSL Marketing & Web Design, an award-winning Dallas marketing agency, is here to unveil our tips on how to use a marketing budget effectively. These are merely overarching rules, and we encourage you to think through your specific business when applying these rules to efficient marketing budgeting.

Learn More About Marketing Budgeting! 

Know Your Audience

This is Marketing 101. The more you understand your audience, the better you can be prescriptive with your marketing efforts. Market research is often one of the first things cut when a small business is looking to be cost-effective. Obviously, limited resources can only go so far, but we encourage you to attempt still to understand your audience. Assuming what has always worked will continue to do so isn’t great marketing.

For instance, let’s say you sell vintage movie posters and are interested in running some substantial Tik Tok ad budgets. However, after some research into your audience, you learn that 70% of your sales come from people over 40. This might suggest that Facebook and Instagram ad budgets will be a better use of your budget since the audiences of these social platforms skew higher than Tik Tok. Without a line of sight into who your audience truly is, you’d have used your budget inefficiently. Knowledge is power, and knowing your audience is one of the most powerful tidbits of info for a business.

Understand What Will See ROI….

Aligning goals with marketing tactics is a great place to start. If you want to run display ads, but your main key performance indicator is sales, you have a problem. Display advertising is a great way to raise brand awareness, but it’s not a great tactic for closing sales. Something like Google Ads, TikTok, or social media ads would be a better fit in this regard.

Likewise, if you want to achieve ROI without putting dollars into paid media, search engine optimization (SEO is a great tool for a business looking to see a great return on investment. The reason is simple. Good SEO is usually quite affordable and nets a great return. The downside is that SEO can take a few months to produce results, but if you’re a business with a strategy and time, this could be a good route. If you are in a situation where you need to drive results fast, then paid advertising is the name of the game. Regardless of the use case, think through what each media tactic is supposed to do and plan accordingly.

Without Neglecting Brand Awareness

It can be easy for businesses to decide that Return on Investment is the most important part of their marketing strategy and plan accordingly. However, this can sometimes result in the business not effectively investing dollars.

Let’s say you’re a business that is writing and posting search-engine-optimized content, running YouTube ads, and promoting your website via Google Ads. After a few months, you analyze your media mix and notice that your return on ad spend is highest for Google Ads. You decide that you will not continue with the SEO content and YouTube ads and put all of your marketing dollars into Google Ads.

After a few months, you analyze your results and are troubled to see that the Google Ads Return on Ad Spend has actually declined. This was not the case in prior quarters, and you are not sure why this happened.

Our hunch as marketers is that, in this example, the business forgot about the Marketing Funnel. Google Ads is a great lower-funnel tactic and thus was driving a great Return in Ad Spend at one point. However, it was augmented in our example by Youtube advertising and search-engine optimized content, which are top-mid funnel tactics.

Why does this matter? Our theory in the above example is that cutting YouTube ads and SEO content actually decreased the brand awareness of our small business. After all, if you don’t know about a business, you can’t search for that business on Google and click a Google Ad.

Thus, while Google Ads looked to be the best-performing tactic in our example, it was only the last tactic before the sale. Youtube advertising and web development were doing their job in the top and mid-funnel and piquing the interest of potential customers. Without these tactics piquing the interest of potential customers, Google Ads ceased to be as impactful.

The moral of the story: sometimes, it costs money to make money. Paid advertising, even if it doesn’t become an immediate sale, is still useful.

Tailor Your Tactics To Your Business

Let’s say you’re a lawyer who represents businesses in mergers and acquisitions. Your ideal customer profile is a mid-to-large-sized corporation, and you really need to reach into the legal department at any given corporation to help close deals. You’re in the process of planning out your marketing budget and are choosing between LinkedIn advertising, email marketing, and Google Ads.

When you step back and analyze your business, you decide that LinkedIn is the best fit, as you can reach the right people at any given business via LinkedIn. Now, this is not to say that you should put ALL your spend into Linkedin at the expense of email marketing and Google Ads. A full-funnel approach is always the best for marketing. However, it might be worth putting 50% or more of your budget into LinkedIn as a merger and acquisitions lawyer.

Inversely, if you sell decorative pottery, visual mediums like TikTok, Youtube, and other social media apps will be great for reaching your end consumer. The point to remember here is not that any one tactic is always superior for any business; it’s to remember that your business situation is unique and to keep this in mind when choosing where to place your marketing dollars.

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design for a Free Marketing Consultation!

June 29, 2023

4 Pieces of Sales Collateral Your Business Needs

Proper sales collateral can mean the difference between a successful revenue team and a so-so revenue team, but many small businesses aren’t tapping into this resource. 

Sales collateral helps your sales team educate potential clients about your brand and is usually developed by your marketing team or marketing agency. If done right, sales collateral keeps your sellers on brand, simplifies your offering to your potential clients, and gives your sellers resources to consult and leave behind. Not bad outcomes at all!

The problem is that many small businesses haven’t developed the necessary sales collateral to grow their business. We’re helping change that. Read on to learn about common mistakes we see businesses make when writing sales collateral and the pieces of sales collateral you need to develop for your business. 

Common Sales Collateral Mistakes

Sales Collateral Mistake 1: Failing To Segment

Many organizations tend to only think of their sales teams as a “bottom of the marketing funnel resource.” That can be a mistake. Depending on the deal, the customer, and how they came to your brand, the potential customer might actually be at the top or middle of the marketing funnel when they first talk to a salesperson. Low-funnel sales collateral won’t make a difference if the prospect is still only comparing your product or solution to a competitor. To combat this, ensure that your sales team has content for all stages of the deal cycle. This will vary from customer to customer. Typically, we recommend infographics for top-of-funnel, battle cards for prospects considering you versus another competitor, and case studies for mid-funnel.

Sales Collateral Mistake 2: Reusing Marketing Content As Sales Content

We want to clarify something here. Repurposing marketing content CAN be really useful. However, some small businesses, strapped for time, sometimes copy and paste marketing content from email marketing or their website into a piece of sales collateral. That’s likely a mistake. We have found that the prospect’s needs in the sales cycle are so different from their needs when they’re first learning about your brand. Now, rewriting or building upon a past blog or email promotion to create your sales collateral is a great option. Just be sure to adjust appropriately if you reuse marketing content in sales collateral.

Sales Collateral Mistake 3: Failing To Divide External & Internal Content

Not all sales collateral is meant to be read by the end prospect. Sometimes, your sales team needs help overcoming objections, synthesizing information, and staying true to your brand’s message. If sellers need help communicating the finer points of your value proposition, then internal-only talk tracks might be necessary pieces of sales collateral. Just be sure that it is crystal clear which piece of content is meant to be read by a prospect and which is only for a seller to consult. You don’t want to inadvertently give a prospect your entire sales playbook merely because a seller was unsure what was external and what was internal. This division of sales content into external and internal can also save you time. A properly branded piece of sales collateral requires a lot of graphic design to really impress a prospect. An internal-only piece might require a little less. 

Sales Collateral Mistake 4: Failing To Align Sales & Marketing

Too many brands think of the line between sales and marketing as a line in the sand. In this framework, every deal can be neatly and cleanly handed off from marketing to the sales team. A clear before and after, where the deal has passed from marketing to sales. However, this framework doesn’t help sales and marketing work together to close deals.

 Let’s walk through an example. Imagine a lead found your website on Google, thanks to your SEO campaign, and submitted a request for an appointment. A sales rep then schedules time with them to review their problem. In the “line in the sand” approach, marketing’s job is done. The lead has gone off their plate and is on the sales team’s plate. However, in our opinion, the marketing team’s job isn’t over; it’s only morphed! We recommend including that lead on email marketing promotions, even as they chat with your sales team, for the best results. The lead is likely still learning about your brand, and your marketing content is still useful, even as they plan out a deal with Sales. 

The more marketing and sales collaborate to move deals through to close, the better your outcomes will be. Trust us. 

Common Types of Sales Collateral

 

  • Case Studies: Everyone says that they’re the best. Potential clients are thus a little skeptical, and that skepticism is warranted. Combat this skepticism with social proof in the form of a case study. This demonstration of your excellence proves you’re the real deal. If you have a client that is willing to testify on camera about what you did for them, even better.

 

  • Battle Cards: When your prospect is considering your solution vs a direct competitor, nothing is as useful to your sales team as a battle card. This side-by-side comparison demonstrates the offerings, strengths, and differences between you and any given competitor and gives your sales team a talk track to help overcome objections. It’s important to note that battle cards can be both client-facing and merely an internal resource to help your sellers format their responses to objections. 

 

  • Whitepapers: Sometimes, your solution is a technically complex one, or your prospect’s need is very intricate. A whitepaper highlighting your thought leadership and industry expertise, is a great piece of sales collateral for these situations. The end goal of a well-written whitepaper is to elaborate on an industry problem at a high level of detail. These pieces of content are usually great resources to leave with prospects as conversations are beginning to demonstrate what your brand has contributed to the industry’s conversation around a topic.

 

  • Infographics: Infographics are quick, digestible pieces of content that outline what problem you solve and what that means for your prospect. This piece of sales collateral should be one-page and boost plenty of graphics and eye-catching images. The goal with this piece of collateral isn’t to win a deal immediately; it’s to give the client a quick run-down of who you are and build some awareness. We recommend sending this piece of sales collateral out after meetings with prospects so that they have a summary piece of content to consult later or show to other internal team members. 

 

Develop Your Dream Sales Collateral With JSL

As a small business, you don’t have the marketing resources that a larger sales organization might. That’s okay! You can still compete at the highest level with the help of a quality marketing agency.

JSL Marketing & Web Design is an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in Dallas, TX. We’ve been helping clients develop their dream content for years and are waiting in the wings to help you put your story on the page!

In addition to any of the above pieces of sales collateral, we might also recommend…

 

  • Formalizing A Brand Style Guide
  • A Competitive Analysis
  • Market Research
  • Logo & Graphic Design Improvements
  • Digital Marketing
  • & More

 

Fill Out The Contact Form To Talk Shop

March 23, 2023

How to Write B2B Marketing Content

B2B marketing content can be a huge plus for any business, but a lot of brands don’t have it mastered. That’s a shame, because, if done right, business-to-business marketing content can supercharge your business. But there is, of course, a big caveat: you need to actually know how to write B2B content correctly!

Read on to learn more about …

 

  • The importance of B2B marketing content
  • Tips and tricks for B2B marketing writing
  • How to promote B2B marketing content

 

The Importance of Well-Written B2B Content

The importance of well-written B2B content can’t be understated. Business-to-business marketing is a very different beast than business-to-customer marketing. A great example of business-to-consumer marketing is a local pizzeria. The sales cycle for every pie ordered from that pizzeria isn’t particularly long or complex. It could take you all of a few minutes to decide that you really want a pepperoni pizza for dinner!

Contrast that with the sales cycle for a new accounting software system. You can’t just go out and pick one of those up at the corner store! This will be a longer deal cycle, will be a more complicated implementation, and will likely require the buy-in of multiple people at the business purchasing the software. That’s a more complicated sale and that’s reflected in the marketing.

Our neighborhood pizza place can essentially sell to anyone and their marketing will probably be about the quick sale. Local SEO, pay-per-click advertising, web design, and paid social media campaigns are all great ways to find and close pizza sales. Our accounting software vendor absolutely should invest in those marketing mediums, but they probably aren’t closing many deals from one single click on an ad. That’s where B2B marketing content enters the equation.

Well-written content has a place in B2C marketing, but B2C web content will likely focus on ranking the website in question for high value search terms. So, if you’re our fictitious pizzeria, you’ll likely use your blogs and web pages to rank number 1 in your area for terms like “pizza near me.”

Not so with B2B content. B2B content is so critically important because of the complexity of the sales cycle and product. It’s hard to distill your message to 100 characters in a search ad if you’re selling accounting software. Longer form content helps you educate and entice your business-to-business prospect!

Well-written business-to-business content should …

 

  • Educate your prospect about your brand.
  • Entice high-ranking decision-makers at target accounts to request more information.
  • Help you build your lead list for further marketing.
  • Equip your sales team with useful brand collateral to help with meetings.

 

Tips To Writing B2B Marketing Content

 

  • Offer Something Of Value: Quick, pithy observations about your industry and a sales pitch won’t quite do it when you’re writing B2B content. The content you’re producing needs to be authoritative, well-written, and enticing, but more than anything, it needs to be ‘valuable.’ If you’re trying to gain the attention of decision-makers, your content needs to offer something worthwhile if you expect them to give you their time and read the content. Maybe it’s an analysis of the industry. Maybe it’s new research into a specific topic. Maybe it’s information on a common problem. Regardless of the details, ensure that you are writing something that offers valuable information. One of the best ways to make sure you get this right is to….
  • Know Your Audience: The more you understand your audience, their situations, and their problems, the better your content will be. This goes beyond merely identifying who you want to be reaching with your business-to-business content, although that is a good first step! We encourage you to go beyond identifying an audience to understanding the way this audience interacts with their broader industry. If you can simultaneously comprehend industry-specific trends and connect those trends to the problems and concerns of your target accounts, you’re going to be able to write much more impactful business-to-business content.
  • Use Data To Validate Your Conclusions: You can’t merely offer some observations about your subject industry and walk away. You need to provide something of value, and that could include the use of data. Now, you don’t need to run a massive experiment and report back on some great industry trends. That could be difficult for a small business to implement. However, be prepared to find and cite convincing research in this content if needed.
  • Longer Content Might Be Useful: If you’ve followed this blog series, you know that we encourage brevity when writing marketing content. No one wants to read the next great American novel when trying to learn something from a blog. However, while you need to avoid word stuffing like you’re in the 8th grade and trying to clear an English teacher’s word minimum, a longer piece of content could be helpful. Remember, your B2B marketing content will be read by business leaders looking to learn more about a complex problem. The macroeconomic, industry-specific problems that are driving your readers to learn more through your content are complex and nuanced topics. A 1,000 word one-sheeter might not cut it. Your readers, as business decision-makers, likely do not have the time to pour over a tome on their industry problem but feel free to create longer content. 2,500-4,000 words should be sufficient for an ebook, report, or analysis.
  • You Might Spend More Time Researching Than Writing: A B2C blog, hosted on your website, probably doesn’t need a lot of research time. You, conceivably, understand what your pizza shop sells and why people prefer your pies. However, if you’re trying to offer something of value, learn the problems of your audience, cite your sources, and write longer content, expect to do your homework in advance. There’s nothing wrong with this approach! If anything, we encourage it for B2B marketing writing. The difference between fine business-to-business content and amazing B2B content is often research, in our experience.

 

Supercharge Your B2B Marketing Content

Now, the best written B2B marketing content can only do so much. Your content will still need to be promoted to the right decision makers and once you have their contact information, you’ll need to continue to market to those decision makers.

If you need help from an award-winning digital marketing agency, turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design of Dallas! Our team can help with any of the following!

 

  • Google Ads
  • Email Marketing
  • SEO
  • Web Design
  • Market Research
  • Brand Development

 

Call Us Now To Discuss Any Of The Above!

February 09, 2023

6 Ways To Plan Your Small Business Advertising

Planning small business advertising is in some ways quite simple, but as in everything, the devil is in the details. Most small businesses know that they need to do more than just throw ad dollars and marketing budget into oblivion. That’s more than just a hunch; there’s a host of data that supports the claim that strategy increases the effectiveness of advertising dollars.

But while many small businesses know this fact, very few are able to successfully implement advertising strategies that increase their overall marketing strategy. After all, they’re often busy dealing with vendors, new products, and the overall health of the business. Niche types of advertising strategies just aren’t something that most businesses have the time to delve into.

Luckily, the advertising team here at JSL Marketing & Web Design has some recommendations for you!

Read onto learn how to plan your small business advertising!

Advertising & Marketing

Before we get too far, it’s important to define advertising. Most small businesses understand that the two aren’t interchangeable, but it can still be easy to conflate the two. There are a plethora of ways to define advertising, but ultimately, it’s the act of buying a space, whether digital or physical, to display a message to an audience about a topic. More simply put, advertising is a subtactic of marketing, focused on putting the right message in front of the right person.

Marketers have a number of different mediums to educate their target audience and advertising is just one of them. We could speak at length to branding, market research, web development, customer marketing, SEO, and how all of these elements fit into a comprehensive strategy. But in the interest of time, just know for now that advertising is how marketers reach their audience via paid media.

These are some of the more common ways of advertising.

 

  • YouTube Ads
  • Paid Social Media
  • Google Ads
  • Broadcast Television Spots
  • Digital Display Ads
  • Billboards
  • Brand Collateral
  • Online Video
  • Over-the-Top Television
  • Digital Out-Of-Home
  • & More!

 

Different Types of Small Business Advertising Goals

At the end of the day, all marketing strategies can be reduced to four steps. This plan will look different from brand to brand and industry to industry, but all typically involve….

 

  • Defining A Goal
  • Determining How It Will Be Measured
  • Designing A Strategy
  • Executing

 

We started with this framework to illustrate where advertising comes into play. That might seem extremely straight forward. Advertising is clearly a part of Step 4, the execution phase, right?

Well, yes and no. While advertising would be a tactic within the execution phase, it’s important to remember what your main marketing goal is when planning an advertising strategy. Google Ads, for instance, are a great way to drive clicks and site visits. However, if your main goal is to increase brand awareness, then Google Ads might not be the right advertising for your main goals. Now, if your brand sought to maximize Return On Ad Spend, Google Ads would be a great tactic.

The point is to remember that advertising is an extension of your marketing strategy, not vice versa. Remember what your overall marketing goal is and keep it in mind when crafting an advertising plan to support it. The best ad campaigns in the world can’t drive results if you haven’t aligned your ads to your marketing goal. Start with the strategy first and then move onto the specifics of how you will use advertising to get there. Your bottom line will thank you.

Advertising Goal 1: Increase Brand Awareness

This is likely the most common use of advertising. The average American sees some 1,000 to 2,000 ads in a day and it can be difficult to drive sales if your audience has seen your competitor’s ads more than yours. Making regular touchpoints with prospective customers via brand awareness advertising, often through social media, can be a great way to stop of mind as the audience considers you.

Advertising Goal 2: Increase Return on Ad Spend

If you utilize this advertising strategy, you’re focused on reaching the right audience as they get nearer to purchase, with the ultimate goal of maximizing the dollar value attributed to that ad campaign.

Advertising Goal 3: Message To Existing Customers

Many small businesses think of advertising as a way of reaching new customers only, but that can be a mistake. Advertising can be a great way to touch existing customers and keep them informed of new products, offerings and programs!

Advertising Goal 4: Increase Leads

Many small businesses want to increase the number of sales-qualified leads they’re seeing and advertising can be a great way to see results here. However, it is important to remember that not all advertising mediums are created equal for leads. YouTube advertising and Facebook advertising might be great ways to increase brand-awareness and move ecommerce products, but they’re not the best advertising approaches for a company that is looking to increase the number of B2B leads. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is probably a better fit for an advertiser looking to increase  brand awareness with a professional audience AND increase the number of business leads. Regardless of your unique situation, match your tactic to your end goal for best results!

Advertising Goal 5: Competitive Conquest

If you’re a smaller brand on the scene, it might be a good idea to competitively conquer other brands. In this strategy, your brand uses advertising to make touchpoints with consumers who have a competitor’s product or solution. This approach isn’t for everyone; it often is more expensive to attempt to conquest another brand’s customers. Still, if you are a small business, a competitive conquest campaign is a good way to keep top of mind with a competitor’s customer and increase market share, especially if you offer a unique service or product that your competitors do not.

Advertising Goal 6: Promote Industry Content

We usually recommend this for Business-To-Business companies. The more complicated your product is, the more complicated the advertising becomes. To help educate your audience, we recommend using ads to drive to a whitepaper or blog page for your brand. This ad strategy gives you a low-cost way to get your audience researching your brand and learning why you are an expert in the industry.

Advertise With JSL Marketing & Web Design

It’s tough out in the digital marketing world. Keep your brand’s message in front of your customers and potential customers with JSL Marketing & Web Design! Whether you’re running display ads, passing out branded sweatshirts to your customers, or revamping your Google Ad campaigns, our team is here to help!

Remember, advertising isn’t a stand-alone tactic. It’s a small but vital piece of a comprehensive marketing plan. Small weaknesses in your overall strategy can reduce overall advertising efficacy, whether it’s low brand awareness, a website experience, or unclear target audiences. Partner with JSL Marketing & Web Design to overcome these obstacles and maximize your marketing and advertising strategy!

We offer…

 

  • Custom-Tailored Ad Strategies
  • Regular Strategy Sessions
  • Market and Ideal Customer Research
  • Brand Development
  • Ad-Complementary Landing Page Design
  • & More!

 

Fill Out The Contact Form Below To Get In Touch Today!

December 29, 2022

How To Get More Leads: 5 Strategies

If you’re a business owner, few things are more important than fresh leads! New points of contact to begin the sales process are always the lifeblood of any business. You certainly want a steady influx of new leads if you plan on growing your brand.

But even if you receive plenty of leads, how often are these leads highly qualified for your solution? That can frustrate any business owner and leave you convinced that marketing never pans out. How do you get more leads exactly?

The marketing experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design put their heads together and thought up five proven strategies to get more leads.

Keep reading to learn how to supercharge your marketing and generate more qualified leads! 

Lead Generation Tip 1: Utilize New Advertising Channels

New channels are an obvious starting point when you’re researching how to get more leads. If you’re not getting enough high-quality leads, maybe a new channel or tactic is what your brand needs. This is a strategy worth considering.

Depending on your business and its needs, you could consider any of the following:

 

  • Social Media Advertising
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising
  • Local SEO Optimizations
  • Email Marketing

 

Lead Generation Tip 2: Adjust Current Channels

Sometimes, it’s not a lack of channels but how they are used. This will vary a lot from industry to industry and tactic to tactic, but we recommend auditing your current media mix for the best results. Sometimes, your marketing and lead generation strategy is stymied not by the strategy but by the execution of tactics.

To put this in a sports metaphor, imagine a football team. If the team never attempts passes over 10 yards, that’s comparable to a business not using Google Ads or email marketing. Let’s say that our fictitious football team does attempt passes over 10 yards but rarely sees positive yardage. That’s comparable to a business using Google Ads or email marketing, but not as effectively as they could. Just because you’re using a tactic doesn’t mean that you’re using that tactic as effectively as you could be.

That’s one of the many reasons why having a full-service marketing agency to partner with can be a real boon. Your marketing agency partner can evaluate the more esoteric aspects of your marketing plan and make adjustments along the way for the best results.

Common tweaks your marketing agency partner may recommend include…

 

  • Blocking Irrelevant Search Terms on Google Ad Search Term Reports
  • Reworking Subject Lines for Better Email Open Rates
  • Decreasing Bounce Rate on Website
  • Designing New Ads & Writing New Content
  • Making Local SEO Optimizations
  • Technically Adjusting Web Settings for Better Visibility 

 

Lead Generation Tip 3: Narrow Your Target Audience

As you work on generating more leads, you might run into a related problem: maybe the issue isn’t the number of leads, per se, but the quality of the leads that you are getting. This is usually a sign that you must better define your target audience to increase lead quality. Let’s say you’re a law firm that receives many inquiries about a subsection of law that your firm does not specialize in. While the number of leads is OK, the types of leads might not be.

Let’s say that our fictitious law firm goes back to the drawing board and decides that business law isn’t a good area for them and that they want to focus on family law. This revised definition of their ideal customer profile will probably lead to changes across their marketing. We would likely recommend revamping their web content to focus on family law keywords and further refining their Google Ads keywords to hit this tweaked ideal customer profile. (See step 2 above.)

Lead Generation Tip 4: Increase Brand Awareness

Most small businesses consider lead generation an end-point, not a destination. Let’s return to our law firm example. This law firm probably considers calls, requests for information, or booked consultations as leads. However, prospective clients don’t call or request information in a vacuum. It takes time for clients to get to that stage in their buying process.

First, they need to be aware of our law firm. They then need to research and consider our fictitious law firm before they make the decision to begin the sales process with the firm. Most small businesses will focus on the end point of that process when they try to generate more leads. (Think Google Ad campaigns and Local SEO, tactics which usually try to get more calls from interested customers.)

However, this is only the end point of this process. Increasing the number of qualified prospective clients aware of your brand will typically increase the number of leads. Many small businesses are reluctant to spend money on general brand-awareness advertising, but it is a proven way to increase sales.

It might seem counterintuitive, but make sure that you are spending money not only on generating leads but also on the brand-awareness elements. Trust us; the higher the awareness of any given solution or product, the greater the number of conversions.

We recommend…

 

  • YouTube Advertising
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Brand Collateral

 

Remember, that call or booked appointment from a prospective client is only the end of a long buyer’s journey. Make sure your marketing is helping guide those prospective clients well before they pick up the phone and call you.

Lead Generation Tip 5: Enhance Your Remarketing

Last but not least,  consider thinking outside of the box to generate ‘new leads’. Maybe your current customer base is a resource for other leads and generated revenue. This is an excellent strategy since you already have their contact information, and they likely already trust you. The stats back this up. Generally, selling to an existing or past customer is significantly cheaper and easier than a net new lead.

There are several ways you can consider growing your current book of business.

Cross-Sell/Upsell

It’s rare for an existing client only to be interested in one product or contract. Yes, it does occur, but savvy small businesses should still consider growing every closed/won account into a larger one. There are several different ways of doing this. Maybe it’s piquing the client’s interest in new products. Maybe it’s cross-selling to a different location or part of the business.

We recommend considering your unique situation and identifying how you could generate more leads and revenue from your current client base.

Preferred Pricing

If a client is large enough, adjusting your pricing to incentivize a larger volume can be a good idea. Often, businesses think of this if their end client is a business, but it can work for B2C brands as well. A special as simple as “Buy 2 Pizzas, Get Half Off The 3rd” can be effective!

Referral Programs

Maybe your existing customer cannot buy more, but they can advocate for you. Offering gift cards or a reduced price if a customer refers to a friend can be a great way to spread awareness through your customers!

Continually Remarketing

Even if you are not constantly having sales conversations with existing clients, you should be continually marketing to them. Many small businesses don’t focus on this element of marketing, often to disastrous results.

Whether email marketing updates, a client-facing newsletter about your brand, press releases about new locations, services, or products, or social media marketing, keep the marketing conversation going with your current clients. It ultimately sets the stage nicely for when it’s time to pitch new contracts!

Generate More Leads With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Lead generation is part art, part science. Hit the lab with JSL Marketing & Web Design. We’re an award-winning, full-service marketing agency proudly serving clients across Texas and the USA!

What separates us from all of the other Dallas marketing agencies? The difference is how we tailor our marketing strategies to each client. Every campaign is different, and we work to ensure that we understand exactly what you need from your marketing.

There’s no one-size fits all approach. Your business is unique — partner with a marketing agency that understands that and treats your business as the one-of-a-kind brand that you are.

Fill Out the Contact Form Below to Get in Touch!

September 08, 2022

5 Proven Ways To Promote A Physical Location

Promoting a physical location can be a much different beast than promoting an online service. This stands to reason, right? Getting a 5-course meal in a restaurant is quite different from DoorDashing fast food. Why shouldn’t the marketing be different if the products are different?

The way you need to consider promoting your restaurant for in-store traffic needs to be especially convincing since you’re asking your intended customer to come into a physical location. If you’re asking your target customer to leave the house instead of clicking on your website, you’ll need to really make an impression!

Many small businesses, however, fail to differentiate digital and in-store revenue streams in their marketing and promote brick-and-mortar stores like they would a website. This approach just isn’t effective, and you’ll likely be left disappointed with your results. Luckily, there are some tried-and-true tips for marketing a physical location. We’ve compiled our favorites to help you reach your physical location goals. Study, learn, and implement these tips and tricks, and you’ll have a line out the door in no time!

Read Onto Learn More About Physical Location Marketing!

Do I Need To Consider Physical Locations?

Right off the bat, let’s talk about the situations where you need to consider location-based marketing. Not all business models need to consider physical location marketing. However, you should reevaluate your marketing if you fall into any of these camps.

 

  • If Most Of Your Revenue Is Brick-And-Mortar: This is an obvious one. If most of your revenue comes from physical locations, it’s imperative that you consider this fact in your marketing. This encapsulates everything from your website to your referral programs and everything in between. If you make the majority of your money in physical stores, be sure to incorporate this fact into your marketing.
  • If Your Industry Requires It: Some brands can be extremely effective in relying on online advertising, especially if their industry is a conducive one to the digital world. Online jewelry is a great example of this. You can rely exclusively on digital marketing between paid advertising, online order pages, and email remarketing if you sell and ship products. That isn’t true of all industries, however. For instance, if you’re a doctor or mechanic, there’s only so much that can be done remotely or digitally. You’re going to need to focus on getting patients to a central location to capitalize. Note that we don’t mean neglect one or the other. In fact, most industries require a combination of remote ordering and in-store revenue to be successful. Look at your business model and decide where you fall.
  • If Your Physical Locations Are Out Of The Way: We’re not saying you should neglect to promote locations in the heart of downtown, but you can probably rely on a stream of off-the-street traffic for prime real estate locations. However, if your location is further out of the way or hard to access, you need a way to drive quality traffic to that location.
  • If You Need To Qualify Customers: You can do much via the digital world to determine if a customer is a good match for your services. However, this isn’t a cure-all, and there are a lot of cases where you might need to meet with patients or clients face-to-face to see if this is a good match. Vets, medical offices, and mechanics are great examples of professionals who really need some quality facetime to diagnose problems effectively.

 

Here are the most common situations where you can likely eschew specific-location marketing entirely, even if you see many in-store purchases.

 

  • If You Have An Extremely Recognizable Brand: Starbucks doesn’t need to remind you where their locations are. If you have an insane level of market saturation, promoting particular locations is probably best reserved for new openings or very special use cases. Everyone knows where the closest mass-coffee shop is, so you’re probably better suited to putting your dollars elsewhere.
  • If Impromptu Purchases Drive Your Business: If impromptu purchases are a huge part of your business, you probably have enough in-store traffic at this point. Think Walmart or a large retail store. Promotions and the correct pricing will be much more impactful than incremental traffic to your locations if your brand is, in fact, this large.
  • If You Have A Lot Of Well-Located Stores: Fast food stores near highways and main thoroughfares are great examples of this. Other than a billboard and a few signs, these stores probably require zero-to-none in physical location marketing.

 

There is an important caveat to remember when looking at our examples of business models that don’t promote individual locations as thoroughly. Note that none of these companies neglect digital advertising at large. Large companies with many physical locations, like Walmart and Starbucks, still invest heavily in their digital advertising to reach their customers and remind them that their stores exist. They’re less focused on any location unless it’s a new store. Even if you are well-established in your area, investing in quality digital marketing is always the right call to keep your customers coming in.

Our Recommendations For Location-Based Marketing

Alright, folks, it’s time to reveal our thoughts on the most effective tactics for promoting physical locations. Please note this is not to say that you should be ignoring other tactics entirely. Instead, we recommend viewing these digital and traditional marketing tactics as your foundation to build.

Physical Location Tip 1: Local SEO & Reputation Management

Local SEO is where we recommend you focus your efforts to begin. This is absolutely the building block to nail down before other marketing tactics. Here’s why.

Some 40% or so of all Google searches revolve around local searches, and the vast majority of searchers will find the solution they’re looking for in the first three search results. Optimizing your listings on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, Bing, and other map services is a surefire way to make it easier to be found online. Through high-quality images, correct information, SEO improvements, and high-quality reviews, you can rise to the top of your market’s Local SEO results and make it easier for customers to find directions to your physical locations.

Remember, people who are searching on Google for a business (i.e., restaurant near me) intend to make an appearance at that location. If you can get your listing via Local SEO near the top of Google, the likelier it is that they land on your listing and the likelier they are to visit.

Physical Location Tip 2: Refer a Friend Programs & Coupons

Your competition with online stores means that you need compelling reasons for your customers to come into your store. It will always be very easy to order on Amazon, so you must sweeten the pot for your potential customers. Refer-A-Friend Programs and coupons are two great ways to do just that. You’re letting your customers become your advertising by incentivizing your customers to promote you to their circles via Refer-A-Friend programs. The same is true of coupons with initial purchases. Both of these incentives dramatically increase the odds that you’ll see increases in the number of in-store purchases, as you’ve given the customer a reason to come to the store.

Physical Location Tip 3: Paid Advertising

Now, we know what you’re thinking. Why would paid digital advertising help promote a physical location.

Well, there are a few use cases we’d recommend you consider paid advertising for. The good news is that all three of these paid advertising options have geographic targeting options and are cost-effective ways of quickly reaching large numbers of people.

 

  • Google Ads: Promote a location page on your website via Google Ads. Again, getting to the top of Google via paid ads is a great way to get in-store traffic.
  • Google Maps: Use paid ad campaigns to keep your digital listing at the top of Google Maps and other map listings.
  • Social Ads: Paid social advertising is actually pretty effective for physical locations! Run special ad campaigns for your locations to keep customers aware of your locations.

 

Physical Location Tip 4: Location-Based Content

One of the best ways to promote a specific physical location is to incorporate location-based keywords into your web content. If you can rank #1 on Google for “coffee shops Main street, Johnsonville,” you’re perfectly primed to receive online web traffic for people searching for that term. These keywords also help Google understand your physical location and help you rank for location-based keywords on Google Maps. If you can rank for these search terms, your content is likely to rank well and be found by prospective customers on search engine results pages.

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design Today

Are you ready to grow your online presence for your physical locations? You’re in the right spot! Talk to an JSL Marketing & Web Design expert today to craft a custom marketing strategy.

Depending on your unique needs, we might recommend…

 

  • Email Marketing
  • Brand Collateral
  • Web Development
  • Print Marketing
  • Content Development
  • & More…

 

Ready To Get Started? Fill Out The Contact Form Below To Begin!

April 07, 2022

5 Tips To Drive Loyal Repeat Business

Loyal, repeat business from your best customers is the cornerstone of any business! No business can grow without incentivizing its best customers to become loyal brand advocates. The data shows that perfecting your repeat business is a winning strategy!

  • Existing customers spend more than first-time purchasers.
  • New customers cost more to acquire. Depending on the industry, it could be up to 25 times more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer.
  • Increasing customer retention by 5% may increase profitability up to 25%.

 

Trust is a huge factor in any purchase decision and your past customers know your brand can deliver. That relationship with your brand is why it’s so easy to see great results with existing customers. However, marketing to existing customers is different than reaching out to new customers. You already have their trust, which is a blessing, but you need to ensure you don’t come across as pushy when you try to upsell these customers. We put our heads together and created the following tips to guide you through the remarketing cycle!

Read On To Learn How To Grow Your Best Customers! 

Create A Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are one of the best tools in your tool kit for driving repeat business. We all love incentives, right? The right loyalty programs are an amazing way to find your perfect customer and offer them rewards for continuing to frequent your brand. But how do you actually implement the right customer loyalty program?

There are, of course, a few hard and fast rules. A coffee shop will offer a very different loyalty program from that of a hardware store. However, there are some trends to keep in mind.

  • Figure Out What Motivates Your Customers: You may immediately default to offering a certain product with a certain number of purchases but then discover down the road that another product is more popular with your frequent customers. Maybe your customers don’t even want a product, but rather exclusive services.  Whatever the use case, determine what exactly works for your best customers in this loyalty program.
  • Make It Easy To Redeem: Everyone hates not having their loyalty card on them when they try to redeem. Refusing to respect rewards if the customer doesn’t have their card on them will make your brand look bad. To get around this roadblock, try to tie the program to a constant like a phone number or unique program ID.
  • Be Willing To Evolve Your Program With Needs: What may have worked when you created the program might not work. For instance, you might require that customers purchase 19 products before they receive a discount and you may find that this is too high a purchase requirement. It’s important to get customer feedback, but it’s also important to determine how much revenue you’re driving from the program.
  • Incentivize Word Of Mouth Marketing: Referral marketing is an amazing way to take your loyal customers from frequent shoppers to brand advocates. “Refer-A-Friend Programs” work so well because consumers trust people they know more than advertisements. No one likes being the recipient of a sales pitch and customers are naturally skeptical of marketing materials. Referral marketing circumvents this objection entirely. The best referral programs usually are as simple as “Receive a gift card if you refer a friend,” but feel free to custom-fit the program to your needs!

Create A Recall Campaign

Email marketing is a perfect tactic for repeat customers. You need customer contact information to make email campaigns run successfully, after all, so why not use automated email campaigns to guide your past customers through the sales cycle for repeat business?!

  • Ask For A Review: A recall campaign is designed to reach past customers, who coincidentally are the most likely to leave you positive reviews. Consider asking for a review immediately after purchase and linking directly to your Google listing from that email.
  • Promote New Offers: Your past customers are much likelier to purchase again and most businesses are willing to offer good discounts and unique promotions to drive incremental business from their best customers. Offer a unique deal to them in this email marketing campaign. If you’re able to segment the consumer out by their past purchase (i.e. delineating polo shirt purchasers from sweatshirt purchases if you sell college merchandise), even better! The more you can cater your email campaign to the past purchases of that specific consumer, the likelier you are to drive repeat business.
  • Sweeten the Deal: If you have set your email campaigns to send out a new offer to your past customer, consider sweetening the deal if the customer does not bite at first. In our past clothing example, let’s assume you send out a “buy one sweatshirt, get one 25% off” email. You can then follow that up with a “buy one sweatshirt, get one 35% off” to those who open the email, but don’t click. You could even send out a “buy one sweatshirt, get one 50 off” to those who don’t open the first email at all to try and incentivize the purchase.
  • Don’t Pester: No one wants an email every day. Don’t have your campaign set up to send out emails at a rate that will annoy your recipients. Generally speaking, one or two emails a week is best for engaged customers. If it has been a bit since you’ve had contact with the customer, a few emails a week is too much and you can probably slowly reduce the number of emails sent over time.
  • But Don‘t Neglect: The optimum amount of time between purchases or visits per business will vary dramatically with the industry. You don’t see your podiatrist as regularly as you might buy craft coffee, for instance. Set your campaigns up to ping your customers with a check-in email if it has been a while since you’ve heard from them, depending on your industry. This is probably 3-6 months for most service-based businesses, but every few weeks is probably alright for most products. (Think about our college clothing example.)

Utilize Social Media Exclusive Offers

Social media remarketing is a tricky tactic. People get on social media to socialize and have fun, not necessarily to buy. That doesn’t mean that you can’t promote products on social media, but you do need to walk a fine line with the amount of time you promote your products versus engaging with your customers. That said, offering coupons or exclusive deals via your organic social media is still a fruitful tactic.

  • Make The Offer Unique: You can’t just display the same coupon code that you have on your website. If you’re trying to incentivize your past customers, make the offer exclusive to channels like social media and email marketing.
  • Differentiate The Codes: You can offer the same deal, but with different coupons across tactics. For instance, in our college merchandise eCommerce store example, you could use different coupon codes for social media, email marketing, and direct mail to properly track which channel works best for your brand.
  • Keep It Short And Sweet: Don’t make the world’s best sales pitch when posting social media coupon codes. The average post on social media, regardless of platform, should be under 100 characters. Ideally, under 50 characters is better. Remember, these are your past customers. You don’t need to make the type of sales pitch you would to a new customer. A pithy and compelling snippet with an enticing discount and an eye-catching visual is all you need for this social media marketing tactic.

Personalize Your Marketing

One of the biggest advantages you have when trying to drive repeat business is your relationship with your customers. They trust you and know that you won’t let them down. Capitalize on that relationship.

  • Honor Anniversaries: This could be the anniversary of their first purchase or a birthday. Regardless of the date, customers love seeing that you care and remember them. Possible options include sending out a “Happy Birthday Email” or offering a discounted or even free product for an anniversary.
  • Remember Past Purchases: This goes back to our email marketing tips mentioned previously. Segmenting your customers out increases your ability to personalize your offers to the individual customer. Knowing what your customers bought allows you to show great discounts on similar products. Even better, if you’re able to track cart abandons, you can ping the client via email about the product still in their eCommerce cart and possibly even offer a deal to sweeten the deal.
  • Take Feedback: You should, of course, ask for reviews for your Google listing whenever possible, but it can be advantageous to solicit advice from your best customers. If you have the time and resources, consider sending out an email to your most frequent customers and ask them what they like about your product. You should call out that they’re a great customer and ask for their feedback as a favor. This sense of exclusivity is really exciting for some customers. The feedback you get will help guide your marketing, but it also will cultivate a sense of brand loyalty from these top customers. Again, to sweeten the deal, offer an exclusive deal for these top customers so that your audience feels that they’re receiving something from the transaction.

Increase Repeat Business With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Are you ready to craft the perfect remarketing & customer cultivation campaign? Do you want to see your top customers increase the number of purchases they complete in a year? Call JSL Marketing & Web Design ASAP to plan your perfect marketing strategy now.

We are experts in …

  • Email Marketing
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Ecommerce Optimization
  • Strategic Situation Insight & Research
  • Audience Profiling & Segmentation 
  • Brand Consultation

Fill Out The Contact Form To Get In Touch With Your Market Research Consultants!

December 16, 2021

4 Unexpected Things We Learned About Business In 2021

2021 was certainly an interesting year for business and we learned a lot! As the year comes to a close, we wish you all a happy and restful holiday season with your family and friends. It’s also the perfect time of year to look back and muse over everything that happened this year, the good, the bad, and the weird. 2021 was certainly eventful and we prepared the following list of things we learned about business in 2021 to help guide your marketing strategy. 

Business Learning #1: Creative Marketing Campaigns Will Always Be Relevant

A lot has changed in marketing over the last decade. Marketing has seen a lot of changes over the years, whether it’s the mediums, the pricing, or the agency structure, and 2021 was no different in that regard.

However, creativity will never go out of style. Whether it was the Chipotle Boorito promotion or Wendy’s teaming up with Rick & Morty, 2021 was filled with unique marketing approaches. Inventive advertising will always be a bedrock of any marketing strategy and 2021 did not disappoint.

Don’t think that you need to reinvent the wheel the way some of the world’s biggest brands did in 2021, but remember that staying fresh and timely in your marketing campaigns helps your business stay relevant all year long.  We’d recommend considering adjusting your marketing strategy as you move in 2022. If you haven’t adjusted anything in your marketing within the last year, your customers are likely a little fatigued by your messaging or have possibly even forgotten about you. If it’s been a bit, then a new year is a great time to revamp, refresh, and revitalize your strategy. A good marketing strategy will be… 

There are, of course, many variables that go into revamping your marketing strategy, and the list above is merely a thought starter. Still, think back on your favorite ad campaigns from 2021 and compare them to the list above. Odds are, all of your favorite ads from 2021 meet the criteria listed above!

Business Learning #2: Automation Will Continue

Automation is nothing new in the history of business, whether it’s in the form of steam-powered mills or auto chatbots. However, advancements in tech, compounded by worker shortages and high inflation, will keep the trend of automation thriving in the near future. By some estimates, 25% of the workforce is highly vulnerable to automation. 

Marketing and customer service are no exceptions. Businesses are always looking for ways to cover more ground with fewer resources and a great way to enable your marketing team is to automate away some of the repetitive and tedious tasks that take up the majority of their day. The main examples in the marketing space are….

If you have questions, contact our marketing team for more information!

Business Learning #3: New Products and Services Will Always Emerge

Have you been following developments in the metaverse and NFTs? We could spend a lot of time catching you up on the history of these developments, but both are an important reminder. The world and especially the tech world, will always evolve and change in unexpected and frankly, odd ways. Businesses that can see through the haze and confusion of a new product or tech are in a good position to capitalize in the near future. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that you need to invest in every new fad. (The metaverse is probably a long way away from being pertinent to your business.) 

However, it does mean that you should consider looking into new products, mediums, and marketing strategies for 2022. Maybe it’s time to get on TikTok. Maybe you need to create a Customer Loyalty Rewards club to help drive repeat business. Regardless, take the buzz about the metaverse and NFTs as proof that new opportunities exist for your business. (Even if they don’t involve digital monkeys!)

Business Learning #4: Salary Isn’t The Only Part Of Staff Retention

If you’re a small business owner, you know how hard keeping and retaining top talent is during the Great Resignation. Competitive salaries are, of course, a linchpin of any employee-retention program. But quite a few employees also point to other factors in choosing whether to stay or go with their current employer. 

The following cultural options may be decisive in keeping your best people if you can’t offer the salaries that the scions of corporate America can. (And honestly, work-life balance options may even be more important to some employees than salary.) You might not be the biggest player in your industry, but you can treat your people right with some additional offerings that others aren’t offering. 

  • Early Dismal Summer Fridays
  • Flexible WFH Arrangements
  • Extended Holiday PTO
  • Regular Team Building Events & Company Outings

The right company culture and flexibility really help show how much you care for your employees and give you an edge with competitors fighting their way through the Great Resignation by merely raising wages to entice and retain employees. (Although that certainly helps!)

Of course, brand collateral is a huge piece of this retention and team building for any small business. If you’re interested in providing your staff a reminder of what your brand stands for, talk to our team about your needs in any of the following!

  • T-shirts
  • Coffee Mugs
  • Office Accessories
  • & More! 

Happy Holidays From JSL Marketing & Web Design

It was, as always, an interesting year and we are so grateful to have shared it with you.  We all learned a lot about ourselves and the business world in 2021 and are so thankful for those opportunities.

We hope you had a great year reading with us and get the chance to rest and relax with family and friends while 2021 wanes. Your support means the world to us and we hope you are able to reflect on these business trends in the first weeks of 2022. Rest up, celebrate, and we look forward to being your partner in 2022. 

Happy Holidays from all of us at JSL Marketing & Web Design!

April 22, 2021

5 Steps To Creating the Perfect Business Slogan

A good business slogan is one-in-a-million. You may have been living under a rock for the past few decades if you don’t immediately recognize the following business slogans.

  • “I’m Lovin’ It.”
  • “That Was Easy.”
  • “Just Do It. “

Did you immediately think “McDonald’s, Staples, and Nike?” Congrats, these slogans worked as intended and brought the business in question to the top of your mind without any other advertising, branding, or indication! That’s an impressive accomplishment for only 15 characters!

If done correctly, your small business’s slogan can have the same impact. Obviously, you’re not a Fortune 500 company, but there’s no reason that your slogan can’t be as recognizable to customers in your local area as McDonald’s is worldwide! Read on to learn our steps for creating the perfect small business slogan!

Call Us At 855.869.4764 Or Contact Us Online!

Benefits Of An Unforgettable Business Slogan

The right slogan truly is irreplaceable. There’s a whole slew of business benefits to be gained from an impeccable slogan.

  • The Right Business Slogan Separates You from Your Competitors. We used McDonald’s as an example earlier on. Few slogans can compete with “I’m Lovin’ It.” To demonstrate that, think of McDonald’s competitors. Can you name Wendy’s slogan or the Burger King slogan? Both brands have repurposed their older slogans recently, so this is a bit harder than you might think. If you did get those slogans right, can you name the slogans of 5 Guys or Panda Express? That’s a tougher ask. That’s the value of the perfect business slogan. If it’s done right, your competitor’s slogans will never be as powerful or memorable as yours, which is a considerable advantage in keeping your brand top of mind with your competitors.

 

  • The Right Business Slogan Makes a Promise. “I’m Lovin’ It” promises the customer that they’ll leave McDonald’s satisfied with the meal enjoyed. The right slogan for your business will show your potential customers what they can expect from your brand. If your brand fulfills that promise, you’ve set yourself up well for another key benefit of a great slogan.

 

  • The Right Business Slogan Advances Your Overall Marketing Strategy. Imagine investing a few thousand dollars a month into targeted Google Ad campaigns. While this is a great way to reach your perfect customer, you’re just not seeing the type of clicks you’d like. There are a slew of reasons why this may be, but the right, recognizable business slogan contained within Google ad copy is a great way to get more clicks. After all, if your potential customers have heard your slogan before and recognize it within the copy of an ad or in the headline of a website, then they’re much more likely to contact your business. Think of a good business slogan, as part of a well-crafted brand awareness campaign, as a way of softening your potential customer up to your business’s attempts to sell to them. If you’ve done the leg work with branding your business, your potential customers will be more receptive to purchasing when it comes time to ask them to do so!

5 Steps to Creating Your Dream Slogan

Get The Right Team For Your Slogan Development

This is one of the easiest aspects of the process, but it’s one that can be easily overlooked. You’ll want a mix of executives who know the long-term vision and direction of the brand, creative designers with ideas for the future of the brand, and members of the PR and marketing teams. 

Your C-Suite members just might not have the creative experience to select a slogan, but they will have the long-term knowledge and vision to contribute to the conversation. Likewise, your PR and marketing team will have an intimate knowledge of the brand’s history and how it’s perceived by your customers but may lack knowledge of the future direction of the business. The right slogan team will involve these different but equally talented team members to create a wide skillset. 

Define the Feeling You Want Your Slogan To Convey

Remember, most purchase decisions are made on emotions, not logical cost-benefit analysis. Because of that fact, your new slogan needs to focus on the feelings you want your customers to experience, not the quality of your product or service. Consider our successful examples of business slogans. 

  • “I’m Lovin’ It” conveys satisfaction.
  • “Staples – That Was Easy” conveys simplicity and ease for busy white-collar professionals.
  • “Just Do It” convey action and determination, qualities that resonate with the athletic audience Nike is trying to reach. 

It can be helpful in this stage to think through what your business is attempting to do. Consider asking the following questions to set the right tone for your brand slogan brainstorming. 

  • Why do people choose your brand? 
  • What problems do you solve for your customers?
  • What separates you from your competitors? 
  • What feedback have your customers given you before? What common themes do you see in these positive reviews from happy customers? 

Brainstorm

This part of the process will not perfect immediately, so don’t hesitate to get numerous possible slogans on paper. The more iterations you’ve set down at this point, the better. Once you’ve done so, it’s time to select your finalists. There are several ways of doing this. A simple “up or down” vote per slogan works, or you can even pick a March Madness-style bracket format if you want to make the process a little livelier. Regardless, it’s important to whittle your list down to a select group of finalists. We’d recommend four to eight finalists before moving onto the next step. 

Get Feedback On Your Business Slogan

It’s important to not just have your slogan team design their list of five slogans and then have a VP or C-suite pick their favorite. Ensure there’s an opportunity for another team of people not involved in the design process to offer constructive feedback. What sounds like a huge breakthrough at 2:00 AM in a conference room after weeks of trial and error might not sound so convincing to others. 

Get Feedback (From Your Customers)

The feedback never ends in this process. Now that you’ve got a slogan, slowly unveil it to your customers. At this stage, we’d recommend incorporating your new slogan into certain elements of your marketing plan. Putting on your website, on social media, and within your Google Ad and email campaigns is great. However, we wouldn’t recommend buying company shirts or cars just yet. Give it some time to get customer feedback and determine if the new slogan is working. Note that this isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it process. You very well may need to return and reevaluate customer perception of your brand within a year or two, even if they love the initial unveiling. 

Learn More About Branding On Our Blog Library!

Common Business Slogan Mistakes

This process isn’t an open-and-shut process, and there’s a lot of room for shades of gray. Don’t feel like there is a right or wrong way of picking a slogan. What works for one industry might not work in another. However, it’s generally best practice to NOT do any of the following. 

Don’t Focus on Sales

  • There’s a time and place to ask for your potential customers to purchase, but your business slogan isn’t it. Instead, focus your slogan on the quality of your brand, a quality that endears your business to your customers. Think of “That was easy” or “Just Do it.” These slogans don’t try to illicit sales directly, so much as showcasing the quality of the business that their customers would enjoy. Don’t worry… the sales will come!

Don’t Overemphasize Your Brand

  • You should, of course, promote your brand. However, it should be done in the context of what your brand can do for the customer’s end needs. Again, “I’m lovin’ it” doesn’t brag about McDonald’s many accomplishments. Instead, the slogan speaks to how customers feel about the meals they get from their local Golden Arches. That’s a key distinction and one to keep in mind when developing your slogan!

Don’t Be Overly Verbose In Your Slogan

  • The perfect slogan is under 30 characters. Ideally, it could be even under 15 characters. Remember, the average American is exposed to over 2,000 ads per day. If your slogan is too long or complicated, you’re likely to lose the customer’s interest. Keep it simple, succinct, and effective for the best results. 

Don’t use a Free Slogan Generator

  • These might be useful to generate a long list of possibilities, but it’s unlikely you’ll get a winner if you use a free online slogan generator. We’d recommend using this as a starting point to just map out combinations of words and get your team’s creative juices going! Don’t hesitate to use a thesaurus, however, to broaden the possible terminology to incorporate into your slogan. 

If you need any help branding your business, reach out to the brand marketing experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design! We’ve been crafting brand strategies for years and are excited to get to work for your business!

Call Us At 855.869.4764 Or Contact Us Online!

December 17, 2020

Happy Holidays from JSL Marketing & Web Design

Happy holidays from the JSL Marketing & Web Design team! We wish you and your family a safe and restful holiday season!

A lot happened this year. It was an eventful year for the country, the marketing industry, and the JSL team. Highs and lows aside, it was a productive year. We learned a lot about ourselves and the industry in 2020 and are so excited to share what we discovered about ourselves and our craft.

Thoughts from the JSL Marketing team

Tierney Mosier, Content Director:

“I am thankful that 2020 is almost over! Just kidding – actually, I am most thankful that 2020 was such a year of growth: personally, academically, and professionally. This year had many hurdles and was difficult in many ways, but it was also a year to slow down, stay inside with family, and refocus on goals and what is most important. There were tough times this year in almost every facet of life, but that makes me even more thankful for my family, our health, my job and team at JSL, and the years to come.”

Colin Mosier, VP of Marketing & Sales:

“Even though this was a different year than most, I still have a lot to be thankful for. This year, I have learned a lot more about myself and also found new ways to keep myself entertained when going out was not an option. I am also thankful for a number of personal milestones that were reached this year and I am excited to continue growing in 2021!”

Sarah Leff, President

“2020 was an interesting year, to say the least. And while we were able to come together as a team and finish the year strong, we are also very excited for 2021!

We’re looking forward to expanding our existing markets, especially in the San Diego area, and also reaching new areas as well. Besides expanding our reach, another goal that we have for 2021 is to continue growing our service offerings. We’re already a full-service marketing agency, but we’d love to grow our video production, photography, and brand development services, along with continually finding ways to improve, innovate, and reach new goals for our digital marketing and SEO clients.”

The Future of Marketing in 2021

2020 was a cataclysmic year for the old way of doing things in a lot of industries and marketing was no different. The combination of new technology and the COVID-19 pandemic has upended how we market. 2021 and beyond will look quite different from past years! Below are some of our thoughts on what we can expect in the digital marketing industry in 2021!

  • Voice search: The percentage of consumers who use voice assistants continues to rise year after year. Voice search is an interesting part of an SEO plan and it’s one that most SEOs are not totally prepared for. Expect this shift to be the future of SEO soon.
  • Mobile search: Mobile search is about 50% of all search terms at the moment. That will continue to rise in the next few years. By some estimates, mobile search will continue to rise closer to 85% or 90% of search in the next few years.
  • Socially-conscious brands: 2020 was a great year for activism and that trend looks like it will continue into 2021 and the next few years. More and more brands will feel comfortable taking activist stances in the wake of the George Floyd protests of 2020 and consumers will become accustomed to seeing socially-conscious messaging in advertising. This will be new territory for a lot of brands, but it’s also an exciting development as well! Ensure you have a solid brand consultant who’s up to date on industry and social trends to help you navigate the intersection of advertising and activism.

Taking those predictions, we’ve also thought through our advice for brands in 2021.

  • Strategy is now more important than ever: The recession of 2020 cut into the bottom lines of many small businesses. There’s little in the way of excess budget for most brands, which means that there’s no leeway for testing and shifting tactics. Research and planning will be critical for small businesses to prevent waste on unfruitful ideas. Take the time to properly research and plan a marketing strategy from the beginning to stay on budget in 2021.
  • Brand recognition is a deciding factor for many consumers: Internet users are inundated with ads every day. By some estimate, the average American sees 3,000 ads in a day. Brand recognition will be what separates top local brands from the rest. Clean branding and an impactful logo will be critical for your business, especially at the local level.
  • Focus is greater than reach: A lot of businesses become too focused on their reach and cast a wide net. This usually isn’t a productive strategy and wide-net brands go away frustrated after spinning the wheels too little in the way of results. A better approach is a laser-focused approach on your perfect customer, especially given how critical a cost-effective strategy is post-COVID-19 for most brands. Use Google Ad and email marketing campaigns to focus in on the most profitable customers.
  • Talk to our team: Your business is unique and if we’ve learned anything from 2020, it’s that market conditions can shift rapidly! Our digital marketing experts are always happy to dive deep into your specific business situation and offer customized advice, based on whatever 2021 throws at you.

It was an eventful year. While it was a hectic year at times, we’re so grateful for what we learned in 2020 and wouldn’t change anything. As we near the end of the year, we’d like to thank you for reading and following the JSL Marketing & Web Design team in 2020. We appreciate your support and are excited to see what 2021 brings!

We wish you a very safe and memorable Christmas and a happy New Year!

Cheers!

The JSL Marketing & Web Design Team