The United States Census Bureau found in their latest report that health care is still the nation’s largest employer. Approximately 907,426 businesses fell into health care and social assistance categories, employing more than 20 million people. The pandemic put the spotlight on the importance of research and development, spurring on growth in science-based businesses for the foreseeable future.

How can companies capitalize on the current climate and grow their base for potentially leaner times? Here are some simple marketing tools commonly used by business to consumer (B2C) and how to adapt them to your business model.

1. Develop Buyer Personas

Every type of business benefits from creating buyer personas. A persona represents your average customer. Do a deep dive into their age, occupation, gender and other demographic factors. You should also look at psychographic elements such as what emotions drive them to seek your products or services.

Once you have a clear idea of the type of person who seeks what you offer, go ahead and make a mock avatar. Name your persona and give them an occupation. Every bit of marketing you create should speak directly to the fake person representing your customer base. You may have more than one persona.

2. Put Customers First

Nearly 100% of healthcare facilities claim to put patients as their top priority. Proving to your customers you actually do isn’t quite as easy. The processes and procedures you use can play into your marketing strategy in a variety of ways.

If you use top-notch sterilization procedures for medical tools, advertise this in your marketing efforts. Explain why the system you use works and the benefits to the customer. What would you worry about if you were in the patient’s shoes? Ease those fears.

3. Establish Yourself as the Authority

When it comes to science-based businesses, people need to know you are the premiere expert on your topic, especially if it impacts their health. Think about the work you’ve put in as a brand and business owner that makes you stand out from the competition.

What is your unique value proposition (UVP)? How do you differ from other brands such as yours? It isn’t enough to just say you’ve been in business longer or have the best employees. You must show users how your UVP benefits them directly.

One example would be a local hospital with state of the art equipment and a specialization such as neurology. If someone needs brain surgery, they should think of the hospital first because the doctors give talks on their work, the hospital social media answers questions online and they provide educational opportunities for the community at large.

4. Tap Into Social Networks

You know social media advertising works for e-commerce businesses, but how do you utilize it for a science-based one? The beauty of sites such as Facebook is the ability to narrow down your target audience and speak directly to those most interested in what you offer.

Your buyer persona becomes vital for social media marketing. Narrow your audience by typing in demographic details. Hone in the selection further through adding behaviors and interests your typical customer is most likely to have.

What would someone needing your product or service be likely to search for? You must consider user intent. So, if you sell blood pressure monitors, someone in need of one might search for a term such as “how to reduce blood pressure” or “monitoring my blood pressure.” Try predictive search text on social media sites and see what pops up.

5. Create Videos

According to the State of Video Marketing report for 2021, 86% of businesses across all sectors use video as one of their marketing methods. People tend to retain information they see in a video longer and more accurately than other formats.

How can science-based businesses use videos to draw in new customers? While it depends on the type of product or service you sell, adding some educational content is a great first step.

What pain points do your customers face and how can you solve them through information? Perhaps you sell a new technology and you need to educate hospitals about your product to entice them to buy it? There are many different ways you can use video to showcase your brand, including storytelling, building trust, information sharing and problem solving topics.

6. Use Patient Influencers

You’ve likely heard of businesses using social media influencers to reach their target audiences. The best place for you to find your audience is through people who are already your patients. You’ll find they tend to hang with like-minded people in need of similar help. Ask your regulars if they’d be willing to share information you post online.

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful tools hospitals and healthcare professionals can use to draw in new clients. Gather testimonials and give rewards for referrals. One example might be an orthodontist’s office giving out free gift cards each month to those who referred a new paying patient.

Think Outside the Box

Look at what big corporations use to reach new users. While not everything makes sense for science-based businesses, you can adapt most marketing methods to meet your needs. Make sure any efforts are customer-centric and utilize the information you gathered while creating your buyer personas. With a little effort, you’ll gain new referrals and grow your company faster and bigger than you ever imagined possible.

This post was written by Eleanor Hecks for the Marketing Fundamentals Team. Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

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The landscape of how people conduct business shifted dramatically in the last year or so. In addition, many of your small business clients may not have overcome the pandemic’s challenges, meaning you’ve lost revenue as well. In the 2021 Deloitte Global Resilience Report, 60% of CEOS fear similar disruptions will continue and impact all types of businesses.

If you want to be one of the small business owners who come out on top of the challenges, here are some liabilities to consider this year. We’ll also talk about how to bulletproof your company against them.

1. Lack of Agility

If the pandemic taught business owners anything, it was the importance of being flexible and able to adapt at a moment’s notice. What makes some companies better able to shift focus than others?

Start with your purpose as a brand. Is it too specific? One example of brands changing what they did during the pandemic can be seen in local distilleries. Many stopped making alcohol and shifted to creating hand sanitizer to meet public need.

Train your employees from day one to come up with creative solutions. Give them the freedom to try new things. Then, when you’re faced with a situation where you must adapt, you’ll already have staff who think outside the box.

Prepare: Ask what areas you’re rigid in. How can you become more flexible? Are there any products or services that might suffer during a global crisis? What would you do instead?

2. Outdated Features

When business is slow, it’s easy to let things go, particularly with a brick-and-mortar location. You can lose a lot of customers simply by making a poor first impression. For example, your interior signage can draw people into your store or drive them away.

When you can’t afford a complete remodel, a fresh coat of paint or deep cleaning can help spruce things up.

Prepare: Look at your office through the eyes of your clients. Would you want to come inside? Does it look inviting? What about your online presence? Is your website current and covers modern trends?

3. Legal Liabilities

Every business has some typical legal liabilities. For example, an employee falls and gets hurt on some flooring that was sticking up. You can mitigate many of the risks associated with potential lawsuits by keeping your building in good repair.

You’ll also face litigation over issues you can’t foresee, such as damaging a business’ reputation through poor marketing efforts. No matter how protected you think you are, it’s always possible you’ll face legal action.

Prepare: Secure property insurance to cover slips, falls and other disasters. You can also tag an umbrella policy on most businesses to cover you for unknown issues. Talk to your insurance agent about what policy might work best for you.

4. Reputation Management

At some point in your business’s growth, you likely made a mistake or two. Perhaps Facebook and Google have multiple bad reviews listed for your company. Once your reputation tanks, it’s difficult to get it back. People may shy away from doing business with you out of fear the issues still exist.

Your first step is figuring out how others see your brand. Check out online reviews and poll your current customers. If you want honest feedback, allow for anonymous comments. Also, take the time to look back over your customer complaints. The issues people call about are usually a big indicator of where your problems lie.

Prepare: The only way to improve your brand image is via one customer at a time. Start with those who’ve left out of frustration. Call and have a candid conversation with them. Ask for their ideas on how to improve. Ask for another chance at no risk to them. For example, you create a marketing campaign and they only pay if they see results.

If you can turn a past critic into a raving fan, your reputation score will improve by leaps. Take the time to respond to negative online reviews so others can see the steps you’ve taken to fix issues.

5. Open Positions

A recent Bloomberg report looked at the issues many businesses have with finding qualified employees.  Around 42% of small businesses state they can’t fill open positions, and 91% said the many applicants were unqualified for the job.

A lack of staff creates lag times in finishing work. Since many marketing campaigns run on a tight schedule, a lack of qualified staff will either overload your current workers or cause projects to go unfinished.

Prepare: Don’t wait until you have an opening to look for the best candidates. Cultivate new leads by hiring interns and staying involved in the industry. If a person comes along who has skills and is a good match, figure out how to work them into your team. You can always expand sales when needed.

6. Security Issues

Cyberthreats grow nearly every year. Hackers get better at getting into systems and gaining access to your personal data. If you don’t take steps to mitigate the risk, you’ll wind up with unhappy customers or a website taken hostage by people wanting a payout.

With more people working remotely, there is even more risk of criminals gaining access through various entry points.

Prepare: Install the latest virus protection software on all machines used in the running of your marketing company. For those who work from home, either provide a computer or free antivirus software. Train employees how to spot phishing and other scams. Be proactive in protecting information.

Assess All Risks

The above six liabilities are common to marketing businesses. However, each company has unique challenges to overcome. Assess all the risks that might derail you from your goals for the next few years. How can you overcome those issues and keep your company on an upward trajectory?

This post was written by Eleanor Hecks for the Marketing Fundamentals Team. Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

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To ensure you are truly building your brand, and doing your business justice, it’s necessary to identify and explore common misconceptions. It will keep you on the right path, which can help your business thrive in today’s highly competitive market.

Understanding the Terms

Branding, brand awareness, brand-building, and brand recognition are different concepts. They are all parts of the same process that involve creating and strengthening a brand, but they refer to separate actions.

You must understand the difference between each one, because it’s a common misconception that they all mean the same thing:

• Branding: A collection of processes, forming a system, to give your business its own identity, unique from competitors and other businesses.
• Brand-building: The act of building a brand, which can include several tasks or measures, like choosing themes, writing mission statements, and more.
• Brand awareness: Measuring, improving, or understanding the visual profile and performance of your business (brand). The goal is to associate emotions, impressions, and more.
• Brand recognition: The ability or likelihood of the public identifying your brand based on major themes, attributes, and quirks.

With that out of the way, we can take a look at some of the more common misconceptions about creating great brand awareness.

Myth: Building Brand Awareness Is Advertising

As a general rule, advertising is more about encouraging customers to buy a product or subscribe to a service. The outcomes are much more specific and measurable.

Marketing and branding, however, are more about fostering relationships with an audience, who also happen to be potential customers. Brand awareness, in particular, involves connecting experiences, emotions, and other traits with the business through smart marketing campaigns. Advertising can help achieve this, but other than that, it has almost nothing to do with brand awareness.

Myth: It’s All About Aesthetics

When rebranding, misaligned professionals tend to overemphasize visual elements like logos, colors, themes, and font styles. These things do play an important role, helping to strengthen a brand’s visual representation and recognition, but they are not the only part of branding.

A brand encompasses all aspects of a business, from the visual style and representation to the products and experiences delivered. Customer service, mission statements, goals, and unique presentations are all included.

Adjusting how customers interact with or experience aspects of your business is an excellent way to evolve your brand. One example might include placing smart displays strategically throughout a store, to better engage shoppers and capture their interests. It reimagines and restructures the way they interact with a brick-and-mortar location, and evokes various emotions and feelings to make a more memorable visit.

Stop and think about how customers see your brand. That’s the best way to approach the process, whether starting new or repositioning an existing business.

Myth: Brand Awareness Won’t Improve Sales

Perceived value has everything to do with how successful a product or service is. Investopedia defines it as the customers’ evaluation of the merits of a product or service. Can it meet their expectations? Will it solve their problem or improve convenience? How does it compare to the competition and other products on the market?

The higher the perceived value, the higher the demand, and naturally, the greater the sales. It’s also entirely possible for something with a low margin to be considered expensive, thanks to perceived value.

Why does this matter?

Brand awareness directly relates to the perceived value of products and services a company is offering. So the opposite of the myth is true, here. Excellent brand awareness does contribute to higher and better sales. It can also determine whether customers support your business or not.

Myth: Brand Awareness Is Too Much of a Challenge for New Businesses

If brand awareness includes the sentiment surrounding a business and its products, then wouldn’t it be nearly impossible for new businesses to capitalize on? Wouldn’t it be too expensive and too difficult?

The answer is no. In fact, many branding techniques don’t cost money to implement, just time. For instance, did you know that 73% of customers prefer brands with friendly customer service?

Improving your customer service and customer experiences not only defines your brand but also leads to higher recognition and more positive sentiment — and repeat business. It is entirely possible to focus on the aspects of branding that will impact your business most, especially when you’re just starting.

You don’t have to dump inordinate amounts of money into branding or rebranding your business, if you play it smart.

Myth: Branding Is a One-and-Done Event

Branding, and building your brand, isn’t something you do in one long stretch. It’s a continuous movement that evolves throughout the scope of your company’s lifetime. You and your marketing team must continue to shape the narrative, through regular updates, visual changes, product improvements, and much more.

Everything your brand is associated with makes a difference, from your social marketing campaign to the philanthropic impact your company has on the local community.

The More You Know

When it comes to marketing, branding, advertising, and customer support, the more you know and understand, the better your business will be.

Striving for growth, and always looking to improve and build on what you’ve achieved, goes a long way towards earning you and your venture success. It will also earn you a lot of respect from your customers.

The next time you consider branding or rebranding your business, keep these misconceptions in mind and try to avoid falling into their trap.

This post was written by Eleanor Hecks for the Marketing Fundamentals Team. Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

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Experts predict the marketing industry will hit $412.88 billion this year, up from $195.58 billion in 2016. This is faster-than-average growth compared to other industries. Even in the midst of a pandemic, promotional work has seen gains.

Just what is the reason for the growth? How can you get in on the additional work? Here are some thoughts on how marketing will grow and the part you could play in it.

1. Improve Customer Experience (CX)

People demand better CX than in the past. They expect companies to understand their needs and meet them without them having to ask. If you want to compete with other companies, you must know who your customer is and how to fix their problems.

However, you also have to go a step further with your customer service. Once you have those things in place, you can market them as a benefit of doing business with your brand.

You must also work with other departments in the company to ensure the experience is seamless. Talk to sales, new product development, inventory management, and leadership before planning a marketing campaign.

2. Inform Customers

There have been a lot of changes in the past year. COVID-19 has altered the way people shop, the types of things they spend their money on, and the safety measures businesses must put in place. Companies that keep their patrons informed fare better than those that don’t.

As a marketer, your job is to inform your clients about these changes and let them know what you’re doing to reduce risk. Keep your people updated on any new policies, products that help them stay safe, and procedures inside a store or shipping facility.

3. Embrace Omnichannel Marketing

People are growing more and more adept at starting research online and then taking it to a local store, or visiting a nearby establishment but ordering online. They want to know they can return items easily, place custom orders online, place a to-go order via their smartphone, and have it all work perfectly.

Your marketing department must coordinate IT, sales, and leadership to come up with an experience that works well for your customers. Places such as McDonald’s have accomplished this by creating apps where customers can place an order and then pick it up curbside, at the drive-through, or inside the restaurant.

4. Match Visitor Expectations

Even after vaccines have become more widely available, many customers may still feel a bit reluctant to dine inside a restaurant or visit a brick-and-mortar store.

Understand your typical customer and what they need to feel safe while shopping with you. If you have lots of elderly patrons, for example, you may want to continue curbside pickup and delivery indefinitely.

Stores that meet the expectations of their customers elicit loyalty and retain their customers while gaining new ones. The key is not to match their expectations, but to exceed them.

5. Mean What You Say

Some companies love to jump on any cause people seem intent on. Recently, the Edelman Trust Barometer showed that when a brand makes a statement about racial equality, 63% of Americans believe they need to follow up with actions customers can see.

Don’t just jump on a cause because it’s trending on Twitter. Anything you support should come from a place of deep connection, either from the type of product you provide or because you care about the cause.

An example of a company embracing social causes that mean something to them, and marketing their efforts effectively, is Cuddle + Kind. They not only donate a portion of every sale to help feed hungry children, but they also offer jobs to women in countries where they might not have a similar opportunity.

Another example? TOMS sells shoes, so it makes sense for them to come up with a model where they donate a pair to someone in need for every pair that’s purchased. People having shoes is something they care about, and the cause ties into their product perfectly. They aren’t trying to just jump on the latest popular idea. They have a deep need to put footwear on anyone who needs it.

6. Grow Your Social Presence

Experts predict social media marketing channels will grow about 15.2% through 2026. More people get online every day, and a majority of them are on one social platform or another.

If you aren’t already marketing on social media, now is the time to develop a strong brand presence. Figure out which networks your target audience frequents. Come up with a personality and way to engage your users authentically and helpfully on those platforms.

7. Augment Your Reality

Technology changes at a rapid pace. Expect the number of brands using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to increase in the next few years. Already, marketers use AR by adding a scannable QR code that starts a video on the phone or pulls up AR to immerse the person into a scene.

Create an app where users can place a product in their room and see how it looks, try different outfits on an avatar, or make other adjustments to see what works best for them. The more fun you make the experience, the more likely consumers will return.

You can also gather testimonials of why your clients like the AR features and use those statements in your advertising.

Try New Things

Although it’s impossible to predict every change in the industry, one thing is certain that there will be new innovations. As technology advances and you notice marketing trends, try different methods. Through trial and error, you’ll hit on the perfect combination that works for you and your clients.

This post was written by Eleanor Hicks for the Marketing Fundamentals Team. Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

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If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation, email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

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