Rami Consulting Group Insights

Our Newest Retargeting & Matching Capabilities

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 05:00:43 GMT

In today’s fast-paced digital environment, companies are looking for smarter ways to capture and convert high-intent prospects. Rami Consulting Group has risen to this challenge, introducing innovative retargeting and matching capabilities that streamline and elevate the entire sales process. By leveraging over 10 intent data sources, artificial intelligence, and robust automation, Rami Consulting Group delivers a comprehensive, unified workflow designed to scale prospecting, personalize outreach, and maximize engagement.

Driving Pipeline with 10+ Intent Data Sources

At the core of Rami Consulting Group’s advanced marketing approach is the ability to harness more than ten intent data sources. These sources provide insights into which companies and decision-makers are actively searching for solutions within your industry, allowing for laser-focused targeting. By identifying high-intent leads, marketing and sales teams can prioritize their efforts, connecting with prospects who are already showing signals of interest.

For instance, when a prospect engages with content on multiple platforms or searches for specific industry keywords, Rami Consulting Group’s platform captures and analyzes these intent signals. This intelligence empowers businesses to engage prospects precisely when they are in the market for a solution, significantly increasing the chances of conversion and reducing the sales cycle.

Example: Commercial Truck Repair

Another sector ripe for MarTech innovation is commercial truck repair. In this industry, quick response times and strong relationships are essential. Implementing marketing automation and geotargeted ad campaigns can dramatically improve lead capture. For instance, when a fleet manager visits a truck repair company’s website but doesn’t schedule a service, marketing automation kicks in. The system could initiate an email sequence that provides maintenance tips, special offers, or reminders about the benefits of regular service.

Geotargeted ads are also crucial for capturing emergency repair leads. Imagine a truck repair business using location-based technology to serve ads to fleet operators or logistics managers who are currently driving through the area or conducting operations nearby. When a breakdown occurs, the business has already made an impression, ensuring that their services are considered first in a moment of need.

Case Study: Driving ROI for Restaurants Through Private Events

One of the standout applications of Rami Consulting Group’s matching capabilities lies in the restaurant industry, where driving higher ROI areas, such as private events, is a major priority. By identifying key decision-makers—such as corporate event planners, HR coordinators, and social club organizers—Rami Consulting Group helped a prominent restaurant chain increase bookings for private events.

Using advanced intent data and matching technology, the marketing team could pinpoint professionals who were actively researching venues for corporate gatherings or holiday parties. They then launched a multi-channel outreach campaign, consisting of personalized emails, LinkedIn messages, and targeted ads featuring stunning visuals of the restaurant’s private event space. As a result, the restaurant chain saw a substantial increase in event bookings, translating to higher revenue and a significant return on investment.

Use Case: Unified Workflow for Scaled Prospecting and Personalization In B2B Industries

One of the most significant pain points for marketing and sales teams is managing disparate tools and processes. Rami Consulting Group addresses this by integrating all key elements of prospecting, personalization, and engagement into a unified workflow. This comprehensive approach ensures that every team member is working with the same high-quality data and executing campaigns in a coordinated, cohesive manner.

This streamlined workflow not only reduces inefficiencies but also empowers teams to scale their efforts. For example, a sales representative can seamlessly shift from prospecting to personalized outreach without needing to switch between platforms or manually input data. Marketing teams can deploy highly targeted retargeting ads based on real-time insights, keeping the brand top-of-mind for high-value leads. Together, these capabilities drive pipeline growth and help businesses connect with their audience more meaningfully.

Bringing Marketing Technology to Blue-Collar Industries: A New Era of Growth

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 03:28:02 GMT

Blue-collar industries, like commercial roofing and commercial truck repair, have traditionally relied on word-of-mouth referrals, long-standing client relationships, and boots-on-the-ground sales efforts. However, the landscape is changing. As digital transformation continues to redefine every sector, companies in these fields are increasingly exploring how marketing technology (MarTech) can drive business growth and create new opportunities.

Advanced Retargeting to Identify High-Value Leads

One of the most impactful advancements for blue-collar businesses is the use of sophisticated retargeting tools that can identify LinkedIn profiles of website visitors. For example, a commercial roofing company seeking to connect with property managers and facilities directors might see significant gains by deploying these technologies. Here’s how it works: when someone visits the company’s website—perhaps after searching for “commercial roof repair”—the software captures relevant information about the visitor, including their professional profile on LinkedIn.

This insight is a game-changer. Armed with these details, the company can launch targeted advertising campaigns on LinkedIn, showing personalized ads to key decision-makers. Additionally, marketing teams can create custom outreach messages, crafting direct and relevant pitches that reference specific problems or needs related to commercial roofing. This strategy not only keeps the company top-of-mind but also increases the likelihood of converting potential leads into clients.

Example: Commercial Truck Repair

The Power of Data-Driven Marketing

Implementing marketing tech in blue-collar industries is more than just a nice-to-have; it’s becoming a competitive necessity. By utilizing data-driven strategies, companies can reach out to potential leads with precision and foster relationships that go beyond the initial sale. The fusion of MarTech and blue-collar industries opens new avenues for efficiency and engagement, bridging the gap between traditional marketing and digital innovation.

5 Innovative Ways Rami Consulting Group Utilizes AI to Enhance SEO & Advertising

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 19:53:02 GMT

In the dynamic world of digital marketing, staying ahead of the curve is essential for success.

Rami Consulting Group, a marketing agency and consulting firm, aims to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) on behalf of our clients to revolutionize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and advertising strategies. By leveraging AI technologies & integrations, Rami Consulting Group has unlocked new avenues for driving traffic, using marketing budgets more efficiently, increasing conversions, and maximizing ROI. Here are five innovative ways we are using AI to enhance SEO and advertising:

Advanced Data Analysis for Keyword Optimization

Rami Consulting Group harnesses the power of AI-driven data analytics to conduct comprehensive keyword research and optimization. By analyzing vast amounts of data from search engines, social media platforms, and other sources, AI algorithms can identify high-performing keywords with precision.

These insights enables us to tailor SEO strategies to match the evolving search behavior of target audiences, ensuring that clients' content ranks prominently and attracts relevant traffic. This allows us to be more efficient in targeting links & citations, driving costs down for the client while maintaining, if not improving ROI & success.

Content Personalization with Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Personalized content is key to engaging modern consumers, and Rami Consulting Group leverages AI-powered Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to deliver tailored experiences.

By analyzing user interactions and preferences, NLP algorithms can dynamically adjust website content, product recommendations, and ad messaging to match individual preferences. This level of personalization not only enhances user engagement but also increases the likelihood of conversions, driving tangible sales for clients. NLP algorithms are best used when combinined with talented designers, copywriters, and content creators.

Predictive Analytics for Campaign Optimization

AI-driven predictive analytics are a game-changer for optimizing advertising campaigns, and Rami Consulting Group leverages this technology to its advantage.

By analyzing historical campaign data and external factors such as market trends and competitor behavior, AI algorithms can forecast future performance and recommend optimal strategies. This proactive approach enables the firm to fine-tune advertising campaigns in real-time, maximizing ROI and driving sustainable growth for clients. This especially applies for our Facebook/Instagram ads & Google Ad campaigns.

Harnessing AI for Enhanced Visual Content Strategy

Visual content has become an indispensable tool for engaging audiences in the digital era. This includes images, videos, UGC, and all avenues of visual content creation.

Leveraging AI-powered image and video recognition technologies, we elevate our clients' visual content strategy for optimal SEO performance. By analyzing critical visual elements such as alt text, metadata, and image/video content, AI algorithms ensure that multimedia assets rank prominently in search results. This strategic approach not only drives organic traffic but also amplifies brand visibility across various digital platforms.

Dynamic Pricing Optimization for E-commerce Success

For our e-commerce clients, pricing optimization is paramount, and AI enables us to fine-tune pricing strategies dynamically.

By analyzing market demand, competitor pricing, and consumer behavior, AI algorithms identify optimal price points for products in real-time. This agile approach maximizes revenue while maintaining competitiveness in the ever-changing e-commerce landscape.

Successful A/B Testing - What It Looks Like

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 20:44:27 GMT

Overview

Receiving, processing, and leveraging data to make successful strategy shifts & pivots is key to a successful marketing strategy in the current decade.
There are multiple things that can be A/B tested, including demographics, advertising copies, and landing pages.
Run the campaign like a science experiment, with placebos and variables.

Data

Receiving, processing, and leveraging data to make successful strategy shifts & pivots is key to a successful marketing strategy in the current decade. With successful A/B testing, we are able to collect data and effectively transform it to be presentable and readable which allows us to look for gaps for expansion, see opportunities for improving marketing campaigns, and look for opportunities to scale forward or backward for efficiency & better allocation of resources.

87% percent of companies in the United States run 1 - 5 advertising test campaigns*, however, the best companies are running hundreds of ad sets per month testing against multiple variables. Running multiple campaigns allow businesses to find a winning formula that can be duplicated and invested in to create sustainable and predictable growth. 75% of Rami Consulting Group’s focus is to create sustainable growth that eventually leads to explosive growth. Sustainability and developing a formula for success are key.

Variables

A/B tested can be started like how any marketing campaign should be started with a strong buyer persona developed with demographics and psychographics. After, advertising copies can be used with comparables from competitors, and previous data comparisons to predict results against demographics. Ads sets should be started with a basis of anywhere from 20 to 40% of ad spend with multiple adsets with multiple ad copies against the same demographic. Then, advertising copies can be expanded to a different text, images, landing pages, and even multiple demographics/psychographics. All campaigns should be compared to previous campaigns serving as a placebo to see how effective certain changes were.

*Redeye Conversion Rate Optimization Report of 2014

Recovering From COVID-19 Stronger Than Ever

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 01:51:29 GMT

The COVID-19 outbreak has wreaked financial havoc around the globe, leaving many small-business owners struggling in its wake. According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), as of March 30—still early in the crisis—92% of small businesses said they had suffered negative effects as a result of the pandemic. Just 5% of small-business owners said they had experienced no effects at all.

The short term outlook looks very volatile, and this metric can only be determined when each industry is looked at individually. For the long term, there is lots of hope, but in order to understand how your business can react to your reopening, we must understand consumer trends after COVID 19.

The virus is reshaping the industries in real time, rapidly accelerating long-term underlying trends in the space of mere weeks. Research indicates that new habits formed now will endure beyond this crisis, permanently changing what we value, how and where we shop, and how we live and work.

Consumers are deeply concerned about the impact of COVID-19, both from a health and economic perspective. People are responding in a variety of ways and have differing attitudes, behaviors and purchasing habits. People across the globe are afraid as they strive to adapt to a new normal. Fear is running high as individuals contemplate what this crisis means for them, but more significantly, what it means for their families and friends, and society at large.

Consumers are responding to the crisis in a variety of ways. Some feel anxious and worried, fueling panic-buying of staples and hygiene products. At the other extreme, some consumers remain indifferent to the pandemic and are continuing their business as usual, despite recommendations from government and health professionals. Companies will need to understand how their own consumers are reacting, and develop customized and personalized marketing strategies for each. The days of one-size-fits-all marketing are over.

Certain industries may not suffer as much. A survey by Rami Consulting Group showed us that almost 50% of people plan to travel when shelter in place orders are lifted, while other plan to go out to eat, watch a movie, or go to the gym. There was a small percentage of 5% where people planned to not leave the house as much as possible. This research shows that most people will want to leave the house,

We will be releasing a more in depth analysis on consumer trends, and a step by step reopening guide focused for small to medium sized businesses, so subscribe to RCG Insights below, and gain access to it.

The Financial Damage

The initial phase in building up a remaking plan for COVID-19 is deciding exactly how profoundly your private company has been influenced.

There are various layers included, beginning with the hard numbers. In the event that you haven't refreshed your budget reports, for example, progit and loss or financial reports—as of late, it's useful to do that now. You would then be able to compare them with a year ago's numbers to see how much your business might be down. And keeping in mind that very little of business owners state they've profited by the pandemic, 3% as per the NFIB, it's conceivable that the harm probably won't be as awful as you might suspect.

It also helps to consider what are the other ways your business has been affected. In epicenter areas like New York, a large portion of your customers might have moved away, been affected by COVID, or be in the portion of people that are scared to come back. In other areas, things are much more easier to come back to normal, as long as you still have the financial and physical capabilities to recover.

Analyze Your Business Plan

Advising a business to give your business plan another look is quite often a cliche, but it is a necessary step, when looked at the right way. When we advise our clients to look at their business plan, what we truly mean is to look at their strategy. If until now, strategy has been retail focused, or with a physical focus on door to door sales, or traditional marketing, it may be time to invest in digital marketing, focusing on acquiring customer using the internet.

For small businesses, investing in a van and a driver to set up an eCommerce aspect of your business with a perk of same day delivery is one way to compete business like Amazon, and bring back market share in your local community.

Redesign Your Business's Vision & Future

Once a vision for the future is in place and the leadership team is on board, the next step forward is to invest in new capabilities that the business will need following the crisis. Recognizing this, one leading European credit and asset manager has already begun to think about what those capabilities will be. It began by asking its leadership team a series of questions meant to establish their new vision for the future and how it differs from what they had previously envisioned: Which existing trends will accelerate? Which ones will become obsolete? Which new ones must be contemplated? What, in short, are the scenarios to prepare for? This questionnaire should also be forwarded to essential employees, since lots of ideas are often left on the table from the lower parts of the management chain. We suggested a local restaurant to have an app created for them, and then market the app effectively to keep deliveries in house, since they already had their own delivery program.

FInd your unique advantage, and exploit it.

Check Your Budget

Once the vision is in line, it is important to ensure that you have the financial means to execute these ideas. You may look to federal programs for small business loans, and have it forgiven if you meet the requirements. The challenge with both of those federally mandated programs, however, is that the funding is limited. It’s entirely possible that funding may be depleted before your application for a loan is ever reviewed. For this reason, it’s important to consider other sources of small business funding, including:

Traditional SBA 7(a) loans and microloans
Small business term loans from banks, credit unions and online lenders
Business lines of credit
Business credit cards
Vendor tradelines
Accounts receivable financing
Merchant cash advances
Inventory financing
Purchase order financing

Equipment financing

Each option can have pros and cons. Accounts receivable financing and merchant cash advance financing, for example, can be convenient, and neither one requires perfect credit to qualify. Either could be useful for funding your business in the short term.

But they both require that you have something to leverage, i.e., outstanding invoices and credit card sales, respectively. If sales are slow or nonexistent, you might have a hard time getting approved. Alternative financing options like these also can have much higher effective annual percentage rates compared to other types of small-business loans and lines of credit.

If you’re considering financing to help rebuild, keep in mind that borrowing may be competitive, as lenders want some reassurance that loans can be repaid. Reviewing your business and personal credit scores, as well as your business and personal financials can help you gauge how likely you are to get approved for funding.

Execute

Once you have the financial means to execute, and you have the right vision and leaders in place, now its time to follow through with the updated business plan your created earlier.

A basic outline that RCG likes to create for our clients is to start with is to look for market gaps, prepare your product/service, market using the internet (digital marketing), and find ways to acquire more revenue.

Another aspect of looking at it, could be too boot strap expenses and just try to gain your old customer base back. The issue with this plan is that companies are often short on cash, and waiting until their old customer base comes back may mean that you'll run out of business soon.

Asses, and Execute. Its that simple.

Create a Contingency Plan

Everyone thought that the United States was the most prepared country for a global outbreak, but turns we weren't as expected as we thought we were.

Whether it be a market crash, or a second wave of the coronavirus, the reality is that an emergency can come along to disrupt your small business at any time. Using what you’ve learned during the current pandemic to prepare for the next crisis can help you insulate your business from future shocks.

For instance, building up liquid cash savings may be a priority for your business if you had little or nothing set aside before the COVID-19 outbreak began. You may choose to focus on paying down your debt and trimming nonessential spending to keep your budget in check. Or you may need to find ways to help your staff work more efficiently to cut operating costs.

The pandemic also may have taught you a thing or two about how important it is to be able to adapt and keep your business fluid so you can reasonably weather storms. For example, if your employees didn’t have the option to work remotely before, that’s something you may want to incorporate in your business model going forward.

The more outside-the-box thinking you can do to prepare for a worst-case scenario, the better. Having a Plan B (and even a Plan C, D, E and F) can help improve your business’s odds of surviving—and eventually thriving again—during tough financial times

Should Your Brand Take A Stand?

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 01:37:21 GMT

If your customers include millennials, the answer to whether or not to take a stand is 'yes.' Although companies like Ben and Jerry’s and Patagonia, who built their brand foundation on socially responsible practices, have been around longer than millennial customers, these companies changed and continue to change the market.

Millennial customers are willing to spend more for products when they come from socially responsible companies. As they become more and more of the customer market, it becomes increasingly important for companies to take a stand. Let's look at some reasons why your brand should take a stand and then some dos and don'ts when it comes to marketing your potentially controversial practices or issues.

The Rise in Socially Responsible Brand Practices

Benefits of taking a Stand

This is the age of the 24-hour new cycle and the perpetuation of scandals and cancel culture — the idea that when a company or public figure does something objectionable their entire brand is cancelled. A vivid example of this is when an old Kevin Hart tweet resurfaced saying homophobic things and he was removed as host of the Oscars. Negative press can be hard to ignore.

Customer Retention

Building up social capital can help during a period of bad press. Customers will give a company the benefit of the doubt if it has gained their trust as a socially responsible company. Having a brand with a history of doing the right thing and demonstrating socially responsible practices gives a company some leeway when it makes mistakes.

Employee Recruitment and Retention

In addition to increasing customer retention, socially responsible practices helps with employee recruitment and retention. The Lewis Institute for Social Innovation at Babson College did a study and found that corporate social responsibility increased production and reduced turnover, both good things for a company. When a company shows it shares the same values as its employees, it is much more likely to create a deeper bond with them and increase their loyalty.

Dove

In 2017, Dove launched an ad campaign called Real Beauty where they highlighted naked women of different sizes, shapes, colors, and ages. The campaign created a public outrage. Many were questioning why, while others found it pointless. The controversy even garnered the attention of major news outlets such as The Atlantic, which titled its article: How Dove Ruined Its Body Image.

However, studies found that most of the outrage was smoke and mirrors and not from Dove's core customers. Moreover, most of Dove’s customers viewed the campaigned positively and said they were likely to buy the product. Dove knew its core consumers and how to market to them. So don’t be disheartened by some bad press if you are confident your core consumers know you and know the message you want to send.

Nike

#BoycottNike was trending in September 2018 following the release of Nike’s ad featuring controversial activist Colin Kaepernick. While the ad never mentions Kaepernick’s activist issues, the ad ends with a shot of Kaepernick and the voice-over saying, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”, alluding to the sacrifice of his NFL career for his activism.

Along with the hashtag, people posted videos of themselves burning their Nike products. However, Nike’s stock told a different story than this seemingly viral outrage, which had an initial bump from the ad and then stayed steady moving forward. “Experts suspect that many of those who are most upset were not core Nike customers in the first place.” Similar to Dove, Nike knew its consumers and therefore its ad had the intended effect for its core base.

The key to Dove and Nike’s successful ads for their customers was the authenticity behind them. But companies can fall short when consumers see through disingenuous marketing. This happened to Pepsi in 2017 after they released an ad featuring Kendall Jenner that showed the model join a protest and hand a police officer a Pepsi. Pepsi pulled the ad the following day after intense criticism.

Many accused Pepsi of being tone deaf and making light of the danger actual protestors go through. One of the biggest complaints was the use of model Kendall Jenner, who never previously spoke about the protest issue or experienced it firsthand. Unlike Kaepernick who has been on the front lines against police brutality, the use of Jenner illustrated the inauthenticity of the ad. Avoid the mistake of inauthenticity and choose a cause that fits well with your company and its values.

How Delta and others took a Stand, even when it hurt financially

Up until this point this we have looked at companies that have taken a stand or used social responsibility to market themselves in a positive light (whether or not they succeeded). However, it is important to talk about some brands that have taken a stand not as a marketing tool but because they believe it was important and right, regardless of the fact that that stance hurt them financially.

Why Should you do Something that Might Make You Take a Hit Financially?

Dick’s Sporting Goods and Delta Airlines took a stand on an issue because it was the right thing to do. These moves gained them a lot of social capital, which as I previously mentioned, helps smooth things over when companies make mistakes. These two companies are great examples of building social capital with their customers. Consumers respond to companies taking a stand.

Delta Airlines

Gun control has become more and more polarizing as the debate continues. Following the shooting in Parkland Florida, both Delta Airlines and Dick’s Sporting Goods took a stand against gun violence. Delta Airlines ended its long-standing relationship with the NRA and stopped giving discounts to NRA members “it lost out on a $40 million tax break from the state of Georgia, where the airline is based.” In response to the loss, the CEO Ed Bastian wrote, “our values are not for sale.”

Dick’s Sporting Goods

Dick’s Sporting Goods, following the Parkland shooting, stopped selling guns to anyone under age 21 and stopped selling assault rifles and high-capacity magazines all together. Dick’s also destroyed all assault rifles currently in stock, totaling 5 million dollars. Then a year later Dick’s stopped selling guns in 125 of its stores, roughly 17% of its total stores around the country. In a tweet following the shooting, Dick’s offered a statement in which it stated “But thoughts and prayers are not enough. We have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us.”

Conclusion

Brands like Nike and Dove have shown that customers care if a company takes a stand they care about. Forbes magazine showed that customers, and especially millennial customers, are willing to spend more with a company with socially responsible practices. But the appearance of inauthenticity is unacceptable to today's consumers. Pepsi showed that customers can see a cash grab. Take the time to learn what your customers care about, look for the match with your company's values, and act accordingly.

So, should your brand take a stand? In short, yes.

A Marketing Strategy Checklist

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Sun, 09 May 2021 02:55:38 GMT

Good Checklists

Research distinguishes good checklists from bad:

You must define a clear pause point at which the checklist is supposed to be used
You must decide whether you want a DO-CONFIRM checklist or a READ-DO checklist. (With a DO-CONFIRM checklist, team members perform their jobs from memory and experience, often separately. But then they stop and pause to run the checklist and confirm that everything that was supposed to be done was done. With a READ-DO checklist, people carry out the tasks as they check them off—more like a recipe.)
The checklist must be short. The rule of thumb is between five and nine items, which is the limit of working memory. Much more than ninety seconds or so and people start “shortcutting,” and steps get missed. So, focus on the critical items.
The wording should be simple and exact and use familiar language in the profession.
Ideally, it should fit on one page, avoid clutter and unnecessary colors, and use upper and lowercase for ease of reading
It must be tested in the real world, and refined until it works consistently.

Developing Strategy is Iterative

A READ-DO checklist is impractical for strategy. It’s my experience that developing a new marketing strategy is a fluid, iterative process that evolves as you examine the interdependent relationships between your customers, your competitors, and PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental) factors. That speaks to a DO-CONFIRM checklist where you proceed through the development process, and then pause briefly before moving into implementation. So, what should be on the short list of critical items?

A Marketing Strategy Checklist

Have you developed a marketing strategy that is customer-focused (rather than product-focused or competitor-focused)?
Can you explain the advantage of your marketing strategy in 50 words or less to your best friend outside the industry (or your spouse or parents)?
Does your marketing strategy minimize your greatest weakness in the market?
Does your marketing strategy leverage your core strength, your so-called
hedgehog concept?
Is your marketing strategy in accord with major trends from your PESTLE analysis?
Do you know the specific practices needed to implement this marketing strategy?
Have you developed a marketing strategy that inspires you and your team?

We have helped clients think through such questions for years, believing it's an especially important process for mission-driven organizations. Could the formal structure of a marketing strategy checklist add to your process?

How To Judge A Successful Marketing Campaign

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Sun, 09 May 2021 02:46:49 GMT

Last week in a client meeting I was asked a string of marketing questions that I have been asked many times before.

“Is that a good open rate, a good click-through rate?”

“How much do others spend on digital advertising?”

“How are we doing compared to your other clients?”

What’s behind these questions are deeper issues—questions that everyone who works in a mission-driven organization wrestles with from time to time—“Are our results sweet or just so-so?” “Are we doing a good job?” Or more formally, how do we benchmark our marketing performance?

How do you benchmark marketing performance for mission-driven organizations?

Even when you know exactly where you want to go because you are marketing with SMART goals and objectives, this can be a difficult question to answer. One reason is that often there is little relevant marketing benchmark data available for you to compare with your organization, its mission, and its key performance indicators, or KPIs.

Is it relevant to compare the size of the digital advertising budget of a small nonprofit with that of a large, well-endowed, national nonprofit?
What is the value of comparing the click-through rate for an email from an established consumer product company with that of a business-to-business startup company?
What is an appropriate benchmark for a KPI that is critical to your mission?

What is a KPI?

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measure for evaluating how well an organization is achieving its stated goals and objectives. Ideally, these are the agreed-upon metrics you identified for each of the SMART objectives in your marketing plan. Yet even if you are dutifully collecting, recording, and reporting your marketing metrics regularly, you may lack the context to evaluate how well you are performing. That’s where benchmarks come in.

The relationship between KPIs and benchmarks

Benchmarks help you establish the appropriate targets and performance thresholds for your KPIs so you know if you are on track or not.

For example, if your company has a goal of providing stellar customer service, you might decide to use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) as your Key Performance Indicator. NPS is a commonly used metric based on answers to the question ‘How likely are you to recommend our service / product to a friend?’ You would collect benchmarks of NPS scores of your competitors as well as your industry to set the right target and put your performance into perspective. There are several websites that offer NPS benchmark scores for multiple industries.

In addition to industry, you may decide you need to consider organization size and country for meaningful context. HubSpot, for example, recently shared the story of its journey to identify the variance it observed in its NPS score based on geographic region.

Your definition of success may look different from anyone else’s, so sometimes tracking the default KPIs isn't enough.

Three common types of benchmarks

When searching for standards, remember you are seeking what is often referred to as the 3Rs of good benchmarking: relevant, reliable, and realistic. Here are the three types of benchmarks I hear the most about from clients.

Historical benchmarks

Even the smallest nonprofit will have historical data. Whether you’re looking at average website traffic, social media engagement, or the return on your development emails, historical data provides a starting point for evaluating current performance.

Start with averages from past years’ reports and a simple goal to move up and to the right. You can factor in anomalies you know about budget changes, major donations, and even seasonality to determine when to set more aggressive targets — and when not to.

Using only historical benchmarks can increase your risk of missing major industry or market shifts. Your organization may be seeing a 2-3 percent annual increase in website traffic but what if your competitors are enjoying a 15 percent increase because they have adopted innovative technologies? So, once you’ve got your historical benchmarks established, you can move on to look at competitors and industry groups to see where your performance lands in the wider digital marketing landscape.

Competitive benchmarks

Every organization has competitors (or alternatives to the behavior you are seeking to change), so a benchmark tactic looks directly at your competitors to not only improve your internal operations but also understand your competitors better.

We all want to know where we stand against the competition. An agency specializing in digital marketing or one of several tools can give you data on competitor keywords, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, and overall website performance. These competitor analysis are key to how your local competitors are beating you, or how you are beating them. We can also compare your marketing campaign to other client campaigns to see internal in depth data to see the success of a campaign.

Another risk of competitive benchmarking is the potential for faulty comparisons. If you are a single-product company, benchmarking your website traffic against an established brand that offers a range of products is unrealistic.

Competitive benchmarks offer valuable insights about your market challengers. But they may not be the best points of comparison if you require data that isn’t public or lack “apples-to-apples” competitors.

Industry benchmarks

Industry benchmarks compare performance metrics to the best in the industry from other companies and organizations. Once again though, comparing yourself to others may not be the best benchmarking strategy.

Look at the wide range of Mobile Ad Click-Through Rates within some industries. You need context to know where to place your organization.

Depending on your industry, a valuable source of industry (and sometimes competitor) data may be a specialized trade association or group. Returning to the education category and a private nonprofit boarding school as an example, the National Association of Independent Schools offers DASL (Data Analysis and School Leadership) to help its members benchmark their performance against other comparable education institutions. In general, industry benchmarks are a useful way to judge how your digital marketing efforts are doing. But be sure to examine if you are evaluating yourself against actual peers.

Four Steps to Measure Your Digital Marketing Performance Effectively

Step One

Ask yourself which measures will shift your focus toward. This will vary based on your type of organization and specific objectives, but it’s critical to ensure your marketing metrics and selected benchmarks are directly tied to organizational outcomes — e.g., online visibility, employee recruitment conversions, or marketing-attributed revenue.

Step Two

Once you’ve developed metrics, set up processes for tracking and make sure you have people equipped to properly analyze the data. Be realistic. As a short-staffed client in the government and public sector told me once when we were discussing expanding their digital marketing metrics: “Unless it collects itself, it won’t happen.”

Step Three

Spread the word. If every member of your marketing team (and beyond) understands what the metrics are and why it’s valuable to prioritize them, you are more likely to find motivation to reach your goals will increase.

Step Four

Apply it. Use what you learn on a monthly, quarterly, or at least annual basis to document your successes, refine your strategies and tactics, drop what’s not working, and identify new opportunities for your marketing efforts to advance your mission.

Seven Things A Brand Is Not

archal.rami@ramiconsultinggroup.com (Archal Rami) — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 11:38:31 GMT

Brand and branding are terms you hear used and misused daily in marketing and advertising. Once terms used only by those working in the field or by business people in large corporations, it’s now commonplace to hear in everyday conversations: “My favorite brand is…” or “XYZ has a really good brand.” Perhaps it’s the popularity of Mad Men, or maybe the proliferation of new technologies and media channels, but misuse and confusion about the terms keeps growing. Yet as a business owner or nonprofit manager, you want to understand exactly what you’re paying for when buying a brand property, or branding your product or services. Let’s look at two things a brand is, and seven things a brand is not.

A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the customer, the sum total of the entire customer experience. A brand is what your customers think of you and a reflection of everything you do: the way you send emails, your website, your Tweets, how you describe your business, and the logo on your business cards. It’s a complex mixture of experiences, feelings and personalities that make your customers love your company.

Seven Things a Brand is not

Positioning. A positioning statement defines the mental position a company wants to hold in customers’ minds, in relation to its competitors. A position is often described as the meaningful difference between the brand and its competitors — though the positioning statement itself is rarely made public. It is the touchstone for developing a brand identity, new products, creative copy, and designs for advertising, marketing, and public relations efforts. It is the basis of what we tell people and what we want them to believe from their first exposure. A values-based company strives for performance on its position that consistently matches perception, what is commonly known as ‘showing, not telling,’ or ‘walking the talk.’
Name. A name is the first impression that starts to define and identify the company or product. The name is eventually what you want to be synonymous to “the best” or the “only one” in the minds of customers.
Logo. A logo brings the company to life graphically. A picture is easier to remember than words, so you want a picture to embed in the minds of customers to identify with when they hear your name, see your product or even see a logo that is similar. The logo sets the stage for the corporate identity and the graphic standards by identifying the colors that represent your company. Generally, your identity pieces include a logo, color scheme/graphic standards, and a tagline that all relate to your positioning.
Tagline. A tagline is a short, written expression of your brand’s position or promise to the customer. Not every organization needs or wants a tagline, but you will have a position and a brand in your customers’ minds whether or not you have a tagline.
Business Card, Brochure, Signage, Packaging, Trade Show Booth, etc. These are additional branding tools or extensions of your corporate identity that support your logo, colors and product/service benefits.
Website. A website is where your marketing and advertising efforts reinforce the brand’s informational content with a rich mixture of feelings and experiences. Websites are where your potential customer goes to find out more about what it will be like to deal with you, or where an existing customer goes to experience again the benefits of your brand.
Controlled by Customers. Social media marketing brought a new wave of talk about the customer controlling the brand. If a brand is the sum total of the customer experience — what your customers think of you and a reflection of everything you do — then a brand is a two-way street. Customers influence it, but they cannot control it.

Evaluating Your Options

With clarity on the terms brand and branding, you are in a much better place to evaluate your options. If you are a new organization or startup company, spending everything on a logo design without adequate market research and position planning is unwise. On the other hand, if your organization or company has been around for a while it is even more important to begin a re-positioning or re-branding process with where you are now:

What does the market look like today?
Who are your customers? (In detail.)
How is your brand positioned in the market?
How do your customers describe their experiences with your brand? (In detail.)
Where are the gaps between your brand promise and customer experiences? (Are you implementing flawlessly?)

If you are looking to buy a brand, your investment due diligence will include answering these same questions, among many others. If any of these are potential issues for your business, contact Rami Consulting Group .