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5 Key Elements of a Strong Personal Brand

2/5/2025

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In today’s competitive landscape, a strong personal brand is essential for standing out, whether you’re an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or a professional climbing the corporate ladder. Your personal brand is how you present yourself to the world and how others perceive you. Here are five key elements that create a compelling and influential personal brand.
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1. Authenticity  
Your personal brand should reflect who you genuinely are. Authenticity builds trust and credibility with your audience, whether they’re potential clients, employers, or industry peers. To establish authenticity:
  • Define your core values and mission.
  • Share your story and experiences in a relatable way.
  • Be consistent in your messaging and interactions.
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2. Clarity  
A strong personal brand has a clear and focused message. People should instantly understand what you stand for and what you bring to the table. To achieve clarity:
  • Identify your unique skills and expertise.
  • Craft a concise personal brand statement.
  • Communicate your value proposition effectively across all platforms.
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3. Consistency  
Your brand should be recognizable across all mediums, including social media, your website, and professional networking events. Being consistent reinforces your credibility and keeps you top-of-mind. To maintain consistency:
  • Use a cohesive visual identity, including colors, fonts, and imagery.
  • Align your messaging across different channels.
  • Regularly share content that aligns with your expertise and values.
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4. Visibility  
Even the strongest personal brand won’t make an impact if no one sees it. You need to actively put yourself out there and engage with your audience. To boost visibility:
  • Create and share valuable content on social media and blogs.
  • Speak at industry events or participate in panel discussions.
  • Network strategically with professionals in your field.
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5. Value  
Your brand should offer real value to your audience. Whether through insightful content, useful resources, or industry expertise, adding value positions you as a thought leader. To deliver value:
  • Share practical advice, industry insights, and helpful tips.
  • Offer free resources such as eBooks, webinars, or templates.
  • Engage with your audience by responding to questions and providing solutions.

Final Thoughts  
Building a strong personal brand takes time, but by focusing on authenticity, clarity, consistency, visibility, and value, you can create a lasting impression and open doors to new opportunities. Invest in your brand today, and watch how it transforms your career or business.

What steps are you taking to strengthen your personal brand? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Reasons You Should Text Customers as One of Your Communication Strategies

1/17/2025

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Text messages have a high open rate, often within minutes of receipt. This allows businesses to deliver time-sensitive information, promotions, or updates directly to their customers with a high likelihood of engagement. Text marketing is relatively affordable compared to traditional advertising methods like TV or print media. Small businesses with limited marketing budgets can text customers to reach a large audience without breaking the bank.

Text messages are more likely to be read and responded to compared to emails or social media posts. People tend to check their text messages regularly, making it an effective way to reach your audience. In addition, people are spending more time on their mobile devices, which means you can reach customers on the device they use the most.

Text messages can be personalized with the recipient’s name or other relevant information, making customers feel valued and increasing the likelihood of conversion.

​​The Evolution of Text Messaging in Marketing

Initially, text messaging was mainly utilized for personal communication. However, businesses soon realized their marketing potential and began sending promotional messages to their text customers.

SMS Marketing: SMS marketing has become a popular approach. Businesses send mass text messages with offers, discounts, and updates to their subscribers. The SMS marketing service was the standard in the early stages of text marketing.

Multimedia Messaging (MMS): With the advancement of mobile technology, MMS allowed businesses to send multimedia content like images, videos, and audio along with text messages, making marketing messages more engaging.

Two-Way Communication: Text marketing evolved to allow two-way communication between businesses and customers. This enabled customers to respond to messages, ask questions, or even make purchases directly via text.

Automation and Personalization: Automation tools and chatbots became integral in text marketing. Businesses could schedule messages, segment their audience, and provide personalized recommendations or responses.

Rich Communication Services (RCS): RCS is a more advanced form of text messaging that supports features like interactive buttons, suggested replies, and rich media. It offers a more interactive and visually appealing experience for marketing messages.

Integration with CRM: Text marketing platforms often integrate with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, allowing businesses to streamline their marketing efforts and better track customer interactions.

​



Text Messaging Aspect
Description
Best Practices
Benefits
Personalization
Tailoring messages to individual customers.
Use customer's name and reference past interactions or preferences.
Enhances customer engagement and loyalty.
Timeliness
Sending texts at appropriate times.
Schedule messages during reasonable hours and in response to customer actions.
Increases relevance and reduces intrusion.
Clarity and Brevity
Keeping messages clear and concise.
Ensures messages are easily understood and read.
Promotional Messages
Sending offers and deals via text.
Create exclusive offers for text subscribers and keep promotional content balanced.
Drives sales and rewards customer loyalty.
Feedback Collection
Using texts for customer feedback.
Send short surveys or ask for ratings and reviews via text.
Provides valuable insights and shows customers their opinions matter.
Order Updates
Communicating order and delivery statuses.
Send confirmation, shipping, and delivery updates via text.
Keeps customers informed and improves satisfaction.
Customer Support
Offering support and answering queries.
Provide quick answers to inquiries and offer assistance through text.
Enhances support efficiency and customer convenience.
Opt-In and Opt-Out Options
Respecting customer preferences.
Allow customers to easily opt-in or opt-out of text communications.
Maintains customer trust and complies with regulations.
Segmentation
Grouping customers based on characteristics.
Segment your text messaging lists to target specific customer groups.
Ensures message relevance and effectiveness.
Integration with Other Channels
Combining texts with other communication forms.
Use texts in conjunction with email, social media, and other channels.
Creates a cohesive communication strategy and multi-channel presence.
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Reasons to Use a Text Message Marketing Service

These reasons showcase the benefits of incorporating text message marketing into a small business’s marketing strategy, highlighting its effectiveness in reaching, engaging, and providing personalized experiences to customers while being cost-efficient and measurable.
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​Immediate Reach

Text messages have immediate reach, ensuring that your marketing messages are delivered directly to your audience’s mobile devices, often within minutes.

Higher Customer Engagement

Text message marketing campaigns tend to have higher customer engagement rates compared to other channels, as people are more likely to open and interact with text messages promptly. Text messaging provides an opportunity to maintain a continuous connection with your customers. By using services like a second phone number app, businesses can manage their communication more effectively, keeping professional and personal communication separate. This approach not only streamlines the process but also maintains a level of professionalism.

Personalization Capabilities

Text messages allow for personalization, enabling businesses to address customers by their names and tailor content to individual preferences, enhancing the customer experience.
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Cost Efficiency

Text message marketing is cost-effective, making it accessible to businesses with limited budgets while delivering a high return on investment (ROI).

Broad Reach

SMS marketing has a broad reach since nearly everyone has a mobile phone, making it an effective way to connect with a wide audience regardless of demographics.

Integration into Multi-Channel Marketing

Text messaging can effortlessly integrate into multi-channel marketing strategies, enhancing email, social media, and other channels to form a cohesive and comprehensive marketing approach.
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Measurable Impact

Text message software provides businesses with tools to measure the impact of their campaigns, allowing for data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement of marketing strategies.

Convenience for Customers

Text messaging is convenient for customers, as they can quickly receive and respond to messages on their mobile devices, making it easy for them to engage with your business.
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Developing an Effective Text Message Marketing Strategy

By following the best practices we describe below and by incorporating these key elements into your text marketing campaigns, you can increase the effectiveness of your messaging. You can achieve your marketing goals while maintaining a positive relationship with your customers.

Planning and execution are key. You can start by choosing a text message marketing provider. When developing a text message marketing strategy, it’s crucial to consider the content and timing of your messages. For instance, text reminders for appointments can be an effective way to reduce no-shows and maintain client engagement. Such timely and practical messages are appreciated by customers for their convenience.

Text Marketing as Part of a Larger Strategy

Incorporating text messaging into a broader digital marketing strategy is critical. For instance, integrating it with other marketing efforts like social media can amplify its impact. By understanding the benefits of a virtual assistant, businesses can effectively manage these integrated marketing efforts, ensuring consistency and efficiency across all channels.

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Measuring Success in Text Marketing

Understanding the effectiveness of your text marketing campaign is essential. This is where analyzing customer retention statistics becomes vital. By tracking how well your text marketing strategies are retaining customers, you can adjust your approach to improve engagement and loyalty.
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Choosing the Right Text Marketing Provider

When searching for text message marketing services, seek those that provide essential features like mass messaging, automation, personalization, and reporting. Also, check if they support SMS, MMS, or RCS messaging.
  • Ease of Use: Ensure the platform used in the text message marketing software is user-friendly and doesn’t require extensive technical expertise to set up and manage.
  • Pricing: Compare pricing plans and determine if they fit within your budget. Some providers offer pay-as-you-go plans, while others have monthly subscriptions.
  • Compliance: Verify that the provider adheres to applicable regulations, including the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), to prevent legal complications.
  • Integration: Check if the platform can integrate with your existing CRM or other marketing tools to streamline your operations.
  • Customer Support: Evaluate the provider’s customer support options, as you may need assistance or guidance while using the platform.
  • Delivery and Reporting: Assess the platform’s delivery rates and reporting capabilities to track the success of your campaigns.
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Adhering to Regulations: The Telephone Consumer Protection Act

The TCPA is a federal law in the United States that restricts telemarketing calls, including text messages, to mobile phones. It requires businesses to obtain express written consent from consumers before sending marketing text messages. Violating the TCPA can result in significant fines, so it’s essential for businesses to be aware of and compliant with its regulations when using text message marketing.
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The Future of Marketing Text Messages

Text messaging in marketing has evolved from simple SMS promotions to a sophisticated and personalized communication channel that leverages advanced features and integrates with broader marketing strategies to engage customers effectively.
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FAQs: Text Customers

What is the Cost of a Text Message Marketing Platform?

The cost of a text message marketing platform can vary widely depending on several factors:
  • Volume: Many providers offer tiered pricing based on the number of messages you plan to send each month.
  • Features: The price may also depend on the features you need. Basic plans may be more affordable, while advanced features like automation and personalization could come with higher costs.
  • Subscription vs. Pay-As-You-Go: Some providers offer subscription plans with a monthly fee, while others allow you to pay as you go, purchasing message credits as needed.
  • Additional Services: Some providers may charge extra for services like dedicated shortcodes or toll-free numbers.
  • Customization: Solutions designed for enterprises that include custom features are likely to be more expensive than standard plans.

​To get an accurate estimate of the cost, you should reach out to different providers, request quotes, and compare their pricing structures based on your specific needs and expected usage. Keep in mind that costs can also vary by region and country due to different regulations and market conditions.


Best Practices for Crafting Effective Text Marketing Messages?

Text messages have character limits, so it’s essential to be concise and to the point. Prioritize the most important information.
  1. Personalization: Address recipients by their name and tailor the message to their preferences or past interactions with your business.
  2. Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Ensure that your CTA is clear and persuasive, guiding recipients on the desired action you want them to take, such as clicking a link, making a purchase, or visiting your store.
  3. Timing Matters: It’s important to send messages at suitable times to prevent inconveniencing recipients. Keep in mind the time zones and the schedule of the recipient.
  4. Provide Value: Offer something valuable to the recipient, such as exclusive discounts, promotions, or relevant updates.
  5. Use Urgency: Create a sense of urgency by adding phrases like “limited time offer” or “act now” to encourage immediate action.
  6. Opt-Out Option: Include an opt-out option in compliance with regulations, allowing recipients to unsubscribe easily.
  7. Avoid Abbreviations and Jargon: Ensure that you use correct grammar and refrain from using too many abbreviations or specialized jargon that could confuse text customers.
  8. Test and Optimize: A/B tests different message variations to determine what resonates best with your audience and continually optimize your approach.

What Are the Key Elements of a Successful Text Message Marketing Campaign?
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The key step is to segment your audience according to demographics, behaviors, or preferences, allowing you to send targeted messages to specific groups. After that, focus on the details:
  1. Compliance: Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, such as the TCPA, to avoid legal issues and maintain trust with customers.
  2. Timing: Send messages at the right times to maximize open and response rates, taking into account recipient preferences and time zones.
  3. Clear Goals: Define clear campaign objectives, whether it’s driving sales, increasing brand awareness, or promoting an event.
  4. Measurement and Analytics: Use text message software to track the performance of your campaigns, including open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
  5. Integration: Integrate text marketing into your overall marketing strategy, coordinating it with other channels for a cohesive approach.
  6. Consistency: Maintain consistency in your messaging, branding, and timing to build trust and recognition among your audience.
  7. Engagement: Encourage two-way communication by allowing recipients to respond to messages, ask questions, or provide feedback.
  8. Feedback and Iteration: Gather feedback from recipients and use it to improve future campaigns. Continuously refine your messaging and approach based on results.
  9. Value-Centric Content: Provide value to recipients in every message, whether through offers, useful information, or personalized recommendations



​Source: https://smallbiztrends.com/​
Image Credit: Envato Elements

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How Effective Is Influencer Marketing?

1/15/2025

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In the past decade, influencer marketing has exploded in popularity. Everywhere you look, there are influencers promoting products and services for brands. The worldwide influencer market is now worth over $20 billion, more than tripling in value since 2019. Clearly, brands are increasingly investing in this marketing channel, but does it really work? How effective is influencer marketing exactly?

If you’re considering influencer marketing but not sure whether it’s the right choice for your brand, use this guide to make a more informed decision. Let’s break down the ins and outs of influencer marketing, including how it works, the benefits, and some strategies for getting the most out of this marketing channel. 

What is influencer marketing, and how does it work?

Influencer marketing is when brands partner with influencers to promote their products or services. Typically, “influencer” refers to social media content creators with dedicated audiences, but influencer marketing can also include notable bloggers, celebrities, and industry leaders. 

The key is that influencers have established credibility with their audiences, who care what they have to say. By partnering with influencers, brands can tap into that relationship for effective marketing campaigns. 

These campaigns typically start with brands selecting influencer partners. Then, once the brand has at least one influencer partner, they agree on what the influencer will post about the brand and when. Influencer marketing campaigns can be one-off agreements in which the influencer shares a single photo post about the brand or long-term partnerships with several sponsored posts. The brand then tracks the results of the campaign to measure its impact. 
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In this sponsored Instagram post, model and influencer Olivia Culpo is promoting a lip oil from Clarins as part of an influencer marketing campaign. Image source: Instagram
Benefits of working with an influencer

Influencer marketing is unique among digital marketing strategies in that brands need to form close working relationships with the influencers who participate in their campaigns. When you choose the right influencers, these campaigns can be incredibly effective. Some of the benefits of influencer marketing include:

Brand awareness and reach

When you work with an influencer, you get your brand in front of their entire audience. The thousands or even millions of people who follow your influencer partners will see the promotional content they post about your brand and hopefully want to learn more. Compared to organic social media marketing, influencer marketing immediately boosts your reach. 

Focused and relevant audience

Marketing campaigns geared toward specific audiences are generally much more impactful than broad campaigns that go out to wide, unfocused groups. Just because you’re marketing to many customers doesn’t necessarily mean that many of them will engage with your campaign. 

In influencer marketing campaigns, the audience is made up of the influencer partners’ followers. If you select influencers who share content related to your industry or topics of interest to your customers, your campaign audience will be much more focused. 

Choose influencers with followers who are already likely to be intrigued by your brand and your products or services. That way, the campaign has a much higher chance of success. 

Trust

One of the challenges of traditional digital advertising is getting customers to care about and trust your promotional content. After all, every brand’s ads say the products or services are great, and customers know that’s not always true. Why should they trust your ads? 

Influencer marketing neatly skirts this problem because the influencer has opinions the audience regularly trusts. In fact, nearly 70% of customers say they trust recommendations from influencers over information directly from brands. 

The influencers’ content about your brand essentially serves as word-of-mouth marketing. Think about it like a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. Since the audience already trusts the influencer, they’re much more receptive to sponsored content about your brand. 

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Running influencer marketing campaigns can also help with your search optimization efforts. When your influencer partners post about your brand, they will typically also link to pages on your website, like product pages or specific landing pages. The influencer’s followers who are interested in your brand will click on the links, driving traffic to your website.  

These quality backlinks can help your SEO efforts by making your website seem more authoritative. Search engines typically rank websites with high-quality backlinks higher in the search results, so influencer marketing can help make your brand more visible to customers searching online. 

Cost-effectiveness 

One of the most important metrics to consider before choosing any new marketing channel is its cost-effectiveness. Marketing budgets are limited, so you have to carefully select the channels you invest in.

Luckily, influencer marketing offers a strong return on investment, making it an appealing option for marketers trying to get the most out of their marketing budgets. Over 80% of brands find influencer marketing effective, with Instagram offering the highest return on investment (ROI) for influencer campaigns. 

Understanding influencer marketing effectiveness

The effectiveness of influencer marketing depends on how you set up your campaign. Understanding your options and how influencer marketing works will help you create the most effective campaigns possible. 

Types of influencers

There are many types of influencers, both on and off social media. They include:
  • Celebrities: Famous people promoting products or services for brands is nothing new. Now, in addition to traditional sponsorships in commercials or print ads, celebrities can also work as influencers on social media by posting about brand partners. They have built-in audiences and recognizability from their work in their original fields, like acting, singing, or sports.  
  • Mega and macro-influencers: These influencers typically gain popularity on social media posting about a specific niche, like travel, gaming, or lifestyle content. Macro-influencers have between 100,0000 and 1 million followers, and mega-influencers have over 1 million followers. 
  • Micro-influencers: Micro-influencers have smaller audiences, between 10,000 and 100,000 followers on social media. 
  • Experts and industry leaders: People who establish themselves as experts or authorities in their field also gain audiences and can act as influencer partners for brands. They may have their own websites, newsletters, or other digital content where they can promote your products or services. 
  • Bloggers: Bloggers are people who post primarily written content on their websites. They can write about any topic, from food and recipes to fashion or fitness. 
  • Video content creators: These influencers share video content rather than text or image posts. Popular platforms for video content creators include YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. 

How and why influencer marketing works

When people discuss influencer marketing, they’re generally referring to paid influencer marketing. In those campaigns, you directly pay influencers to post about your brand according to the terms of your agreement.

There’s also earned influencer marketing, which is when influencers talk positively about your products or services without any financial incentive. They’re just promoting your brand because they genuinely like it and want their followers to know. Both types of influencer marketing should help your brand grow — you just have less control over earned influencer marketing. 

Different social media platforms function differently, so make sure you tailor your influencer marketing strategy to the platform your influencers use. For example, audiences are more receptive to longer, more in-depth video content on YouTube than on Instagram. 

Challenges and limitations in influencer marketing

Influencer marketing isn’t without its challenges. There are some bots and scam influencers online trying to steal money from companies interested in influencer marketing. They look good on the surface but don’t actually have any intention of posting about your brand once you pay them. The more you get to know potential influencer partners, the safer you will be from these scams. 

If you partner with an influencer who behaves poorly, it could hurt your brand’s reputation. They reflect on you, so you need to choose carefully. 

It’s also tricky to measure true engagement in influencer marketing campaigns. For example, someone might see your promotional posts and, as a result, buy one of your products in-store. That’s a successful sale from your campaign, but you have no way to effectively measure those types of conversions. 

How to connect with the right influencers

Choosing the right influencers is a key factor determining the success of your campaigns. To make sure you find the ideal influencers for your brand, keep these tips in mind. 

Identify your goals and objectives

Step one in any marketing campaign, including influencer campaigns, should be setting your goals and objectives. You need to know what exactly you want to accomplish with your campaign before you can start making any decisions. 

Examples of goals you might have for your influencer campaigns include:
  • Increasing brand awareness
  • Boosting customer engagement 
  • Driving web traffic
  • Enhancing your SEO efforts
  • Building trust with your audience
  • Increasing conversions and sales

Once you set your goals, you can choose influencers with those goals in mind. For example, if your goal is to drive web traffic, you should select influencers on platforms where they can add clickable links to their posts about your brand.  

Know your audience
You also need to understand whom you’re trying to reach with your influencer campaigns. Who is your target audience? What do they like, dislike, and engage with online? 

Use what you know about your target audience to find influencers who appeal to them. The best influencer partners for your brand are those whose audiences overlap significantly with your target customers. 

Know your influencer

Audiences will associate your influencer partners with your brand, especially in long-term partnerships, so it’s important to choose carefully. You need to make sure the influencers you select are trustworthy and reliable representatives of your brand.
 
Digging into the influencers’ content also helps you craft a more personalized outreach message. Influencers often get many brand partnership proposals, so personalizing your message and showing you’re actually familiar with their content can help your brand stand out. It’s a good foundation for a strong influencer-brand partnership. 

Consider engagement

Many brands just getting into influencer marketing are drawn to the most popular influencers with millions of followers. While partnering with these influencers does provide incredible reach for your brand, it’s not necessarily more effective than partnering with smaller influencers. For small and medium business owners, working with nano or micro-influencers is more budget-friendly and produces much higher engagement rates, making them appealing partners for brands. These influencers’ followers are more likely to like, share, and comment on their posts compared to mega-influencers. 

Leveraging technology to optimize influencer marketing

Running an influencer marketing campaign involves a lot of steps, from finding influencers and reaching out to them to designing your campaign and monitoring the results. Using social media marketing tools can make that process much easier. 

For example, there are online tools that suggest suitable influencers after you input your desired qualities. You can even find AI-driven influencer selection and performance prediction tools. 

There are tools dedicated to managing and analyzing campaigns in each of the digital marketing channels you may want to use, including: 
  • Facebook
  • Email marketing
  • Instagram
  • Twitter/X
  • BlueSky
  • TikTok

Within an influencer management tool, you can set up workflows to monitor each step of your campaigns, from outreach to payment. You can even create automated follow-ups, triggers, and notifications so you always know what’s going on without additional manual work. 

Then, you may also want to use advanced tracking and analytics tools to get the full picture of your campaign results. They can monitor and display key metrics like engagement, reach, and conversions from your sponsored posts. 

Integrate influencer marketing with your existing marketing strategy

Influencer marketing can easily fit in with the rest of your digital marketing efforts to create multi-channel marketing campaigns. As you’re getting started, focus on determining your target audience, setting goals, and finding the right influencers. Use digital marketing software to monitor each stage of your campaigns and analyze your results. 

To simplify your social media marketing, use Constant Contact to integrate your accounts and schedule your posts in advance. You’ll be able to prepare content, respond to posts, and manage social media ad campaigns — all from one platform, saving you time and effort.

​


Source: https://www.constantcontact.com/
Image Credit: Constant Contact

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8 Ways Your Brand is Failing Your Customers and Your Growth

1/6/2025

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Sales are essential for any business, but the constant pressure on sales teams to find new customers and sell more products fails to recognize an even greater revenue driver. While acquiring new customers, increasing sales, and upselling are important, believing that these are the sole avenues for revenue growth is misguided. This mentality can be observed in both startups and large corporations. So, why is this narrow focus on acquiring new customers a concern, and what can be done to change this thinking?

Most entrepreneurs recognize that their business must seek to solve a problem or fill a void in their markets. Through launch and funding rounds, as founders prepare and present their pitch decks outlining their paths to revenue, detailed emphasis is placed on building a customer base and continuing to grow that base. However, not enough time is spent on the journey their potential customers will take between the first measure of awareness and making a purchase.

How your brand is failing your customers

A customer's journey with a brand begins with the first brand awareness, considering purchasing from that brand, the actual purchase and then moving into loyalty and advocacy of that brand. Building a customer journey map and having a strong understanding of the most fundamental touchpoints in a customer's journey is vital. Without this, too many missed opportunities will impact sales and customer loyalty over time.

The most fundamental touchpoints in mapping the customer journey, including understanding why customers are buying, their negative experiences and how positive experiences can turn customers into advocates, are some of the most valuable insights a business must research and implement.

Without an actual customer journey strategy adequately developed and implemented, it is just a matter of time before failure within the brand will occur. What does this failure start to look like?
​
Below are eight common signs of customer journey failure:

1. A brand without an actual strategy for awareness

​A straightforward way to tell if your company has no strategy for awareness is if it's too dependent on its sales team without first building an awareness campaign and key messaging strategy. All the pressure to create a customer base is placed on sales without the apparatus to build awareness efforts continuously.

2. Awareness is not built around the right messaging

Your customer's problems, needs and/or demands are not being met. No or few efforts are placed around the problems solved, solutions offered or experiences that make a difference. Instead, messaging is all about product features and benefits.

3. The reason to purchase your product is not compelling enough

Moving from awareness to consideration, there is not enough of a compelling reason to continue to purchase. Two versions of this can occur: either no purchase is made at all, or a single purchase is made, and no value is defined in the purchase process to continue driving continued purchases. Additionally, there may not be any supporting messaging to push for continued purchases.

4. The path to purchase is too complex and has too many barriers

Unfortunately, complicated purchasing processes are too common. From too many layers, too many steps within those layers, confusion on delivery and end result, timelines, the list goes on. Without a clear, concise, and simplistic purchase experience, too much confusion can arise, reducing the value of the purchase.

5. The purchasing process underdelivers, underpromises, or does not align with messaging

The most significant sign of this is not meeting expectations, especially when expectations were set by brand messaging. If the process presents surprises, is inconsistent, or does not take feedback on the purchasing process seriously, this part of the process can derail the entire experience.

6. The brand has no clear incentive process to drive brand loyalty continuously

It is not enough just to drive repeated customer loyalty. If no campaign is created to consistently tell the loyalty stories, additional awareness will not be created. Further, keeping loyalty is in jeopardy without clear incentives.

7. Not having a thorough strategy review every quarter of brand advocacy

Too many businesses miss out on the benefits of a strategy review. Conducted correctly, a purposeful quarterly review will help determine market shifts and changes needed to build awareness, ensuring the other steps are seamless and build upon one another.

8. Direct the brand advocacy efforts to ensure it is being heard

Too often, advocacy messaging is missed and not presented consistently enough to make an impact.

By noticing customer journey failure early, brands can realign (or reassess) their customer journey strategy and ensure they are not failing themselves and their customer base. By working through an honest evaluation of the brand and competitive offerings in the market, a unique differentiator, compelling key messages, and a robust and consistent process of driving awareness to purchase and repurchase can be built and streamlined. With a continuous strategy review, customer journey success is maintained and scaled.



​Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
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Photos from La Grande Oregon Economic Development, digitalcreators.ch, wuestenigel, focusonmore.com
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