If someone gave you the task of developing a brand from the ground up, where would you start? It can be fun to think about colors and fonts. Catchy slogans. Signage. It'd be tempting to start there. But those are not brand fundamentals.
Like most things in life, though, you must first begin with values and mindset! What's important to your organization – and even more importantly – what's important to your desired customer?
Once you’ve figured out the very heartbeat of your customer, your capabilities as a business, and what value you can offer customers, your brand will naturally begin to emerge.
To really nail this development process, we recommend building target personas that you write out, visualize, and even print out and hang up in your office if you want. Gather all the information you can about your target customer. Dig deep into their daily life. Find our how their timeline intersects with yours. This puts you in a great spot to map out your buyer’s journey and position yourself so that your brand's language, themes, and visuals express exactly that.
The reason we recommend this process is because of a major shift that happened not that long ago (in light of the history of time)
"The internet flipped the script!" –Zach Nelson
The digital age turned sales and marketing on its head. It was no longer as effective for a company to buy airtime that forced consumers to receive information about that brand. It became more important to entice consumers to actively subscribe to the branded content you offered them.
We believe this shift was a positive one. It means smaller businesses could actually get in the game. While they couldn't afford a Super Bowl commercial, they could build a community on Facebook or find new leads by earning trust through valuable email content or blog content. Today, the buyer controls marketing. They should determine what we, as business leaders, do with our sales and marketing.
So, whether you're branding a new business or figuring out you need to rebrand, this SquadTalks episode gets down to the brand fundamentals.
Also, our special guest, Zach eats, sleeps, and breaths marketing. We were honored to have him and believe his thoughts are worth your time. Let us know what you think of the episode. And if you have questions about branding, you can send them to us here.
Watch the full episode below.
Sit down and sip with the New SquadTalks Series! We recently kicked off a new series of SquadTalks over Coffee discussing brand guidelines.
If you haven’t watched the first episode, take a coffee break now with Chief Storyteller, Bryce Raley; and Media Designer, Taylor Bieschke, as they discuss branding being foundational to your marketing and the longevity of your business.
We also take you through a walk through our own branding history. Before we became The Marketing Squad, we were known as The Content Squad.
In order to expand our reach and the services we were known for, we decided to rebrand which included a new name in 2016.
Over the years, we’ve also defined and refined the look and feel of the brand with color, typography, imagery, and key messages. Feeling stronger than ever about a brand, we recently created a Brand Guidebook (or brand bible, if you will) It’s extremely useful for aligning all our team members and that we do with our brand guidelines. We’d love to share more about this asset with you.
Bryce and Taylor cover ways to honor your brand and how to use brand standards to grow your business by defining and amplifying it to your audience. Take note of a few points in the idle of the video:
Brand guidelines are extremely helpful to any brand, whether it be a start-up or an established company. The key to a strong brand is consistency.
Remember, every individual of a company is a representation of your brand. Also remember that every time someone visits your website, meets a team member, or sees a post or email from your company, they’re having an experience with your business. How do you want them to feel? What will they remember about you? The more intentionally you answer these questions the more likely your brand will stick with people for years to come.
Be sure to watch the video for the full discussion on this important topic!
If you're like us and you transitioned most (or all) of your business to working remotely at home for several months in 2020, we can relate to your unique experiences!
Like you, some of our team has had to feed the kids or hold a baby on their knee while answering emails. We've tried to minimize the sound of barking dogs. We've tried the kitchen table, the couch, the back porch, or rearranging our "at-home" desks, all in the attempt to be as productive as we can in spite of upheaval.
We also can't fail to mention the opportunities a pandemic has offered us personally and as a business. If you've followed us on social media, you may have seen our content about turning #obstaclesintoopportunities or our photos of different remote work scenarios.
Also, because we've been through a pandemic and went months without sitting inside a restaurant, we all need to have a little fun! Whether we like it or not, remote work may become a regular option for some businesses for the foreseeable future, especially in certain parts of the world.
So, why don't we make the best of it? For your viewing pleasure, we've shared 5 unique ways we've worked remotely and advanced in our work. We hope you can benefit from these examples!
Whether you've missed the opportunity to host sales discussions over a fresh cup of coffee from your favorite coffee hub, or you're a service business that's had to temporarily halt some of your services, you might find yourself with more free time than ever before. That's why working remotely is the perfect time to hone your skills through personal development - whether that's via reading, webinars, or online courses.
And, while we couldn't travel to a tropical resort, we could at least make our home a little more relaxing with a nice dinner on the back patio and even an inflatable hot tub. Our VP of Marketing, Alea, snapped a photo of the marketing training she did from her hot tub!
It doesn't matter if you're dodging the pandemic from home or tackling it head-on, your goal is still the same before, during, and after this global issue. You have a business you're passionate about and you need that business to survive and remain strong and relevant to your target customers. We can confidently say that you can still grow your business and connect with customers during a pandemic...and you can do all this from a comfy chair with a sweet dog beside you!
Right now, you must be relevant, genuine, and clearly offering a solution to a specific problem. We believe you can do this, even with limitations such as social distancing. You're an entrepreneur, after all.
One of the best things many of our team members have done during this time is set aside windows of time for meetings, trainings, and "heads-down" work on special projects, as well as time AWAY from the screen. It's never been more important to keep a healthy routine – which includes making time for mental breaks and getting active. If you're like Lauren, our Director of Partner Marketing, you didn't let a closed gym keep you from exercise. In fact, unless your office has a large gym with a shower, working remotely means not being afraid to sweat mid-day for fear of stinking up the office! We believe it can make you more productive and creative if you take this time!
Working from home means multi-tasking more than usual, but here are a few tips on that:
1. Set aside time for checking emails so you're not a slave to your inbox.
2. If you have to manage pets or children while you work, try to batch meal times or other things they need with activities you can do at that same time. This might mean listening to videos or messages while the children are eating. Or, you could get physical exercise during the kids' outdoor playtime which also offers you fresh air and sunshine. Two birds, one stone!
3. Most people can multi-task, but not for long periods of time until it wears on you. So, this is where the mental breaks and quieter moments will help renew your mind so you can get back to the grind once again.
We also align ourselves with a lot of the ideas created by Hubspot. Here are several free resources on the topic of working remotely.
This pandemic is also about grace and understanding. If the dog barks or the toddler makes an appearance in the Zoom call, it's not the end of the world. You're doing the best you can! Hopefully, this pandemic reminds you that some of those meetings are far less important and the health of your family – and time spent with them – is a gift.
Let's appreciate our ability to work from a patio or a barn! Twenty years ago that would not have been the case for many businesses. It's the best of both worlds. We can make sales calls while appreciating a nice view. That's not something to dread – embrace it!
Use the tools you have around you (iPhones can do a lot!) to have a face and heart behind your business. Be active on LinkedIn, Facebook, and email as well as other channels, because you have to stay connected with your target audience. There are so many ways to expand the reach of your business – even now. That could be through video chat or sending one of your prospects a lunch delivery or something in the mail!
Improve how you write and speak about your product or service offerings. Dust off your email communication if you've not used it effectively for sales and marketing. Try video, if you haven't before!
Telling a story through video can be unbelievably powerful. Does it have to be perfect? Absolutely not, but it needs to be clear and genuine. When someone watches you talk about what you do and your "why," it demonstrates empathy and authority. It can show your customer that you relate with their problem and that you have a solution for it.
Our hope is to help you bootstrap your business this season, finding ways to turn obstacles into opportunities. From using video for business, educating yourself about sales and marketing, or strengthening your presence online, we can help. What's holding you back?!
Just short of 10 years ago, the world of marketing shifted before our very eyes.
Hubspot introduced the concept of "inbound marketing" and inspired a change of course for our business, providing us with an exciting new vision for our partners.
As a team, we love to learn, to stay atop of where the industry is headed, and to ultimately provide our clients with the resources and materials they need to win. That’s why it’s so important and exciting for us when we find resources that allow us to tell stories and grow businesses more effectively and deliver the best results possible, time and time again. Hubspot's inbound marketing methodology was – and still is today – just that.
Because of this, we were honored to become a Hubspot Gold Partner in 2012, an honor we still hold!
Around the same time, we discovered the benefits of Studio Press – where we could create a customized WordPress theme for our clients. This led us to become digital marketing and inbound methodology gurus for our clients.
Our history with these companies put us in on the ground floor of two major players in the world of digital marketing – which was compounded when Studio Press teamed up with WP Engine, who we’ve used for several years to host our sites!
Now, we’re excited to share a new development in the world of Hubspot, WP Engine, and Studio Press...
A few weeks ago, Hubspot announced a unique partnership with WP Engine.
This partnership means the marriage of one of our favorite marketing automation tools and CRMs (Hubspot) and our favorite CMS (WP Engine), resulting in an affordable, simple, efficient, and consumer-friendly lead capture and contact management integration!
As I detailed above, we’ve been utilizing the capabilities of Hubspot, Studio Press, and WP Engine individually for several years now and are excited to see how this new partnership will help our clients win like never before.
It also uniquely positions us to provide expert knowledge and experience with these programs for our partners and website clients.
Hubspot’s goal was to align with WP Engine to help turn WordPress websites into customer-focused growth engines.
Hubspot has had a WordPress plugin available for a few years now, but this partnership provides an exclusive plugin for Studio Press themes and gives these theme users automatically integrated (and free!) Hubspot tools (more than ever before).
These include:
This means that Hubspot is able to provide more tools with fewer plugins, fewer opportunities for coding errors or conflicts, and a more centralized source of customer and prospect data.
The reason WP Engine is the perfect partner for this integration is that it is one of the top leaders in SMB WordPress hosting. There’s a reason we chose to utilize WP Engine several years ago!
Though Hubspot offers its own CMS that works seamlessly with all of its tools, WordPress hosts roughly 34% of all websites. This unique partnership simply makes it possible to provide better service and results to customers who utilize WP Engine AND Hubspot.
By making all these tools available to users through this unique partnership, Hubspot and WP Engine are giving users a chance to simplify their websites and create a more streamlined approach to lead generation and nurturing.
This won’t have a huge effect on our process because we’ve been utilizing all of these programs and tools for years!
Hubspot and WP Engine's partnership simply allows us to continue utilizing these tools in order to better tell our partners’ stories and grow their businesses.
That’s our mission!
If you’re utilizing any or all of these programs (WP Engine, Studio Press, and/or Hubspot), we can help. We have nearly 10 years of experience with Hubspot, WordPress, and Studio Press and nearly 5 years of experience with WP Engine.
If you’re interested in taking advantage of this new partnership, but don’t know where to start, we’ll review your website for free and provide you with a detailed report to determine the health of your website.
Or just grab coffee with us. We’d love to meet you, talk with you, and discuss how you could better utilize or implement Hubspot and WP Engine’s partnership to generate leads!
At the start of each new year, we take time as a business to reflect on the past year and all of its wins and shortfalls. Naturally, each year we face new challenges that stretch and sharpen us as a business. At the same time, we are always thankful to look back at the graphs and continue to see year-over-year growth, even when some years the growth seems incremental.
As we look back on 2018, we can't help but be proud of everything we accomplished as a team. When we started 2018, we were coming out of one of the slowest years of growth in The Squad's history. But 2017 had also been an integral year for the development of our leadership, the development of our Core Values, and the upgrade of our workspace. So we kicked-off 2018 by setting some strategic, yet audacious goals and buckled up for the challenges ahead.
And wow - 2018 did not disappoint. In the whirlwind year, we made leaps and bounds, nearly doubling our team in size, plowing through goals before Fall even came around, and giving back to the community like never before.
It was a monumental year here at The Squad! To capture all of the gains we made, we rounded-up all the records, stats, and fun facts in an infographic that you should really check out below. Here are some of the highlights:
The list - literally - goes on. There are so many more exciting wins from 2018 that you should just check out the infographic for yourself.
We hope these stats have got you thinking about all of the things you accomplished in 2018. Just picture everyone at The Squad putting on their party hats and pulling out the noisemakers to celebrate with you!
As we head into 2019, we're excited for everything this next year holds. It won't be without its challenges and setbacks, but we're on a path for continued growth. Our team has already grown by 2 and we know new team members are in our future.
We are incredibly thankful for all of the clients, partners, vendors, and supporters who helped make our growth possible in 2018 and who are headed into 2019 with us! There are exciting times ahead!
For those who weren't a part of our story in 2018 - whether you've been watching us from a distance or you've only recently come to know of The Squad - we'd love to hear about your 2018 story and where you're headed in 2019.
If you're looking for a new workplace to call home and you've got the talent and drive to be another Passionate Storyteller, Creative Problem Solver, Strategic Doer, and Servant Leader on our team, then drop us your resumé, tell us your story, and share some of your aspirations.
If you're a business owner with your sights set on growth in 2019 and beyond, then it's time we talk. We want to hear about your business development goals for 2019! Our team is dedicated to telling your story to grow your business by taking a long-term strategic approach to your marketing. We want to be there to help you achieve your goals this quarter, this year, and for the next 10 years. Let us buy you coffee and we'll talk about how your goals and our team can make an unstoppable pair.
Summer is in full-swing, so you know what that means - interns! As the school year wraps-up, students looking for some hands-on experience (and a little college credit) put on their shiniest shoes and head out to local businesses across the country.
This summer, The Squad has an intern of our very own! Brayden Ward has joined our team for the summer to learn all things digital marketing and help out in the SEO, keyword research, and social media worlds among other things.
There are real world benefits to hiring interns, beyond simply helping you get more work done (though we'll be the first to say that that is a huge benefit as we've grown).
New faces bring a new perspective to the office environment. Inquisitive minds lend themselves to seeing the world through a broader lens. That enhanced perspective gives us an opportunity to see our mission statement and culture in a renewed way. There is a freshness in the office when you see people experience what may be their first work experience.
We can easily get stuck in our day to day routines, but training a new person opens our eyes to how things might be improved upon. What better way to evaluate training methodology than applying it to a real situation?
Of course, there is also the cost factor associated with bringing interns on board. Interns are very cost effective compared to traditional job placements. Plus, the trade of work for college credit is an equitable deal for both parties. That new addition can be tasked to focus on labor intensive projects that don’t require a more seasoned team member. That frees up your team to do more of what you hired them for in the first place.
Your intern is most likely going to be the most junior in the office in terms of age. Through socials channels, networking, and good old fashioned conversations, your intern can champion your brand to a whole new generation of consumers who may never have know about you or your business. All from a first-person perspective.
In addition to the benefits for the company, it is also a unique opportunity for the individual intern. As a student you are able to learn valuable material, however, working as an intern in an office and putting that knowledge into action brings work to life.
Real-world application and experience is often missing when students finish college, and it takes students longer to adapt to the functions of an office setting. Serving as an intern allows the student to develop office experience. That office experience may include communicating with clients or getting input in meetings with team members who are more experienced.
While in the office, the intern is learning responsibility and being held accountable to tasks assigned to them. The intern benefits partnering in a mentorship with an experienced team member. Everyday when going into the office interns are able to learn the skills that the experienced employee has previously developed. Those skill sets include problem solving, communication, organization, and participation.
An internship can be beneficial when it counts as credit hours towards your school. More than that, though, as you are working towards a degree you are able to test the waters. Often times asking yourself during your internship - "Is this right for me?" - you are able to step into an internship and determine if it is something you want to do pursue as a career.
Additionally, almost 70 percent of interns end up being hired by the company. Interns are able to create relationships with clients, co-workers, which then creates more opportunities in the business world for them.
Internships are a win-win for both the business and for the student. We have loved having Brayden on our team this summer and thankfully there's still a few more months to go! And who knows - maybe he'll make a permanent appearance on our team!
Think you have some talent to bring to The Squad? Check out our careers page. We are in the market to fill a few different positions in the near future, including Content Manager, Web Developer, and Administrator.
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