January 1, 2019 — Tracy Lloyd
It’s That Time: 2019 Marketing Budget Planning Developing your 2019 marketing budget is nobody’s favorite time of year. But it’s inevitable. Like clockwork each year, it’s here. As an agency immersed in helping businesses deliver the results they need to thrive, we understand first-hand that marketing budget planning can be overwhelming and taxing. Knowing what to include to deliver the results needed seems nearly impossible for many VPs of Marketing looking to drive growth, build brand, drive lead gen, and fuel revenue. We know CFOs can be tough audiences. In fact, many VPs of Marketing...
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September 13, 2017 — Chris Ames
Emotive Brand Expert #1: Greg Howard As a brand strategy and design agency, we have the privilege of being able to visit innovative companies from a myriad of fields. From global law firms to burgeoning start-ups, we get to pull back the curtain and observe how brands are built, from the inside out. Drawing on our ever-growing network, we’re excited to launch our Emotive Brand Experts series. In these posts, we’re interviewing past and present Emotive Brand clients to discover what they do better than anybody else – and how that expertise can be used to embolden your brand today. In this...
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July 26, 2017 — Saja Chodosh
Big-Fish-Eat-Little-Fish World? The brand world follows the food chain – little fish look up to the big fish, everyone wants to be on top, and low visibility is often equated with eventual extinction. Every brand wants to be the next Nike or Apple, right? The thing is that those big brands – those top-of-mind, always relevant brands that even your grandma knows about – are rare. And if you’re a brand that’s still trying to build awareness, simply imitating what they do isn’t always the right strategy. Brand Awareness Issues At Emotive Brand, we’ve worked with a lot of brands who share a...
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July 22, 2017 — Carol Emert
The need for a branding agency is hard to determine sometimes. Many of Emotive Brand’s clients come to us after failed attempts to develop their own brand strategy. Just last week, a client sent us some themes they’d identified in an internal brand survey, along with a frustrated note: “We’ve gotten this far. We’re stuck. Can you help?” Why is it so hard for organizations to brand themselves from the inside? Aren’t the people who live and breathe a brand every day the most obvious choice to articulate it? That’s a logical conclusion, and clients who have tried often feel frustrated that they...
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May 15, 2016 — Tracy Lloyd
Marketing vs. Brand People are sometimes confused about the difference between marketing vs. brand strategy. This is not surprising, because they are not mutually exclusive ideas. They are interdependent strategic activities that feed, inform, and drive each other. The important distinction to make is in the intent and desired outcome of each area. Brand Brand defines how people should ideally feel about your business and products. It strives to find how to optimize belief in what you do offer and what you stand for in the world. It is an abstract idea held in the hearts and minds of people...
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April 20, 2017 — Tracy Lloyd
Preparing to Develop Go-To-Market Strategy Developing a strong go-to-market strategy (GTM) is hard to get right – especially for any startup in high-growth mode. The right GTM requires bringing together all of the strategic assets that address your business and growth strategy: sales, marketing, product, channel, brand, and vision. The benefits of developing this kind of strategy are huge, but a lot of pieces have to come together in order to properly prepare and ready your organization for investing in it. Bringing in experts to help create a GTM strategy brings both a strategic and a...
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August 1, 2017 — Tracy Lloyd
High-Tech Companies Have Banished the Word Brand Strategy I’m not sure when it happened. I only know it has. Brand strategy is no longer something the tech world is asking for. Well, let me be clear, they are still asking for it, they just aren’t using the term brand strategy. Positioning strategy is the new brand strategy, at least for high-growth companies where time is of the essence. I’ve felt the shift first hand. As a co-founder of an agency, I’m the person who takes the incoming calls from prospects looking for an agency. It used to be that I would patiently listen for the words...
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December 26, 2016 — Tracy Lloyd
Top Brand Strategy Articles of 2016 In 2016, we created a lot of content meant to help you position your brand and business to thrive. These are the buzz-worthy posts that resonated the most this year. Enjoy our top 10 brand strategy articles. The Role of Company Culture in Business Success What is a Brand Promise and Why Do You Need One? Brand and Marketing? What’s the Difference? Brand Narrative is a Necessary Part of Brand Strategy Defining What a Brand Is: Why Is It So Hard? HR and Marketing: Building Your Employer Brand Together Investing in Brand Strategy Is Only Step One...
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September 19, 2016 — Tracy Lloyd
In-House Mentality The age old question of determining if you need to bring in an external branding agency is still relevant today. Whether it’s because of tight budgets, a hesitation about letting outsiders inside your business, or a general ‘we can just do it ourselves’ mentality, many companies look internally to tackle even their largest branding projects. But whether it’s a repositioning, a new visual identity, or an all-around brand turnaround, this might be a mistake for businesses who really want to position themselves to thrive in a fast-paced, highly-competitive market. What Value...
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September 14, 2016 — Tracy Lloyd
For most companies, Q4 is a time of strategic planning and where every CMO and VP of Marketing prepares for marketing budget planning for the upcoming year. Questions You Want to be Asking It’s important for businesses to start the new year with a strategic framework that sets them up for success. Look beyond your marketing department for alignment within the rest of your organization to help refine and define your marketing objectives for planning purposes. What are the strategic initiatives for your business? What are your top marketing priorities from these strategic initiatives? What mix...
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