The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

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From Branding to Budgeting: The Essential Elements of a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

A well-executed marketing strategy is the backbone of any successful business. It’s not just about running ads or posting on social media – it’s about crafting a cohesive plan that aligns with your business goals and resonates with your audience. 

From defining your brand identity to setting a realistic budget, every element plays a crucial role. Here’s how to build a comprehensive marketing strategy that sets your business up for success.

Step 1: Defining Who You Are

Before launching any marketing campaign, you need to establish your brand identity. Ask yourself:

  • What are your core values?
  • How do you differentiate from competitors?
  • What message do you want to convey to your audience?

Your brand positioning influences everything from your visual identity to the tone of your messaging. While colors can create the feeling of trust and confidence, tone can build familiarity and experience. A strong brand foundation defines your identity and ensures consistency across all marketing channels.

Step 2: Understanding Your Audience

In addition to knowing who you are, you also need to know who your target audience is. Without a clear understanding of who your customers are and what they need, your marketing efforts will fall flat. Conduct market research to determine your audience’s demographics, psychographics and buying behavior/preferences. Once you understand your audience, you can then tailor your messaging and content to speak directly to their needs.

Step 3: Developing Your Content Strategy

Content is at the heart of any great marketing strategy. Your content should educate, entertain or inspire your audience. It should also align with your brand voice and be optimized for search engines (SEO). A well-planned content calendar can help you stay consistent and relevant.

Another part of developing your content strategy is deciding which marketing channels will work for your business. While we always advocate for blogs, newsletters and social media, you need to tune into your audience to assess where they spend their time. Reach your readers where they’re at.

Step 4: Setting Realistic Marketing Budgets

A solid budget ensures that you divvy up resources effectively without overspending. Keep your goals and priorities in mind as you assess how to best allocate your funds. Common marketing expenses include:

  • Fixed costs (website, tools, software, etc.)
  • Paid advertising costs, if any
  • Content creation expenses
  • Hiring and outsourcing needs

Step 5: Measuring Success with Data and Analytics

No marketing strategy is complete without tracking performance. Analyzing your data allows you to refine your approach, focus on what works and adjust what doesn’t.

If all this sounds too overwhelming and you’re struggling with where to start, just ask for help. Building out a comprehensive marketing strategy is not for the faint of heart. Turning to pros who know will not only get you where you want to go faster, but they can also save you money along the way. To learn more about developing marketing that works, contact us at The Found Gen today.

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The Role of Data in Building a Successful Marketing Strategy: How to Use Analytics to Your Advantage

Data makes the world go round. Without it, your marketing strategy is, well, not a strategy at all. It’s more of a “throw things on the wall and see what sticks” kind of approach. Seeing what sticks is not a sustainable way to build your business. 

If you want to develop a successful marketing program, you need data. There’s just no way around it. The good thing is that data doesn’t have to be scary, and you don’t have to be a “numbers person” to understand what it means. Data is for everyone, and everyone needs data if they want to build a marketing strategy that truly delivers results. 

Understanding the Power of Data in Marketing

Data has never been more accessible. You no longer have to guess what your audience wants; you can knowby looking at what your data tells you about customer behaviors, preferences and trends. This not only allows you to target your messaging to match your readers’ interests, but it also eliminates wasted spending by directing resources toward strategies that yield measurable results.

How to Identify Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Not all data is created equally. To make data work for you, you need to determine which metrics matter most for your business. The KPIs you choose to track will be tailored to your goals, but below are several general metrics many marketing pros find helpful:

  • Website traffic – How many people are visiting your site? Where are they coming from, and which pages are they landing on?
  • Conversion rates – How many of these visitors are turning into leads or customers?
  • Engagement metrics – How are people interacting with your content? How much time are they spending on your site?
  • Cost per lead (CPL) – How much are you spending to acquire a new customer? On the whole, you want to keep your CPL low. That means a lot of leads for not a lot of money.

By tracking these and other KPIs, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.

Data-Driven Decision-Making

One of the biggest advantages of marketing analytics is the ability to make informed decisions. Instead of relying on gut feelings, data allows you to identify which channels are driving the most engagement and adjust content strategies based on audience behavior. Data also gives you quick answers when testing different approaches – for example, when running an A/B test on your newsletter.

By continuously analyzing data and adjusting your strategy, you can ensure your marketing efforts align with what actually works. If you need help interpreting your data or are unsure whether what you’re doing is working, give us a call at The Found Gen. We can take a fresh look at your data and help you develop an effective marketing strategy going forward. 

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How Often Should You Update Your Website’s Design?

If you aren’t continuously evolving, you’re falling behind. This is as true for your business as it is for the website representing your business. Staying fresh, meeting your client’s needs and demonstrating ongoing relevance is key to competing – and winning! – in a dense playing field. But what exactly does this mean for your website’s design? Simply put, it means you need to update your website every 2-3 years, or more frequently depending on other factors impacting your site and its performance. 

Reasons to Update Your Website Design

For many SMBs, a client’s first interaction with their business is via their website or other online platform. If you’re not leaving a lasting first impression, it’s time to seriously consider the story your website and brand are telling. 

Just think about your own experience landing on an old or outdated website. The impact you feel is immediate and real. It may even leave you assuming the business itself is outdated. Fresh and modern web designs help instill trust and credibility and say to your audience, “We’re here, we’re thriving and we’re ready to help you.”

In addition to ensuring your brand design resonates with your clients, there are also technical and performance-related reasons to update your website. If any of these issues ail you, consider a web refresh:

  • It’s not mobile-friendly – User experience (UX) is the name of the game for website design. An easy-to-navigate site is more likely to win over customers, and this extends to your mobile presence (roughly half of web traffic comes from mobile devices). If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re missing out on a huge audience and potentially harming your SEO rankings. 
  • Your site is slow – Website speed is crucial for UX and SEO. If your pages take forever to load, visitors will bounce and Google will penalize your rankings. Updating your design can improve speed and performance. You’ll also benefit from security updates as old sites are more susceptible to malware and data breaches. 
  • You need an SEO boost – Google rewards freshness. Updating your website and regularly posting new content will improve your website ranking and enable more potential clients to find you.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

Not every web update requires a complete overhaul. Ongoing maintenance with a few well-timed refreshes can keep you relevant and in line with industry trends. Here are a few benchmarks to keep in mind:

  • Every 6-12 months – Update images, refresh content and optimize for the latest SEO trends.
  • Annually – Review navigation, improve calls-to-action (CTAs) and check for broken links or outdated pages.
  • Every 2-3 years – Consider a full redesign to improve aesthetics, functionality and user experience.

Need Help with Your Website? Call us at The Found Gen.

Keep your website, brand and business moving forward with small evolutions that eventually lead to full design revolutions to keep your current with your audience. We’re here to lead the charge. If you need help designing or revamping your site, call us at The Found Gen today. We’re here to make your website work better for your growing business. 

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How Can You Get Quick, Custom-Designed Marketing Material for Your Business

Guess what? Real design takes real work. It’s not AI-generated. It’s not machine-driven. It’s creative, it requires extensive mental power to get an audience to visually relate to your brand, and… It. Takes. Time. 

Ask any designer out there – heck, even give it a try yourself on a site like Canva – and you will discover just how much effort goes into developing and delivering a polished, professional piece of marketing material. 

So, when any business is looking for a rush design project, they need to face the facts. They can pick two: good, fast or cheap. 

  • Need a rush job? You can get it fast and cheap, but it won’t be good. 
  • Need something fast and good? Expect to pay a premium for it.
  • Want good and affordable? Well, forget fast.

Of course, even when you do pick two, there’s always more to the story…

The Iceberg of Immediacy

Immediacy has a way of causing even the calmest of us to get a serious kick of adrenaline. At times, immediacy can’t be avoided. Events outside our control require us to act, and in those instances, we may need to make compromises in order to get the job done. 

But when rush job after rush job is the result of poor planning, it’s time to reevaluate your marketing strategy. We see it all too often, but what can be easy to forget in the heat of a rush job moment is that every time an urgent matter rises to the top, it means other priorities are effectively getting sidelined. All those other marketing goals you set for your team? Yep, they’re still there. They’ve just now sunk beneath the surface and are suddenly less and less attainable.

Can you get quick, custom-designed marketing material? Yes, for a price (and we’re not just talking budget there). Consider your marketing goals and business priorities as you weigh your alternatives and assess whether quick and cheap is worth it for your needs. If you want a second opinion, give us a call at The Found Gen. We’re happy to offer up our two cents (free of charge).

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How Often Should You Refresh Your Branding

Some brands seem to have life eternal – Nike, Coca-Cola, BMW. Everyone knows these and other power players of our time, and while they’re in a league of their own, even these big hitters have to make tweaks to their brand and image over time to stay relevant with their audience.

You should be doing the same, but exactly how often you need to refresh your branding can be a bit nuanced. Here are some things to keep in mind as you consider the question of how frequently to refresh your branding. 

Brand Evolution vs. Revolution

Trends evolve annually, but even the most fashion-forward of us aren’t going to refresh our brand that frequently unless it becomes necessary (like if you merge with another business or undergo a major business change). After all, brand recognition is built on consistency. Too many haphazard changes is just confusing.

Instead, it’s helpful to consider your brand’s look and feel in terms of an ongoing evolution rather than waiting to drop a full-scale brand revolution. This type of approach enables you to make smaller upgrades on a more frequent basis to keep your style fresh and relevant to your readers.

3 is the Magic Number

These brand refreshes should be considered every three to five years, though this may vary depending on the medium in question. For example, websites, email templates and social channels benefit from upgrades like a new font or other visual refreshes that modernize the brand every three-ish years, whereas printed materials can be stretched a bit farther. 

With everything, the general idea is that you’re always continuing to move forward – even if the updates are subtle. You need your brand to represent your business as it stands today (and tomorrow) – it can’t be stuck two decades in the past. If it is, you’ll immediately lose credibility before you even have a chance to earn it.

Call Us Today to Get Started 

If it’s been 8, 10 or (gasp!) more years since you’ve thought about your logo and brand, it’s time to call us at The Found Gen. We can help revive your brand and keep your messaging and design on point for the future. 

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How Can I Speed Up My Marketing?

We get it – you want results, and you want them now! For all the Veruca Salts of the world, waiting for your marketing efforts to take effect can put you on the verge of a chocolate meltdown – and who are we kidding, don’t we all want a little instant gratification from our hard-earned efforts? Before Tantrum Town sets in, take a breath and know there are ways to accelerate marketing results when applied strategically and as part of your overall marketing plan. 

Stop, Wait a Minute

But first, we must qualify this post by saying that marketing is truly about the long game. When played well, consistent content marketing and SEO efforts will start delivering results in a few months, but the true power comes from the compounding value it delivers for years to come. Moreover, you can measure success in any number of ways, but without a goal to tie those results to, the numbers will be, well, just numbers.

As you attempt to speed up your marketing, it’s critical to step back and review the big picture. What are your short- and long-term goals? How will your marketing efforts help you achieve them? Once you have some answers, then you can dive in.

Smart Strategies to Speed Up Your Marketing

Marketing is about communicating and delivering value. Do more of this to the right people and you will see results. The challenge is connecting with those right people at the right time. To speed up results, you need to meet them where they’re at. This means having answers to what they’re looking for and providing them when and where they’re looking for them.

For faster results, do this:

  • Focus on high-impact channels – Review your marketing data. If you want to know if your marketing is working, look at key data points. Pay attention to your most effective areas. Is your website data trending positively? How about your emails or social engagement? If one channel (or topic) is pulling more favorably than others, double down your efforts there rather than spreading yourself thin on things that don’t have as much impact. 
  • Optimize for SEO – You can shore up some quick wins by focusing on long-tail keywords that have less competition. This is one way to move up the ranks in search engine results faster. Another is to jeuje up old content to keep things fresh and garner new attention by the internet bots.
  • Consider paid opportunities – Spending money can often (but not always) accelerate marketing results. You could start by taking a bite-sized chunk out of your marketing budget and try something like pay-per-click advertising to ensure your content gets in front of your target audience. 
  • Outsource your efforts – If you need to move the needle on your marketing, it may be time to turn to a team of experts rather than manage the task yourself. Not only will you gain immediate headcounts (including writers, designers and strategists), but you’ll also be tapping into their expertise. This can help speed up your marketing as they’ll be able to execute strategies more efficiently and effectively. 

Speeding up your marketing efforts doesn’t mean cutting corners—it’s about working smarter, leveraging the right tools and optimizing what’s already working. If you want help, give us a ring. That’s what we’re here for.