Social Media Marketing and the Brand Embrace
A well-executed brand embrace strategy turns prospects into customers, customers into brand loyalists, and loyalists into advocates.
A well-executed brand embrace strategy turns prospects into customers, customers into brand loyalists, and loyalists into advocates.
At my agency we’ve developed a philosophy and approach we call the “Brand Embrace.” The term describes the sum total of all the digital relationships that organizations can create with their prospects and customers. In a brand embrace, a company uses all its marketing efforts to truly connect with their target audience in a lasting way to leverage the multiple points of contact consumers access in their daily lives. It identifies and capitalizes on every potential point of connection companies can create with their target consumers and customers and leverages those connections with timely and valuable engagement. It brings together all forms of digital (search, display, social, email, marketing automation, CRM, tracking, and reporting) into a single synergistic platform. A well-executed brand embrace strategy turns prospects into customers, customers into brand loyalists, and loyalists into advocates.
The Social Media Brand Embrace
Clearly social media marketing is, and will increasingly be, central to companies creating a comprehensive brand embrace platform. In most ways, it already is; it hasn’t just been defined as the brand embrace. Why are companies who are engaged in social media marketing zealously working to acquire friends, fans, and followers? Because they’re trying to make lasting connections – they’re trying to create a brand embrace. The key, though, is to look at social connections as a gateway to more intimate and solid connections. Now, you may say this is obvious – but how often is it done? How often do you weave calls to action into your social and digital communications that cross-sell brand embrace connections? Fans to email subscribers, site visitors to fans, Twitter followers to LinkedIn followers, email subscribers to Facebook fans, etc.
Adopting the Brand Embrace Philosophy
To create and sustain a true brand embrace requires a shift in the focus of an organization’s offline and online marketing efforts. It’s not just about branding and impressions anymore – it’s about connecting and engaging, or embracing. It means changing the goals of marketing from “reaching and communicating with our target audience” to “reaching and embracing our target audience.” In other words, it constantly asks, “How do we create a brand embrace?” Then, with a brand embrace we create stronger consumer connections via the first engagement when the bond was created – it provides for sustained communications and engagement. It complements reach and frequency.
Brand Embrace Tactics
How do you engage prospects and customers in a brand embrace? Here are a few tips and tactics:
Is the Brand Embrace Annoying? No, It’s Mostly Opt-In
If done correctly (or politely), the brand embrace isn’t annoying. In fact, the idea is to make the ongoing engagement that the full brand embrace facilitates valuable.
The key is to remember these facts:
The Result of the Brand Embrace
The end result of the brand embrace is a powerful platform that ties all your marketing and advertising efforts together. It creates a mass marketing asset that bypasses media gatekeepers (the media and vendor organizations that charge you to reach your target audience) to build your brand, drive leads, drive retail traffic, and, of course, drive sales.