Shake Things Up In 2024

Hard To Hear But Good

Once you’ve done this research and found some areas in need of improvement, it’s always a good idea to check back in with the people that will be impacted the most: your customers. With a pre-established base, you have the unique power to check-in with consumers about how your brand holds up in terms of its identity, retention, and engagement. Through surveys or general requests for feedback, your team will gain tremendous insight into how your efforts have been perceived from a sample of your target audience.

For instance, your customers, though thrilled with your service, could struggle to spread your good work to others because they have a hard time navigating your website or finding your social media. Or perhaps, while they are well-versed in your services and programs, they find that your brand lacks recognizability — they couldn’t pick your logo out of a trade show floor. While some of this feedback may be hard to hear, these critiques will mostly be addressable and invaluable as you and your team start to make some informed decisions while navigating and embracing this era of innovation.

Elevating your brand and expanding your overall audience reach can be achieved by taking calculated risks. However, it doesn’t have to be as dreary as it sounds. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: brands across all industries are finding that content devoid of personality performs far worse than narratively compelling content. To revive your brand, dive into the unique aspects of your company that set you apart from the rest of the industry and integrate these subtleties into marketing. Not only can these subtleties shake up a brand, but they can also infuse appealing dynamics of personality, allowing you to stand out from the rest as well as attract new customers.

Focus On The Unique

Humanizing your content — whether in printed materials, advertisements, or social media — makes a significant difference in engagement as well as provides a solid ground for brand awareness and longevity. When exploring, know that these unique qualities could be discovered within so many facets of your company culture and be applied to a range of marketing efforts; it’s just a matter of finding the right fit.

For example, if your company participates in a softball league, this presents an excellent opportunity to embrace some personal and playful branding. From adding softball-themed swag or sports-related copy into your marketing materials to more grand content, such as recording employees in their gear and holding Q+As on Instagram Live, the possibilities are truly endless.

Does your company consist of employees with diverse work histories and backgrounds? Highlighting their stories and experiences throughout blog posts or video content is another great way to connect with customers. With these personal narratives, customers will be ecstatic to hear from a friendly face relaying informative and relatable content. Featuring team members and their expertise, provides the opportunity to both educate your audience and highlight the strength and prowess of the individuals who contribute to your company’s stellar reputation. These moments of novelty and personality will successfully humanize your team and as a result, set you apart from competitors in your field.

Taking this more playful path when creating content can be an arduous one, but quite frequently the most rewarding. To be clear, this doesn’t mean making your co-workers take an hour out of their workday to learn a TikTok dance is the best use of your time and resources (although, that does sound hilarious). It does mean, however, exploring various opportunities with your content that challenge all stale standards. More examples of playful approaches could include tapping into trending sounds and audio that can link back to your products, crafting a “day in the life” Instagram story following your team around the office or traveling to a trade show, or adding in touches of humor to your day-to-day copy to get your audience laughing.

While it may require some trial and error, experimenting with these entertaining strategies can bring your brand to wider audiences and ultimately, resonate with customers on a more personal, long-lasting level. Overall, leaning into branding that showcases your company culture to the forefront is an instant win. Whether that means embracing an element of fun or humor, or simply highlighting the energy and persona of your employees, adding personality to your everyday brand will strengthen your audience’s connection with your company. This, in turn, builds trust in you and your team.

Look For Opportunities

For many in the industry, their current marketing strategy is a product of many painstaking years of solidifying workflows, content schedules, marketing materials, and beyond to curate a well-oiled machine. However, there comes a time where the call to try something new must be answered to see an increase in your brand’s recognition and audience impact. As the saying goes: same routine, same results.

Now of course, this doesn’t mean we throw all current strategy out the window once the ball drops for 2024. Instead, we should be looking for opportunities to breathe new life into our well-oiled machines with some calculated risk-taking. While embracing these new standards of modernity and personality may feel intimidating, these shifts are necessary to stay relevant in the field. If your marketing efforts approach content creation with your companies’ brand, core values, and mission at the forefront, these bold and brave switches in strategy will resonate with audiences and solidify your brand as an enduring and reliable source in the market.