UGC is best known for its ability to humanize brands, strengthen consumer trust, and produce lasting emotional connections. With the rise of generative AI recently, there is now talk of AI-generated content. This is any form of UGC that is created or enhanced by artificial intelligence. It can change existing UGC or create new content from scratch. We feel that there are so many things that can go wrong here. Does it not take away the entire point of what benefits UGC has to offer in the first place? People trust real people… How can you “humanize” your brand if you’re not even using humans?
Content Strategy Tips in UGC Campaigns
will it resonate with your audience, it will increase their trust in you if done correctly. UGC campaigns require careful planning. Each piece of content must be curated before it is licensed. Let’s say you’re getting ready to plan your first UGC campaign. You’ve finally gotten the C-levels on board and are ready to start. Now what?
1. First, research is key. You must find out who your customers are and what makes them tick if you don’t already know this. this way you can tailor your content to what will strike a chord with them. Will they enjoy seeing something that will tug on their heartstrings? What about something funny?
Time to Get Fresh: Tips on Giving Your Brand a Refresh
Coming up with your brand image takes a lot of thought effort and time as we’re sure you know since you did that when you started your company. However, a brand refresh can be just the thing you need to spice up your business if you’ve fallen stagnant instead of a full overhaul. A good refresh is sometimes necessary if your brand has become a little outdated and we all know that keeping up with pop culture in this day in age is crucial to success. This can be anything from a new logo to new a color scheme but no matter what you do there are a couple of elements that a successful brand refresh.
Content Syndication 101
Go big or go home as they say. Content syndication helps your brand increase its reach to a larger audience and isn’t this the goal of every brand to expand and grow? So, what is content syndication exactly? It’s republishing the same piece of content to one or more different sites. Here’s how it works. Your brand creates original content, such as a UGC commercial on your website. Then, you target other websites and/or platforms that are a good fit for this content as well. You approach them with the opportunity to republish your content on their site. If they agree, then they repost with a source that links back to your website. Now, anyone who visits their site will see your content as well. Distribution networks work with large brands with each content syndication vendor. This means that the pricing structures will vary slightly between them. You can go this route or you can search yourself for particular partners that match your brand. According to HubSpot, you can Google Search for articles that mention: “originally published in,” “republished with permission,” or “originally appeared on.” This way is a bit more time-consuming but good if you’re marketing on a tight budget.
Why Asking Open-Ended Questions is Important for Creative Businesses
How? Why? What? Open-ended questions are questions that start this way. They are designed to be thought-provoking and allow for longer and more detailed responses. Differing from closed-ended questions that typically are answered with yes or no or have some short response, they have no predetermined answers and will require some explanation. A good open-ended question always seeks genuine interest in the person’s answers. Since these types of questions require deeper thinking they can often end with breakthrough answers. The point is not about having a right or wrong answer with these so that they can elicit collaboration within a team. You can already see why this type of thought provocation within your business can be beneficial, especially when you’re trying to solve some problem. They can build rapport between employees and foster positive relationships within the company. If you’re not sure where to start with asking open-ended questions here are some tips and examples.
Using Grateful Practices to Expand Your Business
Every morning I sit and journal for 20 minutes to unload my mind and declutter my thoughts. If you’ve ever read The 5 am Club by Robin Sharma, then you know what this 20/20/20 rule is all about. I digress though. If you want to know what it’s about you’ll have to read the book. Wink Wink. Once I’m done with this journaling practice, I write down 5 things I am grateful for that day. It can be as complicated as, “I am grateful for the ability to shift my focus to things I can control when I am burdened with situations that are out of my control.” Or they can be as simple as. “I am grateful that I woke up today or for the roof over my head.”
Myths About User-Generated Content
There are some myths surrounding UGC that have been circulating since it spawned. We want to take some time to debunk these for you. Let’s take a look at some of the most common myths about UGC.
1. It’s easy to curate and license: Finding specific content to fit a creative brief can be more difficult than it seems. If your agency or brand has ever tried it then you know how time-consuming it can be to find the right content AND track down the owner of a particular piece of content. There are also specific legal requirements for clearance that are necessary to have the rights to use the content.
Developing a Growth Mindset
What is it that sets extremely successful people apart from others? Take a second. We’ll wait…. OK, so what do you think? Is it that they can work harder than others? Well, in short, that’s part of the equation but no. That’s not it. Successful people have only become successful after more failures than most could even imagine or endure. It’s their grit to keep working toward that goal no matter what until it’s achieved. This comes not only from their “grit” but also their growth mindset. So, what exactly is a growth mindset? It’s the belief that talents, skills, and intelligence are malleable and can be improved with practice, hard work, and time. Why do you ask if is it important in business? Well, without this type of mindset success will not come. One has to implement this to keep the brand afloat. Trust us, we know from experience since we started Locomotive Content from the ground up. Here are our top 3 ways to help your growth mindset flourish or develop one if you haven’t already.
Theory of Reasoned Action
We recently listened to a great episode of the Mark Groves podcast with costar guest, Robert Greene on the art of seduction. By seduction, we don’t mean what you all think. Seduction is persuasion and is an element of gaining power. This is something all brands strive to attain to gain new customers. All advertising is based on some sort of persuasion to influence attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. This is where the Theory of Reasoned Action comes into play. This theory is an attempt to understand the relationship between attitudes, and beliefs and determine behavioral intention of human actions. There are three things to consider here. 1. Attitudes as a function of beliefs and evaluations of the outcomes. 2. Subjective norms of society as a function of normative beliefs. 3. Motivation to comply and self-control is a function of these beliefs with consideration to how much sway they hold over the person. These three things lead to behavioral intentions. So, now it’s important to understand what controls these beliefs that we all have and where they stem from. Some background factors are personal, demographic, and environmental.
Account Based Marketing: B2B Growth
ABM is a marketing approach that focuses highly on the most valuable accounts for a business. This style of marketing is very effective for B2B brands. Different from inbound or lead-based marketing that covers a wide variety of people or businesses, it can offer brands some unique benefits such as:
7 Steps: A Guide for Logical Decision Making
Critical decisions can be tough to make in the business world. Rational decisions are important when we as humans tend to be highly emotional. However, there is a model to help those who have to make these difficult choices daily in the workplace. This guide can make the process less stressful and help you come up with clear solutions that are the best. Here’s how it goes:
Good Team Management Skills
Leading a team can be tough. Managing personalities is not an easy task but leading a team with effective management skills that focus on the needs of the team will motivate, support, and engage them. Essentially, if you’re an effective team leader your team will be successful. Some benefits of running a team that’s a well-oiled machine are:
1. Employee satisfaction and reduced burnout
Don’t Be a Car Salesman: Best Sales Practices for Your Brand to Follow
Ahh, sales. Nobody loves it. Well, maybe some people do. Those people are born with a certain knack for it and are probably in roles that are specific to that. However, if you’re an entrepreneur, sales are part of your job to grow your business and it may not be where your strengths lie. It is a necessary evil, and a very important one at that to drum up new business and succeed. If you’re one of these people, do not fret, there are some tactics that you can take to keep up with best practices in sales. Here are some of our tips.
Graymail vs. Spam Mail
We all know what spam mail is and have been subjected to the annoyance of it since the creation of the internet. But, what is graymail and how is it different from spam mail? Graymail is different from spam mail because it comes from a legitimate source and has varying value to different people. It also is solicited and otherwise known as bacn. With graymail, the recipients opt-in to receive but don’t click through. For example, when you opt-in with your email address on a website to get emails and never interact with them. We know we’ve done this on multiple occasions and have eventually unsubscribed when they become annoying. Graymail can be newsletters, sales, ads, and just plain old announcements from a brand. The largest difference between graymail and spam is that users opt-in for graymail whereas spam is unsolicited. So, as a brand how can you use graymail to your advantage?
Marketing Communications 101
Otherwise known as MarCom, marketing communications refers to the combination of promotional tools, channels, messages, and media that brands use to communicate with their audience. The role of marketing communications is to:
1. Shorten sales funnel
2. Increase customer loyalty
3. Increase brand awareness
SWOT Analysis
Can you tell me 3 strengths of your brand? What about 3 weaknesses? If you hesitated, had to stop and think for an answer, and maybe found one minute later then you can benefit from SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is a tool to analyze the aspects of your brand to help it improve, grow, rinse, and repeat. Some benefits of conducting a SWOT analysis are:
Global Marketing Strategy
Going global is not just for big corporations anymore in the digital world. Any market can be any brand no matter where they are based. Global marketing is a way to market your brand that will encompass many countries from many different regions of the world. This is when global standardization comes into play. This means that your campaign messaging can be used simultaneously in different countries and cultures. You can choose to do your campaigns this way or localize them that are different across markets and countries.
KISS principle
“I-I-I wanna rock and roll all night…. And party every day! I-I-…” Oh, sorry wrong KISS. The KISS principle stands for, “Keep it Simple Stupid,” and was designed to keep designs and/or systems as simple as possible. It’s used in many fields from science to marketing and advertising. Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Dynamic Marketing
Markets are always changing and evolving, so why wouldn’t your marketing strategies do the same? Dynamic marketing is a strategy that maximizes customer data to create relevant, personalized, and flexible. There are 5 pillars of the dynamic marketing strategy. They are:
1. Personalization: We’ve stressed the importance of this in every aspect of your business. Customers expect this now. It is the norm. Tailor-made messages guarantee that your audience will be satisfied.
SEO & Voice Optimization
“Siri, look up the weather today… Alexa, find me the best-rated recent horror books.” The list of questions that we verbally ask our devices can get long really fast. We now live in a world that is synchronous with smart technology that ten years ago we would have said was impossible. Hell, we even ask our T.V.s to find specific shows for us now. It’s easy and convenient. That being said, we should preface this entire article by saying that typing a search and voice search are not the same. The main difference is that when people ask a question they usually speak more naturally, using long keywords.
