• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • 703-385-8178
  • Strategic Partners
  • Press Releases

Borenstein Group

Washington DC’s Expert Top B2B|B2G Digital Branding Agency

  • Who We Are
    • About Us
    • Market Expertise
    • Clients
    • Client Testimonials
    • Strategic Partners
  • What We Do
    • Full Service
    • Our Process
    • Digital & Interactive Branding
    • Strategic Marketing
    • Public Relations & Online Reputation Management
    • Branding And Awareness
    • Employer Branding
    • Social Media
  • Clients
  • Our Work
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Request A Proposal
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Internships

Branding

What’s Brand Authenticity and What It Isn’t

May 29, 2019 by Alexa Kelly Leave a Comment

Honesty is the best policy. This statement is especially true when it comes to brand authenticity. More and more consumers demand authenticity from brands. But what does brand authenticity really mean? Here are a few key components of what brand authenticity is and what it is NOT.

Brand authenticity means being honest and transparent with all current and potential customers. Transparency means showing how you run your business as well as how you create your products or services. You can provide additional product info such as how your product is made, where it is sourced, and a complete list of ingredients.

Being authentic also means apologizing for mistakes. You do not want to sugarcoat your problems. It is better to own up to your missteps than to pretend they never happened or that they were not as bad as they appeared. Admitting your faults makes you seem more vulnerable and ultimately more trustworthy to consumers. Of course, admitting your wrong is only the first step. You also have to solve the problems you have caused in an honest and forthright way.

Consistency is key for brand authenticity. You want to make sure you follow through on your promises because actions always speak louder than words. Part of this is also responding to customer questions and concerns quickly and honestly. Across all platforms and social media, you want to stay on top of customer comments and respond as rapidly as possible. Take time to build relationships with your customers based on authentic two-way communication.

You may want to also focus on the story behind your business. Why did you start your company in the first place? Why are you passionate about your products or services? What is the ultimate vision for your organization? Sharing this authentic story with your employees and customers will help them trust you as an authentic, genuine company. This ultimately leads to deeper customer loyalty.

Another way to build trust is to speak up on social issues. Investing in corporate social responsibility means giving back, so your company stands for something more than just turning a profit. Acting with integrity and donating to causes that make the world a better place will have your company looking more authentic and trustworthy in the eyes of consumers.

Now that you know some examples of what brand authenticity is, here are some examples of what it is not. Being inauthentic on social media is a way to destroy trust in your organization. One way to do this is to buy likes or followers on social media rather than earning them organically. Another example of inauthenticity is to use stock photos rather than real photos taken of your company.

Additionally, jumping onto trends that are irrelevant to your brand is an example of what brand authenticity is not. In 2014, DiGiorno used the popular hashtag #WhyIStayed in a tweet that said, “#WhyIStayed You had pizza.” Unfortunately, the hashtag referred to victims of domestic violence. Trying to hop on a trend without thoroughly researching it can lead brands to seem inauthentic and untrustworthy.

Failing to stay true to your company’s products or services is another example of what brand authenticity is not. In one incident, LG France tweeted from an iPhone, showing that the company’s employees do not use its products. True brand authenticity means staying true to your brand at all times and not letting slip-ups like that take place.

Are you interested in making your brand more authentic? Contact the Borenstein Group, a Top DC marketing agency. We can improve your brand authenticity in no time.

Filed Under: Borenstein Group News, Branding, Industry News, Press Release

How to Earn Authentic Customer Testimonials

May 29, 2019 by Alexa Kelly Leave a Comment

    You can tell potential customers all day long how great you are, but they probably will not listen to you. Brands are not credible in the eyes of consumers. Do you know who they will listen to? Other consumers. That is why customer testimonials are so powerful. Here are a few ways to earn authentic customer testimonials.

Customer testimonials are a form of social proof. In other words, people are more likely to follow the actions of others. We will be more likely to purchase a product or service if we see that other satisfied customers have purchased it already. Customer testimonials also play on our fear of missing out or FOMO. We want to be part of the crowd, not missing out on the latest and greatest the marketplace has to offer.

You can look for organic and authentic testimonials on your social media accounts. Facebook pages allow followers to leave reviews for different companies. Source the reviews you receive on Facebook for testimonials on your own website. Also, look for testimonials left on your Twitter and Instagram accounts. You can ask followers specifically to send in their reviews via social media. By leaving your customer a recommendation or endorsement on LinkedIn, they may leave you a testimonial in return.

Another way to encourage customer testimonials is to incentivize them. Offer a free upgrade or a discount in exchange for an honest testimonial about your product or service. If you have a rewards program, you could also give loyalty points in exchange for reviews. An additional technique is to offer a testimonial swap. If you and your customer have both used each other’s services and are satisfied, then you can both write reviews for one another. You could also offer your product or service for free to get feedback, which is especially useful if you are still establishing your customer base.

To get authentic testimonials from customers, you have to ask open-ended questions about their experience with your product, services or company in general. You want to ask specific questions to get specific answers. Testimonials should focus on the tangible impact you made for your customer and should not be vague. One potential question to ask customers could be would you recommend this service to a friend, and if so why?

You can ask for testimonials from customers via email, over the phone or in person. It helps to ask immediately after your project is done or after they have gotten value from your product or service. That way, you are still fresh in their minds. You could send out a survey via email with questions asking for a testimonial. Be sure to also save emails with kind, organic comments from customers and ask their permission to publish the testimonials on your website.

Are you looking to boost your customer testimonials? Turn to the experts at the Borenstein Group, a Top DC marketing agency. We can help you quickly earn authentic customer testimonials to boost your bottom line.

Filed Under: Borenstein Group News, Branding, Industry News, Press Release

What is Predictive Marketing, and Why Should B2B Marketers Care?

January 22, 2019 by Alexa Kelly Leave a Comment

Predictive marketing is a key buzzword in the marketing world today. But what does predictive marketing mean, and how can it help B2B marketers?  Brafton defines predictive marketing as, “the strategic use of existing customer datasets to identify patterns and anticipate future customer behaviors, sales trends, and marketing outcomes.” Basically, predictive marketing helps you determine which strategies will succeed and which will fail.

For B2B marketers, predictive marketing can help improve the sales funnel. Specifically, it can help you determine the likelihood of leads to convert to customers through predictive lead scoring. Predictive lead scoring looks at your CRM data and the behavior of past won and lost deals to assign a value to a new lead. Your sales team can work more effectively and efficiently when they know which incoming leads are worth their time and which can be let go.

B2B marketers can also rely on this to segment customers. According to Emerj, there are several ways to segment customers through predictive marketing, including demographics and behavior. Predictive models can also determine the likelihood of customers to convert or churn, as well as the likely lifetime value of a customer. Finally, predictive marketing can sort customers by recommended

What is Predictive Marketing, and Why Should B2B Marketers Care? - Borenstein Group - Washington DC

 products or services. Popular examples of this sort of this are recommended products on Amazon or shows on Netflix. This type of segmentation can help marketers upsell services to customers.

Predictive marketing can join forces with content marketing to deliver successful results for B2B marketers. Using sophisticated algorithms, it determines what right content should be presented to customers at the right time. This highly targeted content can help educate customers and move them further along in the sales cycle.

Ultimately, predictive marketing is a trend B2B marketers can’t ignore in 2019. If you need help implementing predictive marketing strategies, contact the Borenstein Group, Top Washington DC Marketing Agency, today.

 

Filed Under: Borenstein Group News, Branding, Industry News, Press Release

Top 5 Tagline Tips: How to Create the Brand Experience in 5 Words or Less

August 8, 2017 by Gal Borenstein Leave a Comment

“Just do it.” “I’m Lovin’ it.” “Rethink Possible.” “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” Do these phrases sound instantly familiar? So familiar, in fact, that you immediately envision the product, you imagine the sensation, you taste the sweat and smell the Big Mac, you grip the wheel with your dream hands and stamp down on the accelerator. You experience the brand – all thanks to a few simple words. That’s the power of a great tagline.

Many people may assume that since typical taglines use just a few short, crisp words, a great tagline should be fairly easy to create. Fewer words, less trouble, right? For those of us who make a living one letter at a time, nothing could be further from the truth. Crafting an impactful tagline involves many steps, from researching the product to identifying strengths and weaknesses of the competition to learning the likes and dislikes of the target audience. Plus, tagline creation requires a comprehensive command of the subtleties of language, an ear for poetry, and an eye for design. Here are a few great tips to use when creating a tagline for a company, product or brand:

  1. Make it Memorable: It sounds easy, but the most important factor to consider is that in addition to the brand name, the tagline captures the minimum information that consumers need to know about a product or company. The only information a consumer has access to when they are not face-to-face with the product, is what they have stored about it in their heads. Short, concise phrases that capitalize on existing idioms or conventions of speech are always great places to start.
  2. Keep it Modern: Just like fashion or interior design, language has cycles in which certain words, grammatical conventions and patterns of speech become more popular and more commonly used. Today, with the prevalence of social media, there is a trend toward casual and conversational tones in nearly all writing outside of academia. You can see it overtly in blogs and tweets, but it’s even present in journalism and editorial work. A tagline of today should capitalize on this informal tone – the brand and the consumer can speak on the same terms.
  3. Add Aural Appeal: Taglines love great rhymes. With clear rhythm, meter and time, good lines stay stuck in the mind. Alliteration packs a powerful punch. Plus, repetition is a really, really, really relevant tool. Lame language games aside, infusing aural appeal – or highlighting the sound, not just the meaning of the word – can be a very effective tactic in tagline creation.
  4. Ignite the Imagination: The tagline is a conceptual piece. A tagline that relies on nebulous or conceptual language is much more likely to inspire new ideas and stimulate the imagination than one that uses declarative language to describe precise details of the brand. A good tagline should take risks, should be open to interpretation and should entice the mind, without shifting focus away from the brand, or mixing up the message. Don’t be afraid to break the rules.
  5. Trademark It: During the ideation process, it’s important to check each tagline concept thoroughly on Google and USPTO.gov. It can be quite a disappointment (and legally tenuous) if you’ve developed fantastic messaging around a tagline someone else owns. If there’s no record of the tagline in existing patent files, the word or phrase can be trademarked – then it’s yours.

 

Finally, keep in mind that taglines are temporary. Each tagline should reflect the current moods and market trends. If you continue to strive to develop new tagline ideas based on these easy principles, your brand will stay relevant, captivating and profitable.

For more information on branding strategies in the B2B and B2G arenas, please give us a call at 703-385-8178, or visit our Contact Us page.

Do you have any tagline tips you’ve used in the past? How does the tagline play into your current digital marketing efforts?

Filed Under: Branding, Creative, Strategy Tagged With: B2B, B2B Marketing, B2B Metrics, b2g, b2g advertising, b2g marketing, borenstein group, Brand Power, branding, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, Facebook, federal computer week, federal marketing, gal borenstein, Gold Stevie Awards, Google, govcon, government computer news, Government contracting, govwin, International Award, International Business Awards, it marketing. high tech marketing, lead generation, Marketing App, Marketing Awards, marketing to federal government, marketing to the government, Metrics, Mobile App Awards, Mobile App Development Awards, Mobile Marketing App, Public Relations, SEO, Small Business, small business marketing, Social Media Analytics, Social Media App, Social Media Awards, Social Media Marketing, Stevie Awards, Strategic Communications, technology advertising, top advertising agencies washington dc, top interactive agencies washington dc, top washington dc marketing agencies, top washington dc social media agencies, top washington dc strategic communications agencies, washington dc top public relations agencies, Web Analytics, World's Best Mobile App

Public Sector Branding Fundamentals Primer

August 4, 2017 by Gal Borenstein Leave a Comment

Building or maintaining a strong brand should be an important short and long term revenue goal for your company. Especially in a recession. But for many federal contractors, the time, attention (and money) dedicated to this initiative fall short. The reasons for this are many and range for too much emphasis on set-aside status, to a desire to make marketing materials look and sound like other industry players. For example, many small government contractors want their marketing materials to sound like Lockheed Martin or Leidos, but of course, don’t have the marketing budgets of the big boys.

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”
Often beginning with a Positioning Statement, a core objective of developing a strong brand is to clearly answer the following questions:
  • What is unique about my organization or brand in the context of the industry as a whole?
  • Which of these factors are most important to my clients and prospects?
  • Which of these factors are most difficult for your competitors to imitate?
  • Which of these factors can be most easily understood by my prospects?
There are four key rules of branding. These apply to companies serving both the commercial and federal sectors:
  1. For the brand to be effective, it has to be unique.
  2. For the brand to make an impact and be memorable, it has to be clear and compelling.
  3. For the brand to generate revenue, it has to foster a sense of ownership by my clients, partners, and employees.
  4. For the brand to be credible, it must be believable.

Filed Under: Branding, Creative, Strategy Tagged With: B2B, B2B Marketing, b2g, b2g marketing, borenstein group, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, federal marketing, government computer news, it marketing. high tech marketing, Public Relations, Strategic Communications, top advertising agencies washington dc, top washington dc marketing agencies, top washington dc strategic communications agencies, washington dc top public relations agencies

How to Choose a Marketing Communications Agency Partner

August 4, 2017 by Gal Borenstein Leave a Comment

There are some great marketing agencies out there. Depending on where you live, you probably have a decent selection of highly-regarded firms. But just because you pick a great one doesn’t mean you’ll have a stellar experience. Before you forge ahead with an agency, here are four essential ingredients you’ll need on your end:

1. Commitment to the value of marketing. Your corporate leadership must be dedicated to the potential ROI of strategically-sharp, masterfully-implemented programs. If the commitment is not there at the highest levels, even the best agencies can’t reach their full potential.
2. Availability of senior management and key team. This ties in closely with #1. Cooperation and input, starting with the top, is essential. Willingness to share details like the sales process, close ratios and programs that have worked may be required. If the vast majority of marketing efforts and mindshare is relegated to a junior level staffer, the agency won’t have the visibility they need to win.
3. Trust. This doesn’t mean free reign, but you’ll need a degree of hands-off management to let the agency succeed. The best agencies provide a mix of solid project management and exceptionally creative. If you’ve selected one that fits the bill, give them room to achieve results.
4. A strong internal liaison. This person needs to be a hustler, understand the value of their role and yours, and have a direct line to your decision makers. They also need to be secure enough to admit when they don’t know the answer and straight shoot with both the agency and senior management.

Filed Under: Branding, Creative, Strategy Tagged With: B2B, B2B Marketing, b2g, b2g marketing, borenstein group, Digital Branding, Digital Marketing, federal marketing, government computer news, it marketing. high tech marketing, Public Relations, Strategic Communications, top advertising agencies washington dc, top washington dc marketing agencies, top washington dc strategic communications agencies, washington dc top public relations agencies

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • WESCORP Unveils Next Generation of Mission-Grade Industrial Surface Coatings with Fresh New Digital Branding. December 23, 2020
  • 7 Web Design Trends That Will Shape Your 2021 Digital Brand Strategy December 23, 2020
  • Chief Marketer Names Borenstein Group, B2G Marketing Agency, A Top 2021 200 Brand Engagement Agencies December 17, 2020

COA-Dowload

Footer

From our Blog

  • WESCORP Unveils Next Generation of Mission-Grade Industrial Surface Coatings with Fresh New Digital Branding. December 23, 2020
  • 7 Web Design Trends That Will Shape Your 2021 Digital Brand Strategy December 23, 2020
  • Chief Marketer Names Borenstein Group, B2G Marketing Agency, A Top 2021 200 Brand Engagement Agencies December 17, 2020

Borenstein Group

The Borenstein Group is a Washington DC’s Top Digital Marketing Agency for Integrated Marketing Communications. We develop Brand Strategy, Brand Design and Brand Content for emerging and market-leading IT, Professional Services, Federal Contractors, Business Services, as well as Public Sector markets.

As a stellar creative agency, with 25 years of experience, Borenstein is ranked at Chief Marketer’s Top 50 B2B Agencies, Clutch’s Top Digital Branding Agencies, Expertise’ Top Advertising Agencies, and Washington Business Journal’s Top Advertising Agencies the Washington DC region.

Get Results

Call us at 703.385.8178 x1 for a no-obligation strategic assessment of your digital brand.

Tysons Corner Headquarters:
8230 Leesburg Pike, STE 520
Vienna, VA 22182

 

Copyright 2020 Borenstein Group. All Rights Reserved. 

  • Borenstein Group Site Map
  • Legal
Go to mobile version