Borenstein Group

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

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10 Things People Told Me “Why My Business Will Fail” and How It Made Me Successful

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As my digital branding and marketing firm, the Borenstein Group, celebrates a special anniversary of being 21 years in business, serving the world’s best B2B brands, it almost feel like the parallel to certified adulthood with all the rights and privileges but also the duties and responsibilities.

To most people I meet, it looks like a tremendous accomplishment that any self-funded American entrepreneurial business, can survive 21 years with all the economic turmoil, changing trends and fads, normal and abnormal employee churn, strategic paradigm shifts, personalities and egos, the need to stay relevant and indispensable, technological evolutions and revolutions, not to mention the constant need to ‘feed the beast’ with capitalization and finance. So when people ask ‘how did you get here’? How did your business survive 21 years when most go out of business within the first three years, I defer them to the top 10 things that I was told for which why my business will FAIL.

Truly, no matter how hard was the challenge or situation, the one motivational element that stuck with me, even after all these years, is what negative people told me when I was just starting out, when Borenstein Group started with the impressive startup budget (NOT) of $300 and up to $2,000 in Extended Visa Convenience Checks (that carry a 5% redemptions fee for ‘free’). Yes, this was the budget, and it was my reality.

So, if you have a boss, colleague, partner, advisor, friend or a local community banker (my favorite group of folks that deserve a special place for being non-supportive), here is what I was repeatedly told almost every year in our 21 years in business.

“I’d like to thank you for keep reminding me why you, the negative and uninspiring people who told me ‘it can’t be done,’ ‘it’s not going to work’ and that ‘you are nuts’ for being my great passionate motivation to succeed, even against all odds. It’s funny how it works, but the greater the insult, the more successful I was determined to become. ”

As Spring comes along, you might want to clean your entrepreneurial brain from statements that you were told at one time or another. None of them truly matters if you have a strategic compass and self-confidence in your abilities.

1. You Are Too Young and Inexperienced.
2. Your Financial Ratios Don’t Align with Industry Standards.
3. You Business is Too Small to Compete Against Bigger Firms.
4. You Suck as a Boss. I Quit.
5. You Have an Accent. You’re Not from around here, are you?
6. You Are Too Expensive.
7. You Are Way Too ‘Out There’.
8. You Are Politically Incorrect.
9. You’re not a ‘Culture Fit’ within our corporation.
10. You will never make it with this ‘whatever it takes’ attitude.

For those of you who are facing a dilemma of expanding into an unfamiliar territory, whether it is within an organization, or in starting your own business, or departing to a new partnership, I say, ‘listen to your gut.’ Your gut may not be right 100% of the time, but as long as you keep true to who you are and what your passion is, results will come. The worst thing that can happen is having lived a life of ‘could have’ or ‘should have’.

About the Author: Mr. Gal Borenstein is the Chief Strategy Officer and CEO of Borenstein Group, a top digital marketing communications firm in the Washington DC metropolitan area that serves clients locally and globally. He is a recognized expert and strategist in digital branding, marketing, social media, advertising, online reputation management and public relations matters. He is the author of the business leadership book, ACTIVATE! How to Power Up Your Brand to Dominate Your Market, Crush Your Competition & Win in the Digital Age, available in premiere bookstores and on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Apple’s iBooks. He can be reached at 703-385-8178 x28 orgal@borensteingroup.com.

Top 10 Strategic Imperatives for Social Media Success in 2016

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As 2016 rolls in, social media is no longer the stepchild or shiny object in your communications strategy. It plays a pivotal part in allowing your organization to spread the word strategically, protect and improve your brand’s reputation, inspire your fans and customers, and align with the overall corporate mission, objectives, and goals of your organization. If you are a corporate communicator, this is your time, to seize the day and the big data and embrace the opportunity to apply strategic imperatives to your social media strategy and ensure your critical messages do not remain a lone tree in the forest that no one can appreciate. Here are Borenstein Group’s 10 Strategic Imperatives for Social Media Success in 2016 as featured in Communication World Magazine. 

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  1. Go Mobile or Go Home.

In the past, most corporations could get away by posting links from their Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn accounts to their corporate websites that were not responsive and compatible with smartphones and tablets. In 2016, most studies are showing that if your corporate website is not mobile-friendly, your social media nuggets of gold will be rendered useless as prospects will leave your site quicker than you can click ‘delete’ on your keyboard. Bottom line: before you deploy any social media campaign, ensure that your organization has upgraded to a mobile friendly and responsive design. If you are not sure, just take your CEO to a conference room, open up your homepage on your tablet and ask him to find his profile. That works really well to get executive buy-in if all else fails.

  1. Integrate SoMo Strategy unto Your Multichannel Marketing Plan.

Your Social media strategy plan cannot succeed if it is disconnected or misaligned from the rest of your online multi-channel marketing plan. At all times, you must stay true to your corporate brand and use the social media tools available as an extension of them. Be creative, but stay consistent with your brand voice. Second, before you begin planning your multichannel marketing strategy, be sure to map out your company’s or organization’s goals in advance. Goals could include creating brand awareness, building relationships, generating leads, growing authority, improving interactions, promoting a product or increasing sales.

  1. Align Your C-Suite’s Mission, Goals & Objectives with The Analytics & Metrics They Care About.

Let’s be real: when was the last time your corporate boss said “I LOVE our social media’s return-on-investment! This really helped us GROW this quarter!” If you are being honest with yourself, chances are the answer is slim to none. The majority of us have never experienced joy when it comes to explaining social media ROI metrics to a corporate executive like a CEO, CFO or CIO. While, in the past, one could claim that there were very few tested marketing and social media automation systems that allowed you to capture meaningful analytics and metrics, 2016 is changing the game. You can now use Big Data analytics to measure anything about which your corporate c-suite is skeptical.

From levels of digital engagement to potency to velocity to repeat visits and downloads of the CEO’s white papers or links to influential third-party validation sites, there are no excuses in 2016 not to measure. What should you measure first, second and third? Measure what your corporate management cares about, not what’s cool in the digital water cooler. Most importantly, if you finished your social media plan and you cannot identify anything that’s relatable to sales, marketing, recruitment and corporate social responsibility, consider a re-do. You are not done yet. Remember, nothing could be more frustrating than having a big win in social media engagement than having your boss say ‘so what, that is not our target audience, irrelevant.’

  1. Develop & Implement a Scoring System for Social Media Postings Aligned with Your Organization’s Business Objectives.

Let’s face it: not all metrics are created equal and not every social media posting on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or vine is going to be important to you or your company. In order to avoid meaningless reports of the number of “mentions” and “retweets”, without assigning a level of importance, you can create a simplified scoring scale from 0-10 in what you’d consider successful and impactful for your organization on social media. For example, your can determine the top three impact data points that your CEO, CFO, and CMO agree and align with, that are worth the company’s time. Remember, you do not want to be the professional that floods your management reports with meaningless metrics of “apparent success.” Analytics is here to help, but please don’t lie with statistics but asking the wrong questions.

  1. Promote Your Corporate Social Responsibility Brand: Doing Good Works Well on Social Media

Because of the viral nature of social media and the capacity to share moments of joy, one of the most critical investments you could make is to ensure your corporate social responsibility initiatives are not happening on a desolate island or being posted only after an event has already happened. They say that no good deed goes unpunished, but what if – by the power of social media – a company’s good deeds could instead be rewarded? Bad news may travel fast, but through the power of social media, these days, good news travels even faster.

For example, AARP, not your average millennial social media membership profile, has managed to garner tremendous national publicity via social media by actually promoting their partnership with Outreach Program, a non-profit 501 (c)(3) corporation that organizes food packaging events around the country. With more than 300 million meals packaged to date, the organization’s mission is to provide food, safe water, education, and medical care to those in need at home and abroad. More than 5,000 AARP volunteers and employee’s packaged over 1.2 million Outreach Program Rice and Bean Casserole meals in Washington, DC on Friday, September 11, 2015, to help feed hungry seniors and veterans in the DC area.

In essence, going viral, or even having a healthy social media community, is more than just scheduling a few tweets or posting photos on Facebook. Curating content, looking for opportunities, and effectively communicating your story is key.

  1. Stay Strategically Relevant: Connect Your Brand to Real-Time News Narratives.

In yesteryear, the right thing to do was to stay within the lines of your dogmatic brand guidelines to avoid conflict and to get any attention that isn’t in the ‘interest of the corporation’. It allowed corporations to communicate with little to no emotional connection to what is really going on the world. However, in 2016, social media is where the buzz is inspiring people to learn about your company in real-time. For example, when a major refugees’ crisis became the dominating headline, did your company have an internal tag-team to consider how to leverage your brand in social media? I am not advocating taking political positions as much as making it clear that your corporate social media strategy includes being attuned to what would make a positive impact to your company’s image online.

  1. Validate That Your Leadership’s Personal SoMo Accounts Aren’t in Conflict with Your Corporate Accounts

Truth be told, not every organization has a pithy, enthusiastic, social-media friendly CEO. Conversely, many organizations have CEOs that are tweeting their opinions from personal accounts without regards to the company’s social media brand perception, creating chaos and inconsistency between the brand you want to present to the world, and the brand that is being hijacked by personal political views to major misspellings that go worldwide in seconds. Because the distinction between Personal & Corporate social media is inherently gone, your 2016 social media strategy must fully align with the corporate interests of your organization. For example, it doesn’t matter how good you do with the corporate account if unflattering pictures of your CEO on a beach vacation, drunk at a local watering hole, make the ‘Twitter machine’ explode with expletives of #WTF.

  1. Be Ready: Develop a Social Media Disaster Preparedness Plan

It is not a question of if, but when. Whether it is a security breach that affects millions of your customers, or a negative recorded customer service experience that went viral on the web, natural or man-made brand disasters will strike your corporation, and your corporate brand that stood for trusted & reliable will unravel before your very eyes. Unless you are prepared to handle crisis communications in the digital age of instant citizen journalism and social media rumors that travel the world faster than you can type, you are already behind on digital emergency preparedness.

Within hours of any public event that get publicity, whether it’s a security breach exposing credit cards at a healthcare insurance company, or a bad customer service call of a cable provider that goes viral in a bad way, social media was filled with livid postings by customers that already blame your brand for slow response on social media, while internet trolls are posting more disparaging remarks about your brand in real-time. The biggest takeaway is that, unlike in the past, when we would all be waiting to see what CNN or Fox would be reporting, your corporate brand is no longer owned by a controlled narrative. It is owned by anyone with a social media account, qualified or not, that can vilify or defend your trusted brand. It is clear that being ready isn’t optional anymore.

What does it mean to be ready? It is called Digital Preparedness. You cannot control social media brand disasters before they happen, but here are proactive strategies you can enact right now to mitigate potential hazards lurking in the distance. At the minimum, since most social media explosions go from zero to 100 really quick, establish a Virtual Command Control Center for Emergency Communications Between the C-Suite, Social Media & Corporate Communications. Often, in times of crisis, executives rely on or hide behind their communications directors to take care of the outside noise from media.

However, without access to the certain leaders in charge of the crisis, whether it is information security breach or catastrophic failure, communications professionals cannot help you unless they got some facts about the who, why, what and where. In the age of available marketing automation suites, it is easy to create an escalation process that allows you to contain communications and ensure there is easy access to decision makers. Most importantly, don’t allow others to define your brand because you were not prepared or overly conservative and cautious. No response is a form of a response in today’s fast moving digital media age and it could make or break your brand more forcefully than any cosmetic fixes or updated customer services policies would.

  1. Recruit & Engage a Social Media Employee Advisory Council

In most organizations, social media is still viewed as the new shiny object that is highly coveted, but one must be aware that if your social media messaging and brand ambassadors are not included and don’t give you the necessary ‘buy in’ on your messaging, you are simply creating an ineffective strategy. The solution is to recruit from within employees that can form a monthly brown bag luncheon to discuss what they’d like to see the company communicating about in different areas. By making them part of the process, as early as possible, you can be assured that you will have additional ambassadors to promote your messages through a multitude of social media channels as well as avoid having a giant disconnect from the cadre of believers in your company’s digital brand.

  1. Make your social media messaging indispensable to your target audience.

Social media power comes with a mission of creating quality content that people care about. In 2016, the excuse that the only ‘approved’ messages from corporate are about account wins, new hires and company picnics is void of connection with the real-world. Successful companies use social media to create engaging content, no matter their field, to amass new fans and customers by offering up tips, how-to guides, funny meme’s that speak to their unique audience, and usage of un-contrived videos that show the authenticity of your organization. Your plan must strategically emblazon the word ‘what’s in it for my prospect on social media’ before any and all postings are promoted. If that answer isn’t clear, you got a loser on your hand.

About the Author: Mr. Gal Borenstein is the Chief Strategy Officer and CEO of Borenstein Group, a top digital marketing communications firm in the Washington DC metropolitan area that serves clients locally and globally. He is a recognized expert and strategist in digital branding, marketing, social media, advertising, online reputation management and public relations matters. He is the author of the new business leadership book, ACTIVATE! How to Power Up Your Brand to Dominate Your Market, Crush Your Competition & Win in the Digital Age, available in premiere bookstores and on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Apple’s iBooks

Top 10 Digital Branding, PR & Marketing Trends For 2016

Another article with Gal Borenstein talking about digital trend- http://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/3-cmo-trends-for-2016-show-how-digital-disruption-is-evolving/63828

Top 10 Digital Branding, PR & Marketing Trends For 2016

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What are the top marketing trends to watch for in 2016 that will impact your company? Borenstein Group’s insights for corporate marketers.

  1. Facebook Video is Now King

YouTube’s video app has had the second most unique visitors year over year with only Facebook ranking higher. With YouTube acting as the undisputed king of online video and Facebook beefing up its own video platform, 2016 is poised for brands ready to commit to  this mobile video marketing trend.

  1. 5 Seconds is all You’ve Got!

Analytics Research shows that when it comes to mobile video advertising, if you don’t catch the attention of the viewer in the first 5 seconds, you can forget about it as engagement drops dramatically. Whether it’s humor, drama, or shock value – the premium for higher results is what happens in the first five seconds.

  1. Marketing Automation Matures

As marketing automation platforms mature and collect big data, marketers will struggle to make data into actionable information to make intelligent decisions. The platforms are not the solution, they are the tool to make better decisions for both demand generation and customer experience.

  1. Shared Economy Drives Greater Opportunities

The notion that even affluent customers are looking to make extra bucks is revolutionizing the concept of social sharing in the information space. Additionally, physical transactions such as transportation, hotel rentals, driving your own car and sharing resources like knowledge communities are rampant in digital-first startups and grown-ups like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and Tinder.

  1. Privacy is the New Piracy

After experiencing cyber security attacks and stolen data in virtually every organization, from banks to the white house to the military, data piracy will become a major concern for non-Millennials, who inherently trust mobile-first, as new collaborative platforms such as e-healthcare records, accounting online service providers, and other Software-as-Service companies will be trusted with your utmost secrets. Who you can trust will become a branding issue, not a cyber security issue.

  1. B2B Digital will Become Consumerized

From both a design and content perspective, Customer Experience (CX) and User Interface (UI) on your desktop, tablet or smart phone, have been initially-owned by impulse-based B2C advertising to consumer brands. In 2016, as B2B corporate buyers now use the same devices (BYOD) for work, they expect their B2B suppliers, vendors, and partners to match their consumer experience and demands for speed, responsiveness, and ease of use even with the most complex B2B enterprise software systems. The divide between what’s right for B2B and B2C will diminish by default of the standardization of the devices being used.

  1. Who’s Da Boss? It Might be a ‘bot.

As marketing and CRM platforms automate workflow of tasks, many marketers will find themselves reporting to a robotic system rather than a human being. The danger zone will be amplified as companies struggle to identify when a human needs to be involved, like when to send a tweet or determine the timing of a campaign based on market research data.

  1. Your Brand Reputation Isn’t an Algorithm

Online reputation management will transform from predominately robotic SEO that matches up with the latest Google algorithm for ranking your favorable mentions, to shifting to value-added authoritative content that is shared with third-party validated media platforms, not your old-school wire releases alone.

  1. Authenticity & Anonymity in Product & Employer Reviews

As 2015 has come to a close, giants like Amazon are experiencing the backlash and responding with adding ‘VERIFIED PURCHASE’ to their product reviews as trust has dramatically eroded in the authenticity of product promotions versus genuine reviews. That struggle will be accentuated as employer review sites will face the same issue of verifying the authenticity of company reviews. Until now, they had little to no consequences. However, the threat of litigation will force them to do something, and the pressure to generate advertising revenue will result in more paid sponsorship and paid reviews which will further erode consumer confidence in the trusted brands.

  1. It’s Not You, It’s Your Phone!

With GPS-enabled apps such as Google Maps and Waze, which enable your smart phone to pinpoint your location at all times, advertisers will create new WAZE to remind and reward you for stopping by their store. Already in action, loyalty coupons beamed to your smart phone will become the new way to get your business, and eventually replace the old coupon clipping routine.

About the Author: Mr. Gal Borenstein is a recognized expert and strategist in digital branding, marketing trends, social media, advertising, online reputation management and public relations matters. He is the founder and CEO of the Borenstein Group, a top digital branding and marketing communications firm in the Washington DC metropolitan area that serves clients locally and globally. He is the author of new business leadership book, ACTIVATE! How to Power Up Your Brand to Dominate Your Market, Crush Your Competition & Win in the Digital Age, available in premiere bookstores and on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Apple’s iBooks. Gal has published his first business leadership book What Really Counts for CEOs in 2009. Since then, Borenstein has been featured as a guest commentator on CNN and Fox Business News on strategic marketing trends and branding issues, as well as, been one of the top digital branding content contributors to influential business leadership social media networks such as LinkedIn, PR Week’s The Hub, Advertising Age’s BtoB magazine, HR.Com, Smart CEO Magazine, DuctTapeMarketing.com and others. He can be reached at 703-385-8178×28 or email at gal@borensteingroup.com or @galborenstein on Twitter.

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Another article about digital trends with Gal Borenstein- http://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/3-cmo-trends-for-2016-show-how-digital-disruption-is-evolving/63828

Success, Partnership, & Choosing a Marketing Agency

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If creating a successful brand has to do with more thanMarketing Return on Investment (MROI), shouldn’t agency selection go beyond a simple checklist of pros and cons? What does success look like?

Finding and hiring a creative agency partner is a big task. With so many options out there, finding a perfect fit can feel near to impossible. After all, do you let your appreciation for ‘cool graphics’ overcome the logic of results? Do you fall in love with the account manager that seems to be a perfect match? Does it boil down to who will spend the budget and deliver, so you do not get fired?

A lot goes into choosing a creative agency. Your strategic goals should shape the search, and the options are limitless. You have so many things to think about. Size. Experience. Price. Timelines. Reputation. Location. These factors will take you places, but will they take you far enough? Finding the right fit is crucial. We think you should consider these practices when hiring a creative agency.

1. Finding and Defining

The first practice you want to value is the act of careful examination.

A successful campaign is built with a solid sense of self. Putting yourself out there requires finding and defining your brand. You want an agency that doesn’t try to fill this foundation for you. You want one that works with you to build, identify, and create concrete goals.

You want an agency that acts as a partner.

An agency ought to immerse itself in your business with the same passion you have for success. What are your goals? What are your values and hopes for the future? Let an agency develop these thoughts with you. Overall, outcomes will be better if campaigns are authentically based on your company and what you stand for. Find an agency that wants to discover what you are all about and why. An agency should act as a middle-man between you and success, filling the space with knowledge transformed into impactful messaging.

The collaborative effort between you and your agency will be crucial for planning and success.

2. Planning Before Executing

“He who fails to plan is planning to fail”- Churchill

High-quality content comes from strategic planning and clearly defined goals. Creating content for the sake of having content will get you nowhere. You want an agency that values quality process over speed. The overall success of your brand relies on how well you implemented strategic thinking from the start.

Solid planning involves looking at the bigger picture. An agency with a one-track mind will not be able to provide you with the best strategy. In fact, it will do everything it can to fit you into their box, so their profit margins or billable hours don’t suffer. Stepping back and allowing yourself to see the full picture will allow you to evaluate your history, future, goals, audience, culture, and brand. These are steps you want an agency to walk through with you. After all, looking at the bigger picture will give you better information to build a long lasting campaign.

3. Focus on the Long-Term

Where do you want to go?

Short-term solutions and ‘fixes’ are tangible and exciting, but will they take you where you ultimately want to be? You want to build something that lasts. Brand longevity is created through forward thinking. An agency should work with tomorrow’s standards in mind, not just today’s. For example, and we’re a bit biased, at Borenstein Group, our success is measured by our client’s success- especially in the long-term. Look for an agency that focuses on your success, not their own.

To plan for tomorrow, you have to find an agency that is at the forefront of new trends. An agency cannot prepare for long-term success without a solid understanding of your vertical market and industry. You want people that value new developments and proactively consider how they will impact the future. If you want to build a lasting brand that will survive the market jungle, you should ignore agencies that talk a big game about immediate results.

4. Knowledge of the field

“When in Rome,  speak Latin (and do what the Romans do…).”

An agency must know how to take what they learned from you and apply it to the marketplace. An agency should know your industry and how to launch you into the national and global market. For example, if you are marketing a wireless telecom widget, pick an agency that knows the tech industry well and has experience marketing in that field.  You want an agency that can launch your brand in new and exciting ways.

5. Team Work Driven by Chemistry

An agency cannot accomplish big, long-lasting things without internal success.

Staff size is only part of the equation. Chemistry. Focus on that. Does the staff act as a team to form tight bonds with each other and the clients? A team with chemistry is better suited to accomplish your goals. When comparing your agency options, look at how their team functions as a whole.

Teamwork really comes into play in a full-service agency. If you can find an agency that works with a team and offers a variety of services, you have hit the jackpot. Hiring multiple agencies for various jobs is unnecessary when you can find one that offers you full service. If you want it all, you want an agency that does it all. Look for an agency that will not only improve your brand through PR but also designs websites and develops a digital strategy. Your end product will be better if the elements of design, strategy, and PR are all overseen by the same agency and given the same care. Consistency is key, and a full-service agency can help you achieve it.  A combined vision creates a dynamic and influential brand.

These are just a few practices that we value at Borenstein Group. There is no easy formula for agency selection, but we think these factors are a good start. A good relationship between you and your agency is essential, and looking beyond numbers and lists will help you find an agency that will work alongside you as a partner to help grow your brand and help it to reach its fullest potential.

About The Author:
Victoria Goebel is a senior communications major from Gordon College in Massachusetts. She is currently studying strategic communications at the American Studies Program in Washington D.C while interning for the Borenstein Group.

 

A Guide To Online Multi-Channel Marketing

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Have you ever taken a bite into a big, juicy cheeseburger and noticed that something was missing? Perhaps the cheese? Maybe even the tomato? There is no greater disappointment than missing an important ingredient when trying to enjoy a meal. This is true for multi-channel marketing, too.

When it comes to multi-channel marketing, missing an ‘ingredient’ can be just as disappointing and ten times more costly. So, let’s take a delicious bite of success in online multi-channel marketing.

Website – The bun

Your website is home to all things related to your business. It is all encompassing and should be filled with content that is true to your brand, relevant to your industry and provides value to users.

Email – Tomatoes

Email marketing should be used as a tool to drive traffic back to your site. Make sure your emails include a call to action that gives the reader a reason to come back to your site.

Visibility Efforts – Pickles

Pay Per Click (PPC) and display ads are another means of getting your name out there. PPC ads appear at the top of search engine listings, whereas display ads are banners located within a web page.

Online PR & Affiliates – Onions

Online Public Relations and Affiliate marketing provide valuable link-backs to your site and help generate better visibility and drive more traffic to your site.

SEO – Ketchup

SEO monitoring takes place once you have an established a web presence with high-quality, business-relevant content. Good SEO boosts your brand and is key to your business showing up in an organic search.

Blogs- Lettuce

Blogs are great for expressing your views and offering a unique platform for you to build trust in your brand as well as give back to your followers. Become a trusted thought leader in your field — the go-to for industry-relevant information.

Social Media & Video – Cheese

Social media, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn, are great cost-competitive ways to really promote your brand. They offer a stage for posting organic content and a practical way to engage and interact with followers. Start conversations, but be sure to keep them relevant to your brand and your marketing goals.

Mobile – Patty

A good chunk of your users these days will be viewing your website via a smart phone or mobile device. If your site is not mobile friendly, you could be missing out on a large amount of potential business. People who visit non-mobile friendly websites on their mobile device are more likely to leave the site out of user frustration.

Of course, even the best cheeseburger in the world needs your secret sauce, which is your unique brand persona. Are you hungry for success? Interested in taking a bite out of online multi-channel marketing? contact us at Borenstein Group and we’d be happy to help.

Digital Marketing Lessons From Hip-Hop’s Finest

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Hate’m or love’em, but they are the marketing Dons on top. Some call them lyrical faux-gangsters because they sing rather than sling. Some call them smart American entrepreneurs that came up from the roughest neighborhoods to succeed on Main Street. The one thing you have to agree on: if you don’t listen to the streets, you might be missing out on some important digital marketing lessons that all marketers can follow.

1. Drake’s Lesson: #Yolo Your Way to the Top with a Smart Hash Tag
Rapper Drake, one of the fastest growing brands in a new era of Hip-Hop, started from the bottom, well almost the bottom. Either way the Canadian born star came from humble beginnings to a lead role on Public TV show ‘Degrassi’ to the top of the music charts. Most importantly, using social media, he was able to establish a brand for himself using a single hash tag ‘#YOLO’ (You Only Live Once). The popular hash tag phrase became a statement that inspired its followers to take chances and follow their dreams and aspirations.

2. Jay-Z’s Lesson: Build a Digital Umbrella Brand Using Icons with Raving Fans
Aside from the meteoric rise from a street drug dealer to a major music mogul, producer, and global entrepreneur, Jay-Z is known for creating the ‘diamond’ icon, which represents Rock-a-fella records, his label. Whenever you go to a Jay-Z concert, Beyoncé or anyone under his label (which includes Rhianna, Kanye, and many others), you will see folks flashing the iconic ‘triangular hand sign’ that symbolizes their ‘belonging’.

3. Rick Ross’ Lesson: If you mention a desirable brand’s name enough, they will let you use it even if no money exchanges hands to build your brand.
Rick Ross, the Miami-based Rapper, has a very tough exterior. But also a promoter’s brain to boot. Using ‘Maybach,’ the iconic luxury German car’s name to create a likeness to his own brand, Rick Ross has established a luxury brand all of his own. Listen closely to every song under his label and you will hear ‘Maybach Music’ pronounced by a sultry lady singer. This common form of advertising is called ‘piggy backing,’ where one brand leverages another more popular brand to build its own.

4. Kanye West’s Lesson: Be Evocative. Be Provocative. Be Consistent: Haters Fuel Engagement.
Kanye West proceeds to define his artistic brand around ‘provocative’ statements that always capture the attention of the press. He engages social media to make you cringe, and creates X-rated music videos that are banned from YouTube only to be replicated on other sites, increasing his press coverage. If you hate him or his music, he gets more fans, clicks and downloads.

5. P-Diddy’s Lesson: You Don’t Have to Belong to a Club. Create Your Own Club.
One of the best in the game. Two decades after P-Diddy showed up on the scene, he continues to make a name for himself with his own apparel, fragrances and vodka brands. Ciroq continues to make a name as a high-end Vodka evoking imagery of Frank Sinatra and other prominent celebrities. Moreover, who could have imagined that P-Diddy would be selling the new Italian Fiats as a ‘luxury sell’ to the masses?

In summary, what do all of these individuals have in common? Each have their very own unique insignia, whether it’s a provocative persona, unique phrase or iconic gesture, one thing is for sure: they all have serious marketing swag.