by Klara Vida | Mar 22, 2019 | Business Strategy, Small Business
What separates the brands you love from the rest? It’s a personality that you want to buy from, which is why you shouldn’t ever keep your brand all business. In this blog, we’ll look at how small businesses can create a strong brand with heart, and why it matters. But first, I want to preface the blog with my own experience of a brand. Brand lessons from the east I live on the Gold Coast, but have travelled to India several times. Every time I visit India, I see the Indian guru Baba Ramdev plastered on every billboard and shop selling everything from flour to shampoo. Baba Ramdev has a mass following in India that began in yoga, and evolved into an all-encompassing consumer brand. He looks every inch the guru – wears the classic orange robe, has the long hair, is pictured in yoga poses and everything he touches turns to sales. To bolster his credentials, his brand sponsors everything from Indian news to sports events. I found it funny at first; of course a yoga guru is the face of rice in India. Every poster of the smiling yogi next to hair care looked contrived to me. ‘Do Indians really fall for this?’ I asked. Then, faster than I realised, I started caving in to the image. It started one day when I went to buy oats. When several options were placed in front of me, I instantly picked Baba Ramdev’s brand. Who else could I trust for breakfast? Even as a foreigner outside of Baba Ramdev’s market, where 90% of the brand message is lost in... 
by Klara Vida | Mar 22, 2019 | Business Strategy, Small Business
We’ve all experienced the feeling of being pulled in every direction and accomplishing what feels like zero. Being stuck in that place isn’t just uncreative and uninspiring, it’s purely reactive and incessantly exhausting. If you’re switching tasks faster than switching off the light at night, it’s time to clean up your schedule and start compartmentalising. One way to get out of this frustrating place is by dropping the tasks that aren’t crucial and prioritising the rest. Maybe it’s stepping away from a partnership that isn’t serving your core market. Or taking the focus off PR while you put essential building blocks in place (like a strategy around engaging followers). The second is outsourcing and automating so you can focus on creating the exceptional brand you set out to create. Consider tasks that repeatedly take up the most time, then figure out if you can outsource or automate them. In a saturated market, every moment spent on tasks that aren’t serving your niche or developing your brand is revenue lost. From batch tasks to de-cluttering your inbox, these automation tips can free up time – and focus! Categorise and batch tasks It takes less than two minutes to lose sight of a task when you have a million things on your plate, and a lot longer to reclaim focus when you switch from job to job. The premise of batching tasks is blocking out time for things where you need similar focus – whether it’s blog writing, strategy or design. Batch work lets you turn off distractions, create flow and complete tasks faster. Tame your inbox Don’t sweat time crafting... 
by Klara Vida | Feb 11, 2019 | Business Strategy, Content Marketing
The digital space shapes how we see the world every day. There’s a lot of clutter and a lot of competition, but when you strip it back, it all comes down to human connection. This is all crystal clear to any marketing manager. You work day in day out creating a magnetic brand which shines in all the right ways, and shows up in all the right places. Yet a business brand alone doesn’t cut it anymore – here’s why your personal brand matters. Why good personal branding is vital for marketing managers Click To Tweet 1. You don’t own the company or what you create in it. The company does. It sounds harsh, but hear us out. You should ‘own’ your work – staying accountable and embracing everything in your corner. That great work ethic will build up your reputation. But when you leave, all the work you’ve poured in stays there. You’ll have experience to take to the next job, but the only thing you 100% own is your personal brand. It’s the currency you take away that will open doors in the future. If you think you’re committed to staying in your job, consider this: you’ve spent three years at a company, pouring your heart into everything you do. You’re completely invested in putting out quality work every.single.day. Then one day, someone buys your company out and new management comes in. Their only concern is restructuring to reduce costs, so they can sell for a profit. Suddenly, everything you’ve done in the past doesn’t count towards your future. What you have done though, is built relationships in your industry,... 
by Leonie Seysan | Dec 10, 2018 | Blog Writing, Business Strategy, Content Marketing
One of the questions I’m asked most often by SME owners and marketing managers is: “How often should we publish on our blog?” There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. If you’re just starting out, my advice will normally be: publish one or two articles a month until you’re able to see that your strategy is working, and your articles are reaching and resonating with your audience. On the other hand, if you’ve been publishing articles for some time, but aren’t getting the desired results, I’d recommend reviewing your content strategy before you worry about the number of articles you’re publishing. Some people are surprised when I recommend publishing so few articles. Once the decision is made to start publishing, they want to maximise the result, and are often considering a blog publishing schedule of 8+ articles a month. The problem with this, is that if you’re publishing quality in-depth articles and paying a blog writer or a content marketing agency to create them, that’s a substantial outlay. And it will be wasted if your articles aren’t finding an audience or aren’t resonating well with the desired audience. You can’t maximise the result until you know you’re getting one. The good news is that once you are confident your content is working and contributing to your bottom line, you’ll be able to review your content budget and turn up the dial to increase those results. The key to getting results with a business blog There are two key factors I find are often overlooked by businesses just starting out with their blog. When one or both are missed, the... 
by Simon Jones | Nov 30, 2018 | Business Strategy, Content Marketing
If your content doesn’t resonate with the right audience, or if your ideal clients aren’t enticed by your offering, it’s time to develop a content marketing strategy or review your existing content strategy. There’s truth in the saying that without strategy, execution is useless. Even though 91% of Australian marketers employ content as a marketing tool, only 46% of them say their organisation has a documented content strategy in place to manage it as a business asset. To get the most out of your content investment, a solid content strategy could be exactly what you need to turn things around. What is a content strategy? A content or ‘content marketing’ strategy focuses on four key steps: strategising, planning, implementing and reviewing. This type of strategy encapsulates the entire content cycle – the who, what, when, how and why – in order to identify the right audiences, perfect your brand messaging and ultimately create high-quality content that will generate quantifiable results. A strategy can be developed in-house if you have the expertise, but it’s a task often outsourced to a content marketing agency, where an experienced content strategist can manage the project. If your current approach isn’t based on a sound strategy, here are 3 ways it could be costing you a fortune. 1. You’re throwing money at PPC PPC (pay-per-click) marketing is essentially a way to ‘buy’ visits to your site rather than generating visits organically. It’s one form of search engine advertising, where you bid for ad placements in a search engine like Google’s sponsored links. Thanks to its simplicity, it’s highly popular. However, this simplicity can be a... 
by Andrew Shaw | Nov 19, 2018 | Business Strategy, Content Marketing, Marketing Online
Have you ever clicked off a video because the presenter just seemed too fidgety? Too wooden? Too arrogant? Too timid? Video presentation is a great skill to learn, especially if you’re an executive or a business owner. Your manner, how you speak and how you dress are examined minutely, much more so than in real life. That’s because viewers are accustomed to watching professional actors and TV presenters, so they have high expectations of anyone who appears on their smartphone or TV screens. Whether you’re creating your videos for content marketing or training purposes, here are 4 tips to help you become a confident presenter. You are what you wear First impressions count for a lot, and are based on appearance. Even before you open your mouth, some people have made up their minds about you. The trick is to simply be yourself. Wear what you would normally wear when meeting with a client, not what you would wear to a special occasion. If the head of a not-for-profit organisation appears in a Chanel suit and pearl necklace, it might raise questions about her organisation’s priorities. (If you’re the editor of Vogue, it’s a different story.) Avoid wearing fabric with tight patterns, especially stripes and checks. Through the magic of television, these can cause a weird optical effect called a moiré pattern, where the fabric appears to ripple when you move. Don’t buy anything new for the video presentation – wear something familiar. You don’t want to discover that your new jacket is too tight around the chest just as you step in front of the camera. Speaking tips...