Can you believe it's been 20 years since the start of the new millennium? And what a ride it has been! When looking at predicting trends for the next ten years, I started reflecting on where we started and came across some important milestones in digital marketing I think are worth pointing out. It really gives you some perspective on how our industry has grown and changed.
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Sometimes it’s hard to know the right direction when you’re being asked to make a million decisions at once. Nowhere is this truer than when launching a new brand in the commercial real estate space. You’re working with highly educated people with discerning tastes and multi-million dollar investments. How can you win them over and establish trust through your branding?
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One of the most satisfying things for me to see as a leader is when one of my team members takes on a task and owns it. I know collaboration and remote work have been the workplace buzzwords for a while, but I see a shift. People really thrive when they feel like they are respected and trusted to get the work accomplished. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our new workplace culture and what it is going to look like this year and in the next decade.
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Are you setting a goal to increase brand loyalty in 2020? Then you need to think about one of the big trends in modern branding strategy: creating creative customer experiences. Why are experiences so important?
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I've seen this problem with influencer marketing coming a mile away. Some of our clients want to use influencers, but they definitely have some concerns about whether they are worth it. I definitely understand where they're coming from, and that's why the influencer trend is changing for the better.
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Thinking about using your brand to make a point about an important cultural issue? Brandstanding done right can boost your brand’s reputation and expand your audience. But without real thought and understanding of what brandstanding is, it can easily backfire. Before you take a stand, let’s drive into this movement.
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If you've been following anything technology,you know that virtual reality and augmented reality have been trending for years. But at some point, something’s got to stop trending and just become the way things are. Case in point: owning a cell phone. Used to be a trend, now everyone has one. So what's the deal with AR and VR? Is 2020 the year it finally takes over and goes mainstream?
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Some trends belong in the past (goodbye, cargo pants!) But sometimes a new trend is worth exploring. We’ve zeroed in on a few branding trends we think could be useful in the commercial real estate space in 2020. Check out what the experts are saying and consider if they’d be useful for you.
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Are you ready to get a jump start on the next big thing in the new decade? You've come to the right place. We love experimenting with new trends that give you a marketing edge, and we're always talking to our clients about ways to do things differently. Here are a few tactics to try in the new year.
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What’s the old saying, “out with the old, in with the new?” A smart, strategic evolution of your brand is essential to keeping the message fresh and resonating with your target audience. So what’s “in” for branding strategy next year?
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Did you ever wonder where the phrase, “pass the gravy,” comes from? It’s a cliché used to express he greatness of the situation. I’d like to think it’s related to Thanksgiving, the holiday where we gather with our dear family and friends. Just like the holidays bring our loved ones together, the gravy unites the traditional Thanksgiving meal. So “pass the gravy” is like sharing the wealth with others you care about.
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Here’s a juicy number: companies earn a 3,800 percent return on their investment for email marketing. So email has clear value, but there’s a hitch: running a strong email strategy requires thoughtful implementation.
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The biggest mistake a brand can make is trying to do too much at once. Sometimes we get so far down the branding rabbit hole our efforts become about designing the right pens or giveaway bags. Guess what? Every time a customer or client engages with you,that’s branding. Over-thinking what branding is and how to create it leads to a convoluted message and unnecessary work.
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Did you ever ask yourself, “who is the best person to tell our story?” We know we’re not just marketing buildings and products. We’re dealing with relationships, and those are best-communicated through stories. But sometimes the best stories aren’t from inside your“house.” They’re from the people who occupy your spaces or use your services.
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The scent of pumpkin spice latte, the sounds of the Monster Mash, and the sight of golden leaves. Fall is here and it's time to prepare your holiday marketing campaigns.
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If the pace of digital marketing feels like it's accelerating, you're not imagining things. Moore's Law essentially “states that transistors on a chip double about every two years.” The more processing power, the more you can do with technology. Naturally, this extends to the tools we use in our digital marketing. As leaders in the field, you got to stayon top of what's coming next, no matter how fast and furious the updates fly at you. Here's how to do it.
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We get it: funds are tight for everything when you're an early-stage venture. You must maximize every single dollar. Branding is something you know is necessary, but you don't have deep pockets to hire a consultant, create all the required branding assets, and promote like crazy. How can you build a brand without breaking the bank?
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By no means is Artifical Intelligence (AI) going to completely replace the creativity and inside industry knowledge necessary to do our jobs to the best. What AI is doing is saving digital marketers and real estate professionals time in collecting and analyzing data,finding applicable insights, and increasing our reach. Here’s what to expect from adopting AI in your digital marketing strategy.
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Email marketing is one of the more effective marketing tools for boosting sales simply based on name recognition. Emails from well-known brands have a significant advantage in grabbing the customers’ attention. That’s how the magic of a strong brand works. Apply your branding to your email to enhance your business reputation and nurture a loyal audience.
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Trends come and go, but the push towards video marketing is not slowing down. Neither is the need for personalization. Both buzzwords are claiming to be the next big thing in digital marketing. But rather than thinking of them separate, what about taking these two monsters and mixing them together?
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As a marketer I often have bought domain names that I love. I started my passion for buying good domain names back in the early 2000’s. Either for my personal blog, business, a business idea, or just a cool name I think I could somehow use in the future.
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The best intentions can go awry in any circumstances. We’ve all heard of brands who made serious mistakes. No one wants to be guilty of cultural branding faux pas. Learn from the whoops moments of others with these distinct examples of when branding didn’t work as expected.
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My health insurance provider has a customer service chatbot that is useless. Every time I make a query, it tells me I can't access that information and to call customer service. What's the point of having a chatbot? That said, I have worked with chatbots that have been extremely helpful. It really can go either way. They definitely have promise for commercial real estate marketing and customer service. Whether to add one to your company’s digital marketing strategy really depends on what you would like to get out of it.
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Don't we all wish our lives were simpler? That's probably why Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up Netflix special was such a huge success. With all the stuff cluttering our lives, it can be cathartic to throw away something taking up space for a decade. Her KonMari method, outlined in the best-selling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, isn't limited to your house. Applying the principles of the KonMari system can positively impact your marketing strategy.
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Hiring for skills is important, but remember skills can be trained. Someone with less skill and experience might be the better “fit” than someone who ticks all the qualification boxes. By “fit,” we’re talking personality, work style, motivation, and coachability. Will the new hires' work style fit with your brand culture? The best way to make sure you hire right for the company culture and expectations is to hire to the brand. How can you do that?
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Consumer behavior falls under the banner of behavioral economics, and is an intriguing study that often sparks insightful debate here at ATYPICAL.To understand how a consumer behaves, and more particularly what informs such behavior, is central to a clear understanding of your target audience. A foundation to this understanding is rooted in how we – the consumers - store and retrieve information in memory.
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You can’t escape the pumpkin spice. Candles, coffee, creamer, cream cheese, ice cream, even Spam. It's now such a cultural thing, we don't need to say "Pumpkin Space Latte." It’s “PSL.” But pumpkin spice wasn’t always to fall what peppermint is Christmas. How did we get here? And what can we learn from the PSL?
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The grass may not be greener on the other side, but that doesn't stop customers from thinking it might be. One mission as a digital marketer is to figure out how to get people to organically discover your brand and not the other. That’s why it’s smart to keep an eye on your competition’s digital moves. Your secret weapon is gathering search engine intelligence about your competition.
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Sometimes companies place “brand marketing” and “product marketing” into separate boxes. But don’t these two marketing focuses need to work in harmony to support company growth? Your product marketing must live up to the brand promise while the brand’s identity relies on its strong product and service offering. Product and brand marketing have a symbiotic relationship that needs nurturing.
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We have a lot of "tools" to digitally market: email, social media, video, infographics, white papers, and so on. All these "tools" need a "box" to call home. That's your website. Have you ever gone searching for a tool and couldn’t find it? Annoying, right? Well, a website serves as the hub for your digital tools. This foundation must be built to handle its job or it's ineffective for the money you're spending. What should a website be doing for you?
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New to the formal branding process? Brand discovery is the beginning. This critical step sets the stage for a successful long-term presence in the industry. Your early decisions about the brand image, consumer perception, and values communication determine if the vision meets the road. Through brand discovery, you define your values and personality while making decisions on how to deliver on your brand promise.
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Ready to flip thumb down to a thumb up on pop-ups? Don’t use them to annoy people to death with your brand. Use them the right way! Effective pop-ups can grow your email marketing and subscriber list. They’ll funnel leads and promote your content.
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The classic chicken and egg, but this time, the brand. After all, the authentic brand must reflect the company culture...but the culture must live up to the brand. Hence the constant run-around about what to build first: company brand or company culture?
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Marketers constantly scrutinize search results and news feeds to figure out how to hack their algorithms. When these automated decision-makers decide how many people see your content, the importance of understanding algorithms comes to the forefront. But how much should we cater to algorithms when designing our marketing strategy?
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Think your branding feeling stale? You’re probably right. All brands benefit from the occasional refresh. Customers like doing business with brands and people they believe have a thumb on the pulse of the industry. Periodic brand updates keep the messaging with the times. Besides a gut feeling, what other signs prove you’re overdue for a brand refresh?
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Internet searches started as typing questions on a search engine like Yahoo. The field transformed with Siri and Alexa into voice queries. How do you level up from there? Hello, visual search. The real estate industry is uniquely positioned to leverage visual search capabilities. To see benefits, you’ve got to start optimizing now.
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Individual real estate agents: yes, you are a brand! Even though you are not a global corporation, you still promote a unique service. Don’t your prospective clients regularly ask, “how are you different from other real estate agents?” Well, that answer is your personal brand value statement!
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Meet the CREators focuses on individuals in the commercial real estate space crushing digital marketing. To be a CREator means delivering consistent, creative content that dominates their niche. They are forward-thinking leaders applying best practices, trying new strategies, and smashing the box.
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The first time I heard animation was the next big thing, there was this, “really?” moment. Then I started thinking about it and realized not only does it make complete sense, but that we’ve been experimenting with animation in the business world for years. Animation in digital marketing conveys serious information in a way that is fun and sticks with your audience. Why does it work?
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What’s short and sweet and summarizes your company culture? Hello, brand positioning statement. This little sentence captures your purpose and culture. You may never advertise it or share it externally, but it's the foundation behind the rest of your branding work.
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Have you heard about the big change on Instagram? If not, what I'm about to say is going to shake your social media world. Ready?Instagram is experimenting with getting rid of likes. Think about it: the whole concept of “liking” something has been around since Facebook launched. Remember the poke? What does the digital world look like without lit-up heart symbols and thumb-ups and like counts?
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People have shifted how they prioritize the things they buy. Yes, we're always going to be looking for a good deal and for quality. But now we’ve added a third question: “How does this make me feel?” Your brand is not exempt. How you or your company makes someone feel about them giving you their money does matter.
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Fun fact: around 82 percent of consumer research online before buying products. Another 79 percent of people shop online. Clearly, we live in a digital world. So why are we still talking about the pros and cons of digital marketing? Common sense says to reach your people, you need to be online. Here are five reasons breaking down digital marketing’s not-so-secret advantage.
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Talking about branding can sound like hocus-pocus. Our emphasis on what you want customers to feel and company values make branding discussions delve into gray areas more akin to psychology. This is partly because tracking the data on how brand beliefs translate to revenue is not a A to Z endeavor. Clearly measuring how a brand belief impacted sales numbers is trickier than tracking a social campaign. It’s no wonder plenty of professionals doubt the power of a strong brand.
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We can’t look to the future of digital marketing without talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. It’s revolutionizing every industry. The use-cases for marketing and advertising translate to a better understanding of our audience. With machine learning, it’s possible to not just stay on top of trends but to be ahead of them!
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A well-known brand name is priceless. So how do you get your name to be synonymous to your market as with a name like “Visa” and credit cards? It boils down to brand equity, an understanding of your clients’ emotions and feelings about your brand positioning. At its best, a good brand name leaves consumers referring to your product for the entire category, like “Jet-Ski” for personal watercraft or “Coke” for any soda beverage. But even if your real estate brand doesn't become the name for the market, the strong brand equity still helps customers feel confident about working with your company. How do you get there?
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I am beyond excited to announce that The Content Funnel and ATYPICAL are now one. We are a full service marketing agency focused in commercial real estate. I can’t help but think of the iconic sitcom, The Brady Bunch. I know it’s a little cheesy but hear me out… In The Brady Bunch, two families came together and created one of the first blended families we saw on TV. Just like The Brady Bunch, we are two groups that came together to create a new amazing family.
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Union will combine animation, gaming and immersive technologies with targeted marketing campaigns for the real estate industry.
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Interested in gaining more traction through your Facebook advertising? Or maybe you heard about the Facebook Pixel, but you're not quite sure how it works? You've come to the right place. We're going to break down the Facebook Pixel, how to use it, and recent changes that impact current pixel users.
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Digital marketing promises limitless potential. The endless creativity combines with new ways to reach and engage people. Today’s digital marketing isn’t limited to social media advertising. These innovative ways to use digital marketing in CRE are making us more excited for the years ahead.
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You’ve specialized in something and fine-tuned an awesome product or service. But you know staying stagnant is how great businesses lose to the competition. Expansion by adding new services that help customers and augments the great work you do keeps attracting your brand running. Only one hitch: these new services or products alter your identity, which in turn impacts your brand. What do you do?
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The Content Funnel Will Rebrand as ATYPICAL; Sarah Malcolm and Mark Kalkwarf to Co-Manage Operation
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Early on, when search engine spiders were less sophisticated, writers gamed the system. Article after article hit the web with stuffed with precise long-tail keywords great for SEO, but painful to read. Some brands pushed back by not caring about keyword utilization at all. The problem? Over-optimizing for keywords is as damaging as not considering them at all. Let’s solve some keyword problems and find the middle ground.
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People like stories. More real estate professionals should embrace the new marketing trend to communicate with customers. A basic biography, the “we do ‘x’ because ‘y,’” like “we make the data visual so real estate investors see opportunities,” is a fine summary, but will it really resonate with your target audience?
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“An ebook is just a longer blog, right?” Wrong! Well-written ebooks and white papers aren’t extended blogs. This original content must stand on its own. The amount of work behind creating an ebook or white paper catches people off-guard their first time. Here’s the work you don’t see when you click, “download.”
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A large portion of the discussion in content marketing revolves around blogging. That discourse is changing, and probably for the better. Blogging is just one technique under the content marketing umbrella. Content marketing for commercial real estate gets spicier when you go beyond the blog.
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Tagline me here, tagline me there. Taglines are everywhere! Do you really need a tagline as part of your branding package?
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Not using any social media video in your commercial real estate market places you at a disadvantage.
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This month, we’re spotlighting industry reporters and editors. Let’s recognize the wordsmith professionals slaying the content game.
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Whether you’re a commercial real estate agent or a CRE service provider, don't neglect the importance of LinkedIn in your social marketing efforts.
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Our top highlights from the annual DNA of #CRE survey by theBrokerList and Buildout.
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When it comes to social media, you need to have the right mindset and goals. We have to be constantly changing our strategy because social media is constantly in a state of flux.
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Our Meet the CREators series focuses on individuals in the commercial real estate space crushing social media and blogging. This month we highlight the Tenant Advisor, Coy Davidson.
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Knowing the best ways to promote your brand’s story is essential to marketing on Facebook.
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Think brand protection doesn't apply to commercial real estate? Think again. When someone copies your brand elements, they dilute your message.
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We are so excited to share memories and highlights from this years #LetsGetSocial19 AT #ICSCRECon in Las Vegas! Lets Get Social is an annual meetup for ICSC RECon attendees to connect with old friends and meet some new ones, too!
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Our Meet the CREators series focuses on individuals in the commercial real estate space crushing social media and blogging. They are leaders not necessarily because of the number of likes, although their work often has a loyal following. To truly be a CREator means delivering consistent, creative content that dominates their niche.
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Let’s Be Honest. Social media marketing is tough. Potential clients have countless businesses competing for their attention. Fads come and go within days. Social networks constantly tweak their news feed algorithms, their features, and their paid advertising options. Driving social media results requires the commercial real estate professional to stay on their toes. We talk a lot at ATYPICAL about best practices and what commercial real estate industry-specific tactics generate results.
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