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Brand Archives - NVISION, A BradyPLUS Company

NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In CMO, Sustainability, Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Food for thought

Going Green: Four Ways to Embrace Sustainability to Your Marketing

hands holding soil and baby plants

From the organic vegetable isles and free-ranged meat to vegan cosmetics, consumers these days, especially Millennials, are driving sustainability movement into a much more personal level into their lifestyle.

As “going green” efforts grow in popularity, it presents the opportunity for brands to boost sales by appealing to modern consumers who are driven towards activism.

According to Kate Harrison in her Forbes article, “Fully 92% of consumers have a more positive image of a company when that company supports environmental causes.”

In order to capitalize on eco-friendly trends, help combat climate change, and reach more customers, brands must focus on sustainability. It’s a win-win!

sustainability-eco-friendly packaging

Show Off Your Eco-Friendly Packaging

Studies indicate that the majority of Millennials and Generation Z’ers are willing to pay more for a product that has sustainable packaging. In order to do so, brands should use recycled or biodegradable materials.

Using recycled materials, such as aluminum, conserves energy, and reduces waste. And opting for biodegradable versions of packaging materials, such as PCW recycled paper and cardboard, cornstarch, bubble wrap, and plastic, accomplishes the same. When consumers see your efforts to make a positive impact through sustainability, they will be more attracted to your brand.

This is a powerful branding move that can also cut costs for marketing teams.

commercial print-sustainability

Invest in Sustainable Print Materials

Every brand recognizes the importance of showcasing a positive brand identity using print materials such as business cards and brochures. But, unlike popular belief, using print materials doesn’t have to equate to damaging the environment.

To reduce your environmental impact, invest in sustainable print materials. Use recycled print materials, waterless printing, plantable seed business cards, recycled cotton, and PCW paper to deliver an extremely professional, polished product that also protects Mother Earth.

By doing so, you’ll be doing your part to save the world, while simultaneously increasing brand appeal and boosting profits.

Sustainability Applies to Digital Too

Brands can save significant energy by implementing an eco-friendly web design. When you choose a green web host, you can help ensure (and advertise the fact) that your site is not contributing to global warming.

As Harrison explains, “Some of these [green web host] companies purchase carbon offsets to make up for the energy they use, while others tap into renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to power their servers.” These “lighter” websites even load faster, which gives you an upper hand against your competitors. Your site will have lower abandonment rates as a result of the quick loading time.

sustainability-industrial

Myths Busted

The biggest mistake brands make when it comes to sustainability is believing the common myths surrounding it. The most prevalent of these myths is that sustainable printing is more expensive than the alternative, and has a lower quality than traditional printing.

The fact is that sustainable printing supplies and processes have improved dramatically in recent years. So much so that print marketing materials created with eco-friendly methods are indistinguishable from those made with conventional methods. The quality is the same, if not better. And, with the growing prevalence of eco-friendly print materials, the cost has decreased, making it a realistic and competitive alternative to traditional printing.

This enables your brand to do its part without sacrificing marketing impact.

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As the environmental crisis worsens, it’s more important than ever for brands to implement eco-friendly practices. By doing so, not only will you be helping Mother Earth, but your brand will also be more appealing to those who stand by sustainability.

By using eco-friendly packaging, investing in sustainable print materials, using environmentally-friendly web design, and re-thinking the myths regarding sustainable printing methods, you can help save the world AND improve sales and profitability for your brand.

And by working with a trusted partner who can help you capitalize on sustainable printing opportunities, your brand can compete on the quality and effectiveness of your marketing materials.

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In CMO, Marketing ROI, Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Marketing Operations, Marketing Strategy

CMO’s Guide: Capitalizing on Emerging Marketing Trends Beyond 2020

man with ipad

The landscape of the marketing industry is in constant motion. These changes present new opportunities for marketers to engage with consumers to drive sales. However, some brands are struggling to keep up with changes in the industry, and are consequently falling behind as the broader retail landscape changes.

According to Charles Golvin, as quoted by Chris Pemberton in his Gartner article, “Shifting consumer behaviors and technology innovation deprive marketers of equilibrium. Recovering that equilibrium will require organizational alacrity, a laser focus on customer needs, and a balanced embrace of automation.”

In order to ensure future success, brands need to find ways to capitalize on the current changes in the industry. So, what can brand marketers do to gain benefits from emerging marketing forces in the coming years?

shop with digital network graphics - retail continuity

Adapt to Consumer Behavioral Changes

Consumers are changing the way they shop. Technology plays a major role in this evolution of the modern shopper. Customers now use voice commands, wherever they are, to get tips and advice from automated voice interfaces as if it were a human. Brand marketers need to ensure that their brand comes up as a suggestion when customers search for a particular product through voice automation.

Along with using voice commands, consumers respond enormously to video content. Brands should recognize this emerging preference and focus on producing creative, engaging video content to capture the attention of potential customers. By discovering how to use new consumption formats to reach your target consumers, you can increase the effectiveness of your marketing presence and drive sales for your brand.

marketing meeting

Partner With Experts

As we already know, many brands collect personal data from shoppers. But the simple act of gathering information doesn’t lead to results by itself. Brand marketers need to figure out how to properly analyze and utilize the data that they have.

Brands need to ensure that they employ analytical talent with the expertise necessary to extract valuable insights from large amounts of data. As Pemberton explains, “Based on the Gartner Marketing Analytics survey, nearly half of marketing leaders surveyed said some of their most expensive and experienced analysts and data scientists spend their time preparing data to be analyzed rather than analyzing the data.” The problem is that many data analysts are simply “missing the mark” when it comes to effectively utilizing personal information to market towards a target audience.

When brand marketers know how to put consumer data into action, they are able to focus on personalizing the customer experience, which results in higher profits and increased conversion rates. An effective way to capture the attention of customers is through personalized, creative marketing materials that can engage customers with call-to-action.

AI-machine learning

Marketing with Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence is an important technology that has strongly impacted the marketing industry. The increased use of sophisticated technology for marketing may pose challenges for brand marketers, especially those who are convinced that legacy marketing tactics are the only effective way to reach customers. What brands need to realize is that an effective, balanced combination of physical marketing tactics and digital marketing methods is required for brands to remain profitable in the current age.

Brand marketers can capitalize on the emergence of new automation devices by delivering personalized communications to consumers. Pemberton explains, “Vendors promise their AI solutions will yield increases in marketer efficiency and deliver optimal communications to prospects and customers at the moment of maximum influence.”

As automation methods continue to dominate the marketing industry, marketing teams will experience a disruption in the way they perform. But, when brand marketers see technological advances as new opportunities, as opposed to problems, they can invent and implement innovative methods to improve marketing outcomes and customer experiences.

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The changing terrain of marketing in the coming years doesn’t mean that you will struggle. Instead, brand marketers should see these market challenges as opportunities to redefine their business by thinking of new, creative ways to engage with customers and drive sales.

Adapting to customers’ behavioral changes related to shopping, hiring experts who know how to effectively analyze data to improve marketing tactics, and capitalizing on the use of machines for marketing are important steps you can take as a brand marketer in order to flourish in today’s challenging market. By understanding these useful actions, brands are more likely to remain profitable and ensure a prosperous future for their business.

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In CMO, Marketing Trends, Print Marketing, Direct Mail, E-Commerce

Top Marketing Trends to Watch for 2020

girl looking through her fingers-full

With 2020 on the horizon, the accessibility of innovative and disruptive technologies are driving marketers to acknowledge, assess, and prepare for emerging marketing trends to remain profitable.

According to John Hall from Forbes, “The world is changing a mile a minute, and it’s hard to scale, differentiate yourself, and maintain trust in the ever-changing marketing world.”

The more you can plan forward, the better equipped you feel to managing those changes when they happen. Here are three top marketing trends that marketers should embrace and prepared for.

woman shopping on tablet - CPG

Social Shopping

Social media, which used to be a network for friends and family sharing emotional input, now becomes an effective sales platform for many brands.

With nearly 25% of brands are selling through social media, it offers brands the ability to reach new customers quickly on users’ own terms. Equipped with a frictionless checkout process, it enables brands to create a seamless shopping experience to build a long-term relationship with their customers for retention. It also allows brands to shorten the sales cycle tremendously for short-term profits.

According to AddThis, 60% of people discover products on Instagram, and 78% of Americans use Facebook to find new products. Social shopping is not just another buzz word. It will shift the way customers find and purchase products, accompanying high expectations of the entire customer journey being frictionless.

Virtual Interaction

Today’s consumers expect new experiences when they are online, and for the majority, this means more interactivity. In fact, augmented reality (AR) is expected to become the most popular interactive technology for engaging consumers in 2020.

Well developed interactive content can keep your consumers on your page longer, increasing your brand exposure. It is highly shareable, meaning you are growing your brand awareness. Consumers enjoy experiencing virtual interaction are more engaging. It is also highly personalizable to fit the customer’s lifestyle, which adds value.

Virtual interactive technologies offer higher emotional intensity and add a new layer of customer experience by placing your brand image close to the eyes of customers.

professional meeting-growth

Content is Still the King

Continuing a steady trend from this year, content marketing will remain as one of the top trends in marketing for 2020. There are advantages of well-crafted content that will bring to your brand. Delivering valuable, relevant, and consistent content attracts and acquires a more clearly-qualified audience with potential conversion in the long-run. Creating and sharing compelling content will build your reputation as an industry authority and influencer. Informative content helps customers to make educated decisions.

Your content is what search engines provide to searchers online; it is critical to produce high-quality content continuously for your inbound and outbound marketing effort. By producing authentic content that adds real value to your target audience, brand marketers will nurture stronger and longer-lasting customer relationships.

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Marketing trends are constantly evolving. And brand marketers need to be aware of emerging trends to leverage efforts to be successful in 2020.

Utilizing social media effectively to create a seamless customer journey, engaging users with meaningful virtual interaction, and creating valuable content that speaks consumer’s language are effective ways to leverage new trends, generate demand, and drive sales for the coming years.

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

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NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In Healthcare, Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Direct Mail

3 Tips to Driving Healthcare Marketing to Success

elderly woman at the hospital counter - full

Today’s healthcare consumers are much different than the healthcare consumers of the past, thanks to the wealth of resources available, including the advancement of technology. Patients now have more options than ever, and can access them instantly from their devices. As a result, healthcare companies today face new challenges when it comes to marketing effectively.

According to Lindsay Resnick in CMO.com, “Success in a transformative landscape requires marketing leaders to re-examine strategic imperatives, anticipate what’s coming next, and deftly navigate a fast-moving set of obstacles and opportunities to capture customer mindshare.”

In order to ensure success in these changing market conditions, healthcare brands must capitalize on emerging opportunities to improve their marketing campaigns, and here’s how.

doctor touching screen -healthcare

You and Yours Only

Delivering an exceptional customer experience being the priority, healthcare marketers should collect, analyze, and leverage consumer data to develop a “Patient Persona” to attribute marketing strategy.

By leveraging the sum of cross-channel consumer data, nothing will attract more consumers than an intimately crafted and satisfying message tailored to consumers’ needs.

When consumers are content with their needs through your product, your brand will experience higher profits, increased demand generation, and enhanced brand awareness.

As Resnick stated, “Customer experience will go beyond journey mapping as healthcare companies commit to budgeted, cross-functional efforts across customer life cycle touchpoints.”

people looking up - crowd

Know Your Shoppers’ Personas

To effectively reach and engage with customers, brand marketers need to be aware of the different types of segments they’re targeting. The four most common categories of shoppers include: digital by lifestyle, digital by choice, digital by need, and offline society. Each consumer group has unique shopping needs, and brands need to prepare marketing approaches for each of them.

As Amar, Raabe, and Roggenhofer explain, “Best practice is to design primary service for each segment, using contact volume distribution and persona profiles that differentiate by digital behavior to determine engagement strategies and the necessary investments in each channel.” Different types of consumers will respond to different marketing tactics, so brand marketers need to get creative to effectively reach a large audience of shoppers.

More and more customers demand personalized journey fit their needs. The first step for brands to achieve this is to understand the shopping preference of their target consumer groups.

Some consumer segments respond more to online advertisements, whereas others are more touched by physical marketing materials such as direct mail that drives them to brick-and-mortar stores where they can experience a personal connection with the brand. Therefore, brands should focus on developing marketing strategies that serve each persona group based on their shopping preferences in conjunction with omnichannel digital efforts.

digital data-hand touching tablet

Combine Data, Creativity, and Technology

To healthcare brands, it is critical to provide an attractive, yet attentive customer experience by realizing the three-way convergence of brand, direct, and content marketing. And they should combine data, creativity, and technology to develop and implement robust marketing approaches.

For obvious reasons, developing customer touchpoints based on consumer data is essential to deliver personalized experience via relevant conversations to exchange value to retain profitable consumers.

And health brands, perhaps more than most industries, must take advantage of the technological resources; apps that can be used on mobile devices to easily and quickly interact with brand representatives, search for product information and ask essential questions help close the gap between customer and care.

No one enjoys feeling like they’ve wasted time. When customers receive an easy, convenient, yet quality experience, they will be happier, and more likely to become your brand ambassador.

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As the healthcare industry changes and presents more challenges to marketers, health brands must employ new methods to remain profitable and satisfy their customers’ needs.

By using customer data to deliver a more personalized experience, ensuring that there is an effective channel for communication and productive engagement with consumers, and employing marketing techniques that combine data, creativity, and technology, you can provide a satisfying, helpful customer experience that will drive sales, and increase brand awareness.

And by working with a trusted partner who can help you capitalize on new marketing opportunities in the healthcare market, your brand can compete on the quality and effectiveness of your healthcare marketing efforts.

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

LEARN MORE
NVISION Insights and Innovation Team
In Marketing Trends, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Retail Trends, CPG, Direct Mail

Three Key Tips to Gain Competitive Advantage in CPG

man looking at consumer product at a grocery store

Undeniably, the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry faces unique challenges. Over the past five years, many CPG brands have experienced a decline in revenue and profits. Brands are struggling to keep up with changes in the industry, and some are consequently falling behind as the broader retail landscape changes.

According to Bain & Company’s Matthew Meacham, François Faelli, Eduardo Giménez, and John Blasberg in their article, “When we analyzed the performance of 34 of the world’s top 50 consumer goods companies in the last few years, we made the unsettling discovery that 85% of those big companies had seen a decline in either revenues, profits or both.”

In order to ensure future success, brands need to find ways to combat the current challenges in the industry. So, what can CPG brands do to overcome the current crisis in the industry?

shadowed people with bubbles - account management

Be Agile with Emerging Trends

With advances in technology and the emergence of a new generation of shoppers, the CPG industry is constantly evolving. The wants and needs of customers are changing, along with the ways they shop. Brands that hope to survive in this ever-changing market need to keep up with the new trends.

One of the most significant trends is rapidly shifting in consumer behavior as they become more socially, environmentally, and health-conscious. This fast-growing trend contributed to the considerable disruption caused by small insurgent brands in many product categories, making the competition even more intense.

In order to support the new wave of consumers and to compete in the current market, brands should focus on establishing a robust multi-channel presence to connect with the target consumers where they are comfortable to interact and share.

When brands are aware of emerging market trends, they can come up with a plan to prepare for them ahead of time. By serving the consumer in the way they want to be served on par with the current trends, brands can outsmart the competition to be successful in the marketplace.

Reinvent Brand’s Image

Brand marketers need to start thinking “outside the box” when it comes to engaging with customers. Instead of relying solely on legacy marketing tactics, brands should consider ways to draw in customers that they haven’t used before.

Meacham, Faelli, Giménez, and Blasberg explain: “Winning companies will innovate their way out with new products, new systems, and new needs that help elevate their categories to premium status while increasing product and assortment penetration.”

If keeping up with the current trends is “today forward” strategy, brands also will need to take “future back” approach to set their own destiny and progressing toward it.

By redefining the vision for your brand, and your company – future back approach – to rearticulate a meaningful, sustainable, and consumer-driven purposes will inspire to reset the brand’s sense of urgency and to become the frontline innovator.

woman shopping on tablet - CPG

Directly Engage with Customers

Traditionally, most CPG brands don’t maintain a relationship with customers after they make a purchase. However, if brands take the initiative to connect and develop lasting relationships with their shoppers, they will drive sales and increase their opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.

Adding the data-driven personalization in every customer touchpoint will significantly improve customer commitment to the brands, especially when a customer feels connected, understood, and valued by the brand.

One way is direct mail follow-ups with customers after they’ve purchased your product. Consumers typically respond positively to direct communication because they appreciate feeling that their feedback is important.

Also, brands should consider opening pop-up brick-and-mortar stores to improve engagement with consumers. Brands can more easily establish impactful connections with their shoppers in a physical store, where the entire consumer experience is curated by the brand.

There is no sales method more effective than good old-fashioned, positive, face-to-face interactions. When a customer leaves your store feeling like they’ve had a good experience, they are more likely to come back and also to encourage their friends and family members to shop there.

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The current crisis in the CPG industry doesn’t mean that your brand is doomed to struggle. Instead, brand marketers should see these market challenges as opportunities to redefine their business by thinking of new, creative ways to engage with customers and drive sales.

Making sure you stay in the know regarding new market trends, coming up with innovative ideas for products and marketing tactics, and putting in the effort to reach out and directly engage with your customers are important steps you can take as a CPG brand marketer in order to flourish in today’s challenging market. By understanding these useful actions, CPG brands are more likely to remain profitable and ensure a successful future for their business.

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Why NVISION?

For more than three decades we’ve partnered with Fortune 500 companies to deliver marketing operations solutions. Led by a strategic account management team, we’ll help you develop, procure, fulfill and distribute printed collateral, signage, point-of-purchase displays, direct mail, branded merchandise and much more.

LEARN MORE