Category: Marketing Tips

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Make a Mark That's Positively Powerful: 3 Tips for Successfully Reframing Your Brand

If you find that your clients have difficulty connecting with your brand, understanding what your brand does, or are siding with your competitors, it might be time for a rebranding. When you work with Devaney & Associates, we uncover the positively powerful differentiators that make your brand stand out from the rest.

Check out the work we did with Chase Brexton Health Care—helping them transform their LGBT Health Resource Center into The Center for LGBTQ Health Equity.

Tip #1: Talk to the people who know you best

Successful rebranding almost always starts with interviewing your staff and clients. After facilitating a discovery workshop with Chase Brexton staff and gathering dozens of client testimonials, it became clear that the LGBT Health Resource Center was doing more groundbreaking research, advocacy, and education than anyone realized. They needed an elevated brand to match.

Tip #2: Get to know your audience on an emotional level

Knowing how your audience feels on a gut level enables you to forge authentic connections. For Chase Brexton’s audiences, identity can be a deeply emotional journey. Through peer and cultural research, we developed a clear and consistent brand language that could speak to the center’s diverse audiences in a way that was inclusive and affirming.

Tip #3: Be open to changing more than just your name or tagline

To be all that your brand can be often means changing the way things have always been done. Beyond our naming recommendations, Chase Brexton’s leadership was open to making organizational changes, updating its menu of services, and adopting a mission statement to more clearly define the center’s brand and role in LGBTQ advocacy.  

Result: A rebranding that you and your audience can believe in

“Our rebranding was about giving people a better understanding of what we do here every day,” explains Sam McClure, executive director of The Center for LGBTQ Health Equity at Chase Brexton. “We have an incredible team of visionaries who are doing game-changing work to end LGBTQ health disparities in our community and on the national and international stage.”

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Ready to build a brand that truly connects to your audience? Contact us today to get started!

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Using TikTok as a Marketing Tool

Get Your Business Trending with Today’s Fastest Growing Social Media Platform

“Hey yo! Have you seen this TikTok?” has become an increasingly common question these days. Many know TikTok as a new social media platform on which all the young’uns post videos of themselves dancing, but there is more than meets the eye. What if we told you this “dancing clock app” could help you grow your business?

This past week, our summer intern Jester Hutchison made an educational presentation about the marketing potential of what is currently the hottest social media app. Sitting pretty on over 300k followers themself, Hutchison gave us insight into how the app works and how to best use it for marketing a business. Now, we’ll share what we’ve learned with you.

So, What is TikTok?

TikTok is a video sharing app on which creators can easily create fun, eye-catching videos with popular music or amusing sounds. During the last couple of years–and especially during the pandemic–TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms in world. Its primary purpose lies in entertainment and creativity, but the ever-growing user base and unique sharing software make it a rising star on the marketing stage. 

Why TikTok is Great for Marketing

What do you expect to see when you log onto a social media app such as Facebook or Instagram? Posts by people you follow, correct? For a person to gain an audience on most social media platforms, they must build up a following of friends, family, and fans. 

This is not the case with TikTok.

TikTok’s main feed is called the For You Page (FYP), and it is similar to the Explore Page on either Instagram or Facebook. The FYP uses an advanced algorithm to provide viewers with content that is assumed to be within the viewer’s interest. More often than not, a viewer is shown videos of people they don’t follow on the FYP.

Why is this great for marketing?

A business does not need a huge following to get in front of the audience!

All they need is a good idea, an entertaining video, and a little help from the FYP.

Tips For Getting on the FYP:

  • Making videos brief and to-the-point
  • Use popular music or audios
  • Keep up-to-date with what’s trending and use it for your content
  • Put on a performance that’ll keep people watching
  • Use trending hashtags or hashtags that pertain to your ideal audience

How Your Business Can Leverage TikTok

With a monthly audience of 689 million users internationally and 100 million in the U.S. alone, TikTok is an untapped well of clientele. Any business looking to promote their services can hop on and start their own TikTok account for free! Once they start pushing out content and finding their audience, they can watch their customer base grow from behind the camera.

For a more direct approach, a business can also get a TikTok for Business account. This paid membership gives businesses special tools that allow them to collaborate with popular creators, start trends, and even put advertisements directly onto the FYP. 

No matter which type of TikTok account you start for your business, one of the best ways to promote your brand is by collaborating with TikTok creators. Vessi Shoes, a waterproof shoe brand, worked with @kallmekris to incorporate their shoes into her content. With 31.6 million followers and plenty of videos already on the FYP, Kris’ videos expanded Vessi Shoes’ audience and increased their exposure.

You could also use TikTok for Business to collaborate with creators on a larger scale. PaintYourLife, a family-based portrait company, used the Creator Search tool to find creators with families or family-related content. These creators were asked to make videos with a portrait done by PaintYourLife, and several of these videos went viral. These collaborations totaled 770k Views, 120k Likes, and a 13% Average Engagement Rate.

With so many different ways to engage with your audience, TikTok can be your new secret weapon in promoting your business.

Ready to Get Started?

Here’s 3 easy steps to begin your TikTok journey!

  1. Download TikTok to your device
  2. Create an account for you or your business
  3. Create videos and share them with the world!
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Build A Brand That's Positively Purposeful

So, you’ve mastered the ins and outs of running your business—now you’re ready to go public. See how we helped one of our newest PR clients, Yes Chef!, establish a presence in the media after a successful first year as a small, local business. Here are three tips for creating an attention-grabbing presence with public relations:

1. How To Pitch Passion

People are moved by passionate work, as well as services that cater to their needs. It was important to promote the Baltimore-based meal delivery service’s specialties—providing fully prepared, balanced meals crafted by professional chefs to homes and businesses—and owners Clint and Jodi Roze’s passion for the art of food. In early February, Yes Chef! was featured in an online article by Baltimore Style writer Katie Beecher. The article focused on how they came up with their business concept from their desire to serve people, but on their own terms.

2. Spreading Positivity Can Be Newsworthy

Community interest and impact is a large part of determining what’s newsworthy. We knew the Yes Chef! Cares program, which distributes free meals to deserving members of the community, would be a story that would resonate well with the public. WBAL-TV reporter Amy Lu visited Yes Chef! to learn more, and Clint & Jodi were featured on WJZ-13’s “Coffee With” to share how the campaign has already made a difference in people’s lives.

3. Ensure Your Content is Relevant

If you’re pitching a story, it’s important that the content is relevant and timely. During the pandemic, Yes Chef! saw a need to help parents who have been working from home while monitoring their children’s virtual learning. We were able to help them gain traction in the media for their Distance Learning Lunch packages, and in March, Clint and Jodi appeared live on Fox45’s morning news to talk about their meal offerings for kids learning at home.

Have your brand noticed and respected for all the right reasons!

Contact us today to learn more and get started with our PR team.

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Make Your Website Positively Helpful

5 Ways to Get Your Website to Do More for Your Brand

Worried that your website isn’t on par with your brand? See how we worked with Lead4Life, Inc.—a community-based organization that helps underserved youth, adults, and families overcome significant life obstacles—to modernize their website and house their program information, referral tools, participant resources, and more.

1. Don't just tell. Show and tell.

Many brands fall into the trap of simply telling users what they do. But your website visitors want to know that you can deliver. With Lead4Life, we wove real success stories from participants and staff throughout their site to show the life-changing difference that they make in people’s lives.

2. Ensure Everything Has Its Place

Does your website have the deeper content users seek when they’re evaluating your brand? We created individual pages that expanded on Lead4Life’s programs—providing detailed descriptions, a participant profile, a breakdown of services, the location, and how to learn more or refer a participant for each program.

3. Keep Your Site Consistently Updated

If your website—especially your home page—isn’t regularly updated, users will assume your brand is stale. Because Lead4Life is extremely involved in the community, we showed them how to build and maintain an online newsroom, so they can keep current and future participants, family members, donors, and more informed and engaged with the brand.

4. Give Your Visitors the Tools to Become Clients

Your site’s number one job is to convert visitors into leads and customers. For L4L, a new website could also be a tool to generate referrals. With their help, we were able to bring their referrals online by gathering valuable information about their intake process and presenting it on the website in a way that was easy to find and navigate.

5. First impressions matter–visually appealing websites keep people's attention.

So, your website is chock-full of information, but it’s important that it’s also visually appealing! With Lead4Life, our creative team blended a clean layout for desktop and mobile viewing, with uplifting imagery that showcases the organization’s village-styled approach. Our goal was to make website visitors feel inspired, welcomed, and understood—no matter how they accessed the site!

Your website is a reflection of your brand—contact us today to see how we can help!

You want big marketing results. Chances are, we’re the perfect agency to get you there. Visit us online to fill out our interest form and learn how Devaney & Associates helps teams just like yours win at marketing.

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Build Your Brand with Integrated Advertising

Client Challenge:

I want to reach more people in my target audience. But how do I make sure my brand doesn’t get lost in a blizzard of other marketing messages?

The Competition-Melting Solution:

Let’s build your brand by getting the recognition it deserves with integrated advertising. With consistent (and creative) messaging that speaks to your target audience, this method promotes strong content across a strategic selection of media outlets. The results? Reaching more people and making them believers in your brand.

On Fire Results:

Carroll Hospital Family Birthplace Campaign

Challenge: Raise awareness for the hospital’s Family Birthplace expansion and cutting-edge Neonatal Couplet Care Program, while showcasing Carroll Hospital as a leader in obstetric care for babies born as early as 32 weeks

Solution: An integrated campaign targeting women ages 24-39 who were pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant

Media: Data showed that our target moms were tech-savvy researchers. We promoted the hospital’s mom-approved amenities and advanced neonatal care across various media:

  • Programmatic digital advertising (display, mobile, and audio)–reaching women actively engaging with pregnancy or fertility apps and content
  • Search engine marketing to reach women researching competitive hospitals
  • Sponsored articles on parenting websites
  • Print, billboard, and movie advertising to announce the expansion community-wide
  • Email marketing and retargeting to valuable referral sources, like OB/GYNs

Results: The percentage of pre-term births (babies born before 37 weeks) nearly doubled—going from 5.6% of all hospital births to 9.5% of all births in just one year. Carroll Hospital’s leadership attributed this to higher consumer confidence brought on by the “Designed By Moms” campaign.