pg 19

CASE STUDY

weâ€™ve

pg 27

pg 3

CORE VALUES

FEATURED

pg 11

pg 21

How social engages

FIND YOUR

customer pg 13

Issue 2: 2019/2020

pg 7

about pg 25

letter

FROM M&R We recently celebrated our 10th year in business, and as we reflected on those early days, a phrase came to mind: born in a recession, but raised by grace and hard work. We launched M&R in 2008, at a time in history when 232 businesses closed their doors for good … every day. To cap off our 10th year, we were recently named Small Business of the Year by our local chamber, and that award is shared with every business who has invited us in. Thank you for your partnership these last 10 years! In speaking with so many of you, we know it’s been an exciting few years for your business as well. You’re opening new offices in new locations, launching new products and initiatives, making new hires, initiating rebrands, experiencing market growth, and so much more. It is truly a great time to be doing business. This is our second issue and each article is focused on putting in the hard work to achieve business growth. We’re talking about core values, buyer personas, a new-ish digital platform, and the continued relevance of social media for B2B markets. We’re also sharing 10 lessons we’ve learned during our last 10 years of business.

Thanks for reading along! 1 • M&R 2019/2020

table of

CONTENTS 3 10 LESSONS

We’ve Learned in 10 Years

7 5 WAYS

Core Values Grow Businesses

11 MEET

Your Team

featured

HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMERS… AND FIND MORE JUST LIKE THEM

RECOMMENDED

THE MEANING of Trust

Social Media Engages a B2B Audience

FAQ'S

CASE STUDY:

Reading

About Geofencing

Navicent Health Foundation

21 13 WAYS

LEARN MORE

About M&R Marketing

2019/2020 M&R • 2

3 â€¢ M&R 2019/2020

Luck Doesn’t Exist, But Grace Does

We launched at the beginning of a recession that saw 232 businesses close every day. It was our first business and there were a million questions we didn’t have the answers to. Yet, we survived and have grown every year. But we know it wasn’t luck, and it wasn’t only our hard work. Instead, it was God’s grace. We believe that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

Relationships Are Everything There’s nothing more important in life and in business than relationships. For us, that means a few things: (1) we treat our team like family and hire based on attitude; (2) our work doesn’t keep us from our families at home; (3) we are obsessed with seeing our work grow our clients’ businesses; (4) we will give of our time, talents, and money to better our community.

Be Proactive, Not Reactive Reacting to a situation means you are behind before you start, and you have less time to provide a solution. The more projects and clients we have, the harder it is to be proactive. It feels like more work to be proactive, but it’s not – it takes far more time and mental capacity to be reactive. Most importantly, proactive people are in control, while reactive people are controlled.

Work Like Heck In most situations, we know what needs to be done … we just have to get out there and do it. We haven’t found a substitute for old-fashioned, nose-to-the-ground hard work. Early on, we practically gave away creative to build a portfolio. We worked 80hour weeks, we quit good jobs to launch M&R with just a few clients, and we did everything we could without borrowing a dime. We are motivated by the families our business supports, and that’s about all the motivation we need on most days.

Processes Help You Scale When it was Nick and I, we didn’t need processes. We were doing all the work ourselves and we honestly didn’t have enough of a routine to record a process. But as we grew, and new team members started working on projects and departments formed, it became crucial for everyone to know how we do what we do. Our processes and procedures have become a key contributor to the growth of our company. It’s improved our product, created consistency, removed stress and uncertainty, and made us more efficient. 2019/2020 M&R • 4

Build a Team of Advisors The sooner you realize you’re not great at everything, the quicker you can focus on what you are great at. Don’t out-punt your coverage, as they say. Forming our team of advisors has provided us confidence and peace of mind. Our team includes our CPA, financial advisor, attorney, insurer, and business operations coaches.

Be You, Not Someone Else While there’s value in watching your competition and understanding their approach and service offerings, we’ve found that we do best when we focus on us, not them. We’ve worked hard to let our core values lead us: be relational, insightful, innovative, and passionate. Those values push us further than the work of a competitor ever will.

Always Do What’s Right, Even When It Hurts That’s a simple statement until it costs you a lot of money and a lot of time. Most often, a client won’t notice a short cut … but you will, and your team will. Your work is a product of who you are as a person, and you have to live with that person. There are no shortcuts in life or in business.

Ask Why Before You Ask How It’s easy to get ahead of yourself and jump to the how before you understand the why. Marketing lives in the gray and is often very subjective, so it’s important to truly understand the client and their market and why they do what they do. It’s impossible to sell a product you don’t understand to a market you don’t know.

10 Embrace Delegation

We’ve had to learn how to trust people, let go, and live with the results. That hasn’t been easy, but we’ve done it by hiring an amazing team who is passionate about their craft, diligent, and trustworthy. So, we let them do what they do best, which includes things we used to do as co-founders. Delegation is empowering and allows everyone to work within their best space. 

5 • M&R 2019/2020

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Woodrow Wilson

2019/2020 M&R â€˘ 6

5 CORE VALUES

7 • M&R 2019/2020

The core values of a business define what’s most important to your company, serve as your primary navigational tool, and help you decide where to invest your limited amount of time and resources. At the most basic level, the definitions of core and value are helpful. Core: the most important part of something that is central to its existence or character. Values: the importance, worth, or usefulness of something; one’s judgement of what is important in life.

YOUR CORE VALUES ANSWER ONE SIMPLE, YET MONUMENTAL QUESTION: WHAT CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR COMPANY, IF THEY WENT MISSING, WOULD LEAVE US DIRECTIONLESS AND WITHOUT MEANING? When you have established what’s most important to your company, you’ll find that core values save you from falling prey to the shiny object that takes your attention away from what you do best. Maybe a customer asks if you offer a certain service or you lose one client because of a unique reason, and suddenly, you start making knee-jerk changes to how you run your business. A set of clearly defined core values keep you grounded and remind you what’s most important. As you consistently follow them, you’ll gain

confidence in allowing your core values to make decisions for you. Each reader of this article falls within one of the following categories:  You don’t have core values and you don’t know what they are  You have core values, but they have nothing to do with your business growth  You have core values, your team knows them, and they are guiding your business forward For those in group three – well done! You’re in a select group of businesses who understand who you are, and you’re allowing that knowledge to propel you toward growth in your market segment. For those in groups one and two, don’t be alarmed! You are the majority, and this article was written for you. By the end of this article, you’ll be prepared to create (and follow) your business’ core values. We believe every business should establish and follow a list of core values, but I don’t want to assume you agree with me. So, here’s 5 ways core values grow businesses:  They differentiate you from your competition  They align your team  They encourage and provide a metric for self-evaluation  They help you make difficult decisions  They produce market momentum

WHY AREN’T YOUR CORE VALUES HELPING YOU GROW? If you have core values written down, but don’t ever reference them and no one knows them, then the reality is you don’t have core values. While surveys show that most companies have a list of core values, only a small percentage of employees report knowing them. This means that either the employees don’t align with your core values or the core values are not consistently communicated. Either way, they aren’t being used effectively.

IF YOU HAVE CORE VALUES WRITTEN DOWN, BUT DON’T EVER REFERENCE THEM AND NO ONE KNOWS THEM, THEN THE REALITY IS YOU DON’T HAVE CORE VALUES.

Another reason your core values may not be helping you grow is because they aren’t authentic. Maybe you created them when you started your company five years ago and haven’t referenced them since. Maybe a business consultant created them for you and your team had little involvement. To be authentic, your values must align with your actions. How you engage your community, treat your team, serve your clients, and spend your money all communicate your core values. Your values aren’t your dreams or even your aspirations – they are who you consistently are. They define your actions. And when you’ve hired based on these values, they are also who your team consistently is. If you’re not already doing the things you wrote down as values, you have an authenticity problem. Your core values must be true to who you are. At M&R, we established 4 core values that guide all our decisions – they are used for hiring, are shared with every new team member at orientation, are used as part of our team reviews throughout the year, determine how we treat people, how we invest our time and resources, and how we interact with our clients. They are ingrained in our culture, which is made easier by our team knowing them and seeing them in action. Continued on page 9 2019/2020 M&R • 8

HERE’S A LOOK AT M&R MARKETING’S CORE VALUES:

Relational We are committed to cultivating deep, authentic relationships with our team and with our clients. The better we know each other and the more trust we have in our work together, the better the outcome will be.

Insightful We are committed to understanding the needs of our team, our clients, and our clients’ businesses by being attentive, caring, and others-focused.

Innovative We are committed to learning and exploring; this allows us to be on the cutting-edge of technology, marketing trends, and intelligent decision making.

Passionate We are committed to being engaged, excitable, and enthusiastic for life and work. We love what we do and who we do it with, and we desire to improve the lives of our team and our clients through our work and attitudes.

TIP: Every month we spotlight an individual team member who has represented one of our values in their work, and often times they are nominated by their teammates.

9 • M&R 2019/2020

GET STARTED As you plan to create your core values, be sure to carefully evaluate who should be at the table. Making these decisions 100% at the owner-level could cripple your results. When you’re selecting your team, keep it small and well-rounded. Once you’ve created a team, setup a planning session off-campus and rid yourself of all distractions. You’ll want to select one person to serve as a moderator and walk the team through a brainstorming session focused on the DNA of your company.

REMEMBER, CORE VALUES ARE A PART OF YOUR BRAND, BUT THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM YOUR MISSION STATEMENT, VISION STATEMENT, AND VALUE PROPOSITIONS. After you’ve compiled your list of core values, edit them down several times so they contain tight, succinct, action-focused statements. At this point, you’ll want to establish a strategy to begin sharing your core values both internally and externally. Finally, be ready to act on them when tested. The next time you face a difficult decision, how will your core values guide that decision? Acting in accordance with your core values may be difficult in the short term, but over time, if your core values are authentic, it’ll drive business growth. 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2019/2020 M&R â€˘ 10

M E E T

S O M E

O F

the team We just talked about the importance of core values (page 7), so we wanted to share what these values mean to us.

Matthew Michael

Accounts Director

Reece Freel

Executive Account Manager

11 â€˘ M&R 2019/2020

Taylor Chamberland

Executive Account Manager

Matt Evans

Executive Account Manager

RELATIONAL BY MATTHEW MICHAEL

I love people, and that’s why getting to know clients is one of my favorite parts of life at M&R. No two accounts are the same – we work with people from all over the country, in different industries, and with different backgrounds. That’s why it’s important we know our clients so well.

THE REST OF THE

The quality of our work is directly tied to how much M&R values the relationships we have with our clients. I think it’s one of the reasons so many clients keep coming back to M&R, project after project, year after year. Our main concern isn’t the bottom line – it’s about helping each client’s business grow. Our clients know they can trust us.

INNOVATIVE BY TAYLOR CHAMBERLAND

Innovation is recognizing a need and creating a solution for it. At M&R, it’s where the proverbial rubber hits the road. It’s our commitment to thinking strategically about the issue you are having, the growth you want to achieve, or the business you want to create, and then designing thoughtful solutions. Yes, we keep up with trends and understand what’s new in the marketing world. But to me, at its core, our commitment to innovation means we dive headfirst into your business and come up to the surface with fresh ideas that produce results.

INSIGHTFUL BY REECE FREEL

Being insightful doesn’t mean we have a crystal ball that gives us the answers to all marketing problems. It’s quite the opposite. Being insightful requires hard work and diligence in understanding what we are working to achieve and how we will go about achieving it. Our purpose as a company is to help your business grow. That same level of insightfulness is applied to helping the businesses I work with daily. I strive to not only understand what you do, but why you do it. Through identifying your business’ pain points and growth goals, our team at M&R can begin offering insightful solutions to your problems.

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

WEB DEVELOPERS

COPY & DIGITAL

PASSIONATE BY MATT EVANS

Since I was young, I have known my calling is to serve people. It is a driving factor for almost everything I do. I’ve also discovered that the amount of passion I have about something largely determines the amount of effort and energy I put forth. Working at M&R gives me the opportunity to chase both my calling and passion every day. I have the privilege of learning about the businesses and people we work with while considering creative and innovative marketing solutions. My passion is to serve our clients well by developing lasting relationships and going above and beyond expectations to help them achieve their goals. 

ADMINISTRATORS

& growing! 2019/2020 M&R • 12

H O W T O I D E N T I F Y Y O U R

ideal customers …AND FIND MORE JUST LIKE THEM

13 • M&R 2019/2020

The term buyer persona may be new to you, but there’s a good chance you’re already putting some of the principles to good use. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer and is created through examining your current clients. The creation of your persona will identify your customer’s demographics, buying habits, interactions with your product or service, and much more. As we walk you through creating your company’s buyer persona, it’s possible you will identify more than one persona. Maybe one group cares about having the latest and greatest product, another cares about getting the best value, while a third persona cares more about their relationship with you than they do about price. That’s fine, but we recommend keeping the list as small as possible.

WHY DO BUYER PERSONAS MATTER? The more information you gather about your clients, the more informed you will be. This information will help you serve your clients better and attract more of the right clients. Business growth is obviously your goal, but it’s important to grow with the right clients. Having a detailed buyer persona will help you quickly identify the best customers and focus your time on cultivating the right leads. A buyer persona is also helpful for expansion. As you add new services or products, consider a new market, or determine your overall brand voice or messaging, you should be thinking about your ideal customer and how they’ll respond to it. Understanding your buyer also allows you to speak directly to them. All your communication and advertising should be directed to your core demographic and contain targeted messaging and graphics.

Buyer personas will also help you: • Better focus your time and attention • Build a stronger list of business leads • Ensure you work with clients who align with your goals and values • Use your advertising dollars more efficiently and generate a stronger ROI

HOW DO I IDENTIFY MY COMPANY’S BUYER PERSONA? If you’ve been in business for even a year, you can identify your ideal clients within minutes. If you then analyze those clients, what do they all have in common? Or do they share anything in common? Establishing a buyer persona helps standardize the process of identifying your top clients and seek more clients with similar attributes. So, how do you get started? Well, the first place to start is with your existing list of clients. You’ll want to detail as much information as you can, which may require the input of several team members. Here’s a few areas of data to consider for a B2B clientele: • Industry • Number of employees • Annual revenue • Main point of contact • Primary decision maker or influencer • Annual spend with your company • Services they use (this is helpful if you offer more than 1 service) • How they found about you (online, referral, cold lead) • Communication preference (early morning email, after-hours text, inperson weekly meetings) • Number of interactions they had with your team before becoming a client

If you’re working with a B2C clientele, consider these: • • • • • • •

Household income Transactional frequency How they heard about you Average transaction total Purchase for themselves or as a gift Relational status Hobbies and interests

It’s also important to identify intangible details, such as their core values, growth goals, and the attributes they look for in a partner. Trying to identify the attributes listed above will take time, but it’s a valuable exercise. If your collective team is unable to identify these attributes, you can create an online survey for your clients through a free service like Survey Monkey. The simpler the survey, the more likely they are to complete it.

As you begin to study your clients, you may realize that some aren’t a good fit. Maybe they don’t trust you, don’t understand the value of your product, or don’t align with your core values. When you begin to realize who your core customer isn’t, you can make better decisions in the future about who not to target. And, you may even have to decide whether to continue your relationship with certain customers. Don’t feel bad about this – a negative fit takes attention away from your core clients, can frustrate your team, and negatively affect your culture. Continued on page 15

2019/2020 M&R • 14

WRITING OUT YOUR BUYER PERSONA To begin with, your buyer persona will be identified on a spreadsheet – this is where you’ll list their industry, number of employees, and point of contact … or, if you sell B2C, their household income and average transaction total. This data provides everything you need to bring this buyer persona to life, providing a name, buying habits, and personality. It may sound silly, but this is where everything starts to take shape. Here’s a couple examples for you: You’re a CPA and work exclusively within the B2B market. Jenny is your ideal client: Jenny is the founding attorney at McCorbin & Partners. In the last 15 years, she has grown the practice to 4 attorneys and has a support staff of 9. Her annual revenue is $4M. Jenny is very hands on, despite the growing size of her firm, and prefers the final say on all marketing decisions, even though your main point of contact is with Bill, her marketing director. Jenny is 42 years old and highly values trust; once you’re in, you stay in. She likes to text early in the morning and during lunch. The last time you were in her office, you noticed an issue of Forbes and Inc. magazines on her desk. She utilizes most of your services and is an early adopter of new technologies. She is close friends with 2 of your other clients, and this is how she originally inquired about your services. You own 3 coffee shops and sell B2C. Harper is your ideal client: Harper is 24 and lives downtown, 2 blocks from your coffee shop. He walks to work most days and visits 3 times per week, always at 7:30am. He’s friendly and knows most baristas by name, but he’s also in a hurry to get to work. He values a consistent order and your focus on fair trade products. He also comments positively about the indie music you play and the local publications you carry. On the weekends, he visits with his friends and has a higher ticket price because he has more time and enjoys a pastry. Once every 3 weeks he purchases a pound of whole bean coffee and during Christmas he purchases $10 gift cards for his friends and family. He’s in his first job out of college and has an annual salary of $37,000. He is loyal to your coffee shop and often encourages his friends to visit. You can see how putting a name and narrative to your buyer persona can make it easier for your team to detect the ideal client. 15 • M&R 2019/2020

now what? 3 SIMPLE WAYS TO START USING YOUR BUYER PERSONAS TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS Now that your ideal client is starting to take shape, you want to use this newfound data to start growing your business. Here’s a few steps to get you moving in the right direction:  Share your buyer person with your team, especially those who have the most interactions with your clients, such as your sales team and customer service representatives.  Start communicating with your buyer persona more directly – now that you know who they are and what matters most, you can cater your messaging to them (if it aligns with your core values).  Research where your ideal client spends their media time and start advertising there – which social media channels do they use, what magazines or websites do they visit, which radio stations do they listen to? And finally, here’s a word of caution: if you have an established list of core values and are practicing them as a company, don’t let the identification of a buyer persona change who you are as a company. If your core values and your buyer persona don’t align, it may be because you’ve had the clients longer than you’ve practiced your core values. If you notice a discrepancy between the two, do some additional digging into how consistently your values are being utilized by your team. This can be another tricky exercise but will be invaluable as you continue to focus on growing from within. 

2019/2020 M&R â€¢ 16

R E C O M M E N D E D

reading START WITH WHY: HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE EVERYONE TO TAKE ACTION Simon Sinek • Simon Sinek believes the reason some people and organizations are more innovative, influential, and profitable than others is because they operate from what he calls “The Golden Circle.” • The Golden Circle starts with WHY you do something, then moves to HOW, and finally ends with WHAT. Typically, we start in the opposite direction. • Throughout the book, Sinek offers examples of leaders and businesses who have successfully led from a position of WHY and he offers guidance on how to adjust your approach. “It is a false assumption that differentiation happens in HOW and WHAT you do. Simply offering a highquality product with more features or better service or a better price does not create difference. Doing so guarantees no success. Differentiation happens in WHY and HOW you do it.”

17 • M&R 2019/2020

DEEP WORK: RULES FOR FOCUSED SUCCESS IN A DISTRACTED WORLD Cal Newport • Cal clearly demonstrates the differences between deep work and shallow work and provides examples of leaders who have achieved long periods of deep work. • He provides data to back up his claim that deep work is like a super power in today’s distracted world and identifies strategies and practices to help you achieve it. “Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from craftmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep – spending their days instead in a frantic blur of email and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.”

THE ONE THING: THE SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE TRUTH BEHIND EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS Gary Keller • Gary Keller is the co-founder of Keller Williams Realty, the largest real estate company in the world. • Keller focuses on how to reduce distractions, find more time in your day for what matters most, and increase your focused time. • He looks at several ideas to increase focus, including time blocking, habit creation, accountability cycle, and purposeful approach.

ROCKET FUEL: THE ONE ESSENTIAL COMBINATION THAT WILL GET YOU MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT FROM YOUR BUSINESS Gino Wickman & Mark Winters • Gino Wickman is the founder of the incredibly successful Entrepreneurial Operating System. • Every business should seek to have a Visionary and an Integrator involved in the day-to-day operations. The Visionary of the business has ground breaking ideas and the Integrator makes those ideas a reality. • This book looks at the relationship between the two roles and offers advice on how they can work together and to each other’s strengths to grow a business most effectively. • The book also offers counsel on how to find a Visionary or an Integrator, if your business does not have both roles currently. “Imagine if there were two exact personalities. What gain would there be for the organization? It would simply have more of the same capacity. As with electricity, it’s actually the degree of difference that drives the opportunity for an even greater charge. In the case of business, polarity energizes creative tension. When harnessed, this leads to a bigger impact. When considering any problem, people who are similar will ask similar questions. Our Visionary/ Integrator duo is likely to ask very different questions – because they see the problem from diverse vantage points. Varied lines of inquiry lead to better results.” 

“Everyone has the same amount of time, and hard work is simply hard work. As a result, what you do in the time you work determines what you achieve. And since what you do is determined by what you think, how big you think becomes the launching pad for how high you achieve.”

2019/2020 M&R • 18

THE MEANING OF

trust Growing up, my parents always said that if I told the truth, the consequences would be less severe. I tested that theory quite a bit as a kid, and they were right. They were teaching me about trust. We kept the lines of communication open and honest for most of my childhood and 20+ years later, I’ve made that same promise to my 3 sons. Trust is difficult to earn and easy to lose and it should be taken very seriously – when you tell someone you can be trusted, you should be prepared to prove it. Being trustworthy as a person requires constant effort, but I’ve learned that being trustworthy as a business requires even more effort. Not only are you accountable for your own actions and words, you’re also empowering an entire team of people to do the same. But, the latter also comes with great reward. When you have an entire team committed to cultivating trustworthy relationships, the opportunities are endless. Since 2008, we’ve worked hard to create a culture that values trust. Our first core value is to ‘be relational’ and trust is at the core of that. As a marketing agency, we believe that our team should trust each other and our clients should trust our team. Offering trust to one another also creates accountability, which we believe is important for every relationship. So, we thought we’d make a declaration of trust to you … and invite you to hold us accountable to a few things.

19 • M&R 2019/2020

you can trust...

in our abilities – our talented, award-winning team of creatives and account managers are devoted to their craft and the ongoing development of their ingenuity. in our work ethic – we work incredibly hard and strive to always do what’s right, no matter the cost. in our availability – every client has a full team of people committed to the project’s success and we’re prompt to answer questions and provide support. in our longevity – in 2018 we celebrated our 10th year in business; that same year we were awarded Small Business of the Year by our Chamber of Commerce. We’re here for the long haul and are constantly evolving to meet the demands of the ever-changing marketing landscape. in our flexibility – we are committed to what the market tells us is working; if that requires a pivot in our approach, that’s what we do. We are very good at predicting and listening. in our non-biased recommendations – we don’t own stock in any ad channel and we don’t push our own products. If an ad channel is effective for you, that’s what we recommend. If it’s not effective, we don’t recommend it. in our discretion – we often work with clients in prelaunch stage and with clients who offer proprietary solutions to their market. We’re good at keeping secrets.

TRUST IS A WORD THAT SHOULD BE TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY AND WE WILL WORK HARD TO EARN AND MAINTAIN YOUR TRUST AS A CLIENT. 

2019/2020 M&R • 20

Digital marketing has transformed the way companies interact with their customers and how new customers are acquired. A referral is still the most cost-effective and warmest lead you can receive, and referrals are increasingly happening through social media. No generation is more comfortable with using social media for business interaction than millennials, and they are rising to power.

THE RISE OF THE MILLENNIAL DECISION MAKER The millennial generation, born between 1982 and 2004, is taking new positions of leadership, starting more companies, and managing larger staffs than baby boomers are. In fact, for every 1 business launched by baby boomers, millennials launch 2 (BNI Paribus).

WAYS SOCIAL MEDIA

engages A B2B AUDIENCE

Their generation is the largest in history and represents over 50% of the workforce. They are also one of the most active generations on social media. Here are three ways millennials are using social media:

86%

are willing to share information about their buying habits and decision-making processes, which is primarily shared with brands on digital platforms (comScore)

I can sense it – some of you read the title and have immediate doubts about social media’s impact on your B2B-focused company. So, I’ll jump right in: some sources say that social media drives more traffic to your website than search engines do, and over 31% of all visitors to a website originate from social media (Shareaholic).

60%

Social media has been relevant for over a decade and the number of adults using it is staggering: over 70% of all U.S. adults are active on social media and it crosses all demographics (Pew). Whoever your target market is, they are using social, and these platforms bring everyone together with one desire: to be heard. You want to be heard by your audience and they want to be heard by you.

34%

21 • M&R 2019/2020

use social media to source information (IDG)

say they like a brand more when that brand uses social media (ANA)

IF YOU’RE STILL UNSURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPORTANCE, HERE ARE 13 WAYS SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGES YOUR B2B AUDIENCE:

Personalizes you – Whether it’s a picture from your staff Christmas party or your office manager’s wedding, pictures show the personal side of your business and make you relatable.

Helps you be discovered – Social media is used as a search engine, and when your page is properly categorized, you can show up in a relevant search to your potential audience.

Shares information about your clients – Facebook’s Insights and Ad Manager platforms, for example, provide excellent data on the demographic and habits of your followers and allow you to create “look-alike” audiences and advertise to them on Facebook.

Places your message in front of prospects – When you know who your audience is, you can target them via paid ads. One of the most cost efficient, highest yielding, and targeted forms of advertising is the Pay Per Click (PPC) model, which allows you to place your ads in front of people based on what they searched, where they live, what their interests are, and much more. And you only pay when someone clicks on your ad!

Improves customer service – If there’s an issue, the sooner you know about it the better. People use social media to voice both praise and criticism; and a quick, thoughtful response to their comment can create

a big win for your company. Some businesses are hesitant to join social for this reason – they don’t want to be opened to criticism. But, an angry customer is going to voice their frustration regardless, and it’s important for you to have a platform to address it.

Keeps you relevant – Digital media allows you to post frequently and create your own personal voice on the Internet, which also keeps you top-of-mind.

next step and learn more about your company. It’s important to setup landing pages on your website that are trackable and expand on the ad topic they clicked on.

Improves your SEO – As you drive more traffic to your website, you will also improve your online ranking. Additionally, social profiles show up in related search engine results – the more times you’re listed on Google the better.

Generates referrals – Your social following will include your current customers and as you post valuable resources, the posts will be liked and shared by your audience, which then exposes you to their connections and can lead to referrals.

Produces trackable ROI – Everyone keeps a close eye on their return of investment. With digital marketing, the ROI is easier to monitor, and the data allows you to pivot during an ad campaign. With the Pay Per Click model, you can set daily spending limits for your ads, increase or decrease them at any time, or shift the demographic you’re targeting.

Drives traffic to your website – Social media is a sales funnel that leads people to your website where they can access more information. Your website is where consumers take the

Helps warm your leads – When you begin interacting with a lead, the more touches you have the better. A good social strategy warms a lead and starts cultivating a relationship before you even talk to them.

Establishes you as a trusted voice – As a business owner, you can command an audience through speaking and writing intelligently about your specific area of expertise. Social is a great platform to share your wisdom.

Provides a platform to share resources – A part of any social strategy should be sharing free, value-adding resources with your audience. Resources include blog articles or eBooks that your team produced or resources from other thought leaders and vendors in your industry or your customers’ industries.

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BUT IT DIDN’T WORK WHEN I TRIED IT Social media is known to be highly effective for industries who market to consumers. It may seem like social is a better fit for the retailer who is trying to promote their newest product. But, that’s not the case – the B2C social space is more crowded and you must fight harder to gain attention and engagement. A well-planned and engaging social media strategy for your B2B industry can set you apart from your competition and quickly gain the attention of your customers. It’s always about the approach. Here are a few tips to get you started: • Identify your customer’s demographic and utilize the social media platforms that most closely target them. • Create a social media strategy for your business that includes the social channels you’re focused on, topics that matter most to your customers, a budget to advertise your posts, and the personality of your social voice. • Be ready to put in the work required to do this well, while not taking on more than you can manage. Start out with one or two social platforms before adding others. • Above all, be authentic and remember this is not a sales pitch. It’s an after-hours, grab-a-drink-and-hangout kind of thing. Facebook and LinkedIn are the dominant social platforms for B2B, but it is also worth considering Instagram and Twitter, and perhaps Pinterest depending on your industry. Don’t overlook YouTube – video is a dominant player in marketing and each day, over one billion hours of video are watched on YouTube. Each day! One billion hours!

ALL THAT’S LEFT TO DO IS GET STARTED As business owners, we’re all guilty of having ideas that get lost on sticky notes or dry erase boards. Creating and implementing a social media strategy for your business is far too important to be stuck in the idea phase. Just remember the numbers. Today, 81% of Americans have a social media profile and by 2020, three billion people will be using social media. You can’t afford to not engage your audience on social. 

There’s a note on my desk that stares at me every day:

IDEAS ARE WORTHLESS IF YOU DON’T EXECUTE.

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The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. Mark Twain

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WHAT IS GEOFENCING? In its most basic terms, geofencing is the ability to put a virtual fence around a physical location. After the fence is set, digital ads can appear to anyone who enters the virtual fence.

HOW DOES GEOFENCING WORK? This technology allows us to place an advertising fence around any geographical area. If someone steps into that fence with their mobile device, we can display ads on their device. The ad wonâ€™t be intrusive like a text message or a banner across their mobile phone. However, geofencing creates the potential for the person to see the ad. Once the person leaves the advertising fence, we are still able to serve them ads up to 30 days.

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HOW DOES GEOFENCING INTERACT WITH CONSUMER SEARCH HABITS? Another use of geofencing is to draw upon the keywords that pertain to your business. We can remarket to people who are performing certain insight searches. For example, if a client goes to a website like WebMD and searches “allergy symptoms,” and you are an allergy doctor, we can begin showing your ads to the person who performed this search. It’s important to remember that even though Google dominates all search engine traffic, most searches happen inside of websites and apps, not on search engines.

WHERE DO MY ADS SHOW UP? The geofencing ad network includes over 1,000,000 mobile websites and apps. Some of the popular places your ads may show on include ABC News, A&E, CBS Radio News, USA Today, The Chive, Fox News, MLB.com, Live Strong, Health.com, Men’s Fitness, Accuweather, Photo Bucket, Craigslist, Candy Crush, Buzz Feed, Drudge Report, Perez Hilton, Sound Cloud, Fox Sports Go, HMT Fantasy Football, The Mike O’Meara Show, Weather.com, Washington Post, Answers.com, NY Times, Spotify, Ebay, CNN, Realtor.com, Reddit, and so many more!

WHY SHOULD GEOFENCING BE PART OF MY MARKETING STRATEGY? Geofencing has proven to be a very effective, targeted form of advertising. Beyond traditional forms of advertising such as billboards or radio commercials, you can reach more people in a very specific geographical area. In fact, you can target your chosen audience by creating a fence around any geographic location! This location can be as small as a building or as big as an entire zip code. Another great benefit of geofencing is that it can target people before they even realize they’re interested in your product. Instead of waiting for them to search for your product, the ad will be placed in front of them to spark their interest. In turn, you may experience an increase in customer inquiries and profit. 

89% 78% 77% 51%

of mobile media time happens within apps

of businesses are not using hyperlocal targeting accurately

of consumers own and regularly use their mobile device

of consumers have found a new company or product via a mobile search

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CASE

STUDY:

navicent health foundation MACON,

Navicent Health Foundation was in the second half of their fundraising efforts for the new, state-of-the-art, $40 million Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital. We were tasked with creating a promotional campaign to assist with donor relations and fundraising. Our team created a testimonial-focused video series that highlighted some of the lives Navicent Health has saved through their world-class care. In addition to sharing these family’s stories, we created an overview video to serve as a foundation to the overall campaign and cast vision for how this new children’s hospital will continue to change the lives of Central Georgians. This was complimented by collateral and a direct mail campaign. The full budget was raised prior to the hospital opening and our team immediately went to work creating a one-of-a-kind invitation to donors for their private tour of the impressive new facility. 

words can’t begin to express my utmost appreciation and satisfaction with M&R. Your team has been nothing short of amazing to work with over the past year! The attention to detail, the ability to think outside the box, the timeliness of your projects, the ease of communication, and the end result are all the qualities I’ve come to expect from your team. You have truly been a godsend to the Navicent Health Foundation and our Children’s Hospital campaign! I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together next. Kathy Tolbert, Senior Development Officer

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learn more A B O U T M & R M A R K E T I N G

BORN IN A RECESSION, RAISED BY GRACE AND HARD WORK Businesses are fragile, complex collections of people, services, vendors, and markets, and they can be fractured so easily by the outside world. We get that. M&R was born in the great recession of 2008. But we also understand that the challenges ahead are no match for a relentless work ethic and a clear vision. One challenge that is shared by every business, regardless of size or industry, is growth – how to find it, sustain it, and increase it.

OUR AWARD-WINNING, IN-HOUSE TEAM OF DESIGNERS, DEVELOPERS, WRITERS, AND MARKETERS THRIVE ON PROTECTING AND GROWING YOUR BUSINESS. IT’S LITERALLY ALL WE DO, EVERY DAY. From day one, we’ve wanted more from ourselves and more for others. That desire fuels our relationships, our commitment to insightful thinking and innovation, and our infectious passion. As a full-service marketing agency, we are fortunate to be on the front lines with hundreds of businesses who are teeming with passion and are actively engaged in growth mode. We’d love to walk the line with you as well.

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MACON, GA We believe home matters, and M&R Marketing’s home is Macon, Ga … and it’s something special. Located central to a state that’s been voted best to do business in 6 years in a row, we are motivated by a budding startup community, enlivened by vibrant art and eclectic music scenes, and strengthened by a family-centric, faith-rich community. Oh, and music. Amazing music. Macon is home to the Allman Brothers Band (and their museum), Otis Redding, Little Richard, multiple members of R.E.M., Jason Aldean, and so many more. The world-famous Capricorn Records made Macon a hotbed for southern rock in the 60s and 70s and that energy is still alive and doing very well. Whether walking to locally owned record shops, restaurants, or breweries, you’ll stroll slow through a city with over 6,500 structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Like we said, it’s something special, and we’re awfully proud. We’ve called Macon home since 1980. We’ve called downtown Macon home since we renovated a mid-century modern building in 2016, and on most afternoons, you’ll find us walking a few blocks and taking it all in.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU You should know something. Our creative, strategic work comes with a commitment that we take very seriously: our entire team is obsessed with the success of your brand and will serve as a non-biased partner for the growth of your company. Here’s what that means: Full-Service When you partner with M&R, you gain access to a team of award-winning, in-house marketers, designers, developers, and writers. You will immediately expand your company’s breadth of knowledge and marketing capabilities. Brand-Focused When you partner with M&R, we will devote our full attention to discovering what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. With a deeper knowledge of what drives your business, we will be positioned to provide greater brand-consistency and become a proactive marketing partner. Non-Biased When you partner with M&R, you will have a nonbiased agency working for you. That means we’ll never recommend a service or ad channel because we have a stake in it – it will always be for the growth of your business. With a deep knowledge of best practices across all channels, we will serve as a valued consultant, strategist, and sounding board.

OUR SERVICES Marketing Strategy

Website Design & Development

Branding

Graphic Design & Printing

Social Media Design, Advertising, & Management

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Marketing

Digital Marketing

Content Marketing

Online Listings & Review Management

Videography & Photography

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