Brand Strategy and Management Insights
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes and 39 seconds] As we march into Summer 2023, we realize it’s critical to continue offering important resources to our AMA Columbus community.
That’s why we partnered with Scott Eisen, one of our members, to bring you continuing education materials. For this round, we’ll focus on brand strategy and management insights.
This blog entry will contain lessons in four areas:
- The Transformative Impact of Data-Driven Decision Making
- The Art of Storytelling
- The Power of Omni-Channel Marketing
- Significance of Profitability and Margin Control
While you can certainly choose which sections you would like to read, we urge you to consume the entire article for your own benefit. Afterward, let us know which ones you would like more information on. Perhaps we can help connect you with Scott or other members of our group.
And, of course, perhaps it could be the topic for an upcoming event! Remember, we’re here to serve our members as a resource to enhance their marketing careers.
The Transformative Impact of Data-Driven Decision Making:
Data-driven decision making has become a game-changer in brand marketing. By leveraging customer data, sales results, market insights, and analytics, brands gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience and market trends.
This knowledge empowers brands to refine their marketing strategies, identify emerging trends, determine a product pipeline, and personalize consumer experiences. By measuring and analyzing the return on investments, brands can optimize their marketing and R&D spend, allocate resources effectively, and drive measurable results.
Data-driven decision making provides a solid foundation for informed marketing strategies that deliver tangible outcomes. It also should be the bedrock in which all decisions derive from.
The Art of Storytelling:
One of the most compelling elements in brand marketing is the art of storytelling. Crafted narratives that connect with consumers on a deeper level can differentiate brands and build enduring relationships.
By tapping into consumers’ aspirations, values, and desires, storytelling creates a unique identity and fosters brand loyalty. Effective storytelling highlights a brand’s heritage, what it stands for, or the captivating journey of its customers, establishing an emotional connection that goes beyond product features. Sometimes, brands feel that they must be everything to everybody in their category.
However, unless you have a massive marketing budget or have extremely high awareness, this is unfeasible and will stretch you too thin in terms of messaging and product categories. Instead, really hone in on what makes you stand out and what you want consumers to think when they think of your brand. Then, use this across all consumer touchpoints in their journey.
By establishing early and often, your brand can better withstand downturns in terms of marketing spend allocation or reduced consumer spending as you already educated your audience on what you stand for.
The Power of Omni-Channel Marketing:
In today’s interconnected world, brands must embrace the power of omni-channel marketing to deliver seamless experiences across multiple touchpoints. Whether engaging through e-commerce platforms, social media, physical stores, or experiential events, consumers expect consistency and continuity.
An omni-channel approach ensures that brands provide a cohesive brand experience, driving customer engagement and boosting conversion rates. By integrating online and offline efforts strategically, brands can maximize reach, improve brand recall, and cultivate long-term customer loyalty.
This involves cross-functionally collaboration and alignment between your sales, creative, content, and product team, all parties who have an impact on how your messaging looks online.
Significance of Profitability and Margin Control:
Profitability and margin control are fundamental to successful brand marketing. Brands must optimize their resources and strategies to generate sustainable profits. Market segmentation and targeting enable precise resource allocation and efficient budget management.
Product portfolio optimization ensures that brands adapt to changing market demands, streamline costs, and drive revenue growth. Additionally, pricing and margin optimization, based on market research and competitive analysis, help brands establish optimal price points, maximize profitability, and preserve healthy margins.
At the end of the day, the greatest marketing plans are only successful if it brings in more money to the company than it costs.
Conclusion:
Scott’s experience in brand marketing and marketing strategy has emphasized the critical role of data-driven decision making, storytelling, omni-channel marketing, and profitability and margin control.
Leveraging data-driven insights enables informed decision making and empowers brands to optimize marketing strategies based on facts and not just intuition.
By mastering the art of storytelling, brands can forge emotional connections and foster brand loyalty which can help to keep the brand relevant and profitable through the typical ups and downs of the economic cycle.
The power of omni-channel marketing lies in delivering consistent brand experiences and enhancing customer engagement.
Prioritizing profitability and margin control ensures sustainable business growth. By embracing these insights and adapting to the evolving landscape, brands can excel in the most competitive of industries and cultivate lasting success.
Learn More about Scott:
Scott Eisen is a marketing veteran with experience in brand marketing, media buying and planning, and business strategy. He has worked with or consulted for major companies such as Altria (Phillip Morris) Cardinal Health, Instant Brands, Intel, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Virgin Atlantic. He was the first brand manager in the history of SABRE pepper spray (the largest pepper spray brand on the planet) and helped them achieve double digit sales growth YOY through his marketing leadership.
Scott earned his Bachelor’s in Marketing at The Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington and his MBA in Business Strategy at The Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University in Chicago. He currently resides in Columbus, Ohio, where he enjoys running, reading, playing volleyball, and being a lifelong student of marketing. He is currently open to new positions in the state of Ohio, with a particular interest in staying in Columbus.
