&Marketing Team Members Gave Back on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

&Marketing Team Members Gave Back on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

by | Jan 30, 2020 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

&Marketing Team Members Gave Back on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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As one of our most famous civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr. continues to inspire all of us to work toward bettering humanity and the state of the world as a place we all can coexist in equally, together. In an effort to honor MLK day and all it stands for, &Marketing encouraged our team members to exchange the hours they would normally spend working to better the growth of our clients’ businesses and use that time to better the growth of their own communities. Here’s how some of them chose to spend their day celebrating local organizations, local people, and remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

Team Member: Matt Vincent
Service Activity: Art Testing for OneHope for Italian Teen Magazine

 

“I created a series of magazine spreads for the Christian ministry OneHope to test in the Italian teen market in order to better create content that engages that demographic on future projects. Here is a photo of one of the spreads I did.”

Team Member: Rajat Kapur
Service activity: Sock Roll Challenge at Gwynedd Mercy Academy Elementary

 

“My family and I participated in a “sock roll challenge” at my kids’ school on MLK Day 2020. Socks are the #1 requested items for homeless shelters, especially in the cold winter months.

Giving Tree Families, a local nonprofit organization, systematizes this sock roll challenge to prepare a small package (a pair of socks, granola or snack bars, and a kind note) that is handed out to individuals who are homeless. Gwynedd Mercy Academy Elementary participated in the sock roll challenge and made over 1300 of these sock rolls for the people in the Philadelphia area.“

Team Members: Andrew Davis, Jeremy Woelfer, Carter Baretz

Service activity: Hamilton County Humane Society Relocation

“The Humane Society for Hamilton County, IN is preparing to open a new location in the first quarter of 2021. The location will be 40,000 square feet and state of the art.”

Team Member: Tina DePrisco
Service activity: Basketball Clinic & Collection for SafeHarbor of West Chester

 

“For the past 5 years, West Chester Henderson Girls Basketball holds a Clinic and collects donations and creates goodie bags for Safe Harbor of West Chester, PA. The participants of the clinic bring a donation for the Shelter (supplies or gift cards) and create a Valentine’s Day goodie bag for the residents with an encouraging note. I am proud to have started this great tradition and run this clinic and project every year for the team.”

Team Member: Tracey Colla
Service activity: Sock Roll Challenge

“My family and I had varied schedules on MLK Day, but we knew we wanted to do something together. We learned that we could participate in a “sock roll challenge” at home, on our own time, which was perfect. Giving Tree Families, a nonprofit based in a suburb just outside of Philadelphia, helped us do this. My son and I purchased socks, granola bars, and crackers at Target that morning. In the evening, the three of us worked at the dining room table together to compile the sock rolls. We affixed a note to each, and Giving Tree Families will help us get these to those who need them.”

Team Member: Jeremiah Layer
Service activity: Tails and Trails Animal Rescue

 

“I helped local Indianapolis dog rescue organization Tails and Trails by cleaning a room where the store donated items. I also installed shelving units to store some of the donated items they don’t need to use immediately, such as blankets.”

“We feel grateful to work for a company that values giving back to the community on Martin Luther King Jr. day. The remote nature of our team allowed us the ability to use this time off &Marketing gave us and invest it back into the place and people where we each live.”

— RAJAT, TRACEY, JEREMY, CARTER, ANDREW, TINA, JEREMIAH, AND MATT

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Top 7 Tips For Tackling Social Media In 2020

Top 7 Tips For Tackling Social Media In 2020

by | Dec 30, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Top 7 Tips For Tackling Social Media In 2020

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2019 brought no shortage of changes to our favorite social media platforms along with the surprising rise of some new players. Our social media experts have combed through all of the major updates, studied, the trends, and analyzed what’s coming in the new year. Here are our top 7 tips for tackling social media across B2B and B2C in 2020. Plus, don’t miss our complete &Marketing 2020 Social Media Playbook so you can set your growing business up for success on social.

1. Join the Huddle

Leverage Facebook Groups 

As Facebook continues to experience a plateau in growth and an exodus of younger generations from the platform, they must rediscover their purpose in people’s lives. By putting Groups at the forefront of the user experience, Facebook believes community will be re-established on a platform that has begun to function as an advertising hub. Unlike Facebook Pages, where your audience may be there simply for promotions and discounts, Facebook Groups are genuinely interested and more engaged in a specific topic. This presents an opportunity for businesses to join conversations within your niche— staying relevant with existing fans and reaching new ones. Taking part in these discussions can also prove your status as an expert in your field.

2. Try New Plays

A/B test with Facebook’s New Ad Platform

You’ve likely been using Facebook’s existing ad platform for your business, but now they’re taking a page out of Google’s responsible ad playbook. Facebook’s new responsible ad feature is officially dubbed “Multiple Text Optimization,” and it’s essentially an upgrade to the A/B testing tool you are already familiar with. The new feature should make it easier to create and optimize different options for headlines, ad copy, and product descriptions so you can make the best choices for your campaigns.

3. Get Your First Draft Pick Ready

Reach Gen Z with New Platforms like TikTok

Facebook began as a social media website only college students could use to connect with roommates, classmates, and others using only a college email address to sign up. WIth the demographics of Facebook changing, Gen Z consumers are looking for a new social media space they can claim as their own. That space is shaping up to be TikTok. Ad opportunities are still relatively limited, but you would be wise to be an early adopter of this platform before the algorithm rears its ugly head here too.

4. Get to Know Your Fans 

Make Insights Work for You

Facebook for Business has a resource center called Blueprint that offers tons of free eCourses and certificates you can earn to help grow your digital marketing abilities through Facebook and Instagram. Over the summer, Facebook added nearly 30 courses that cover everything from growing a business Page to editing the copy in your Facebook ad and how to select the best visuals. When Facebook tells you what works on their platforms, you should probably listen.

5. Recruit Top Players with Personalization 

Slide into Someone’s DMs in 2020

Private and direct messaging continue to grow in popularity on social media. DMs are taking the place of calling a customer service representative, so potential and existing customers expect their questions and requests to be responded to personally and in a timely manner. As a result of this, chatbots are growing and more people feel comfortable reaching out to strangers on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

6. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Partner-up with Key Players in Your Arena

Collaboration over competition is going to continue to be the theme in 2020. Team up with an influencer on Instagram. Invite bloggers to contribute to your group boards on Pinterest. Do a Facebook Live interview with an expert on your Business Page. Increase your exposure and your network through valuable partnerships and engagement from both audience and theirs.

7. Give Back with Donate Buttons

Give Your Customers a Cause to Care About

If you run a nonprofit, or if you simply partner up with a charity or cause that your consumers would care to get involved with, Facebook and Instagram have made it easier to donate. Instagram stories already offered “donate” stickers in Stories, but Facebook has jumped on the sticker bandwagon too. Additionally, Instagram now makes it possible for nonprofit organizations to add a “donate” button to their business profile.

These are just the highlights of the major changes of 2019 and how you can use them to execute a stellar social media game plan for 2020. For a full highlight reel of all the biggest 2019 changes per social platform and our complete playbook on where to spend your social media time and energy and how, download the &Marketing 2020 Social Media Playbook for FREE below.

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE PLAYBOOK
About the Authors

Beth McDonough

As Content Manager at &Marketing, Beth McDonough helps brands identify their unique voice, develop their engaging story, and execute compelling copy and thoughtful content that increase engagement and generate leads. Beth tailors a thoughtful and innovative approach to hone each brand partner’s strengths and articulate them to attract and retain customers. Beth holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Gannon University.

Savannah Kleiner

As a Marketing Manager at &Marketing, Savannah Kleiner develops and implements influencer marketing solutions that increase engagement and drive results. With an innovative and unique approach to each client, Savannah tailors custom strategies to effectively reach clients’ desired audiences and goals. Savannah graduated from the Lacy School of Business at Butler University with a major in Marketing.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Gratefulness: Reflecting On 2019 And Looking Ahead To 2020

Gratefulness: Reflecting On 2019 And Looking Ahead To 2020

by | Nov 26, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Gratefulness: Reflecting On 2019 And Looking Ahead To 2020

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To clients, partners, team members, advisors, and other friends of &Marketing

 

As the close of 2019 is upon us, we want to use this opportunity to reflect on the story that our company has written this year, and since the beginning of &Marketing just a couple of years ago. Our story is filled with several different chapters — from ones about learning, challenges, and growth, to perseverance, partnerships, and successes! However, the one common thread in every chapter is how we deeply care about our work, our people, and our clients’ successes.

We at &Marketing are truly grateful for the trust you have placed in us this year, and we thank you for being part of our story. Working with you has allowed us to challenge ourselves to ensure we are supporting your business in a way that makes us better, both at our jobs and as people.

Thanksgiving is an excellent time to reflect  – ups and downs, adventures and surprises, challenges, and successes. This past year has taught us so much and we are full of gratitude.    

During 2019 &Marketing had the privilege of partnering with a nonprofit organization, The Kind Like Joey Foundation. Joey’s legacy was one of kindness – which we embrace as a business practice and as a personal mantra. While the foundation offers many ways of advocating acts of kindness, one activity is promoting ‘Kindness day’ on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to encourage people to perform a random act of kindness in their community in Joey’s honor. We love participating in this day and hope you will consider incorporating it into your annual Thanksgiving tradition too. You can learn more on their Facebook page or website. 

We also got our team together for our first in person team meeting in Indianapolis, IN.  We not only enjoyed finally meeting people with whom we have worked for 2 years in many cases, but we also used the session to develop our 2020 plans and collaborate.  Read more about our team meeting here.  

THANK YOU for being a part of our exciting 2019 story.  We hope your story this year has been filled with all things wonderful, and we wish you the best this holiday season.  Find time to relax and reflect. Here’s to an amazing final chapter of this year and a successful 2020!

 

Our company culture is one of the most important aspects of our business. We’ve taken that culture, along with what we’ve learned from one another, to create an eBook that contains a marketing word or phrase that best represents us for each letter of the alphabet.

Download the ABCS of &Marketing

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Copywriting Versus Content Writing – What’s The Difference?

Copywriting Versus Content Writing – What’s The Difference?

by | Oct 23, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Copywriting Versus Content Writing – What’s The Difference?

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When it comes to spreading the word throughout the digital marketing world about your brand and what you offer, you likely already know that content is king. Writing that articulates your brand’s story, value, and solution to a problem your customer has is key to building a loyal customer base. What you might not know, is which kind of writing you actually need. 

Within sales and marketing, the words “copywriting” and “content writing” are tossed around seemingly interchangeably, but the two types of writing are not the same. The biggest distinction between copywriting and content writing lies in the purpose behind the words. Let’s break down copy, content, and when your brand might need each. 

Content

Content is meant for a brand to create and distribute in order to build trust with an audience over time. The purpose of content writing is to engage readers enough so that they want to continue to interact with your brand. A slow-burn approach that informs and educates people through thought leadership and storytelling is the key to a solid content marketing strategy. 

Content writing is often more long form with calls to action that prompt further interest rather than a direct sale. The most common pieces of marketing that feature content writing are:

  • Blog posts 

  • Listicles

  • Employee profiles & interviews

  • eBooks

  • White papers

  • Regular email newsletters

  • Organic social media

Good content reaches your target audiences through rich, relevant, and thought-provoking pieces that build clout and bring brands to life. 

Copy

Copywriting is a form of content that’s explicitly executed and distributed in order to pitch your brand and your product to your target audience with the intention to prompt a quick response. The purpose of copywriting is to sell immediately rather than slowly generate interest over a period of time. 

This type of persuasive writing stems from the traditional marketing methods of concise, persuasive text that appeared on billboards, print ads, and direct mail pieces. Compelling, high-value copywriting is mostly often used in:

  • Sales email campaigns

  • PPC ads

  • Sell sheets

  • Landing pages

  • Promoted social media

Good copywriting elicits emotions using sales strategies and tactics to persuade customers to directly generate leads and seal the deal.

If you’re a football fan, let’s summarize this using a sports analogy. You use content writing to move the ball down the field, and you use copywriting to score the touchdown. Each has a different immediate focus with the same ultimate goal. So which kind of writing does your brand need to succeed in the digital marketing space? The answer, most often, is both. 

You’ve probably already figured out that this blog post you’re reading right now is content writing. And now is the part where we invite you to learn more. Sign up for our newsletter or contact an experienced content strategist at &Marketing to discuss your unique brand’s needs and how you can be leveraging content and copywriting.

About the Author:

As Content Manager at &Marketing (and for many of our clients!), Beth McDonough helps brands identify their unique voice, develop their engaging story, and execute compelling copy and thoughtful content that increase engagement and generate leads. Beth tailors a thoughtful and innovative approach to hone each brand partner’s strengths and articulate them to attract and retain customers. Beth graduated from Fairmont State University with a major in English and minors in Journalism and Technical Writing. She is currently earning her master’s degree in English at Gannon University.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

A Legacy Of Kindness & My Proudest Professional Accomplishment

A Legacy Of Kindness & My Proudest Professional Accomplishment

by | Oct 3, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

A Legacy Of Kindness & My Proudest Professional Accomplishment

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A Legacy of Kindness & My Proudest Professional Accomplishment 

One of my proudest professional accomplishments to date is the creation of the Kind Like Joey Website (https://www.kindlikejoey.org/).  

Why does one website, when my team has worked on several dozen (if not 100+) get this accolade? Some explanation of the circumstances around why this website was ever needed in the first place may help.  

About a year ago, my good friends Dan and Marina lost their 14-year-old son to a sudden and tragic auto accident. This was especially sad because we knew the family so well, and Joey was an exceptionally polite and respectful young man. But what happened after his passing is what makes this story truly exceptional. We found out later that their son had built a reputation as an extremely kind individual. Dan and Marina were inundated with letters and stories of their son helping others without ever worrying about getting credit. Walking kids to their locker and classes so they wouldn’t get bullied. Talking friends through rough periods. In a world full of negativity and bullying, here was this wonderful young man doing great things under the radar, taken from us too soon.

What Good Can Come of this Tragedy? 

In the days and weeks that followed Joey’s passing, the community was struggling to find solace. So we decided to build on Joey’s legacy of kindness. We created a Facebook group that has grown to 900+ members and an Instagram that has 1300+ followers, many of whom are Joey’s peers. We also held a golf outing in Joey’s honor in May 2019, and we’re proud to say it sold out and crushed the original fundraising goal thanks to the overwhelming response from local businesses, friends, and complete strangers. We’re now going to make it an annual tradition.  

Then we decided to take it a step further to formalize as a 501(c)(3) — a process that took several months and was made official a couple of weeks ago. The Foundation’s mission is to honor Joey by encouraging others to spread random acts of kindness, to offer a college scholarship annually, and to provide assistance to families that have experienced the sudden loss of a school-aged child in the Greater Philadelphia area. The college scholarship doesn’t ask the typical GPA and activities types of questions. The criteria revolve more around living up to Joey’s legacy of kindness. We’re proud to say that we were inundated with amazing stories of kindness that we gave out several scholarships in May to graduating seniors at Joey’s high school (see the picture of our board members at the award ceremony).

So How Can You Get Involved?  

Some specific activities that our Foundation has taken on need regular support.  

We regularly send checks to families who have suffered a similar sudden loss to cover unexpected funeral expenses. These expenses can be well into the tens of thousands of dollars, which most families cannot readily cover.  

  • We host and cover the cost of a therapist for a monthly bereaved parents support group. 

  • We support other foundations to increase awareness of their work.  

  • We run ‘kindness rocks’ campaigns to spread kindness (see our Facebook and Instagram pages for examples!). 

  • We offer student scholarships based on Kindness

  • We promote a “Kindness day” on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to encourage people to do a random act of kindness in their community in Joey’s honor.

We are also excited to promote a 5K on October 20th in Chalfont, PA.  Even if you don’t run, there will be many family fun activities to help bring the community together.

 

 

These are a few of the reasons why the website the &Marketing team created is my proudest accomplishment.  It has the chance to positively impact the most people and leave a legacy of which I’m incredibly proud.

“In a world where you can be anything, be kind. ”

— ANONYMOUS

About the Author:

About the Author: Rajat “Raj” Kapur is the founder and Managing Director of &Marketing, and a board member of the Kind Like Joey Foundation.  After a career working with large, global companies, he’s dedicated to providing small and medium sized businesses unparalleled marketing support. 

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

What Instagram’s New Like Button Ban Means For Influencers And Small Businesses

What Instagram’s New Like Button Ban Means For Influencers And Small Businesses

by | Sep 27, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

What Instagram’s New Like Button Ban Means For Influencers And Small Businesses

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Instagram is testing a new feature that could have major implications for marketers, influencers, and retailers all over the world. Over the summer Facebook announced that Instagram would be removing the ability of others to see the total number of likes and video views in Instagram posts in their feeds. Users will still be able to access these numbers for their own posts, just not anyone else’s. 

This test is currently being run in seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand. There’s no word yet on where the experiment will head next or when it will hit the United States, but the social media marketing and influencing world has thoughts ranging from rejoicing to raging.

The Pressure of Popularity

So why are these changes happening now? Instagram has reported that this decision was spurred by the platform’s desire to take the pressure off of its users to be constantly gaining validation from social media popularity. Research has uncovered some serious mental health consequences of playing the comparison game online, equating likes to self-worth.

For the general public, this shift in perspective and motivation behind posting and interacting on the Gram might be a great idea. But what about brands and influencers who use the platform professionally? How will their careers be impacted by the removal of likes?

Implications for Influencers

The Pros

Genuine and authentic influencers will be better off in the long run. Removing likes will weed out those who have artificially inflated their posts with fake likes from Instagram pods or purchased followers. Being unable to see the likes another influencer gets on a post could decrease the amount of copycat content creation sparked by “like fads”. How many pictures of a girl in a bikini lounging on an inflatable swan raft did you see last summer? Some influencers might see this as a negative, but this change will make the demand for creativity rise. Everyone will have to work harder to figure out what’s working for themselves and try new things to stand out.

The Cons and Uncertainties

Influencers might fight it more difficult to validate their work in certain spaces and justify payment demands to brands. They’ll have to lean more on engagement (comments and clicks) and less on passive likes to track interest and visibility. Many content creators might also be forced to pivot more heavily to video. Facebook and Instagram are already making a push for stories, and video creates other opportunities for measuring metrics and KPIs.

Implications for Small Businesses 

The Pros

Without “vanity metrics” influencers will be forced to increase actual conversions (affiliate link clicks, purchases,etc.) to validate a collaboration or campaign. This means businesses will be equipped with hard data on ROI to inform them of where to spend their money so they can get the most meaningful reach. The more concrete the engagement, the more focused brands can be with dollars and free product.

The Cons and Uncertainties

Due to the Instagram algorithm decreasing influencers’ visibility and now removing likes, businesses may need to increase their volume of paid media. Actually putting money behind boosted posts to increase exposure and targeting might be the only way to guarantee content gets seen. This also happens to be great for Insta’s checkbook—coincidence or not?

Society as a whole might get a little mental health boost as a result of Instagram’s new likes “ban.” Without that dopamine rush and subsequent crash that comes along comparing your own likes to those of your coworkers or college roommates, people might actually stick to engaging with the content they love.

Businesses might need to pivot their strategies and spending, but influencers are going to have the biggest mountain to climb if this new test spreads and stands the test of time. There’s never been a bigger opportunity for brands and influencers to focus more on active engagement and less on passive praise.

Want to learn more about how these new Instagram changes could directly impact your company’s social media strategy and success? Contact an expert at &Marketing for a free consultation.

CONTACT &

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.