We here at Spark, we pride ourselves on practicing what we preach. We advise our clients to create high quality content, publish regularly, and engage with their audience – and we’ve decided to show up more consistently here on our blog in an effort to do the same while providing value to you, our audience!We’ve been so busy focusing on our “Client First” core value by doing results driven client work (shout out to our amazing clients!) that we temporarily forgot to address our other core value: “Transparency”. At Spark, we see writing regularly on the blog as promoting a “Client First” mentality, so we will be publishing more relevant content consistently.
Here is why core values are crucial in marketing your brand:
Core Values act as the North Star for your content strategy. Core values help provide clarity and specificity over what topics to post about so that you can better align yourself and your company/brand with your target customers. Instead of wondering what to post about, you can navigate the fast-paced world with ease by focusing on your brand’s essence – and how that quality connects with your customers.
Our clients are change agents and thought leaders in the tech space, which makes them more interested in working with people who push boundaries and think outside the box. In comparison to other marketing agencies, when we work with clients, we’re not only getting them press coverage – we’re offering an integrated 360 marketing strategy focusing on a PESO (paid, earned, shared, owned) approach including content strategy and production, social media, paid media, email marketing, event marketing and influencer marketing (yes, we do that too! 🙋)You may be wondering how to determine your foundation? Well, let’s look at the core of Apple:
Steve Jobs’ quote isn’t necessarily saying that Apple is changing the world. The quote merely says that they believe in people with passion. It exudes conviction which demonstrates the importance of building a brand around a particular core value. Passion inspires feelings that resonate with a particular client: Those who are rebels and nonconformists who think differently than the status quo. (p.s. If you’re a rebel and want to work at Spark, we’re hiring! We may not have Steve Jobs but we do have a jobs page)!
According to a study by Label Insight, 94% of surveyed consumers indicated they were more likely to experience brand loyalty with a company that offers transparency, the study also found that almost three in four consumers (73%) say they would be willing to pay more for a product that offers complete transparency in all attributes.
One of our core values is “Transparency”, and in an effort to grow Spark, we want to provide helpful, relevant content to our audience. Social media management software company, Buffer, does Transparency extraordinarily well. Buffer achieved continuous growth through content marketing. For Buffer, “content marketing was more than a mere marketing tactic – it was their primary channel for growth.”
According to DemandMetric, content marketing is incredibly cost-effective and offers amazing ROI. Compared to traditional marketing programs, content marketing costs 62% less while generating approximately three times the volume of leads. If that’s not enough of a reason to get on-board with content marketing, here are four more reasons why your company/brand needs content marketing:
If you’re like many of our clients, you need help becoming a thought leader in your field. This necessitates you keeping pace with change and knowing how to maneuver through the gazillions of social media and influencer marketing tools (note: we can do this for you!). With the constant influx of “shiny objects,” core values help to keep your brand strong throughout the highs and lows of running a business. Your audience will also feel more of a connection to your company, which in turn, will drive consistent business and impact the bottom line.
Stay tuned…the next article will showcase some of our Sparksters (what we call our Spark employees) and how they embody our other core values: Quality, Teamwork, Integrity and Authenticity. We’ll also share some tips on how you can determine your company’s core values so that you have a strong foundation for success!Sign up to our email newsletter below to get these tips delivered straight to your inbox.
