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Four Tips for Effective Brand Marketing

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Determining the right mix of performance marketing and brand building is essential to driving more revenue in an increasingly fragmented industry. Following are guidelines to optimize your media strategy:

Branding Supports Short- and Long-Term Sales
Research shows that campaigns combining brand building with performance marketing are more effective:

  • Pre-disposing consumers to buy a product/service in the future can result in nearly one-third growth in revenue.¹
  • Focusing on both lower and upper funnel transactions leads to long-term benefits.
Emotional Creative Drives Brand Advertising Performance
Studies indicate that clever advertising with wit, humor, and intelligence can make your campaign stand out:

  • Creativity accounts for more than one-half of a campaign’s impact on purchase intent².
  • Consistent brand messaging can increase revenue by up to one-third³.
Increase Your Share of Voice to Increase Your Share of Market
To grow market share, you have to increase your share of voice among the competitive set:

  • Higher share of voice strategies enhance loyalty and customer lifetime value.
  • Your company should be top-of-mind when consumers enter the path to purchase.
Brands Transcend Marketing Communications
The quality of attention your ad gets is more valuable than reaching a large number of people:

  • Consider the channel, ad format medium, coverage/size, position, page clutter, and contextual relevance.
  • To reinforce your brand across these touchpoints, create a strong culture and meaningful brand education for key audiences.

 

Performance marketing and brand building are not separate endeavors. Smart marketers who value and invest in both will create a competitive advantage and increase their company’s overall profit.

Source:  The Marketing Insider-Media Post, reported by Reid Carr; ¹Kantar; ²MAGNA Media Study; ³State of Brand Consistency Report by Lucidpress

Filed Under: Uncategorized

U.S. Media Advertising Outlook Through 2028

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PwC’s Entertainment & Media Outlook Report contains projections for U.S. advertising growth through 2028. Following are highlights for key media:

Digital Out-of-Home Advertising

  • Digital Out-of-Home (ex. billboard, DMV, elevator, gas station) maintains its status as the fastest-growing segment with a +6.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR)¹ through 2028, and its share of total OOH advertising is increasing each year.

Online Advertising

  • Online is expected to have a +9.7% CAGR.

Cinema Advertising

  • Cinema has rebounded and is predicted to grow at a CAGR of +5.0%.

Radio Advertising*

  • Radio’s CAGR of +0.8% is down from last year, as is terrestrial online radio at +0.8% CAGR.

TV Advertising²

  • TV is expected to decline at a -2.6% CAGR.

Newspaper Advertising*

  • Newspapers continue to decline with a -2.1% CAGR; print retains the majority share of ad revenues and drops with a CAGR of -5.7%; digital will see muted growth with a +1.4% CAGR.

Magazine Advertising

  • Consumer magazines continue to fall with a -4.7% CAGR: digital drops slightly at +2.7% and print declines with a -12.0% CAGR; Trade magazines drop to a -2.9% CAGR: digital’s +1.0% CAGR is not enough to offset print’s -11.6%.
¹The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is the proportional growth rate from year to year for a business, used to calculate growth over a time period.

²This year, online’s category includes online TV and digital publishing.

Source: PwC’s Entertainment & Media Outlook, reported by Marketingcharts.com; *includes Canada.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

A Winning Strategy that Aligns with Your Customer’s Journey

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Align content with each buyer journey stage to boost engagement, conversions and brand loyalty.

Aligning content with the customer journey is important for long-term success: from top-of-the-funnel content that builds awareness to bottom-of-the-funnel strategies that foster loyalty and leads to purchases. Following is where your content fits into each stage:

Stage One – AWARENESS
Inform potential customers of solutions to their challenges, building a strong brand image that raises awareness:

  • Use informative content like blogs, social media, infographics, etc., and monitor likes, shares, comments to measure how well your content is resonating.
  • Improve the SEO* performance of your website by identifying informational keywords and landing pages with the highest traffic associated with these keywords.

Stage Two – CONSIDERATION
Address your customers’ top concerns on search engine text and landing pages:

  • Use links to your FAQ** page, data sheets and assets to help prospects navigate your website and find information quickly.
  • Evaluate performance, time spent on page and/or email open rates, etc.

Stage Three – PURCHASE/CONVERSION
Double down on the unique selling points of your products/services:

  • Understand your target audience and provide consistent communication.
  • Demos, free trials, pricing information, testimonials, success stories, etc., play a huge role in providing credibility, fostering trustworthiness and building customer loyalty.

Stage Four – ACTION
During and post-purchase, content should include anything that makes customers feel appreciated:

  • Email newsletters that provide value speaking to the direct needs of your customers.
  • Provide loyalty/rewards programs, discounts and giveaways, etc.

From awareness to purchase and beyond, each phase has tailored content approaches and should remain consistent. Align content with each buyer journey stage to boost engagement, conversions and brand loyalty.

*Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results (moz.com).

**Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): used especially on websites to refer to questions about a particular topic (collinsdictionary.com).

 

Source:  Entrepreneur.com, reported by Cara Cloman and Micah Zimmerman

Filed Under: Uncategorized

U.S. Ad Market Expands

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The U.S. ad market is expecting a strong year.

The U.S. ad market is in full expansionary mode, rising at high single-digit increases, and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) outperforms other media in favorability and action. Following are highlights from recent studies:

U.S. AD MARKET EXPANDS1:
The U.S. ad market expands at high single-digit increases and is projected to surpass with double-digits:

  • The U.S. ad market expands for its 13th consecutive month in April, rising 9.1% over the same month in 2023.
  • Small ad categories continue to lead the expansion at three times the rate (15.5%) of the top ten categories (4.6%).
  • April is the first month in a while to post an increase on top of a prior year increase: April 2023 was up 0.7% over April 2022.

DOOH ADS DRIVE FAVORABILITY AND ACTION2:
DOOH exceeds other media in driving favorability and action among consumers:

  • Nearly three-quarters of consumers view DOOH ads favorably, surpassing other media.
  • Almost 75% are likely to share DOOH ads that feature their favorite products or brands.
  • About 80% are likely to take action after seeing DOOH ad content they deem entertaining or visually appealing.

According to several forecasts, the U.S. ad market is expecting a strong year, with some experts predicting double-digit growth, while DOOH continues its strength in engaging consumers.

Source: MediaPost, reported by Joe Mandese; (1) Guideline's U.S. Ad Market Tracker; (2) The Harris Poll, reported by OAAA

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Media Mix Guide for Brand Advertising

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Media mix, the blend of channels a business uses to reach its audience, helps target prospective customers on the consumer journey and guide them through to conversion. Following are steps to help create the right media mix.

1. Consider your Media Mix Goals
Determine your primary media objectives:

  • Startups should focus on building awareness, while established brands should focus on reaching consumers who are ready to buy.
  • Set goals – to increase awareness, generate leads, drive sales, build loyalty, etc. – which helps determine who to target.*

2. Think about the Marketing Funnel
Media channels are effective at different points of the consumer journey:

  • Examine which media types can influence awareness, interest, decision-making, loyalty, etc., and connect them to create pathways to conversion.
  • Use consistent messaging themes/design across your media mix to help build brand recognition, nurture trust and reinforce your message.

3. Analyze your Audience
A media mix depends on the demographics and preferences of your target market:

  • Identify your target audience and understand their media behaviors.*
  • Run surveys, send out questionnaires and conduct interviews to help highlight new channels, see what’s working for your competitors, etc.

4. Bring your Media Channels Together
The channels in your media mix are more impactful when they work together:

  • Connecting different channels and data sources presents your audience with consistent messaging.
  • Implementing a comprehensive omnichannel strategy helps to link your media and provide targeted marketing messages.

An effective media mix can help achieve brand awareness and communication with your target audience. It is an essential part of reaching the right people at the right time and is key to driving conversions.

Source:channelsight.com; *linkedin.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Business Owners Optimistic About Marketing/Future

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A recent study shows that small-medium sized business owners are growing in their optimism about the future. Customer satisfaction and overall revenue are increasing, while concerns about business issues continue to tick down every year. Following are highlights:

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
Business owners are feeling confident about their relationships with new and existing customers:

  • Fewer than half are concerned about creating relationships with new customers, down from two-thirds.
  • Concerns have eased around maintaining relationships with existing clients.

PRODUCTS/SERVICES
Business owners are feeling positive about their products/services:

  • Less than half are concerned about marketing their products/services effectively, down from 6 in 10.
  • Creating new products/services that meet the changing needs of consumers is less of a concern.

With revenues and customer satisfaction increasing, and concerns trending down, small-medium sized business owners expect their business to be doing better this year.

Source: State of Small Business Report from Verizon, reported by marketingcharts.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized

5 Ways to Measure Brand Awareness

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Building brand awareness is the foundation of your marketing efforts – sharing your name in the community, and earning trust, can influence consumers’ decision-making and purchases. Following are ways to help measure brand awareness.


1. Branded Search Volume
Monitor the number of searches about your business:

  • The more people who search for your name or variations of it, the more people become aware of your business.
  • Use tools for both organic search results and paid search campaigns.

2. Website Traffic
Measure direct and new traffic to provide insight into your brand’s reach:

  • Direct traffic refers to users who type your website’s URL into their browser.
  • New traffic cites users who visit your site for the first time.

3. Brand Mentions
Chances are good that people are talking about you on the internet:

  • Monitor brand-mentions on social media and online publications.
  • Set up alerts to get notified every time there are new results for your branded search term.

4. Social-Media Engagement
Social media works along with “word-of-mouth”:

  • Understand how well your brand is performing across social-media platforms.
  • Measure reach, impressions, mentions, followers, saves, and engagement, using native analytics¹ or social listening tools² on every social platform.

5. Customer Feedback
Satisfied customers are more likely to recommend you to others:

  • Good reviews indicate that your business is leaving a positive impression on your customers.
  • Less positive reviews highlight opportunities for improvement.

Understand how visible your brand is to your potential customers – from your website to social media to your customer’s entire purchase journey – and your efforts should transform into better customer engagement and increased revenue.

 

¹Native analytics: built into the back end of social platforms to provide insights on your following and engagement, and the performance of your content. (prnewsonline.com)

²Social listening tools: software that allows users to monitor, track, and analyze social media conversations. (brand24.com)

Source: Young Entrepreneur Council@YEC; Solomon Thimothy, president of OneIMS

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Building Brand Awareness and Loyalty

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Branding is the ability to distinguish your products/services within a target market and brand equity is the total value of a brand based on associations and expectations.

Following are key elements that help determine brand equity:

1. Brand Awareness is critical and falls into two categories:

  • Recognition: refers to consumers remembering past exposure to your brand.
  • Recall: is about what product/service comes to mind when a category is discussed.

2. Brand Loyalty measures how loyal a consumer is to a brand:

  • Cultivate strong relationships by providing exceptional customer service and high quality products/services.
  • Offer loyalty rewards and incentives to encourage repeat purchases and referrals.

3. Perceived Quality is the value consumers equate with a brand … perception is everything:

  • Differentiate yourself from competitors – specialization and/or exclusivity can lead to a higher perceived quality.
  • Share your brand story to build trust and establish an emotional connection; consider how your product/service addresses customer needs.

4. Actual Associations is anything with which a consumer might associate a brand:

  • Use a logo, specific color, tagline, etc., to encourage consumers to think about your business.
  • Ensure consistency across all marketing materials, such as websites, social media profiles, etc., creating a cohesive visual identity.

Brand equity is an invaluable resource that sets your product/service apart and keeps your customers loyal. Understanding this equity can help generate insights to help narrow down a target market and determine a brand’s need for growth or repositioning.

Source: Entrepreneur.com, reported by Erica Dushley Saraway, Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor/VP Marketing & Sales

Filed Under: Uncategorized

U.S. Media Advertising Outlook Through 2026

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PwC’s Entertainment & Media Outlook Report contains projections for U.S. advertising growth through 2026.  Following are highlights for key media:

Digital Out-of-Home Advertising

  • Digital Out-of-Home (ex. billboard, DMV, elevator, gas station) maintains its status as the fastest-growing segment with a +8.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR)¹ through 2026.

  • Out-of-home’s +5.1% CAGR is buoyed by digital out-of-home’s strength and OOH reports the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year increases of at least 37%.

Online Advertising

  • Online is expected to have a +8.0%

  • Mobile online will grow faster at a +9.2% CAGR, with wired remaining at a +4.7% CAGR.

Radio Advertising

  • Radio is recovering slowing with a CAGR of just +1.5%.

  • Online radio will be the fastest-growing segment with a +5.5% 

Television Advertising

  • TV’s² overall CAGR is expected to be just +0.8%.

  • Online TV’s +6.0% CAGR will be the fastest-growing sub-segment, with broadcast TV growing modestly at +1.0% CAGR.

Newspaper Advertising

  • Newspapers continue to decline with a -3.9%

  • Digital’s CAGR of +1.0% is not growing quickly enough to offset print’s -7.7%, and digital is expected to overtake print advertising in 2026.

Magazine Advertising

  • Consumer magazines continue to fall with a -5.2% CAGR; digital’s +2.9% is not enough to offset print’s -11.7%.

  • Trade magazines’ +1.5% CAGR overall expects digitals’ +4.6% CAGR to make-up for prints’ -3.2%.

¹The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is the proportional growth rate from year to year for a business, used to calculate growth over a time period.

Source:  PwC’s Entertainment & Media Outlook, reported by Marketingcharts.com

Filed Under: News

Five New Guidelines for Product Marketing

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Product marketing is in demand, as businesses look for new ways to connect with consumers.  Following are five tactics to help create impact for products/services:

Build a strategic bridge from the business to the customer and create tools for all channels used throughout the process.

1 ) Embrace both business and product strategies.

Businesses tend to focus on business development, which is important, yet product marketing shouldn’t be overlooked:

  • The product/service runs the ship, and product marketing is what makes everything come to life.

  • Understand the product/service end-to-end and everything in the process that surrounds it.

2 ) Customer-first mindset: outside in, inside out.

Think outside in by putting yourself in the shoes of the customer, creating a path to connect the customer to both the business and product strategy:

  • Customers want products that intuitively meet and anticipate their needs; product marketing helps to represent their point of view and experience.

  • It’s simple and effective — deliver for the customer and it ultimately makes the product better.

3 ) Establish a strategic foundation.  

Explain why your product/service is superior and how it solves the customer’s needs:

  • Brand strategy, product positioning, messaging, personality and tone comprise the nucleus of your marketing plan and the face of your business approach.

  • Ensure these elements are connected, clearly articulated, differentiated from competition, relevant to customers, and authentic to your business.

4 ) Develop a marketing toolkit.

Once the foundation is established, develop moving pieces that connect with the customer and drive forward business goals:

  • Create a customer-focused website, product videos, digital advertising assets and targeted email campaigns.

  • The marketing toolkit may be constantly evolving, so refer back to your strategic elements to ensure they all look, feel and sound the same.

5 ) Right conversation, right person, right time.

Addressing customers according to their individual wants and needs helps ensure communication will be positively received:

  • Different types of customers will require different types of conversations.

  • Make sure you’re talking to the right person in the right way through the right channel.

For product marketing to be successful, it is important to understand the product/service and how to represent a customer’s needs.  Build a strategic bridge from the business to the customer and create tools for all channels used throughout the process.

Source:  Media Post-The Marketing Insider, reported by Ben Kuenzle; factorial.com

Filed Under: News

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