Tag: avenues
Right Turn: An Avenue To A New Audience
A braid is only a braid if each of its three sections are woven together just right. If one section is off, you can see it — you can even feel it. We didn’t expect to compare WHYFOR’s proprietary L.A.B.S. branding process to a bohemian hairstyle, but here we are.
The Avenues Plan, the third section of hair for that beautiful rhetorical braid, brings all of our branding work home because it weaves together the intel we gained from our Anatomy Profile and our Audience Personas. By now, we understand a brand’s DNA and we know who it wants to talk to. The Avenues Plan strategizes the route.
It’s exactly what we did for the Celebration of Fine Art, a juried, 10-week art show in Scottsdale celebrating its 31st year of connecting art lovers with artists as they work. For 30 years, CFA hosted thousands of artists and welcomed tens of thousands of collectors who would gather under white tents and witness the creative process, live.
A global pandemic prompted a new approach, as gatherings were limited and social interactions needed to be distanced. CFA would continue as it always had, while following suggested guidelines, but it needed to reach out to a new audience — one that felt at home collecting art online — in order to sustain the annual show and expand its influence in the art community.
So, we went to work creating an online marketplace, an integrated shop CFA had long considered but had realized was now necessary for future success. We researched what that audience looked like, what it liked, how it engaged and purchased, and we built a platform that met that audience exactly where it was.
Because the online art-buying world is different than the in-person one. Different audiences use different avenues.
WHYFOR’s Avenues Plan dovetailed with CFA’s content marketing plan for maximum exposure, included artist relations to recruit the show’s participants to create shops online, and involved the development of tutorials and instructions that detailed how to build those shops. All of it came together on an expedited timeline, too, so the marketplace could launch during 2020’s holiday shopping season.
So, how did it go? Pretty great.
After coordinating messaging that announced the launch of CFA’s new online store across print, digital, email and social channels, artists and collectors responded in a way that helped WHYFOR and CFA exceed the goals that were established before the launch.
Would stats be helpful? Our case study tells the story.
Assume Your Assumptions Are No Good
We’ve finally reached the meat, the juicy stuff. That sounds weird without context, but for carnivores, it must sound like some kind of glorious summit.
In reality, it’s exciting for everyone, even vegetarians. Because this is the culmination of the work we’ve been unfolding over the past few weeks as we explain our H.A.L.O. business system, a unique and holistic approach to branding and marketing based on values and rooted in immersive behavioral analysis.
We’ve mapped a brand’s genetic code, we’ve contextualized personas and the customer journey, and we’ve created a customized plan, based on budgets and goals, for a brand to realize the kind of success that — to this point — has alluded it.
We know. It sounds like magic or wild theory or even one of those “but wait there’s more” kind of things. But, it’s not. It’s just an industry-agnostic system that works.
Because everyone’s desire for something that works is equal. It’s not dependent on the size of the investment, whether your marketing budget is 20 bucks, $20,000 or $2 million. You want a return that is worth something. And that return, be it qualified leads, improved awareness or increased conversions, can translate to improved reputation, additional revenue or better recognition in a crowded marketplace.
That’s why our Avenues Plan drills down to specifics, providing exact coordinates for the placement of marketing dollars based on the work completed throughout the entire process. And oftentimes, by the time we arrive here, we are coordinating a solution for an issue that a brand had misdiagnosed, or completely missed, at the outset.
But that’s what this process is for. While it’s not designed to manufacture a branding curveball, it often uncovers unexpected insights, like archeologists dusting off generations of failed assumptions.
Data takes you down the correct paths. Assumptions, most times, don’t.
We could go on and on and on about this stuff, about H.A.L.O., about how well it works and about how much we love digging in and discovering new things about brands and businesses. But, we can’t here.
We’ve got anatomies to code, audiences to dissect and avenues to plan. Want in? Let us know. We’ll get these things going for you, too.
Cruise The Express Lane, Without Carpooling
Road trips have changed over the years. Where our parents would unfold accordion-style maps that seemingly ate up all the space in the front seat, a generation later we’re able to demand directions from a handheld computer, using just our voices.
The common thread? We need a route. Or, we’ll be lost.
Sometimes, if it’s really uncharted territory, we even need a guide. That’s what WHYFOR’s Avenues assessment, part of our H.A.L.O. business system, provides. It leads to a guided tour of the route a brand should take to reach its target audiences, based on its anatomy, its personas and its budget.
Yeah, like any road trip, there’s math involved. But numbers offer clarity and valuable perspective, like gas mileage. You need to know how far you can go with what you have, and which route would be the most efficient and most effective to take.
It makes total sense. But many times, brands or businesses bypass this type of thing. They throw everything in the car and take the route they know, even if it’s entirely uphill. Or, in marketing talk, they allocate their marketing budgets based on old information, tired habits and whatever everyone else is doing.
Despite being trendy, crop tops aren’t for everyone. Twitter isn’t, either. Certain approaches are better for certain types of brands or businesses. And our Avenues assessment sorts all that out.
Imagine that. Imagine knowing exactly who you are, as a brand, knowing exactly how to speak to your audiences because you’ve studied their behaviors, and then knowing exactly which routes to take to reach them. That type of intel changes things, in a good way.
It builds recognition. It improves reputation. If done properly, it drives revenue and it can improve retention. And, it threads together a brand’s DNA, its relationships and the outflow of measurable ROI.
There’s more to the process (think: incredible, insight-driven, customized plan), and we’ll dive into that soon. But, if you can’t wait, call us. We can be persuaded (easily) to talk about our Avenues assessment and its benefits.