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1 Minute Advice: And the World's Highest Valued Brands are...

A new report from the leading global communications agency WPP, the "BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands," shows strong growth in the value of global brands, despite general worldwide upheaval and uncertainty. According to the report, "The value of the Global Top 100 increased 8 percent year-on-year." Over the past twelve years, the report continues, the value of the Global Top 100 "increased 152 percent in value."

The report lists the following as the world's top ten most valuable brands:

1. Google
2. Apple
3. Microsoft
4. Amazon.com
5. Facebook
6. AT&T
7. Visa
8. Tencent
9. IBM
10. McDonald's

Nine of the top ten brands are American companies; number 8, Tencent, is a Chinese company.

According to WPP, these are "five actions for building valuable brands today":

1. Be purposeful
2. Be different
3. Be elastic
4. Be responsible
5. Be prepared.

You can view a PDF of the entire report here: http://brandz.com/admin/uploads/files/BZ_Global_2017_Report.pdf

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1 Minute Advice: A More Mobile Consumer Means More Effective Location-based Marketing is Necessary

These statistics from the Pew Research Center will not surprise marketers: At the current time, 95 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone, and 80 percent of social activity is accounted for through mobile devices. It used to be assumed in digital marketing that location was unimportant, because a customer who orders online could be anywhere. But as a recent article appearing in Knowledge@Wharton points out:

"With skyrocketing mobile usage comes accurate location data, enabling businesses to understand exactly from where people are publicly posting on social media. They can then use that additional layer of context to deliver messages in the right place at the right time. This lets businesses cut through the noise and find the right moment to engage — rather than to interrupt. The outcome is a more organic, human-to-human interaction between companies and consumers. ...Businesses that are able to re-evaluate and re-think the role of location in marketing, and how to best capitalize on all available data, will be better positioned to grow profitably over companies that fail to do so."

The experts at Wharton believe location-based marketing can have a significant impact on business success. For instance, "Location data enables businesses to delight their guests in unexpected ways, creating powerful moments through timely responses." In addition, says Wharton, "Another benefit of location-based marketing is being able to surface public social activity at competitors’ locations and then using that as a benchmark for your own social performance."

Are you making optimum use of location-based marketing? Read the entire article here: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/location-first-marketing-strategy-pays-off/

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: How to Improve Customer Engagement

Brand loyalty among customers is a real challenge today. Competition for customers is fierce, look-alike products are common, and price-cutting can be an effective way to lure customers to competing brands.

So how do you improve customer engagement? Brandon Carter, writing for MarketingProfs.com, has some good advice. Carter suggests that there are five "big mistakes" brands make and should avoid in customer engagement, including:

1. "They sell when they should give." Writes Carter, "There's a time to make a sale, but positive engagement is built on adding value. The companies that enjoy the highest engagement tend to offer up information that makes the customers' lives better or easier, such as tutorials, best-practices, other helpful content—even contests."
2. "The don't really try." According to Carter, "People are rarely more pleased with a business than when they make that initial purchase. Why not formalize the relationship and try to earn a second date? Loyalty programs, SMS clubs, and even social media connections provide the grounds for ongoing relationships. The bigger point is to do something. Don't just let your future loyal customers walk out the door without some way of bringing them back."

How seriously are you taking customer engagement? Read Carter's excellent article here. (Free registration required.)

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.

1 Minute Advice: Know Consumers' Needs Better Than They Do

Arguably, Google is one of the world's great marketing organizations, so it pays to listen when their experts speak about marketing. Senior Vice President of Ads & Commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy has this to say about how marketers will have to navigate the future:

"We'll all be expected to stay a step ahead of consumers—to know their needs even better than they do. Successful marketers will have a much deeper understanding of their customers at every encounter. They'll focus on acquiring a detailed, data-driven view to really know them and help them along their individual journeys. That's the assistive mindset that will be required to win."

Ramaswamy identifies three key things to facilitate this move into the future of marketing: 

"Raising the bar on mobile: To delight and be useful, we need to deliver fast, relevant, assistive experiences. It's important to lay the groundwork early with incredible mobile experiences."

"Being smarter with data: A better understanding of consumers, coupled with smart automation, will enable personalization at scale. The ability to connect first-party data to media execution will be foundational to success."

"Embracing omnichannel assistance: Leading brands will bridge online and offline, delivering seamless experiences throughout the consumer journey."

You'll find more provocative thinking about marketing and lots of other things at "Think with Google."

This post is brought to you by 123eGuides.com. 123 eGuides are a series of authoritative guides about branding, marketing and small business published exclusively in electronic format to provide maximum value at minimum cost.