Each week here at Story Collaborative we do a live video for our Facebook viewers. (Check out S+Marketing LIVE's "3 Marketing Things" Series). Today's Marketing Roundup includes advice from all of our super talented team members!

Millennials have a nose for what’s authentic, how is your brand story doing?

Millennials are the emerging consumer powerhouse - $600 million in 2019. Their values come through loud and clear in how they shop and what they buy. One value you need to know about is their strong preference for authenticity. It impacts the way they see your business.

90% of millennials say that brand authenticity is important to them. They prefer the “real and organic” over the “perfect and packaged.” They are seeing your business or nonprofit brand through that unique lense - and it creates a bigger impact than you might think. Their reaction can range from mild-distaste all the way to “this is obviously not for me,” and immediate departure from the website or other collateral. We've interviewed millennials who took one look at a website and concluded they'd never return.

December is a great time for businesses that aren’t consumed by holiday sales activity to get ready for growth in 2018. Here are three smart investments you can make now to get ready for growth next year.

Reach the audience you need more quickly... and then keep them.

Opening new services, locations, and any kind of business growth requires an investment balancing act. You ask, "which marketing spend will create a return most quickly?", and,"how can I minimize risk and reduce the “burn rate” as the business grows?" Reaching break-even isn’t the goal, since total profit at break-even is zero. The goal is to get beyond break-even to profitability.  

Whether you are expanding to a second (or third, fourth) location, or adding a new service line to your business, seasons of growth take your business into new levels of risk that require innovation. And beyond just the opportunity for new revenues and profits, the innovative thinking that goes with the expansion process and your business marketing strategy is actually important to the rest of your business too.

If you listen to what Jeff Bezos of Amazon says about our brands, you’ll probably agree: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Your Brand Story

The story part of the brand is important too because the impressions that people have and share about our companies aren’t just fleeting observations-- they are stories that get told over and over again, woven into the broader life narratives that people remember and take with them into all of their relationships.

The aim of marketing is to place your business story in the thoughts and conversations of your buyer (in a way that creates sales).

It used to be that the precursor to an effective business story was pushing out a big and brassy advertisement right in the middle of whatever consumers were enjoying. If they were listening to radio, you made them stop for the commercial break. Same thing with TV; you gave them eight minutes of viewing and then made them wait through several minutes of ads before they could see the next section of their show.

[cs_content][cs_section parallax="false" style="margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;"][cs_row inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" style="margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;"][cs_column fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1" style="padding: 0px;"][cs_text]We live in a visually demanding world -- we need graphics for almost everything in marketing. That means involvement with designers is a part of daily life. It's especially true if you're committed to keeping on-brand web content, emails, and social posts. I've learned a few things about working with designers in the last 10 years. (At least they don't laugh at me quite as often.) In this short video, Amy Alexander, our brand guru (not self proclaimed), shares some of the common questions that she gets working with business and organizational leaders.