Authentic Brand Blog - Marketing Insights for Growing Businesses

An open letter in recognition of a deserving leader. Meg Van Sloun promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Authentic Brand.

Meg Van Sloun (L), Authentic Brand COO, with Jennifer Zick (R), Authentic Brand CEO MINNEAPOLIS, MN – June 10, 2021 I had planned to craft a formal press release to announce Meg Van Sloun's promotion to Chief Operating Officer for Authentic Brand. But before I drafted the public announcement, I first shared a letter with our internal team. And then I realized that I want to share with all of YOU just how truly grateful I am for Meg, and how excited I am for her and for…

Transformational tech marketer, Peter Zaballos, joins Authentic Brand as Fractional CMO

A seasoned Chief Marketing Officer, board leader and venture capitalist, Zaballos accelerates SaaS companies (and race cars). MINNEAPOLIS, MN - June 9, 2021 Authentic Brand continues expansion of its national fractional CMO team with the addition of Peter Zaballos, a Chief Marketing Officer with a reputation for building brands that disrupt the technology landscape and fundamentally change the world. Zaballos' career includes past roles with LSI Logic, C-Cube Microsystems and RealNetworks: companies that changed the landscape of computing and launched Zaballos' passion for transformational technology and rapid-growth entrepreneurial…

What’s to come with corporate events? 4 Considerations for Business Leaders

Many of the businesses we work with at Authentic Brand have long relied on traditional, paid corporate events to increase brand awareness and support business development efforts. Nearly every Authentic Brand client has (or had) a line item for events on their budget. The future of corporate events and their role in a company’s marketing strategy got thrown into question in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic halted all travel and in-person events. Some businesses quickly, nimbly, and effectively pivoted in-person events to virtual ones, while others canceled…

How to Harness Trust to Build Brand Equity and Grow Your Business

There is nothing more valuable to a business, its relationships, and its brand than the trust it creates and maintains with its stakeholders. Trust is your most valuable brand currency, one that builds on itself over time to increase your brand equity, the brand’s worth in and of itself. Companies with higher brand equity experience all types of financial benefits: greater profit margin and better customer acquisition and retention. Building brand equity through trust can be an overwhelming effort for company founders and CEOs. But as a business…

How Business Leaders Can Build a Personal Brand

Your personal brand is how you show up in the world personally and professionally. It extends beyond what you do for work to encompass deeper and more personal attributes, including your hobbies, passions, values, and beliefs. But too often, business leaders stop short of developing and sharing their authentic personal brand. Instead, they tie their personal brand exclusively to their employer’s brand, limiting it to what they do for work, who they work for, and the organization’s values. The trouble with this approach is that your brand isn’t…

Should we fire our marketer?

Growing businesses commonly reach out to Authentic Brand because they aren’t sure if they have the right marketing resources on staff. Typically they’re facing one of two scenarios: The business has capable and skilled “doers” who are loyal to the company and willing to work hard but aren’t strategic.The business has strong marketers and marketing leaders, but they don’t feel like marketing is progressive enough; their marketers aren’t pushing the bar or bringing enough fresh ideas to the table. Business leaders at these companies often come to us…

Brand Messaging Guide: 9 Moments to evolve your brand narrative

A brand narrative is the story your brand tells the world. It serves as the foundation of your marketing and communications strategy. This story should concisely describe why you do what you do, how you do it, and what makes you stand out from the sea of sameness. Most importantly, the story must be framed with your target audience in mind: helping them to “see themselves” in the narrative. When you create a brand narrative, it’s important to remember that it’s a journey, not a destination. The lifecycle…

How to build an effective on-demand marketing team

The modern marketing ecosystem has changed the way businesses market themselves. Marketing programs now require an entirely different array and a longer list of skill sets than they did 20 years ago. The agency of record no longer makes sense because one agency cannot provide all services a business needs or provide all of them effectively. Companies now need access to a long menu of service providers skilled in various areas, including content, creative, search, paid media, events, analytics, and more — and they need different services at different stages of their…

Kent Huffman, Brand Builder & Published Author, Joins Authentic Brand as Fractional CMO & Consultant

Huffman, an experienced growth driver and fractional executive, ushers in Authentic Brand's national expansion of regional and remote CMO solutions. MINNEAPOLIS, MN - April 27, 2021 Authentic Brand announces the expansion of its fractional CMO team with the addition of Kent Huffman, a veteran fractional CMO, brand builder, growth driver, customer advocate, change agent, and published book author. Based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, Huffman joins Authentic Brand at a time when the fractional CMO firm is actively shifting gears from its origin as a regional…

Is the agency of record irrelevant in today’s marketing landscape?

Twenty years ago, most businesses outsourced their marketing capabilities to an agency of record: One single agency that provided the entire landscape of marketing services. At that time, there were only a handful of traditional marketing services that businesses needed their agency to provide, including branding, public relations, advertising, copy, and creative. Fast forward to today, and the marketing landscape has changed dramatically and exponentially. One indicator of this is how much the marketing technology landscape has grown. From 2011 to 2020, there was a 5,233% increase in the number…