An Approach to Building Authentic Relationships

Table of Contents:

An Approach to Building Authentic Relationships:

1. Orange Exploration™
2. View From the Field™
3. The Juice™
4. Marketing Execution Strategy
5. Why the Orange Label Approach™ Works

It’s a knee-jerk reaction when you’re working on a project: relying solely on your own perspective. This paired with the increase in Artificial Intelligence tools makes it easy for businesses to find themselves in a “me, myself and AI” silo. In order to gather a full understanding of our clients, their industries and their audiences, we rely upon our four-step Orange Label Approach™. The core belief behind the Approach is simple yet profound: emotion drives action. By looking at a brand from varying perspectives, we’re able to get first-person data on emotions and build lasting connections. Let’s break down the four steps!

Step 1. Orange Exploration™

In step one of the Approach, we immerse ourselves in your brand’s universe. Through focused discussions with your core team, we explore your objectives, history and competitive landscape to ensure our strategies align seamlessly with your brand’s essence. At this stage in the game, your brand’s past, present and future collide as we focus on where you’ve been, where you’re at and where you want to go. As we’ve seen with our clients and our own brand, sharing genuine stories can significantly amplify connections. In this focused meeting, we encourage you to share your perspective of your brand, including your pain points and aspirations. These experiences and authentic stories color your brand’s narrative and illustrate your “why.”

Step 2. View From the Field™

At step two, we connect directly with your target audience and conduct one-on-one interviews with them to hear their first-hand experience with your brand. These conversations provide unparalleled insights into the minds of those that we are intending to reach. Over decades of experience with audience interviews, the team has conducted numerous brand approaches, gleaning insights from the conversations and tapping into the emotional drivers of action. You might be surprised at how much time customers want to spend sharing their experiences… we often are! This process is akin to sentiment expressed by our recent podcast guest Richard Newman. In the episode, he stressed, “If a brand can listen to people, not just talk to them, then people feel like they are a part of the conversation.” By interviewing your brand’s target demographic, we develop a deep understanding of their feelings and experiences associated with your brand. The questions that we ask are tailored to your brand and industry with some sample questions including what your brand is/is not doing well, what your audiences’ impression is of your brand and what they’d like to see.

Step 3. The Juice™

Armed with the insights from the previous stages, our marketing agency crafts a brand messaging platform that we call The Juice.™ Instead of an inauthentic, cookie-cutter solution, this custom messaging is developed to nourish your brand by genuinely resonating with your target audience and compelling them to take action. Here’s an example, taken from a podcast interview with local Orange County business owner and certified foresight practitioner Jenny Dinnen. In it Dinnen shares how in a previous B2B role, she created two- to four-page fliers and posters for maintenance teams across the United States. To resonate more with their target audience, her boss suggested that she leave the confines of her desk to go talk to their end consumers and explore their domains. “I could see what they were dealing with and what they were up against,” Dinnen said. “Getting out and talking to people helped us to not just use the data, but to go beyond it … we were creating posters for them and they did not even have a place to hang them on the wall.”

Step 4. Marketing Execution Strategy

With internal and external perspectives obtained and messaging created, we head into your Marketing Execution Strategy, which is the fourth stage of the Orange Label Approach™. This extensive strategy is unique to your business and contains a roadmap for your marketing journey ahead, recommending initiatives and tactics designed to achieve your goals. With insights from what your audience wants to see from you, comparisons on what your brand competitors are implementing and best practices, we cover all bases to create a marketing strategy all your own. We review the strategy with you and provide recommendations on next steps with our Orange Label team. This way, we can explain the rationale behind each part of the strategy and, of course, listen to your thoughts on it.

Why the Orange Label Approach™ Works

At Orange Label, we’ve realized that data on its own, while essential, merely provides a superficial connection. Think of it as a billboard on the side of a freeway. If the message is short enough for you to read it, it likely informs the driver or passenger of something, but does it truly connect? Does it form an emotional connection? These types of connections, as Dinnen touched upon with her B2B anecdote, are more profound because they bridge the gap between mere awareness and genuine brand affinity. This sentiment underpins the Orange Label Approach™ and its strong emphasis on truly understanding and connecting with the core values of the audience and your business. Ninety percent of the time when we conduct an interview with a brand’s stakeholders and their audience, we’re met with people who are excited to share their thoughts and opinions; people who are eager to be heard. By using audience feedback to improve and create your marketing strategy, you create authentic relationships  built on connection, mutual understanding and trust. In the words of Newman, “Your human-to-human ability to connect and communicate with people is the place where brands can stand out. Let other things be automated. Let all the knowledge be online, but make sure that you are able to connect with another human being.” Contact us today to inquire about getting your own personalized Orange Label Approach™ with our team.