Pro-Speak: Interview with Allen Greer

Getting to know Allen Greer, Founder @ FUZE

Allen is a digital industry veteran and Founder of FUZE, a full-service digital agency based in Miami, Florida. His experience spans over 13 years and includes serving as Senior Account Director for a Madison Avenue Digital Agency in NYC, leading the creative department for a Fortune 500 Brand and launching his own boutique agency.

Allen has in-depth knowledge of best practices, standards and emerging trends related to web, mobile and online marketing. He has led digital projects for big brands like Major League Baseball and Oppenheimer Funds, as well as numerous SMEs and start-ups, and is passionate about helping online businesses grow. He is also an avid writer and has been featured in publications like Entrepreneur, KISSMetrics, HubSpot and Internet Marketing Magazine.

Brand Strategy is a very vast term. How would you explain brand strategy from the marketing point of view?

Brand Strategy is intrinsically connected to marketing in that your brand’s look, feel and tone of voice must be congruent with all marketing efforts in order to create consistency and trust. For digital marketing purposes, it’s critical to also nail down a creative strategy and content strategy. This way you have a playbook of images, graphics and consumer messages (headlines and calls-to-action) that you know will work on any channel and will resonate with your target demographic.

Why do Small Businesses need Strong Logos?

A logo is often the first thing someone notices about a small business. If you’re brick and mortar or a service business, you’ll likely have business cards, flyers, signage, etc., all with your company logo front and center. Your logo should reflect your brand aesthetic and tie in seamlessly to your online and offline marketing collateral.

What type of videos a brand would need to develop an effective brand strategy?

This largely depends on the marketing strategy, as videos should be used as a marketing tool. You should create videos that have a purpose, whether it’s to educate, entertain or inform. For example, a retail clothing brand may create product videos to showcase how a product looks and fits on a live model, while a tech startup may produce demo videos showing how their digital product addresses a particular need.

Is Emotional Branding (using the emotional connect) a myth or is it a powerful branding strategy?

Emotional branding can be incredibly powerful. Just look at giants like Nike or Coca Cola. Their commercials are often highly evocative and use powerful visuals, music and messaging to drive awareness and engagement. To see how important emotion can be in branding and marketing, look no further than a company called Persado. They have built a multi-million dollar company on the back of the theory that emotion is the key driver in email marketing, and should be the primary “hook” in email subject lines. They have developed a cognitive content engine (i.e. an algorithm) that produces tens of thousands of test subject lines that get delivered to an email list, to see which emotional triggers drive the highest open rates.

Do you think having a ‘Brand-Story video’ works better than a cold ‘About Us’ page for improving company’s conversion rates? Why?

Absolutely. Traditional About Us pages are stale and boring and, let’s face it, people don’t like reading on the internet! Video is massive and is known to drive higher click and conversion rates for channels like Email and Facebook campaigns, so leveraging a Brand Story video on your Home and About pages would likely convert much better than a static text/image driven page.

Any quick takeaway to conclude with?

Branding is a complex and fascinating topic that extends into every aspect of your company. Whether it’s your website, logo, photography, video or consumer messaging, everything should tie into your overarching brand strategy, which includes how you look, feel and sound to consumers.