(And with this, we are officially changing our name to Pyper, Inc. Branding & Marketing)

We often get asked “what do you do”? 

We’re an integrated marketing agency. 

Cool, what does that mean? 

We manage the marketing journey from brand inception to ongoing execution. We start (or restart, in some cases) with articulating the brand from both a written and visual identity, often starting with name and logo, to developing the marketing strategy and plan, and then implementing that gameplan on an ongoing basis—from building and continually optimizing websites to advertising campaign execution to deploying content marketing. 

Got it. Do you do SEO or TV or PR or KPIs? 

Yes! We have the unique ability to act as the brand shepherd for our clients, remaining marketing agnostic in terms of tactical execution, and we have the knowledge to develop recommendations in our clients’ best interests. Some call this a 360° approach to marketing with the target audience at the center. Others may refer to this as the marketing umbrella under which all tactics fall with the focus of all efforts leading down to the sales funnel. Regardless of what you want to call it, our team can oversee all tactics and disciplines in the realm—cue the laundry list of services! 

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We believe a great marketer has a thorough understanding of the target audience, has mastered the strategy, remains neutral in terms of how it will deploy, and can either get it done or knows someone who can. So we may not do everything on that list above in-house, but if we don’t, we have a great partner that can. 

What Is Integrated Marketing? 

Integrated marketing provides cohesive, consistent, relevant messaging to a target audience wherever they may be, whenever and however they choose to engage with you, providing a clear and simple path to conversion of desired goal (sale, lead, contact, learn more, etc.).

Sounds simple, right? But when you have an annual marketing plan with video to provide awareness, social media to increase customer loyalty, and a Google Performance Max campaign to optimize conversion to sale—how do you keep it all together? For us, everything starts with a brand platform, is rooted in marketing strategy, stays focused on the target audience, and gets delivered with a consistent visual and written identity across multiple channels. We plan annually, quarterly, and monthly, to make sure all of the details are managed. 

What is Branding and What Does It Have to Do with Marketing? 

The marketing journey of any product or service begins with developing and defining the brand. We start with a brand platform to articulate key components including brand characteristics, tone of voice, core values, positioning, promise, and unique selling proposition (USP). This presentation includes a deep understanding of the competitive landscape, brand challenges and advantages, along with brand pillars which represent the foundation on which the brand is built and how its marketing will execute. 

Once we have our brand platform built, we can then begin to craft the visual identity (logo, business suite, sales collateral, etc.) along with the key messaging in both short and long form. 

Are You a Marketing Agency or Advertising Agency? 

Yes. We are a marketing agency that can implement advertising campaigns as advertising is a function of marketing. To us, advertising agencies are has-beens—yes, I’m talking to all of you Don Draper wanna-be’s! The days of just developing the creative and executing the paid media are over. Some of them try to expand—they can do social media or build you a website or send a press release! But if they don’t understand the bigger picture of branding and strategy, they tend to only recommend the services they provide (read, make the most money on)—so that it’s in their best interest, not yours. 

Do You Do Social Media? 

We do, but not a la carte because it’s not smart. If you just want to try and ride the latest TikTok craze, we are not the company for you. If you need a partner to interact with your Twitter feed 24/7, we don’t do that, but we can help find you one. But if you want your social media channels to be integrated in everything else you are doing while providing you a platform to quickly engage with your followers and then gauge your promotions, that’s our sweet spot. Social media is part of our content marketing strategy, which is a subset of our overall marketing strategy, with its own goals and objectives, target personas that detail social media usage and behaviors of that consumer, along with content buckets. We believe if it doesn’t fit in out of your planned buckets, then it should make its way to the trash bucket! 

Content marketing has significantly evolved over the past decade to include not only social media, but websites and email marketing, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, SEO, and even some public relations tactics will fall under this category. We consider all marketing tactics that can be distributed online to be part of content marketing. 

Is Public Relations Part of Marketing?

While I was earning my public relations degree at Syracuse University, my classmates would say “no”. PR was adjacent, sometimes above and directing marketing—they wanted to be in charge. However, I was a dual major in PR and Marketing, and my business professors made it perfectly clear that public relations fell under the marketing umbrella as well, another tool in the toolbox. 

While we can incorporate public relations into our client’s marketing plans, we tend to work with outside PR firms to execute a higher level plan. Another differentiator of our agency, we can play nice in the sandbox! We’ve worked successfully with other marketing agencies—including public relations—on our clients behalf especially when it comes to crisis communications, government relations and advocacy issues, and publicity. 

Do You Build Websites, Shoot Video & Photos, Print Brochures, Produce Promotional Items?

That’s an easy answer—yes and no. Like social media, we don’t provide one-off services and we aren’t printers or swag manufacturers. We do provide these services to our clients as part of a full-service marketing scope of work, again ensuring consistency and assuring everything is on-strategy. And similar to working with outside PR firms, we have great contacts for services we can’t do. 

Do We Hire a Marketing Agency or Build an In-house Team? 

As I’ve spent the majority of my career on the agency side, I have worked with numerous clients on the client side—and there are pros and cons to outsourcing your marketing team versus keeping it in-house. Here are a few: 

Pros & Cons to Building an In-house Marketing Team: 

Pros: Lots of control and confidentiality, subject matter expertise, access to leadership, sales team, and performance data

Cons: Costly, staff turnover, jack of all trades but master of none, limited resources = slower turnaround times

Pros & Cons to Outsourcing Your Marketing Team:   

Pros: Talent pool tends to be bigger and deeper, more cost-efficient, experts at marketing, views are more objective, offer additional resources

Cons: Not the only fish in the pond, loss of control, learning curve, need for improved communications with an external partner

How Do I Know What I Need for Marketing My Business?  

We are happy to offer a free 30-minute consultation to help you answer this question! We’ll ask a handful of semi-nosy questions to understand your organization, your vision, and your marketing pain points so that we can put together a proposal as to how we could work together.