The foundations of a brand are not just meant to be built and then left alone. Over the months and years that your brand is public-facing, serving customers and gaining a client base, it will naturally build a reputation, for better or for worse. Your reputation will be shared with the world, and how you respond to all those reviews and comments matters.

Brands don’t just “stop working” overnight. It can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint exactly when it started to take a downturn, or what factors played into its demise—mostly because business owners are so heads-down in the business side of things that it’s easy to lose focus on the brand.

As a brand marketer, one of the biggest challenges when communicating with your target audience is doing so in an authentic way. Yet it is critical to do just that if you want your brand to be believable and gain trust and buy-in from your audience.

Hygge, the Scandinavian term for “coziness,” is all about a lifestyle shift to inspire happiness. Just as eliminating the messes from your lifestyle can reduce stress and cause mental clarity and calmness, eliminating the disorganized chaos from your designs can also evoke warmth, comfort, and trust in your brand.

Marketing automation capabilities have drastically progressed over the last few years, and 2019 is going to show continued progress, making our lives as marketers not only simpler but also giving us insight into better data, customer interaction and customer leads.

The success of your email marketing strategies largely depends on what specific metrics you measure and how you leverage them for your email campaigns. Monitoring the performance of your emails is never an option—it’s a must.