Communications
What is Purpose Branding?
Purpose Branding is a sense of the brand belonging to your stakeholders and partners. It has a clear and relevant foundation that authentically reflects your mission and vision with purpose to be action dirven that your audience has a heart connection to and they feel a sense of ownership to what your brand represents. With a purpose brand, your deliverables deeply convey your intent and integrity to the brand and will be genuinely demonstrated in your communications plan, mission, vision, and next steps. It is what inspires your champion brand ambassadors to work alongside your messages, share your stories and build your audience with genuine customers, clients and friends of your organization.
Why is Purpose Branding Important?
It is important because it brings the mission and vision to life by clarifying “what you do and how you do it.” No different than any other relationship in your life, communication is key! With that said, purpose branding is honest, respectful and rich with meaning to the community it serves and the community that supports it too. It is the cornerstone of your organization's principles, purpose and passions. By taking an active interest in connecting the audience on a deeper level, stakeholders, partners, donors and buyers are inspired to become powerful champions of the brand.
How to Implement Purpose Branding for Your Business or Nonprofit?
Over the years, Carina Cristiano of Heart Driven Purpose, has worked with the public, private and nonprofit sectors seamlessly by breaking down the concepts of purpose branding and customizing her training to meet her audiences' needs in a very personalized way. With her level of instruction, expertise, and practice, she facilitates strategic planning, communications deliverables, social media training, and brand ambassador workshops for organizations to best serve their mission and vision through a purpose branding platform. Whether one-on-one or in small groups to larger audiences, Carina will make certain all have an understanding how to design and execute a purpose driven brand marketing campaign. Each participant walks away with a new understanding on how to be a purposeful brand that communicates truth, inclusion, and transparency.
Gems Uncovered
Recently, Carina Cristiano, of Heart Driven Purpose, had the sincere pleasure to start working with Gems Uncovered, a faith-based nonprofit that fights human trafficking in Long Beach, California and its surrounding cities. They do this with their prevention and after care services. It is a sincere honor to have provided the following services to enhance their communications plan and develop means for fundraising, relationship building and spreading a wider net for future volunteers and resource offerings for clients to grow their nonprofit and expand their meaningful work.
Below includes some of the accomplishments:
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Brand new content writing for website, www.gemsuncovered.org.
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Social media strategic plan, posts, and management on Instagram and Facebook.
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Long Beach Gives, annual fundraising campaign management and implementation to succeed expectations in monetary goals.
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Increase post interaction on Instagram by 111.3 % percent or 257 people in one week span. Increase reach by the hundreds from the prior data showing single digits.
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Increase Facebook audience from September 7 to October 4 by 171%, or 1,682 people. Post engagement increased by 287% or 410 people. Increased likes by 633%.
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Increased impressions by 2,130 people or 67.3% and website tabs increased by 80 percent during the week of 9/11 to 9/17.
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Social media, brand ambassador, and communications training, one-on-one coaching and serving as the Board Communications Advisor.
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Graphics campaign management.
The Humanity of Technology
I have been creating curriculum, teaching, leading social infrastructure projects and writing business communications plans since 2007; basically, the Year Facebook made its way into the communications landscape. In today's world, there are important shifts happening with numerous technology pathways to communicate while at home and people are feeling frustrated by the lack of human contact.
In nutshell, we need to overcome our frustrations and be inspired to navigate this new territory with imagination, strategy and willingness to "try a new hat on for size." In general, we need to take a communications, product and service inventory to design a strategic plan to connect to the human spirit again. Right now having a shared interest, purpose and connection to humanity weighs more in worth than a mere customer service experience. This isn't about buying and selling or fundraising and donors, this is about deeply caring about the relationships we build and cherish, about the world we contribute to and the community we engage within our work, life, pray, and play.
Our audiences, board members, friends and neighbors, crave the human experience to connect on a deeper level to what they spend their time and money on. We are all aware of how important it is to pay more attention to the preciousness of life, community, health and financial stability. This is the time for stories to be told, citizen journalism to flourish and brand ambassadors to become valued champions to share your messaging through their loving lense and contribution too! Nasty reviews are loosing their place in the social world. This is is a time for us all to enlist in a Heart Driven Purpose communications challenge to grow in a learning community that makes us better human beings by the way we get involved and by the way we communicate with one another.
- Carina Cristiano
Branding Outline and Implementation Strategies
HEART FULL OF LISTENING + MINDFUL ENGAGEMENT:
How to listen and engage in meaningful conversation online and create new ways to feel in person or provide socially distant meetings.
KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE/ COMMUNITY:
Personalization of the content to reflect the interests and priorities of your purpose brand and who you want to do connect with. It is a human experience not just a customer experience anymore.
DEVELOP COLLABORATION:
How to work with other contributors to your brand. Leadership team, staff, volunteers, guest speakers, and vendors gather with local news, industry expertises, influencers, and information sharing happens. Champion ambassadors to your brand are powerful collaborators that connect to your brand.
CAMPAIGNS:
How to create, write, publish, and execute campaigns using personal touches and case studies.
PLAN AND PRODUCE:
The importance of content development for short and long term writing through Heart Driven Purpose services and plan design with action goals and timeline outcomes.
KEEPING CURRENT:
Updates on new policy and advocacy, listening to followers through conversations and social media comments. Build awareness around high priority topics that matter to purpose brand to keep relevant to audience. Also, to know the trends and be ahead of the curve. Recently Carina has been speaking on the importance of text messaging communications. This last week, the well known social media expert, Gary V announces "Community." A text messaging platform. She also advises realtors on Lion's Desk for a text platform for their industry. This and more are examples of her nonstop evolvement to be ahead of the game for her clients and students.
RISE ABOVE THE NOISE:
How to develop a best practice for communications plan and implementation. Thus participating in the ecosystem of various social media platforms and in personal/professional engagement.
Almost 20 Year Business
Story Told
WOMAN OWNED BUSINESS:
It is not often you meet a woman who owns a termite company. Her husband her partner in it, and this was the amazing story of Angela and Roger Hamel of International Termite in Southern California. Truly an amazing power couple yet kind and humble too. What a joy to work with in researching and writing their purpose brand campaign.
PRINTED MEDIA:
Their media was ten to twenty years old in look and content too. Not their fault as they are a very successful business and have an amazing data base of realtor and contractor clients. Yet, their marketing material did not reflect their premier service and the incredible respect the industry has for them.
DEVELOP CONTENT:
Carina Cristiano did her research, interviewed owners, staff and inspectors, plus industry experts to design flyer, brochure and business card content that truly tells their story and captures the essence of why people do business with them. It was such an amazing transformation. One they can easily use in their digital files for emails, social media posts or mailings until in person meetings are back.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Professional photos of workcrews on job sites to head shots. This was essential to best portray and share their distinction in the industry by who they are and what they do best! Termite inspections to termite treatments were captured by one of photographers of Heart Driven Purpose.
GRAPHIC DESIGN:
Heart Driven Purpose works with two professional graphic artists because each one brings their talents and expertises to clients either needing a full style guide makeover or individual production pieces. Carina Cristiano works closely to make certain all graphics align with the purpose brand's mission, vision, and highlights.
KEEPING CURRENT:
Such a testimony to have a successful business of close to twenty years, but it is imperative to stay current with communications for clients to know your products and services without having to do too much digging around to find out. The owner shared with me, "they knew they were leaving money on the table without a marketing update." Heart Driven Purpose can help your business keep current with quarterly or monthly refresh campaigns and updates. You cannot afford to not stay ahead of the communications curve because if you don't, your competition will. What I learned early on in my family's restaurant business, "you are only as good as your last meal." It is important to stay fresh and current in your client's eyes.