Marketing analytics software plays an important role in optimizing your strategy, especially when it comes to uncovering hidden trends that can fine-tune your campaigns. But the high-level discussions around your business marketing strategy can be enhanced by a much simpler approach: a SWOT analysis.

Standing for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, this analysis is a simple but effective way to audit your current overarching strategy, with a focus on making improvements going forward. According to Entrepreneur, marketing and business leaders can use the SWOT approach to make changes to existing strategy, prioritize campaigns and reallocate budgets, while identifying new channels, campaigns and messaging worth exploring.

A SWOT analysis is easy to run, and it can tell you a lot about your marketing efforts. Here's an overview of how to guide these conversations.

Best practices in financial marketing may be outdated, as millennials — the largest generation in American history according to the American Banking Association (ABA) — have different consumer behaviors than previous generations who lacked the technology and social awareness that drive spending habits today.

It would be wise for banks to start paying attention to what's important for people in this key age group, which spans those born between 1980 and 2000. That's a wide range, but what unifies millennials are the tech-savvy habits and purpose-driven philosophies that are undeniably becoming the new norm.

There's no doubt content marketing works — especially when you regularly publish high quality, helpful content. Companies that publish 11 or more blog posts per month have nearly three times more traffic than companies that publish zero to four blog posts per month, according to HubSpot.

Technology enhances every corner of our lives, and quick-service restaurants (QSRs) are no exception. We're busy. Time is tight. Value, convenience and a personalized experience are still expected even during a brief interaction that yields something as simple as our lunch. Implementing seamless digital brand alignment, from the point of deciding where to eat to opening that carry-out container, creates a cohesive user experience. 

QSR Magazine cautioned that a positive brand experience can easily get lost when upgrading the technology at quick-service restaurants. Customer engagement with your service should be consistent across all points of outreach including in-store, online and via apps. When working with third-party software, user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) must complement one another or brand messaging is lost. Let's learn a few ways to combine customer satisfaction with brand alignment.

As summer heat looms in the forecast, ramp up your HVAC marketing strategies for desktop and mobile. Both SMS and MMS can be customized to fit the changing weather conditions, creating an urgency that persuades customers to take action now. Twenty-five percent of customers who need to replace an HVAC system say they need the new system up and running within three days, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Use this HVAC marketing checklist to ensure your strategy can take the heat.

Have You Audited Your Cache of Go-to Keywords Lately?

Break out of the everyday flow and see what new keywords and phrases are gaining popularity in search engine results pages. As summer approaches, there's surely more demand for air conditioning repairs and prices for new central air systems. Leverage these popular search terms in your paid marketing efforts during the hottest months of the year.

As a marketer, coming up with fresh ideas is a significant portion of your job. But it takes a lot of creative energy to consistently think up unique strategies and lay the groundwork for the next winning campaign, so it's no surprise that the well runs dry once in a while. 

That's where some brainstorm tips might come in handy. The Association for Psychological Science reported that in one study at the University of Texas at Arlington, people came up with 37 percent more ideas when working as a group than when working alone. 

Brainstorming sessions are crucial to igniting creativity, but as you've likely experienced, some meetings are more productive than others. 

Great content is crucial to successful digital marketing, but content alone can't take your business to the top.

Fifteen years ago it may have been enough, but today's online landscape is so saturated that it's all but impossible for content to rise on its own. Great content doesn't naturally find an audience — it requires assistance. Driving strong content ROI requires a distribution strategy to deliver your content to a relevant online audience.

Too many brands overlook the importance of distribution, and their marketing ROI suffers as a result. If this describes your business, take a step back and examine what you're doing to set your content up for success.

Rebranding presents the opportunity to introduce an improved image to prospective customers, and to re-energize loyal customers whose interest may need a jumpstart. But to keep in good graces with your base, you'll need to be careful about the changes you implement.

Brand implementation must be conducted in a very thoughtful way during the rebranding process, particularly if you already have a large customer base that's gotten used to your website or platform interface.

Below, we'll share some tips on brand implementation, following up on our previous installment of our rebranding series about identifying the parts of your brand that need a revamp.

If it seems like every other commercial you see is advertising a car, it's not just your imagination. The automotive industry is the No. 1 category in advertising spend, with automakers comprising nearly one-fifth of AdAge's list of the world's largest advertisers.

But while they may be prolific, it doesn't mean they always get it right.

As a car dealership, there's plenty you can learn from automotive advertising fails. While automakers can spend several million dollars on PR efforts to bail themselves out after a massive marketing blunder, the same mistake could permanently destroy the reputation of a smaller business.

Here are two important lessons local dealerships can learn from major automotive fails:

It's not uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to feel stuck in an endless race for customer attention.

With social media advertising making it easier than ever for businesses to target customers, competition is no longer limited by neighborhoods or ZIP codes. But that doesn't mean your SMB can't compete. Help customers connect with your business and gradually establish a loyal base through effective branding.