Digital Marketing is the promotion of a company’s products/services on the internet through social media, search engine or website ads, mobile app ads and more. Businesses have discovered that investing in digital marketing has paid them results in the medium to long run. Even in the short run too.
It has evolved over the years in terms of mediums and techniques. So have customers. And hence, businesses keep track of the evolving trends and invest accordingly to stay in the market. The current year 2023, will see a lot of exciting and interesting digital marketing practices deployed. We should identify this to stay ahead of the market.
What digital marketing factors will impact businesses in 2023?
When we look at the digital marketing impact on businesses in 2022, we can clearly see that there is much more in store for 2023. These impacts could be read in the following ways –
Enhancing brand reputation: All forms of digital marketing, be it content marketing, video marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and others, enhance your brand reputation if done under proper guidance. So, 2023 will see increased efforts in this direction.
Generating quality leads consistently: Quality leads are the backbone of a business’s sales efforts. They are collected manually or automatically through specific tools.
Enhanced conversion: With an understanding of your customer’s needs and tailoring your products/services accordingly, conversion rates will definitely start increasing. Not everyone will become your customer, but you’ll get long-term customers.
Revenue & profits: The combined efforts of content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing and other digital marketing tactics lead to increased revenues and profits.
Further impact of Digital Marketing
Targeting global audiences: If you intend to sell your products/services to customers globally, you can adopt multiple digital marketing strategies that would gain you a global brand reputation and customer base.
Customer communication & engagement: Continuous interaction with the customer at every stage is essential to build brand trust. Else, other brand communication will divert them. This is where digital marketing helps to maintain constant communication and engagement with your customers. Thus, you could get them to read a blog or have them play a small game like spinning wheels or quizzes to give them discounts. This builds up brand loyalty.
Targeting correct customers: Digital Marketing makes it easy to target the correct customers once you identify them. You can serve ads specifically for the localities where they stay or use retargeting ads to give them discounts or special offers when they come back or click on a related link.
Measuring results: It’s easy to measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts through campaign management. Popular tools like Google Analytics help analyse every aspect of the customer journey and allow you to see the Return On Investment on the same. Looking at the results, you can optimise your future campaigns accordingly and save on resources.
Digital Marketing will keep evolving and profoundly impacting the way you run your business. Hence, expert guidance from industry experts can help you generate revenue, build a brand reputation and stay ahead of the competition.
What’s In a Name Creatives is ranked as Hyderabad’s most innovative and best digital marketing agency. So, If you see your brand’s future in digital marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us for the best guidance. We would be glad to be a part of your journey.
Digital Marketing is a term we have heard for years. Marketing has always been vital to businesses, whether small or big. Digital Marketing took things to a whole new level with access to a wider market locally, nationally and internationally. It is even popular as a career, with many people shifting from other domains, including engineering.
The developments in digital marketing have been so rapid that there are new methods and tools coming up to aid businesses. AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have also entered the market to aid digital marketers. In this scenario, it is important that we take a look at the next big thing in digital marketing.
Top five digital marketing trends –
Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality: AR or VR, as known popularly, is the ability to test a product or service in a safe environment before buying the product or service. In Augmented Reality, you can check out if a particular product will work for you or not using an app developed for the purpose. Whereas, in Virtual Reality, you have to use a VR headset to get a live demo or training of a product/service.
Influencer Marketing: It is very much in demand by businesses today. Getting a celebrity to endorse your product/service ensures good returns by leveraging their social media presence. Professionals can be hired for this purpose too.
Artificial Intelligence: AI, as known popularly, deploys chatbots to run digital marketing campaigns. They have immense potential to create very good returns on your investment. A good number of digital marketers say that AI makes them more productive at their jobs. Companies spend more than $5 Billion Dollars annually on AI-based marketing.
User-Generated Content: It is the best way to show your potential customer the trust people have in your product. This is by requesting genuine reviews from your customers directly at the place of purchase or leaving one on platforms such as Google Reviews, Facebook reviews and more. Feedback forms are sent to the customer’s phone or email after making a purchase. Genuine reviews directly affect your business.
App Ads: Ads delivered to your app have a huge potential to create revenue. Billions of dollars worth of ads are served on apps, including your chat messengers like Facebook, WhatsApp, etc., annually.
The Way Forward
Every business tries to focus on one primary method that best serves its interests. The digital transformation happening around the world is sometimes immeasurable. It empowers existing businesses to innovate while encouraging new startups to flourish.
Ensure ethical practices to ensure healthy competition among businesses and quality products/services for the end customer.
What’s In A Name Creatives has been Hyderabad’s leading digital marketing agency since 2010. We have been able to help and guide many reputed clients in adopting advanced methods of digital marketing. Their satisfaction has inspired us to give our clients the best.
If you are looking for complete digital marketing solutions in line with emerging trends, we would be more than happy to guide you. Please feel free to browse our website for details.
Digital marketing is the buzzword everywhere. It has overtaken the traditional ways of marketing at great speed. It has changed the way people think about, buy, and trust brands. The pandemic gave digital marketing a much-needed boost globally.
Consumers are spoilt for choice due to the massive number of brands in the market, but they need help deciding which brand to choose. Hence, businesses must be creative beyond their usual creativity to market their products/services.
As new startups emerge, making a product/service stand out is essential to digital marketing. When this happens, more leads come in, leading to conversions.
Challenges faced in digital marketing –
Digital Marketing is no child’s play. It requires an understanding of the intended target market, tools, platforms and the evolving moods and needs of the target audience. Here are the main challenges:
Creating engaging content: Engaging content is very important in projecting a brand. This is because content requirements keep changing as people follow innovative content formats from multiple industries.
Syncing with Google’s algorithms: The Google algorithm is updated regularly to ensure high-quality content across websites. So, you should be aware of these algorithm updates to ensure good content and website rankings in search engine results.
Following the data protection laws: Every business has to engage in lead generation keeping in mind the local data protection laws. One such example is GDPR in the European Union.
Mobile first policy: More than 50% of internet users access online services or information from their smartphones. Hence, your business’s website must be optimised for mobile devices.
Website accessibility: Making websites accessible for people with visual, hearing or other impairments is necessary.
The challenges continue.
Brand consistency & authority: It’s very important to build brand consistency across all platforms by thinking beyond merely offering products/services. Thus, It helps build your business’s authority in its domain.
Lead generation: It is one of the main purposes behind digital marketing. This needn’t be just about a social media post but podcasts, webinars, video marketing, etc. Google & Facebook ad costs will rise with time. Hence, investments in ads need to yield results.
Studying your customer: This aspect of digital marketing helps you maintain your business and authority in the market. By doing so, you can tailor-make your products/services or even target the correct audience for your business based on the customer’s profile. Thus, a customer-centric approach is ideal.
Omni-channel marketing: You need to be present where your target audience is present. Hence, focusing on a single platform will not work.
Selecting the right tools: It is important to select the right tools in digital marketing, as there are many tools in the market. As a result, this needs to be clarified. So, the right tools will facilitate or smoothen your digital marketing journey.
You would have now understood that digital marketing has its fair share of challenges in helping businesses market their products/services. But a proper understanding of these issues and the application of strategic solutions can create magic.
If you’re looking for truly effective digital marketing solutions, we are the best digital marketing agency in Hyderabad. It is because we have helped leading brands stand out and generate quality leads over the past 13 years. Do explore our website in detail to know how we can help you.
Running a school is quite possibly a challenging task. There is a lot of weight that ‘trust’ carries. When a parent looks for a school for their child, they weigh every aspect of the school. One simple flaw about the school, from the looks to the feel, could create a negative impression on the parent. We had an amazing opportunity to work on a campaign for an International School in Warangal called Skill Stork. They are relatively new to the competition but have a good rapport with the community in Warangal.
This school was established by the SVS group of institutions, a well-known group in the Warangal region. As mentioned in the blog, this establishment is fairly new to the public. This is a challenge we had to overcome before creating the campaign.
Phase 1: Brand campaigns about the school
Even though the overall campaign ran for 6 months, we had worked on creating a measurable impact on the brand through social media prior to launching the campaign. We have begun their communication by presenting the live pictures and the atmosphere of the school. We have published creative campaigns using their ambience so that the audience gets to know the true colours of the school.
Phase 2: Communicating all about the school
As we moved closer to the admissions phase, we started communicating all that the school offers to the parents and the students. From the aspects of academics to the facilities that the school provides, phase 2 of the communication built a good bridge between the audience and the brand.
Phase 3: Paid Ad campaigns to drive admissions
Before creating the campaign, we did a thorough analysis of the challenges. Warangal is different from other cities. So, we had to be thorough in the plans we pitched. We made critical changes to our existing strategies and tailored a custom plan for this brand. The primary target audience for our campaign was parents in the age group of 22 – 45 years.
As the primary age group was a broader one, we targeted another age group within the primary one. The secondary target audience was parents who are in a better financial position and are looking to shift their kids to a better school. The age group for this set was 35 – 45 year parents.
Campaigns and their results
Moving forward, we have created a well-thought landing page to drive admissions. We set platforms for our communications- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google Ads. Once these platforms are set up, we create campaigns that are children-centric, facility-centric, and so on. These helped the campaign give a solid boost to the audience and generated high-quality leads. After launching the campaigns, we have also managed the school’s reputation by being active on social media and successfully managing its online presence.
Key Highlights of the campaign:
The total span of the campaign 6 months
The total number of admissions recorded 1,400
Traffic generated 60,830
In addition to these numbers, the keywords we used for the campaign ranked first and made their way to the first page of Google search in the Warangal region.
This campaign will remain one of our success stories. The challenges gave us tons of new experiences, and we are optimistic that they will open new doors for improvement.
Hey there, small business owners! Aren’t these days the best time to start a small business? We hope your business is thriving. Now, you want to take the next step. We can assume that you’re here to know more about how a Digital Marketing Agency can help your business grow. We’re devouring the same in this blog today.
Yes, there are a lot of digital marketing agencies out there. The rise of the pandemic has given way to a lot more too. So, it could become a bit harder to find the right agency to get your business to flourish. But, there are a few factors that you can use as filters while sorting through the agencies. Until you find the right agency, keep searching because there’s a lot a digital marketing agency can offer to a small business.
What makes a good digital marketing agency?
Transparency is one of the most important traits of an agency. Being transparent is a good place to start with. Choose a digital agency that puts honesty before creativity. Moving on, the experience of the agency comes into play. To handle the pressure of today’s rapidly changing social medial world, you need an agency that can adapt itself quickly. Look for an agency that puts out not just their work but also the results of their works.
Factors to consider while choosing a Digital Marketing Agency
What do you need?
In order to assess the type of agency you need, you should be clear about what you need. Is it a product you want to promote? Or maybe a service that you need to increase sales for? Or you want to put your brands’ name and identity out there. Whatever your needs are, make a list and then start sorting the agencies.
Do they offer diversity in advertising?
Digital marketing is a gamut of multiple tools and channels of marketing. When you look for an agency, make sure to do proper research if they provide multiple Digital Marketing services. If you want to see what we offer in Digital Marketing, click here.
Ask for references and reports of their works
This is where most of the agencies on your list will get filtered out. Look for all the material that the agency puts out on its website. Or ask for the results of previous works. While doing this, make sure if the agency has previously worked with any other clients under the same business as yours. This way, you can be sure that there won’t be any hiccups in your work. If you want to see the works that we have done and the case studies, click here.
These are a few tips that you can use while sorting and filtering the agencies you want to work with. To make this process even easier, connect with us. We have expert teams that can create excellent strategies to help your business achieve the desired results. We hope to talk to you soon. Take care.
As we battle the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, it is essential to understand what the post-COVID world will mean for us in the digital marketing realm. The grey pandemic cloud brought with it the silver linings of the digital era. This newfound alliance with digital platforms has done wonders for businesses in our country. At What’s In A Name, the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad, we have listed below why businesses need to rely more on digital marketing in this age.
As the world continues to open up, don’t forget to check out these beneficial post-COVID marketing ideas!
1. Focus on your existing clientele
The key to steady growth right now is to focus more on the clients you already have despite the economic downturn. The point is, look out for your customers, clients, and coworkers when times are tough. They will thank you for it in some way or another. And you will likely see growth in other areas such as customer loyalty, brand awareness, organic traffic, and online engagement.
2. Take your business online with the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad
Now is the time to increase your online presence. You likely already have some of your business functions online, but the pandemic has shown us just how much more we can do online. Social media platforms serve as an incredible medium to showcase your products and services. Think of these platforms as an online showroom of sorts.
The more processes you can bring online, the more you can stay engaged with your customers and employees. A business must stay resilient and thrive.
3. Come up with catchy deals
As businesses reopen, an excellent way to keep the audience interested is by offering exclusive sales promotions or deals. Advertise these offers on social media platforms as well as promotional emails. These kinds of offers will help bring in new customers while also keeping the old ones around.
4. Knowing your digital target
Ads are the way to go right now. Each platform offers several tools to research where your audience is hanging out most of the time. Using these, don’t hold back advertising on all the platforms. The key is to know precisely your target audience and advertise to them on Google Ads, LinkedIn ads, Twitter ads, Facebook ads, and Instagram ads.
Having these solid digital marketing strategies to depend on while the world settles down can help your business get back on its feet. It will also give you a headstart against your competitors. It is where What’s In A Name, the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad, comes into the picture. We help you with setting up your business’s online presence with just the right tools you need.
Digital marketing has gained immense popularity over the last decade. It plays an integral role in the growth and success of any business. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has increased the speed with which we all are going digital. As a result, we need to think of new and different ways to build successful marketing strategies. We are more reliant on online services now as opposes to the pre-COVID era. Therefore, we, at What’s In a Name (WIN), a digital marketing agency in Hyderabad, will help you build robust marketing strategies and enable your business to take the online leap.
What, we as a digital marketing agency in Hyderabad, would suggest?
As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected many people’s businesses. These are a few ways to develop robust marketing strategies to give your businesses a new sense of direction.
Build your customers’ trust.
Keeping this in mind, you should try to focus on the customers you already have. Instead of searching for a new and fresh clientele, you should focus on how you can help your existing customers achieve their new goals. It will build their trust in your organization.
Amplify your online activity.
Since everything has been happening online, this is the right time to increase your daily online activity. You can use online means of communication to keep in touch with your customers, which in turn will keep them engaged. Above all, the current situation has shown us that we can do so much productive work from within the comforts of our homes.
Use social media platforms diligently.
Using social media to promote your products or services is another important and influential way of marketing. Social media has remodelled the competitive market. Every business organization has employed social media to advertise its products or services using several different platforms.
We can conclude by saying that digital marketing is the best way to build resilient strategies in the post-COVID era. Hence, at What’s In a Name (WIN), we will help you develop the best strategies to tackle any issues. We will help build strategies and formulas that blend perfectly with the taste and tonality of your business.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) has been on the rise since the last decade. The last five years have seen staggering growth of Social Media Marketing in India. Users and brands alike have jumped the wagon in huge numbers to make their presence felt. In fact, it has changed the way people engage with each other and the brands too. Business owners in India, today, more than ever before, understand the importance of Social Media Marketing. It’s a fantastic tool. But there’s a lot than meets the eye.
Most business owners tend to be reactive, rather than proactive, with their Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategies. “If the competition is doing this, we have to!”
Most of us have heard this statement more often than not. Being a part of the herd or aping other brands blindly is not new to the world of branding and advertising. So, why would Social Marketing (SMM) be left alone?
The biggest enemy of a brand is the brand owner’s mindset — his reluctance to admit that the professionals know better. His reluctance to admit that reading an article or two on the internet is just half knowledge.
Unfortunately, this is the most prevalent mindset. That’s the only reason why we see millions of brand pages on Social Media that only the brand owners see or visit. These are pages that are run only for the brand owner’s vanity, perhaps.
Some crucial and recent statistics to understand Social Media Marketing at a glance.
Here are 6 common misconceptions that most brand owners have about Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Myth # 1: If the Social Media Marketing Agency is good, it will show results in a week or two.
Myth # 2: If we post more on Social Media, we will be seen more.
Myth # 3: Organic growth in Social Media is the best way to go.
Myth # 4: Those investing money on Social Media (Paid Ads) are fools.
Myth # 5: Social Media Marketing alone can help me skyrocket my sales.
Myth # 6: Digital Marketing is all about leads, and the revenue we generate from those leads.
So, let’s start busting these myths.
1) If the Social Media Marketing (SMM) Agency is good, it will show results in a week or two.
Well, for any good Agency, it would take at least 90 days to fully understand your brand and how the audience is reacting to your brand. Despite all the strategies and plans in place, the reality on-ground, at times, can be starkly different. Also, it’s an ever-evolving subject. So, there’s no point in assuming that your brand will begin to flourish in just a week or two.
Most importantly, it’s also important to weigh various other factors like how old is your brand, for instance. If it’s a relatively new brand, then you are initially, investing only to generate brand awareness. And this process could even take a year or two.
You should begin to see a positive change in 90 days though.
2) If we post more on Social Media, our brand will be seen more.
This is one of the biggest jokes in the Social Media Marketing Circuit. The reality is that less is more. It’s not about how much you post. It’s about what you post. Here’s an example. If you put up 40, 50, or even 60 posts a month, the Social Media algorithm might choose to not show even 98% of your posts to your followers. Social Media algorithms are powerful enough to ignore such “supposedly” smart ideas. Over a period of time, these algorithms will just categorise your brand page as “spam”.
So, posting once or twice a week is absolutely okay. One needs to make sure that these posts add some value to the audience.
3) Organic growth in Social Media is the best way to go.
Organic growth on any Digital Channel is great. But with Social Media Marketing (SMM), it’s a really long road that requires great amounts of work and patience. Also, it’s imperative to understand that there are many factors that influence organic growth. There’s a huge difference between businesses like McDonald’s that sell Burgers and the ones that sell vegetables or chemicals. Also, when you’re not an established brand that has decent following and awareness, you be under the illusion that you are. Nobody is dying to follow or like a brand that’s just selling vegetables or chemicals. You need to give your audiences a lot more “meat” than that. Then there are lifestyle brands that have a different approach and could get some traction because of the interest of people in such brands on Social Media, and offline, both.
If you are a brand that’s selling Cardboard Boxes, the strategy will be different. So, every business is different; every category is different. It’s foolish to compare yourself with competitors who’ve been around way longer than you, have invested a lot more money than you, have accepted the suggestions of their Social Media Marketing (SMM) Agency a lot more than you.
4) Those investing money on Social Media Marketing (SMM) Paid Ads are fools.
Well, it’s a great bubble to live in. We can just hope that better sense prevails before it’s too late.
When done smartly, paid ads can benefit businesses beyond their imagination. As business owners, most people, just look at the balance sheet and sales and revenues to decide whether a particular Social Media Channel is working for them or not. But that’s a half-baked approach. Most part of advertising starts with the word “awareness”. It’s also the first step of the famous advertising principle called “AIDA” where the letter “A” stands for Awareness, “I” stands for Interest, “D” for Desire and “A” for Action.
So, unless you work towards creating awareness, and offer something of interest that leads the audience to desire your product or service, there will be no action. And any Social Media Marketing (SMM) Strategy will suffer.
5) Social Media Marketing (SMM) alone can help me skyrocket my sales.
If this were true, Google would be shut long back!
In today’s competitive cutting-edge world, it’s important to stay on top of your Advertising game. For this, it’s important to make your presence felt across various online, and even offline, platforms.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) should be a part of your Digital Marketing strategy. But it can’t be your only effort. If you’re a home-baker, you could survive on that for sometimes. For everybody else, there’s a lot more that you need to do.
6) SMM is all about leads, and the revenue we generate from those leads.
Of course, Leads are an important aspect of Digital Marketing. However, to single out and review just the business generated through the leads from Digital Marketing is not too fair to you, your agency, and the brand. It’s imperative to keep in mind that Social Media Marketing, for most businesses, can generate direct sales through the leads generated. However, there are many indirect ways that Digital Marketing generates revenue/business. Here are a few of those
It increases your Brand Awareness. Thereby increasing your brand value which is an intangible asset.
It also acts as a brand recall form of advertising. So, when someone sees your ad online, they may not necessarily click on the ad. Even if they click, they may not necessarily fill the form due to multiple factors. However, they may choose to interact with your brand later, even offline.
A lot of users may see your ad online, and just choose to drop by to your store directly. And they may have made a purchase. So, though the triggering point for the purchase was an online ad they saw, Digital Marketing seldom gets credit for this.
So, before we give you a little background about us, we thought it’s best to let you know what will you learn by the end of this comprehensive blog post about the 7 key Digital Marketing questions, every brand owner wants to ask. Before we move ahead, we guarantee that this is the only and the most comprehensive blog you’ll need to read as a brand owner this year. It’s a detailed one. So, only if you’re serious about the activities of your Digital Marketing Agency for your brand, read on. Here’s a list of questions we’ll answer in this post:
1. What has changed about Digital Marketing in 2019?
2. Why should I choose a full-service Digital Marketing agency?
3. How to identify the difference between right and wrong strategy by a Digital Marketing Agency?
4. When to make a switch from my current Digital Marketing Agency?
5. How long should I continue my Digital Marketing activities?
6. How to make optimum utilisation of every penny I spend on online marketing?
7. What’s the fine print I should know about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
Well, before we begin, here’s a little background of ours.
We are What’s In a Name (WIN), a full-service Advertising & Digital Marketing Agency in Hyderabad. Incepted in the year 2010, we have built quite a few Regional & National brands from scratch. We’ve been equally recognised and awarded for our Branding and Digital Marketing capabilities, regionally & nationally. We’re one of the very few Advertising Agencies to be Google Partners.
We’d started as a Print Advertising Agency; we’ve worked our way up to add Digital Marketing to our repertoire of services. It took us a couple of years to complete this transformation. So, unlike most other agencies, it was not an overnight change. And through the process, we made sure we understood the subject and delivered measurable results.
1. What has changed about Digital Marketing in 2019?
Well, simply put, we’d say; a lot.
But there’s more than meets the eye. The recent updates across various properties of Google; read Google AdWords, Search Engine Result Pages (SERP), Google MyBusiness, Google Analytics, et al.
There are tons of changes in every property of Google since last year. And that will undoubtedly impact every Digital Strategy.
Google MyBusiness
Unfortunately, most business owners don’t realise the importance of maintaining good hygiene across their MyBusiness Pages. Well, this includes Google Maps and a whole lot of stuff.
It is a single dashboard that you can use to communicate with Google about your “physical” business location. Everything, from sharing the exact pin location, phone number, and information matters. It is a crucial snippet that pops up in every search we make on Google. It is also called a “Snack Pack” or “Local Listing” in the Digital World.
And that’s not all.
You can also share some posts the way you do on other Social Media Channels like Facebook, Instagram, etc. Plus, some specific offers that you’d like to share with your customers. So, there’s a lot of stuff you can do there.
Last year saw Google giving a complete make-over to the UI of the Dashboard. And it looks pretty cool. But it’s not just all good looks here. It does a lot more stuff too.
The unique search box, allows you to ask some direct questions like “What is my average page load time?” And this is to help the rapidly growing “Voice Search”.
Now you’d ask how does the speed of your page matter?
Well, thanks to the fresh updates by Google, it’s one of the top three ranking factors. Let’s assume your SEO (more on this later), is pretty similar to your competitor’s across various metrics. So, Google will by default show the fastest loading site higher. Speed could, at times, even beat websites with good SEO.
SERP (Search Engine Result Pages)
SERP, as the name suggests, is nothing but the results that Search Engines throw the moment you type a query. One of the significant changes from last year, that’s likely to get crazier this year, is the inclusion of separate ranks of your website on PC and Mobile, for a particular Keyword or Key-phrase.
So, if you type “Best 3-star hotels in Hyderabad”, and see that your brand is ranking “Number 3” on PC, it could rank “Number 8”, or 20, or beyond 100 on mobile. So, the work of a Digital Marketing Agency doubles up. We need to maintain rankings across devices.
As per a statistical report in Statista, currently, India has around 420 million Mobile Internet Users, and this number is likely to increase by another 100 million Mobile Internet Users by 2023.
So, it’s high time we begin to think mobile-first. Something that Google has been advocating for a while too.
Apart from all this, content still remains the king. The only difference is that the focus is now primarily on original, interesting content only. Gone are the days when stuffing excessive content would guarantee a top result on the search engine result pages. Though some website might still enjoy the results of the old strategy. They will soon be pushed behind by new, better content. It’s just a matter of time.
Backlinks are still important. But silly, irrelevant back links will do more harm than ever before.
Finally, the most important metric is the speed of your website; the speed of loading a page. If it’s not under 3 seconds, you’ve got reasons to worry. Of course, this varies from industry to industry and device to device.
2. Why should I choose a full-service Digital Marketing Agency?
As a brand owner, you’ve got a zillion things to tackle. And having some clue about the Digital Marketing or Marketing activities carried out by your Digital Marketing Agency, is a great thing. However, if you are investing more than a few minutes a day on this subject, you’re losing out on crucial time that can help you scale your business, better still, improvise your product or service.
There’s an old saying by William Bernbach, one of the legends of advertising from the 1950s, “A great Advertising Campaign will make a bad product fail faster.”
There are a lot of brands who consider having two different agencies for their brand. As there’s a dearth of a full-service Advertising & Digital Marketing Agency, brand owners think it’s best to opt for the best of both worlds, albeit differently.
If you’re going keep two legs in two boats, you’ll invest most of your time maintaining balance, and there will hardly be any time to make progress. Picture this, and you’ll understand what we’re saying.
And in most cases, this can be harmful to a brand. It should be considered only as a last resort. If you’ve got an excellent full-service agency, it will solve a lot of issues with you. Most importantly, your valuable time can be invested in a place where it matters the most – your business!
Finally, a full-service advertising & digital marketing agency will make sure that your brand tone and personality is standardised across various channels of communication – online and offline. It might sound simple, or unimportant. But this is complex. And if your current agency has nailed this for you, don’t disturb the composition. Focus on growing your business.
So, look for an agency where every single job is planned and executed end-to-end under one roof. Well, that’s the true meaning of “Full-service Agency”. Isn’t it?
3. How to identify the difference between right and wrong strategy of a Digital Marketing Agency?
Digital Marketing, compared to traditional advertising, is highly quantifiable. However, if your agency-to-be promises absurd numbers that sound too good to be true, you’ve got your answer. Listen to your inner voice. Don’t fall for that trap!
Like any business, or branding exercise, Digital Marketing is a difficult process too. So, it’s going to take some time. Have patience.
A lot of agencies try to play foul on the biggest weakness of an entrepreneur – “cheaper costs”. Well, it is indeed possible to bring your digital marketing costs down. But then there’s a limit to that as well. If your agency begins to keep your advertising Demographics broad, it will be much cheaper to execute. But you’d be doing a big disservice to your brand.
“Get three quotes. Hire the Digital Marketing Agency that quotes the lowest.”
It is a mindset that could do more harm than good.
It can be summed up in a saying, “Pennywise. Pound foolish.”
When an agency is chosen only because they are charging less, take a pause, and ask yourself. “When is the last time, I’d given a heavy discount on a good product of mine?” It would mostly be in cases of dead stock, an outdated model, or worse still, something that’s of poor quality.”
Voila! You’ve got your answer there.
Cutting corners is a great thing. But cutting the right corners is an art. An agency will make or break all the millions you plan to invest in your brand’s marketing activities. So, you might win the battle by negotiating a “seemingly profitable deal”. But you’re certainly going to lose the War!
Finally, a lot of brand owners believe that not sharing the data of the final conversion/revenues from the leads with their agency is a smart move. Unfortunately, it’s not the right approach.
Picture this. You share the exact data of the sales you’ve generated against each lead your agency has provided. That complete the circle for your agency. With this, they don’t just know which medium is working great for you; they can also determine what type of ad is working for your brand. And hence, they know where their strength lies. And they will work towards giving you better results.
Unfortunately, brand owners think that informing the agency of the success of their work will back-fire. The truth, however, is that NOT informing them about their success back-fires. The mindset that the moment an agency gets to know that their work is showing results, they might hike up their fee is pre-historic. Creative people crave appreciation; honest appreciation. They do have a dimension them that’s beyond money. And not hitting the right note there will only hamper your business.
4. When to make a switch from my current Digital Marketing Agency?
Simply put, never!
Well, the longer the association you have with your partner, the better the understanding. The amount of time you’ll need to spend on them will be way lesser. And that time of yours could be worth millions.
So, it’s not like the association should last forever. But if there’s not substantiate issue, it’s best to continue. A lot of brand owners, try to bring in their ego, and fool around with a good agency, in greed to exploit.
Then there are others who are always “Window Shopping”. Or want to divide the work of their brand into more pieces than that of shattered glass.
So, it’s a never-ending cycle.
The trick is… if you’ve got the right composition, don’t waste time tinkering with it. Just nurture it, water it, and let it blossom to give you results that you can’t even possibly imagine.
Remember, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
5. How long should I continue my Digital Marketing Activities?
As long as you intend to keep your business alive.
Well, they say that a business without promotion is like you winking at a girl in dark. Only you know what you’re doing.
Most business owners suffer from an ideology that once my business makes enough money, I’ll spend on Branding & Marketing activities. Unfortunately, it works the other way around.
So, once you begin to spend money on these activities, in the right way though, your business will begin to flourish. Your business will have more awareness. And that will in turn lead to more customers, over a period of time. The term “period of time” is crucial here. It all takes time.
Another big misconception we’ve got about our spends on any marketing activity is that if it’s not generating enough business, it’s not good. Well, there are tones of factors that determine whether a potential customer decides to give his details to you in the form of a lead or not. In cases of an e-commerce platform, there are varied other reasons why a potential customer would choose to buy from you.
It’s not always about the efforts by your Digital Marketing Agency. For all you know, you keep changing your agencies thinking, they are unable to crack this for you. And pretty late in the game you get to know that the issue is with your product, price, service, etc. It also depends on how your audience perceives your brand. And whether they find it valuable or not.
For example, a brand like Coca Cola, doesn’t promote themselves thinking that every time you see one of their commercials, you’ll immediately buy a bottle of coke. That’s something they’d love though.
So, it’s a process. It’s called brand recall. It’s a slow and steady process of promoting or advertising your brand across various channels, thereby building a strong brand image. All this needs to team up with a good product or service though.
So, in most scenarios, business owners tend to forget the “intangible” brand-building impact their Agency’s marketing and advertising efforts will have. So, it’s not always about sales. And not about instant sales for sure. The journey of a customer is pretty long from the time they see your ad, to the time they repeatedly see your ad, to the time the slowly build a connection and an affinity with your brand, to the time see your ad again, and then have a recall, and finally make a purchase. So, you ought to be patient.
Remember, if your product or service is good, the only marketing effort, online or offline, that goes waste is the one that’s not consistent!
6. How to make optimum utilisation of every penny I spend on online marketing?
Firstly, make a comprehensive list of products/services that are highly profitable for you. Apart from this, focus on basics, and stuff that’s influenced by season, event, time-of-day, geographic location, and other such factors, etc.
Share these details with your Digital Marketing Agency. Also, tell them openly about the challenges, draw-backs, points-of-differentiation, etc. An agency is like a doctor. The more the information you share with them, the better the results/treatment you can expect.
Next, don’t go for just vanity stuff.
For instance, a lot of people know that “content is king”.
There was a time when the more the number of pages you’ve got on your website, the better the prospects of it ranking higher. The more the number of blogs you write, the higher the chances of it dominating the search results for you.
Now, some part of this still holds good though. But Google is highly focused on content that’s unique, original, interesting, and solves the customers’ problem.
So, there could be a website that posts a new crappy blog every other day, and then there’s one that publishes an excellent blog just once a week. There’s a good chance that the latter will rank higher. So, though there’s some emphasis on quantity, quality is still a more important factor.
It leads us to those who want to upload 30 posts a month on their various Social Media Channels. Worse still, those who wish to post multiple times in a day. Well, there’s a Science behind posting. There’s also some common-sense needed.
A lot of Social Media Channels consider “over posting” as spam. Plus, when you upload content on your Social Channels and don’t spend a penny on promoting it, you and your family are the only ones who’re going to consume it.
Did someone say vanity?
Bang on!
So, upload three posts a week or 4 posts a month. But make sure they’re all promoted.
Now that doesn’t mean the organic reach is a myth. Or stuff doesn’t go viral. It certainly does.
But that’s for few rare pages and brands.
7. What’s the fine print I should know about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
Oh! It could be a good subject for another blog post. But we’ll try to answer this in brief.
Every channel comes with its pros and cons. Just because your friends are getting good results on Instagram, doesn’t mean you will too.
Let your agency do some research on this. Have some faith in them. Assist them with all the information about your business.
Search Engine Marketing is a long-term commitment. If you think, you’ll get someone on board for a few months, reach a good rank for various keywords or key phrases, and then you’re mistaken.
What most people know about Social Media is just half knowledge. It seems pretty easy. People think they can boost a post on their own, and avoid the expense of a Professional or an Agency. Well, just because someone roughly knows how the gears of car work, doesn’t mean they can be good drivers; rather safe drivers. Isn’t it?
It’s a similar scenario. To have half-baked information about boosting a post is one thing. To have complete in-depth knowledge about the subject is another.
There’s way too much that goes behind the scenes in Social Media. It’s Science. It needs thinking. It needs experience, it needs common sense. It needs business understanding. Most importantly, one needs to be updated with the ever-changing landscape of Social Media. A good Agency can help you make the most of it.
Search Engine Marketing or SEM, on the other hand, is way beyond Social Media Marketing. It has infinite permutations and combinations. It’s an ocean. And it’s changing rapidly too. If one doesn’t keep themselves abreast with all the updates and changes, they might lose the game.
Also, most of your Digital Marketing activities will have an impact on each other. For instance, your Social Media Engagement does have an affect on your Brand. It is thereby impacting your SEO.
Bonus Tip:
In our day-to-day business activities, at times, we forget who we’re working for. The end customer who pays to buy your product or service is, and will always remain, the hero of every story. So, stop making your Marketing activities centred around you unless you want to end up being your only customer!
