Strategy is king! You, as an entrepreneur or a business enthusiast, know that there’s not a day in the business world that goes by without a proper strategy. It’s a sure way to success. If we have to explain the importance of strategy, take a regular day as an example. From the moment we wake up to the moment we hit the bed, everything we do has a reason why we do it. 

If you start a project today, your mind will subconsciously map the best route and strategy to take in order to finish the project on time. This process of mapping out a rough plan is key to taking the first steps. In this blog, we’ll explain to you what a proper digital strategy does to your business. 

What exactly is a digital strategy?

Earlier, we talked about what strategy is. It’s the plan that you need to finish a task successfully. Now, when you apply the same to the digital communication of your brand, it evolves as a digital strategy. In simple terms, a digital strategy is a plan that you’ll need to follow for your business to grow on an online platform. 

This blog is also a way for us to explain to you what you can expect when you take us on board to create a digital strategy for your business. While there are multiple ways we go about creating it, in this blog, we’ll explain the basics of what happens behind the scenes. 

What happens Behind The Scene?

We are always proud of how we managed to create perfect strategies for brands throughout our journey. And, we can say that it’s definitely not a cakewalk. To create a strategy, there are tons of factors to consider and tons more to implement. Here’s how we strategise your digital presence:

Research → Goal Setting → Review Budgets → Action Plan→ Implementation → Analysing Results

What do we mean when we say we research?

Research is the backbone of everything we do. We put brakes on our creative selves and start digging into every aspect of the brand. Before we can think of creating a campaign, we need to know who the brand’s audience is because communication isn’t just about the brand talking but about making the audience listen. 

The audience’s span of attention has reduced to seconds these days, and we need to perfectly target the communication to those that want to listen to the brand. Research helps us know the audience better. 

What goals do we want to achieve?

The goals that we set for the brand and ourselves depend entirely on the purpose of the campaign. Depending on the end result you need, we’ll set a few goals to achieve within the campaign duration. 

Is budget important? What’s an action plan? 

If research is the backbone of a strategy, an appropriate budget is a foundation. The scale of a campaign’s reach depends mostly on the budget. Once the budget is finalised, we’ll propose the action plan. The plan contains the set paths that we’ll need to follow to drive the campaign to success. 

Implementation & analysing results

Winston Churchill said, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”. We follow this with every campaign we do. This gives both the brand and us what we have achieved. To learn from our own experiences is a thing of beauty. 

This is how we create a digital strategy for a brand and its campaign. Although this is only a part and the basics of what we do, we’d suggest that you get in touch with us to know more. There’s a lot of ground to cover before creating a strategy, and we think that you’ll enjoy getting to know more.

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. 

If you want us to re-create this magic for your business, connect with us today.

What is customer-centricity, and why is it important?

If the content is king, we can say customers are the kingdom. To put it simply, customer centricity is an approach that revolves around customers. Over the past few decades, it is evident how customer-centricity has taken centre stage. So, what should be your goal to ultimately provide the audience with great experiences? How should you approach this? Well, this blog will give you the answers.

How do you get customer-centricity?

Do you have a unique way of approaching customers? If yes, you are halfway there! If your target is a customer, your trial should be efficient. For instance, you should ease the complications, solve problems and should suggest the best path based on customer needs. For instance, if you are a brand or a company dealing with products and services, defining your customer culture should be your first step.

It is not always the revenue which should do the talking; rather, it should be your thinking and approach too. To elaborate, there are certain potential opportunities you should definitely give a thought to cultivate the best results.

Firstly, listen to your customers. By saying so, we don’t just mean conducting surveys and getting your customers to fill out forms. It means to ask the customers specific questions like what and why. This is followed by the customer reality. You need to bridge the gap between your service and customer satisfaction. This is one of the ways you can understand the quality of experience. Always make your customer part of the solution. The next comes mapping the journey of customers. This includes customer interactions as well. So, to reap better results for your brand, it is evident that you should keep thorough monitoring of customer experience. This is where we shine. At WIN, we create a customer-centric approach by analysing where the audience is spending their time. Further, we strategise the best way to reach them and convey the brand. 

Why should a business be customer-centric?

Loyalty and retention are the ultimate answers. Now how will this help you to attain your goal? Both of these depend on the company and of course the service that your company offers. More precisely, your business should be the combination of product offering benefits followed by building the value of the brand. With this, you will be able to improve your customer loyalty and retention. We suggest you focus more on the quality of the products and services of your business so that even if your competitors offer them good deals, it will be your quality and loyalty that will keep them close to you.

The final call

In conclusion, the groundwork for successful customer-centricity is to streamline the right culture followed by technology to drive sales. Moreover, both of these are essential to creating a solid & effective strategy. If you are ready to start your journey or want to give a customer-centric dynamism, join us. You’ll be guided with the best possible strategies and solutions to boost your game.

We won’t be surprised if you have heard this word while searching and surfing about Digital Marketing agencies these days. This is because this is right now a growing trend in the advertising space. In this blog, we are going to give you a deeper understanding of what Performance Marketing is, why its gaining popularity, and its advantages too.

What exactly is Performance Marketing?

There are various definitions of Performance Marketing. The easier one is that it is tied up directly with the results of the marketing you do. Meaning, that agencies create campaigns based solely on performance as a scale. Following the same, you pay them based on the results the campaigns reap. 

This is how you pay agencies doing Performance Marketing:

• (CPC) Cost Per Click: You pay marketers for every click on the ad
• (CPM) Cost Per Impression: Using a base rate for every 1000 impressions, you pay marketers based on the total number of impressions the ad creates for the brand.
• (CPL) Cost Per Lead: You pay every time the brand receives a lead from the ad campaign.

What type of brands should choose Performance Marketing?

Brands that are eager to grow exponentially. If your brand is new, young, and exciting for your audience, you should choose Performance Marketing. Keep in mind that this type of campaigning and budgeting is a WIN-WIN for both parties. While the agency reaps a good sum until the campaign runs, the brand gets the exposure it needs. 

Performance Marketing vs Digital Marketing

There are a few technical aspects that differentiate both these marketing techniques. The first and the most obvious one is that Digital Marketing focuses on paid campaigns such as Search Ads, Display Ads, and Lead Ads. On the other hand, Performance Marketing focuses on reach, impressions, and so on. That way, even though there’s not much push for the brand using paid and traditional methods, there are always metrics that determine the brand’s presence in the audience. 

Also, the approach to these marketing techniques is majorly different. While Digital Marketing is about generating leads for the brand using paid campaigns, Performance Marketing flourishes in an organic way to increase the brand’s presence. 

There you go. That’s what Performance Marketing is all about. We hope this blog helped you get a better understanding of what it is and if you can apply it to your brand’s growth. If you have any questions, please feel free to connect with us. 

We’d like to call SEO an ocean, but it is a world of its own. And, with the internet and information being spread and shared at such a rapid rate, the world of SEO only keeps getting bigger and better. So, if you’re looking to optimise your website properly, you have to learn SEO. Lucky for you, we are here to help. In this blog, we will crack down the basics of SEO, from what it means to how it can help your website grow. So, let’s get started.

What does SEO mean, and why is it important?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is the process of making your website gain a higher ranking in search engines. How does it help your business? A higher ranking in search engines means having a higher possibility of showing up on the first pages of search engines. 

At this point in the blog, let us ask you a question. How many times have you used a search engine in the last three days? And, how many times have you looked for information on pages further than the first? We know that the chances are slim that you went to the second page, even. So, your website must show up on the first page of the search engine. Now that we’ve established how vital SEO is, let us move further into the categories of SEO that you can use for your website.

What are the types of SEO?

On-page SEO:

In the digital world, we call it content. So, On-page SEO is all about the content on your website, and this is because it plays a significant role in search engine rankings. The process includes using the right keywords fitting the appropriate metadata to the information we provide. 

Off-page SEO:

Contrary to the previous category, Off-page SEO is all about the promotion you need to do away from the website. That means using social media to your advantage to cast exposure on your website. Also, write for various big players in your industry and get your content published on their websites that backlink to your website. 

Technical SEO:

Well, the name says it all. This is a truly technical part of SEO. But, to give you a better understanding, some of the technical SEO processes include indexing all your pages, reducing the number and sizes of images to load faster, and most important of all, making your website mobile-friendly. 

These are the common terms of SEO that you’ll be hearing a lot. We know that most of the terminology mentioned above is hard to understand. Even though we tried to ease them down, quite a few technical factors go into truly optimising a website. So, why don’t you give us a chance? We have been ranking the highest Digital Marketing firm in Hyderabad for a while now, and we have an amazing team that can create and optimise your website. So, you can relax and be in charge of how your website looks, while our team will take care of ranking your website the highest. If you’re interested, make sure to contact us. Take care, and see you soon.

Hey, digital marketers! Now that we’ve stepped into 2022, there’s a lot of potential to discuss and point out. These things are going to be pivotal. Every year, we get to see new advancements in digital marketing. This year, we are following a few trends that are going to change the path of digital marketing. 

Before we dive into what’s going to change in 2022, let’s have a quick recap of what happened in 2021. One of the biggest introductions is the YouTube shorts. This way of short video content has seen a huge boost in content creation in 2021. On the other hand, Metaverse made a huge buzz too. In this year, we are likely to see these platforms adapting their models. 

Marketing using Short Videos

There’s no denying that Short Videos are everywhere today. Especially with TikTok being banned in India, social media platforms jumped at the chance and created their versions of Short Video formats. For example, Instagram introduced Reels, and YouTube came up with YouTube Shorts. Also, a few of us might also be in a way addicted to the scrolling infinitely consuming Short Video Content. 

In addition to this, a few platforms might use this feature for advertising so that brands can create fun and quick short videos about their products to sell.

Conversational Marketing

Conversation leads to building trust. There are a few ways you can integrate this method. Some of them are:

• Chatbots

Chatbots are going to be way more friendly and effective in the coming days. With AI technology advancing every day, there’s a high possibility that it applies to chatbots. You can install these chatbots on your website or social media pages. These will create a natural conversation with your visitors and try to make a sale. 

• Shoppable Livestreams

There’s a Livestream that Kim Kardashian made about one of her products, and the sale numbers blasted through the roof during the stream. 

Metaverse is going all-in

As you read this blog, Metaverse today is taking huge leaps in how to create new ways of interaction. There already are tons of articles out there that talk about how VR technology improves and changes the way we shop. 

AR competes with VR

While VR is being built from scratch by Meta, AR, on the other hand, has already made milestones. Especially in the field of interior design, you can use your phone to create your dream space. 

These are a few things that are going to change the course of digital marketing in 2022. Like every other year, we are anticipating interesting changes this year too. Let’s all be hopeful and curious to see how we can use these advancements for the best. If you’re wondering how we can make your brand find its wings, get in touch with us. Until then, please take care of your health. 

Real estate is a huge business. And the value transcends to the importance of owning a home. This is the reason why digital marketing can help your Real Estate business find value among your audience. If used correctly, digital marketing is a boon for real estate businesses. In this blog, we will explain why you should consider prioritising digital marketing to improve your real estate business.

The real estate business has too many technical aspects. But, there’s a pretty contrasting side to it, too, in the minds of the audience. The one looking to buy a home has their family and status at stake and will categorise all their decisions based on emotions. And, using Social Media to market your property is one of the best ways to create the right personality for your business. There are sure ways to make this possible. So, let’s take a look at a few of those.

Why use digital marketing to promote Real Estate?

Digital marketing is not just a tool to promote but also to stay connected with your audience. By promoting your brand on social media, you allow customers to meet and interact with you on common ground. Not just interacting, but social media also lets you prioritise your communication about a specific project. By using specific tools in Digital Marketing, you will have the ability to reach a specific type of audience that will surely love to engage with your brand with digital marketing in real estate.

What do we do to promote Real estate on Social Media?

Now that we’ve established that Digital Marketing company can help Real Estate businesses tenfold in promoting their properties, let us share a few things that we can do:

• Promoting the location of your property
  Location is a significant aspect while choosing a property. It is because those who are planning to buy a home think of all the activities and essentials they could avail. 
• Promoting the amenities and USPs
  Next to the location, the audience gets inspired by your opportunities to create a higher living standard. Lifestyle is a driving force while choosing a home to live in. 
• Engage to improving the value
  As mentioned earlier, buying a home is an emotional act. So, connect with your audience on a personal level. And, social media offers you just the right platform to do so. 
• Promoting the achievements and activities of current dwellers
  This user-generated content holds a higher value than what the brand offers and conveys. It is because of the reality and actuality of the content offered. 

There you go. If you own a Real estate business and haven’t yet considered marketing it on Digital platforms, you definitely should. You will be stunned by the amount of value your brand can accumulate. You can take advantage of targeted ads and boost your presence in just the locations you need leads from. With that being said, we can help you choose the right path for your real estate business and drive it into the digital world. Contact us today, and let’s get talking.

For the hype of products or brands, digital marketing includes many forms of media. It uses various channels for research in order to decide what works and what doesn’t. Therefore, many tools are used to track the progress, such as service views, how often and for how long they are viewed, etc. Most importantly, the 5 Ds are the key to your company’s success. We are here to help you understand what you need to know about these 5 Ds.

The 5Ds is a set of options that allows people to interact with brands while also choosing the right people. Learn about the 5Ds of digital marketing.

The 5 Ds of Digital Marketing are:

1. Digital Devices
2. Digital Platforms
3. Digital Media
4. Digital Data
5. Digital Technology

Digital devices

In other words, this term means that people use devices on a daily basis. It, therefore, helps to sell to a group of people like follows –

• Computers, laptops, and desktops
• Tablets and phones
• Smart televisions
• Devices for gaming
• Smartwatches.

Mobile devices are used more often than laptops. Smartphone users have made online transactions using their phones. While building your digital marketing plan, keep this in mind.

Digital platforms

Users interact with these sites on a regular basis. They can be used for marketing reasons in the following ways:

• Social media
• Search engines
• Websites

Customers begin their experiences on web pages, Bing, Google, and also Yahoo. Similarly, people use search engines to learn more about their issues and to look for solutions.

Digital media – 

Paid media platforms are also used to reach your target group. They are as follows:

• Social media marketing
• Messages
• Email marketing 

Companies can use digital media such as email to announce new products, sales, and other things. You can also use social listening, which keeps an eye on social media and responds to posts that mention your brand.

Digital Data – 

Data about your target group that is used to get a marketing goal is known as digital data. In general, you can get information on your target audience by:

• Contact firms
• Surveys
• Apps

Data collection also helps in the storage of client information. It is easier to select and market in the future with this information.

Data Technology – 

The use of technology for marketing is what this point is all about. Consider the following:

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Augmented reality (AR)
• Virtual reality (VR)

Digital technologies are used to provide a better experience and also to promote themselves.

In conclusion, digital marketing is a rapidly growing field with a volume growth for qualified people. If you need more details on digital marketing for your business, we, the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad, can help. For additional details, please visit our website.

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. 

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

1. It increases your Brand Awareness. Thereby increasing your brand value which is an intangible asset.
2. 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.
3. 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.

We hope this blog was of help to you. Incidentally, if you’d like to check out our most popular Digital Marketing Blog Post, please click here.

Sources: 
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/5-ways-to-improve-your-b2b-social-media-marketing-strategy-in-2020-infogra/570707/
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/22-instagram-stats-you-need-to-know-in-2020-infographic/569182/
https://awario.com/blog/social-media-predictions-for-2020/
https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/changing-position-of-social-media-in-2018-marketers

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. 

To know more about us, you can click here.

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.

Google Analytics

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! 

If you think that Google releases updates and introduces changes to its search algorithm just once in a while, you are entirely wrong.

These changes are introduced every now and then. However, sometimes they are so minor that they do not wreak havoc in the SERPs.

The quality of the search results that we have today is nowhere near the average quality we used to have a few decades ago. As you will see in the SEO Tribunal’s infographic below, Google introduced lots of major updates to establish itself on the market as the best and most used search engine.

Let’s have a look at some of the major Search updates that were released over the years. 

The Beginning

Google started off back in 1998 by two Stanford University graduates – Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It made use of a mathematical algorithm to arrange web pages. The algorithm was mostly based on the strength of inbound links and meta content. 

2003

Florida update was released, one of the first significant updates to its search algorithm. Keyword stuffing could no longer be used, and Google set an endpoint to eliminate spam content.

Many businesses were affected through this update, and some even disappeared from the search results.

2004

By 2004, the search engine had started using a range of unrevealed factors to improve its search ratings.

2005

In 2005, Google released XML sitemaps update that allowed website owners to submit the pages they would like to have indexed in the Google’s web index.

Google also released the personalized search update, thus collecting user’s data to make the search results more customized. 

2007

The Universal Search update was released which was showing news, videos, and images. It was at that time that New York Times reported that Google makes use of more than 200 different factors to rank websites. 

2010

In 2010, Google launched the Caffeine update which included real-time updates on the content thereby including the latest results on the provided query.

This also included Twitter feeds, Google news, and freshly indexed content. This was later updated to include other social media content as well. 

2011

In 2011, another important update was released, named Panda. The update was aimed against websites which were duplicating content from other sites, exploiting ad-sense, and content farms.

Google also launched Google+ during this year and garnered 10 million users within two weeks. 

2013

The Hummingbird update was launched in 2013 which caused another major change in the manner in which websites were listed and ranked. 

2018

Forward to 2018, Broad Core Algorithm Update was rolled out that was meant to ‘benefit pages that were previously unrewarded,’ as explained by Google. 

With Google working hard to improve its search results, we can sure expect to get even better and more relevant results to our queries in the nearest future.

To find out more about this and other fresh SEO facts and stats, check out the infographic below.

Infographic URL:  https://seotribunal.com/blog/stats-to-understand-seo/