Businesses are increasingly adopting digital marketing for brand awareness and to widen their customer base. They have been regularly observing the ...
Businesses are increasingly adopting digital marketing for brand awareness and to widen their customer base. They have been regularly observing the benefits of digital marketing in customer acquisition by other businesses. What’s In a Name Creatives is a leading digital marketing agency in Hyderabad. Our innovative and cutting-edge digital marketing strategies help our clients get the desired results and at times, more than that.
Digital Marketing helps your business get 10x to 100x results in comparison to the traditional methods of marketing. This is due to its wider reach through the internet i.e. websites, social media and search engines. So, strategies such as social media marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimisation, email marketing, content marketing and ads (pay-per-click) are the core elements that bring results.
But at the end of the day, it’s the strategy that matters. Also, digital marketing strategies involve the application of ethics. This ensures a level-playing field while pursuing healthy competition.
In the modern world, it’s a superpower that businesses possess. But harnessing that superpower is the key to success. For this, businesses will have to tailor their digital marketing strategies to reflect their business goals.
Businesses that can deploy digital marketing
There is no limit on business size in the application of digital marketing solutions. Small to medium size businesses can take advantage of this by using their websites and social media platforms to market their products and raise brand awareness. They may also do ads on a small level.
Whereas in big businesses, they can spend heavily. They can invest in heavy ad marketing, such as social media ads and Google network ads, from basic text ads to display ads that can show videos. Also, they can collaborate with influencers to leverage their follower base and widen the brand reach.
Therefore, budgets can vary across businesses. Even if you don’t have the budget to spend on ads initially, organic marketing will help if done after a thorough brainstorming. Your strategies have to take into consideration whether your goal is B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Customer) marketing.
Do all businesses succeed through digital marketing?
The answer to this question lies in the strategies adopted by the business. Some get very good results while others may initially struggle a bit. Identifying the right audience for your products/services is essential. Once this is done, it becomes easier to choose the right digital channel which can deliver you results.
For example, if Gen Z is your target audience, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube helps you target them easily through ads and organic content that includes text and videos.
Reflect first to ensure a sustained and successful campaign. Answer pertinent questions such as ‘What are my goals?’,
‘Who is my audience?’, ‘Where is my audience present?’,
‘What type of content does my audience like?’ and ‘What should be the tone of my messaging?’.
During the campaign phase, keep tracking the bounce rates, cart abandonment rate, conversions, etc., apart from website visits and leads for a clearer picture of how well customers respond.
What’s In a Name Creatives is a digital marketing agency in Hyderabad. If you need a trusted partner to guide your digital activities, we’re with you.
Internal mobility is the movement of employees both vertically and laterally within the company hierarchy for new career roles. Companies usually do this to retain good talent within the organisation. But this has now gone innovative.
Linkedin, a professional networking company has included internal mobility tools to its list of recruitment solutions. It’s quite famous for professional networking and recruitment activities. From our observations, many candidates have good prospects of finding their dream roles on the platform.
The platform helps candidates through direct postings by companies or through referrals by network members. Statistics tell us that at least six people get hired every minute on Linkedin. The potential employer can see the applying candidate’s complete profile including references, network, certifications, etc., apart from the resume attached.
The new addition of internal mobility tools is a shot in the arm for employers. It helps them easily identify existing employees for promotion to open roles within the company. Also, it helps companies identify the most suitable employee easily without wasting time and money and maybe even avoid unnecessary interviews.
LinkedIn’s workplace report says that 85 % of hiring managers believe that retaining top talent requires prioritising existing employees for new career roles within the company itself. However, only 1 in 5 employees have the confidence to do so.
LinkedIn launches Next Role Explorer as part of its internal mobility tools
Next Role Explorer is a dynamic career path visualisation that recommends employees’ potential next roles inside their current organisation based on their current role and career goals. Also, it guides the employees’ learning journeys to help them achieve their career goals and points them towards customisable role guides to help them understand the specific skill set required to succeed in the role. Here, employees get personalised or customised learning plans to help them close their critical skill gaps and move ahead.
These internal mobility tools help companies align skill development to their requirements. Linkedin has a repository of 41,000+ skills which have been added by around 1 billion members on the platform. Thus, employees can receive alerts about new job postings within their company and express interest in it.
Features of Next Role Explorer, the internal mobility tool from Linkedin
Guide candidates: It helps employees discover their next role within the company by analysing their current title and career goals. Additionally, role guides offer elaborate role descriptions, content recommendations and day-in-the-life videos.
Develop skills: The learning plan focuses on the content that would help close the skill gap. Also, AI-powered coaching helps with personalised and conversational guidance.
Connect with recruiters: Employees can explore the open roles available in their companies and express interest based on matching skills and goals.
Measurable metrics: New metrics and exportable data gives you access to role guide views, certifications and internal jobs viewed.
We understand that Linkedin intends to address employee retention issues in companies through the launch of internal mobility tools. This innovative measure is sure to have an impact on companies in the long run.
What’s In a Name (WIN) is the leading digital marketing agency in Hyderabad. So, if you’re looking for innovation in the digital marketing universe, we’re always up and ready for the game.
Prompt Engineering is the current buzz in artificial intelligence. We see a lot of people talking about it all over the internet. There’s a lot of interest in prompt engineering that’s been catching the attention of businesses worldwide, including India.
When deployed effectively, it can streamline your business marketing effectively. Also, it saves you precious time utilising it for other purposes.
What is prompt engineering?
We were also curious when prompt engineering started becoming popular. So, we went about trying to understand what it was all about. And we were impressed with its potential in business applications.
In simple terms, prompt engineering is the art of crafting very precise and effective prompts to get relevant and accurate results. It runs on AI generative tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and more. Hence, a good prompt is akin to a good piece of code written in a programming language such as C, C++, Javascript, etc.
Prompt engineers ensure that they craft the best quality prompts for the best results. These prompts could be used to get information about a research topic for college or office work. It could also be used for writing an email, essays, blogs, programming codes, and much more.
Also, in the latest scenario, you can generate images or 1-minute high quality videos by simply typing in the appropriate prompt.
How prompt engineering works.
Let’s understand how it works in a simple way.
Generative AI models use the transformer architecture which helps them process huge data using neural networks. Large language Models (LLMs) and Foundation Models based on the same architecture provide the necessary information. Also, inbuilt techniques such as tokenisation, top-k sampling and model parameter tuning ensure that you get coherent and meaningful outputs.
In instances where image or video generation happens from text prompts, the output is a combination of LLMs and stable diffusion models.
Prompt engineering techniques
Zero-shot prompting: Here, you can get instant answers to your prompts as the tool has been trained on huge amounts of data.
Few-shot prompting: Here, you give your prompt with an example in order to get the response you desire.
Chain-of-Thought prompting: Here, you provide a series of sequential prompts so that the tool can elaborate the output in the specified manner.
Least-to-Most prompting: It begins with basic prompts and then moves on to detailed and specific prompts to get the output you desire.
Adversarial prompting: You can give contradictory prompts to identify vulnerabilities in LLMs. Quite helpful in fine-tuning AI tools.
Contextual prompting: Providing the AI tool with maximum and relevant data to produce the best output possible. Especially useful when the tool doesn’t have access to real-time data.
Therefore, looking at how prompt engineering works, it can be of immense use in marketing efforts such as ideation and brainstorming of ideas, conducting research, creating personas, identifying keywords, and creating a brief and framework. The number of applications will keep rising with time. It’s up to you to make the best use of this advancing technology.
AI and marketing share a strong bond in the digital era. AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. The internet brought about a revolution in the field of marketing using websites and social media. So, a business could now travel far places on the internet to find new customers and target a very niche segment. In this article find about how AI-Centric Roles in Marketing are emerging.
Marketing to a further audience became easier. But AI went a step ahead in simplifying tasks in digital marketing along with ML or Machine Learning.
Mundane tasks such as keyword search, SEO optimisation, ad optimisation, etc., can now be automated with the help of AI. The application of AI in marketing is increasing day by day, with social media platforms and websites integrating AI into their systems.
Also, AI integrates with search engine advertising, email advertising, social media marketing and more to drive businesses. With online businesses becoming popular, AI will find many more applications.
Some of the popular AI tools in use in marketing include ChatGPT, Jasper and OpenAI.
AI-Centric roles in marketing content creation
AI helps in easing content creation. AI-driven content generation helps your business generate content that is relevant and engaging to your audience. Hence, they can quickly generate ideas for campaigns, create blog articles, email newsletters and even generate videos.
Also, they can help you build personalised newsletters and campaigns for your customers. Tailoring content to your customer’s taste increases your brand engagement and conversions. Therefore, AI tools can help you generate huge volumes of content quickly and cost-effectively.
Key Statistics for AI-centric roles in marketing
83 % of businesses are considering using AI in their marketing strategies
26 % of B2B businesses use AI chatbots
55 % of B2B businesses use chatbots to increase and create new leads
Also, many businesses find AI chatbots very useful in educating their customers or potential clients about their products or services.
How can businesses integrate AI with their marketing efforts?
Smarter & faster decisions: Your business will not have to wait for the campaign to end to make a marketing decision. So, AI-based data-driven analytics help you make smart moves.
Sales forecasting: AI can predict the next product your customer will buy or what products to promote to a niche audience.
Predictive marketing analytics: AI helps your business understand what your customers are thinking and feeling based on real-time data.
Ad optimisation: AI helps you get the maximum ROI on cost-effective touchpoints and even produce top-quality ads.
Personalised customer experience: AI can tailor content to your niche audience needs or even that of individual customers. Hence, customers feel cared for.
Finding trends or patterns: As AI processes data at high speeds and accuracy, it can pick up insights about customers, new trends, and habits more easily.
AI helps maintain data quality and security, too. Numerous businesses have been using AI to power their marketing efforts with visible and massive success. Some include Nike, Sephora, Netflix, Coca Cola and more.
Hence, responsible usage of AI finds great applications in marketing.
Digital marketing refers to the use of digital mediums to market and sell an organisation’s products or services. It is becoming the most popular form of marketing. Organisations that are yet to adopt digital marketing strategies find it increasingly difficult to stay in competition.
Websites and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms form the crux of an organisation’s digital marketing efforts. The digital marketing strategy adopted determines the brand’s goodwill or reputation, reach and other factors that propel its growth. Each strategy has its share of contribution to a brand’s growth. Most of them don’t cost anything except good planning and execution.
Top three digital marketing strategies that attract customers
There are numerous digital marketing strategies that aid brand growth. While all of them have their respective contributions and advantages, some of them are very important. Let’s have a deep look at these digital marketing strategies.
Social media marketing: This form of digital marketing Technique is in use by organisations for its ability to reach the masses of all age groups, from kids to senior citizens. Social media platforms can help increase your brand visibility or sell your products or services both organically and through paid ads. As per estimates, 83 % of people using the internet use social media for connecting with new people, keeping old bonds intact, consuming entertainment content, job hunting, playing games and buying or selling products/services.
Offline businesses are increasingly showing up on social media platforms for brand awareness, providing directions to their physical stores and even sometimes selling their products. The ad facility provided on these platforms is a boon for businesses. They have to register an account and pay the platform through a user-friendly interface to post their ads.
Content marketing: This form of marketing is deployed on websites to attract potential customers for brand awareness or for marketing its products. Content may be published in the form of articles or blogs, images, games, ebooks, etc. So, they directly or indirectly promote the brand products/services without outrightly forcing the customer to buy.
SEO is an important aspect of content marketing used primarily in articles to promote web page rankings. You can deploy various SEO techniques such as Onpage SEO, Off-page SEO, Technical SEO, Local SEO, etc. These articles can be promoted on social media platforms for further visibility and reach.
The most potent digital marketing strategy
Digital video content: The human brain can remember and recognise visual content easily. In fact, 90 % of the content fed into our brains is visual in nature. Hence, video content is the best way for a brand to quickly and easily reach out to its targeted audience. A video on popular video-sharing sites such as YouTube gets 12 times more shares than an article.
At length, we have studied how the top three digital marketing strategies affect a brand outcome. Hence, There is no doubt about the impact of an effective digital marketing strategy. What’s In a Name is a leading digital marketing agency in Hyderabad. We have a reputation built over a decade through our strong vision and work with reputed clients. So, If you’re looking to upgrade your marketing strategies, we’re game. Please feel free to contact us.
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 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 who 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 & analysis 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 you’ll enjoy getting to know more.
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.
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.
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!
