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.
Digital Marketing is the promotion of a company’s products/services on the internet through social media, search engine or website ads, mobile app ads and more. Businesses have discovered that investing in digital marketing has paid them results in the medium to long run. Even in the short run too.
It has evolved over the years in terms of mediums and techniques. So have customers. And hence, businesses keep track of the evolving trends and invest accordingly to stay in the market. The current year 2023, will see a lot of exciting and interesting digital marketing practices deployed. We should identify this to stay ahead of the market.
What digital marketing factors will impact businesses in 2023?
When we look at the digital marketing impact on businesses in 2022, we can clearly see that there is much more in store for 2023. These impacts could be read in the following ways –
Enhancing brand reputation: All forms of digital marketing, be it content marketing, video marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and others, enhance your brand reputation if done under proper guidance. So, 2023 will see increased efforts in this direction.
Generating quality leads consistently: Quality leads are the backbone of a business’s sales efforts. They are collected manually or automatically through specific tools.
Enhanced conversion: With an understanding of your customer’s needs and tailoring your products/services accordingly, conversion rates will definitely start increasing. Not everyone will become your customer, but you’ll get long-term customers.
Revenue & profits: The combined efforts of content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing and other digital marketing tactics lead to increased revenues and profits.
Further impact of Digital Marketing
Targeting global audiences: If you intend to sell your products/services to customers globally, you can adopt multiple digital marketing strategies that would gain you a global brand reputation and customer base.
Customer communication & engagement: Continuous interaction with the customer at every stage is essential to build brand trust. Else, other brand communication will divert them. This is where digital marketing helps to maintain constant communication and engagement with your customers. Thus, you could get them to read a blog or have them play a small game like spinning wheels or quizzes to give them discounts. This builds up brand loyalty.
Targeting correct customers: Digital Marketing makes it easy to target the correct customers once you identify them. You can serve ads specifically for the localities where they stay or use retargeting ads to give them discounts or special offers when they come back or click on a related link.
Measuring results: It’s easy to measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts through campaign management. Popular tools like Google Analytics help analyse every aspect of the customer journey and allow you to see the Return On Investment on the same. Looking at the results, you can optimise your future campaigns accordingly and save on resources.
Digital Marketing will keep evolving and profoundly impacting the way you run your business. Hence, expert guidance from industry experts can help you generate revenue, build a brand reputation and stay ahead of the competition.
What’s In a Name Creatives is ranked as Hyderabad’s most innovative and best digital marketing agency. So, If you see your brand’s future in digital marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us for the best guidance. We would be glad to be a part of your journey.
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 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.
How do you turn a prospect into a lifetime customer? This is where you need to be acquainted with the concept of Lead Generation. And from a business perspective, lead generation ensures you are ideally matched with potential customers. Further, you need to strategise with the audience to turn them into potential customers.
Well, one of the main objectives of any business is acquiring leads. Quality leads and prospects have a certain interest in your services and products. Also, potential leads can generate sales and Revenue of Income (ROI). With the introduction of marketing tools, you can fine-tune your attributes to generate good leads. Well, the only challenge you face regarding lead generation is- you need to identify which lead is of high quality and ready to buy. In this blog, we will give you an insight into the world of lead generation and how to partner it with your business to soar high!
What are the three approaches to lead generation?
Almost all businesses today are technologically driven; therefore, it is essential to adapt according to the advancements and possibilities. Moreover, the strategies that you adopted one year ago, which gave you potential results, may not yield results today. Therefore, you must be aware of certain ground rules to generate more sales leads.
Content Marketing
To begin with, one of the top lead-generating methods is content marketing. There are several ways in which you can use content marketing to generate sales. Webinars are one of the most known ways of lead generation. You can use videos and blogs to generate quality leads. If you haven’t started your lead generation strategy with videos, it’s time to! It helps in building a large community of like-minded people who has purchasing potential.
SEO
SEO is considered to be the biggest source of leads for B2Bs. Therefore, SEO can serve as one of the growth strategies for your business. The main aim of SEO is to bring visibility to your services and products. SEO works on keywords, and they are used to optimise your web content. If your business focuses on local foot traffic, then you should focus on local SEO strategies. You can also ask your customers to leave reviews of your business online. This will help in ranking more local keywords to generate more leads for your business.
Google ads
Google ads work wonders for lead generation. It drives potential customers who are looking for your services or offers. Also, with Google ads, you can have full control over your cost.
When it comes to lead generation, research should be done on where your audience is. If you’re a Food and business brand, you should focus on active social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. If you’re a B2B brand, LinkedIn is a promising platform to bring in leads. If this step of the process is boiled down properly, you’ll surely be rewarded with high-quality leads that turn into sales.
We, at WIN Creatives, have been the perfect brand partner to many brands in our journey. All along the way, we have delivered our clients with promising leads. If you want to know more about our work, please feel free to browse through our Case Studies section. You’ll get to know all about how we work and tackle brand challenges like a pro. If you have any questions, please get in touch 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.
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.
As we battle the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, it is essential to understand what the post-COVID world will mean for us in the digital marketing realm. The grey pandemic cloud brought with it the silver linings of the digital era. This newfound alliance with digital platforms has done wonders for businesses in our country. At What’s In A Name, the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad, we have listed below why businesses need to rely more on digital marketing in this age.
As the world continues to open up, don’t forget to check out these beneficial post-COVID marketing ideas!
1. Focus on your existing clientele
The key to steady growth right now is to focus more on the clients you already have despite the economic downturn. The point is, look out for your customers, clients, and coworkers when times are tough. They will thank you for it in some way or another. And you will likely see growth in other areas such as customer loyalty, brand awareness, organic traffic, and online engagement.
2. Take your business online with the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad
Now is the time to increase your online presence. You likely already have some of your business functions online, but the pandemic has shown us just how much more we can do online. Social media platforms serve as an incredible medium to showcase your products and services. Think of these platforms as an online showroom of sorts.
The more processes you can bring online, the more you can stay engaged with your customers and employees. A business must stay resilient and thrive.
3. Come up with catchy deals
As businesses reopen, an excellent way to keep the audience interested is by offering exclusive sales promotions or deals. Advertise these offers on social media platforms as well as promotional emails. These kinds of offers will help bring in new customers while also keeping the old ones around.
4. Knowing your digital target
Ads are the way to go right now. Each platform offers several tools to research where your audience is hanging out most of the time. Using these, don’t hold back advertising on all the platforms. The key is to know precisely your target audience and advertise to them on Google Ads, LinkedIn ads, Twitter ads, Facebook ads, and Instagram ads.
Having these solid digital marketing strategies to depend on while the world settles down can help your business get back on its feet. It will also give you a headstart against your competitors. It is where What’s In A Name, the best digital marketing company in Hyderabad, comes into the picture. We help you with setting up your business’s online presence with just the right tools you need.
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!
More and more people are getting active digitally and it’s getting easier to reach out to your target audience. Brands are also getting active on social media and other platforms to promote their brand in the most creative way possible and are coming up with some interactive strategies. Targeting their customers personally and spreading awareness about the brand is what most companies focus on while advertising digitally. Brands are looking out for and adopting a digital marketing strategy, where it’s easier to reach the maximum number of people in a very short time.
Your plan of action, as in your digital marketing strategy, involves a series of actions that will help you achieve your goals. The strategy that you pick for your business might have multiple goals depending upon the scale of your business. One of the easiest ways to analyze which strategy works for you is when you create your buyer’s persona and start building your digital marketing strategies around it.
When every brand is on the same platform trying their best to capture their potential customers, how will you make your brand stand out?
Well, you can definitely adopt these below mentioned digital marketing strategies and benefit your company more.
Set a budget for your digital marketing strategy
The first stepping stone to achieve better results through digital marketing is deciding on a budget in order to carry out your strategy properly. A budget is set according to the strategy. Either the client sets the budget or the digital agency sets the budget and gives it to the client. Budget is based on the Facebook ads, campaigns that are carried out on social media and other platforms.
It’s all about Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), helps in putting you in the top search with the help of keywords and backlinks. This helps in making content easily noticeable. Various updates in backlinks include voice search and increased emphasis on backlinks. Use keywords with variations and do not overuse it. Use backlinks that are meaningful and are helpful for the readers.
Make use of Paid Media
Paid media help expand the reach of your brand. It introduces your brand to new potential customers through promotional posts. Your content will earn clicks and new followers which mean your post garnered more attention. Moreover, it is easier to track the results of paid content than organic content.
Upgrade your content quality
With the help of keywords, create content that you think will be useful to your target audience. If you are not getting as many leads as you have expected, try updating your content and make it more relatable. Your content should be well searched and well thought, so that the information provided in the content is useful to your viewers.
With the growing popularity of social media and other platforms, adopting digital marketing is not enough. Updating your digital marketing strategies has become a necessity. Adopting the right digital marketing strategies and executing it properly is the key. Benefit your company in the best way possible with this cost-effective and powerful form of marketing.
