Should You Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Should You Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?

Digital marketing is a vital component of any modern business’ strategy for growth and development. But while many businesses recognize the importance of digital marketing, many of them are still trying to keep their costs down by doing it all themselves. Unfortunately for them, this is a recipe for disaster.

Hiring an outside digital marketing agency might seem like a more expensive option, but it offers a number of advantages.

Access the Skills You Need

Putting together a digital marketing team in-house might seem like a more cost-effective option, but this isn’t true for most businesses. In fact, for the majority of businesses, opening your own digital marketing department is going to be significantly more expensive than hiring a Digital Marketing Agency.

Not only is it difficult and expensive to bring onboard people with the specific skills that you need, these people probably won’t be needed on a continual basis. It is worth having some permanent members of your team who can monitor the progress of any current campaigns and can help you to work on your general marketing strategies. But you should bring in the heavy hitters when you really need them.

Maximize Your ROI

ROI is one of the most important things to consider whenever your business is spending money. It doesn’t matter if you are spending a couple of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you should always be making sure that money is being spent as wisely as possible and is bringing tangible benefits to your business.

Digital marketing agencies are run and staged by talented and experienced marketers; the people who are best positioned to ensure your campaign is as effective and efficient as it can possibly be. Not only this, but digital marketing agencies will know how to best allocate your available budget for maximum returns.

Gain Insight and Perspective

Any team that you assemble in-house is going to be necessarily limited by the skills and experience they possess. A digital marketing agency will be able to pull in individuals from a variety of backgrounds to ensure that they are bringing everything to the table that your business needs to make a success of your next digital marketing campaign.

Meet Your Deadlines

When you are responsible for your own marketing, there is always a temptation to give yourself a bit more time or a bit more money to achieve your goals. This means that campaigns end up being less disciplined and valuable lessons are never learned.

By contrast, a digital marketing agency will always work to the parameters that you set for them. If you tell them that you need a campaign produced within a certain budget or timeframe, they will work to your specifications.

Hiring a dedicated outside marketing agency will ensure that your business has access to all the skills, knowledge, and resources that it needs to pull off a successful campaign. Don’t be put off by the costs involved; if you want to maximize your ROI from your digital marketing campaigns, an outside agency is a much safer bet than trying to do it all in-house.

Digital Marketing Mantra for Advertisers

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Digital Marketing Mantra for Advertisers

Digital marketing is slowly, but surely growing from a “nice to have” to a necessity. With so many audiences, especially the younger ones, moving away from linear television, barely touching newspapers or magazines and with their heads down into their phones even out on the streets, it seems that the only sensible place advertisers can find their audiences now is in the online space. This is driving advertisers to adapt and form digital media strategies, but media practices from the offline world don’t translate well to the online world.

Out with the Old

Where you used to define personas and find the right publication or TV programme that fit your audience, it seems that these rules don’t apply to the online world. Your audience is out there on multiple places, consuming different media, sometimes even at the same time, with each moment of interaction you have just a small window of opportunity, sometimes even barely a second. To be successful in advertising in the online marketing space, you will need to connect all the dots and deal with the complexity (and maybe even ambiguity) of the online marketing world. Moreover, that’s asking for quite a bit, which most likely can’t be found in one person or advertising agency.
No Buyers, Only Specialists Here

The problem is the balance between the complexity of online marketing disciplines and the way the market moves on. Where you used to be dealing with media buyers (people who would take care of booking media buys, placing the advert, handle the back and forth between the publisher and the creative agency), you now must deal with channel specialists. These people are professionals in their field but usually are not trained to guide a client through connecting all the dots. Even channels that seemingly should be close to each other are, under further inspection, fundamentally different. Advertisers who have been dealing with digital agencies will mostly agree not to expect agencies to be able to provide a consistent overall media view, as you would have had with offline media agencies. The most practical way as an advertiser to take care of your digital marketing mix is to take the reins themselves. That doesn’t mean to do it yourself (although in-housing seems to be a trend of late) but to start speaking the same language as the digital marketers.

Measure Everything

This also means understanding and challenged its most hailed aspects of digital marketing, which inadvertently is also its downfall, the ability to measure everything. Traditional media would have panel data to provide some insight into what the effect the media buy would have had (by proxy), online media comes with the promise to be able to measure everything. In digital speak, we call this tracking, which relies on “pixels being fired” and “cookies.” Essentially this means that advertisers (and publishers that help the advertisers) try to provide the most complete of the consumer based on data they might have volunteered and data that can be inferred. Pixels and cookies provide a bread crumb trail to piece this all together. Apart from the ethical and privacy issues at play here, this sounds to most advertisers as the holy grail, to be able to pay for only those audiences and people that fit your audience perfectly.

Post-view

However, that attention to measuring everything can turn into an obsession. Take display and video ad formats, for example. On pretty much every publisher, these are ad formats that are offered up widely. Videos have taken a flight by being offered in-stream, which basically means its tacked in upfront or in the middle of a video that someone is trying to watch. You can have a skippable or un-skippable variant, and most publishers offer a cost-per-view model based on percentage or minimal seconds watched.

In most cases, the video is an unwanted interruption of someone’s flow, which in turn leads to very few people engaging with the advert and ending up on the advertiser’s website. Display ads have the same problem, although in a lesser extent (but just barely). The display banners show up as a distraction when someone is doing something else and might not be in the mindset to engage with an advertiser. Both video and display ads will usually have a lot of impressions (the advert was shown) but not many interactions. To still proof value, the industry has come up with a metric called view-through conversions. This essentially measures if a conversion has taken place after someone has viewed the ad, usually within a specific timeframe.

Last click wins

On the other side of display and video ads, you have many pay-per-click possibilities. One of the key ones here is paid search ads. It’s dominant in such a way that most people refer to paid search ads as PPC ads, although the concept of PPC refers to the method of publisher payment (for example display ads can be on a CPC model). This is, for most advertisers, the absolute darling of digital marketing. PPC in 99% of all cases all the way down in the marketing funnel, i.e., likely the last interaction before a consumer makes a purchase.

Even more so, those display and video adverts could very well have been earlier in the process and led to a PPC click. Paid search ads are usually measured on the last click wins method, which is standard across most advertisers. The last click wins will not add up with a post-view conversion, attributing all value to PPC and making a post-view conversion meaningless. Therefore, especially when marketing budgets are getting the squeeze, display, and video ads lose out.

The Mantra for Advertisers

The risk you run of this principle is that all the attention is going to PPC and none is given to display and video. In other words, all the attention goes to the bottom of the funnel and none to filling up the funnel. Advertisers who do this find themselves with diminishing returns over time and a drying up supply of new users to the website. The savvy advertiser understands the value of harvesting the low hanging fruit but always ensures that consumers keep coming through the funnel, by smartly filling it up from the top.

The Need of SEO in the 21st Century

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The term Search Engine Optimisation is quite a head-turner. It is something that dominates the market scene of the 21st century. If one were to put things into perspective, Search Engine Optimisation or SEO, was always there since the advent of the Internet; just not in a way and scale as it is today. You cannot think of a business venture that still puts its faith in medieval methods of marketing and branding. It does not work anymore. New age requires newer and fresher solutions to every marketing woe. This is exactly where SEO steps in. Its revolutionary approach to notch up the branding and marketing game few notches up has become a game-changer in the arena of digital marketing. There is no way one can hope to thrive and scale businesses without seeking refuge in SEO.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | The Need of SEO in the 21st Century
 
The article discusses the importance of SEO in the 21st century, how it has led to a tectonic shift in the world of digital marketing and how enterprises can keep benefitting from it in the days that shall follow. But first, we are going to run through the basic concepts.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Simply put, Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a technique which helps in putting your business website on a suitable spot in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and thus, enhances its ranking. Ranking on search engines is of paramount importance in this century since that is the only way a business endeavour can hope to gain the required attention to its products and services. You might have the best products or services in a certain niche. But if you cannot get them to your target audience, all your efforts into making the best for public and making money hands over fists will end up in smoke. You must first be able to convince your target group about what you have to offer and how they differ from the rest of the products in the market, before you can do something to convert them into your loyal customers. Search Engine Optimisation helps you take your business out there in the world by acquiring good ranks on the results page and by grabbing the eyeballs of your target group.

How Does It Work?

We have discussed quite a few points on SEO and how it works in this day and age, in the previous section. But we now need to see how exactly it contributes towards scaling a business. So, we talked about how SEO helps in tweaking the rank of your website on the SERPs. But why do you think that is even important? It is tremendously important for visibility, yes. But that is not all. It is crucial because the right techniques of SEO draw more and more potential clients and customers to your website and help them make an informed decision regarding your service.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | The Need of SEO in the 21st Century
 
The technical jargon of this world would be, drawing optimum ‘traffic’ to your site. Once your website keeps drawing organic traffic to itself, it will definitely succeed in converting customers, and thus, help in enhancing the conversion rate. Therefore, it is quite clear why Search Engine Optimisation has such importance in today’s world.

Coming up with the right SEO hacks is not very simple and we have excellent analysts and agencies who handle this part of digital marketing for almost every business venture. They look into what kind of websites are drawing traffic, study their on-site and off-site elements, research on Google’s metrics and then come up with ways that conform to Google’s standards of ranking. Google is the smartest search engine ever devised, and that is why it is not easy to fool it with reverse engineering hacks. But smart SEO analysts and experts know just the right ways to do that. Google keeps upgrading its metrics for ranking to enhance user experience. Therefore, if you want to outrank other websites from their topmost ranks on the Search Engine Results Page, you have to up your SEO game and look for ways in which you can conform to Google’s ever-evolving needs.

Conclusion:

Search Engine Optimisation is an institution in itself, one that cannot be understood in one article. It has several techniques and methods associated with it, and not even one carefully structured course could deal with all the details. It requires years and years of experience and maybe only then, one can hope to understand what this entire world of SEO actually is. However, for starters, know that SEO is an integral part of digital marketing, and no business can climb its zenith of success without asking for its help. Therefore, if you have been in two minds about the SEO and whether you should rope in an agency or an expert to cater to its needs, brush any dilemma off your mind. The 21st century calls for SEO to be involved in every venture and marketing tactics, and you should do the same.

3 Ways To Harm Your Online Marketing Campaign Before It Gets Going

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | 3 Ways To Harm Your Online Marketing Campaign Before It Gets GoingIt’s often seen that social media marketing opens up a massive amount of marketing potential. That is true to an extent. Now customers potentially hold your miniature-billboard in their pockets, and throughout many social media timelines may see the product you are offering. However, while this sounds easy, it’s important to understand what you are now competing against.

You are competing against other notifications and ‘skip ad after five seconds’ video options. You are competing against consumers are effective at ignoring marketing due to being bombarded with it day and night, at least in most countries around the world. You are also at the whim of simply being too boring, not engaging enough, or not as clear as you could be regarding your business messaging.

This means that without care, you could harm your online marketing campaign before it even gets going. That’s unlikely to be a scenario anyone wants. So, let us help you subvert that with the following advice. We only hope it can help you reach the business heights you have been dreaming of:

Fail To Find A Clear Message

You might have some art-school ambitions in you, but it’s not up to the audience to try and figure out what product you are selling or what the point of your entire messaging was. Even vague, suspense-building campaigns, such as Orange, one of the UK’s most famous telecom firms in the mid-2000s, announced its launch by placing Orange squares on billboards allowing people to question what that meant. However, pretty soon they revealed their intent, and allowed people to see what their presentation was, until there was no doubt in the mind of those who had previously questioned this approach. Isolate your message, because when distilled, it can have the most impact.

Fail To Care About Sudden Trends

Social media moves at a staggering pace these days, and is also one of the most lucrative means of marketing your business. We would recommend utilizing expert social media analytics to stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to focus on your approach with dedication and care. Staying relevant and able to keep on top of data points, of building a picture regarding your audience and also keeping forecasts of activity in mind can help you truly become the business that catches the early worm.

Fail To Incentivize

It might be that you are happy to offer a 10% off code to those using your services for the first time. This is a solid incentive. But instead of factoring that into the price and not mentioning it, mention it as you should. Show that Twitter users have their own code if they follow your link, or perhaps even more concessions made to those who have tried to learn more about your business. This can help you reward those who engage with your firm, slowly investing them and heightening the chance that they will return.

With this in mind, we hope you can solidify your online marketing campaign, and avoid issues before they happen.

Why Your Online Presence Needs Maximizing

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It doesn’t matter what sort of business venture you are hoping to launch, from a restaurant to a street food van, and from a tee shirt printing company to a freelance blogger, you will need to hone your online presence. Being online and visible is vital in the twenty first century. Your main market will be the millennial. These are individuals who are keen to get online as much as possible and utilize every aspect of the web to source their news, their services and their shopping. You need to ensure that you can tap this market.

The millennial demographic will communicate with their potential market online and will be keen to source companies via reputation. Your online presence can enhance your ability to appeal to the millennial market. Take a look at how you can maximize your online presence.

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Website Development

The face of your business will be your website. While you could have an all singing and all dancing website with most impressive of flash animation, this is pointless if your navigation is cumbersome and it takes an age to get to your shop page. As a rule of thumb, you should keep things as simple as possible. Have a short and simple menu and make it easy to get to your shop page within two clicks. You need your website to be attractive, but don’t worry about this so much that you forget about functionality and ease of use.

The most important aspect of your website is its visibility. Your website could be phenomenal, but what if no one can find it? Instead, you need to consider what is it worth to rank #1 in Google? The answer is everything. Google is the number one search engine that all Internet users have on hand should they need to locate a business or have a question that needs answering. Google always has the answer. Forget Lycos and AskJeeves. Times have moved on, and Google has emerged the winner.

You need your website to be searchable. So how do you compete with your already established industry rivals? You need to harness the power of SEO. If this sounds like a whole different language to you, consider outsourcing this business function. This could be money well spent. Otherwise, you could find yourself wasting a small fortune on an AdWords campaign that is not fruitful. An off site specialist will formulate a strategy to help you achieve your aims, whether this is enhancing your following on Twitter or converting more hits to sales on one particular product. Your online presence needs to have your website at the center of everything within your digital strategy. This is the platform that will result in sales and leads.

Social Media

Your social media channels are a great way to feed traffic towards your website. Ensure that you have a Twitter feed, an Instagram page and a Facebook account. These channels will allow you to display your wares, communicate with customers, post relevant content and promote discounts and offers. All of these strategies will help to direct more traffic to your website, and will enable you to increase your following online. With more shares, you will reach a greater number of people within your niche market.

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Reputation

Being online means being at the mercy of the elements. Nearly everything online is public from the comments on your Twitter feed to the remarks under your Instagram snaps. If someone chooses to review your product or customer service, it will be visible for all to see. You cannot expect a potential customer to pay a premium for your services if you have a swathe of negative reviews. You cannot allow it to get to this point, as the first thing people will check out about your company will be the reviews.

Ensure that you under promise and over deliver. If you know that you can deliver a product in two days, state that you’ll have it on the customer’s doorstep in three. This way, you can make it appear that you’ve gone the extra mile when your customer has a pleasant surprise a little early. Add an incentive, a voucher code or a freebie, and focus on customer experience. Get this right, and the positive reviews will flow in online, resulting in a more glowing presence to show off to your demographic.

You shouldn’t forget the more traditional methods of marketing, but your online presence should be the main focus in your early years as a startup. Get this right, and your business will thrive.