Question To Ask while Evaluating a Digital Marketing Agency

5 QUESTIONS TO ASK WHILE EVALUATING A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY

Expansion of the marketing technology landscape has elevated marketing efforts to greater heights with strategies to manage projects, set benchmarks, and interpret data.​ However, this leads the brands to constantly keep up with what’s working and what’s not in the marketing sphere. Brands are managing efforts ensuring to create content that attracts leads by promoting on social media and optimizing campaigns. Yet, brands struggle to interpret data and translate it into effective campaigns. For brands looking to streamline operations and eventually speed up growth, the decision to hire a digital marketing agency becomes a viable alternative. Working with a reliable digital marketing agency, either by using their skills on a specific marketing deliverable or by outsourcing the entire solution to them, can shorten the time it takes to accomplish growth.

Here are 5 essential questions to ask when evaluating an agency for the brand's requirements.

1. Describe the agency's process to help achieve marketing goals - Ask the agency to be more explanatory about the process than the overall structure. This will yield more insights into the details of the strategy. If an agency cannot articulate their process in detail including the tools required and the frequency of interaction with your team, consider it as a red flag.

2. Track record for the similar business of industry - Before moving forward with an agency, evaluate them further by asking about their team’s expert skills. For instance, ask the agency about previous clients whom they’ve helped grow through content. Meeting the team who will be taking care of your digital marketing projects will give you a fair idea of the culture at the company. If you’re still unsure about the services you’re looking for, go for an agency who has dealt with businesses within your niche. By opting for an agency with industry-specific experience as your brand, setting goals and executing campaigns is easier because are already adept in understanding what makes your target audiences prefer.

3. Cost of the services - The high-cost factor is one of the biggest apprehensions a business has when looking to hire a digital marketing agency. Ask about the budget required to implement the campaigns that they want you to invest on. Cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean better, hence, inquire on the estimated return of investment and the contract, if there is one.

4. Measuring the success of the campaign - When talking with a prospective agency, ask questions on benchmarks, metrics, and analytics. Additionally, they should communicate these jargon-heavy words to you in easy-to-understand chunks. There’s more to creating the best call-to-action on your landing page or picking the right font size for your homepage. The marketing agency you work with should be able to support their recommendations with data. Also, inquire on how often the report on progress should be made towards these metrics.

5. By when to expect results - Be wary of digital marketing agencies who promise that you can expect substantial ROI in a short span of time. Marketing efforts founded on the inbound methodology takes time to yield positive results. However, once you’ve built a mean inbound machine, you’re in it for the long haul. Think of it as a long-term investment with compounding interest.

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5 Major things to consider while creating video content

Videos act as a powerful content medium for storytelling. They not only serve as a prime proving ground for a business’ promotional campaigns, influential ideas and experimental content efforts but can also help in driving deeper, more satisfying relationships between the brand and its audience. It’s an effective way to connect with people on an emotional level and build more satisfying and deeper relationships with the target audience. Here are a few things to keep in mind while creating video content that keeps the audience interested.

1. Understand the purpose of the video: Good video content is a planned strategy and not just an afterthought. Understand the biggest struggle for brand awareness and create content around common responses. Consider where, when and how your video will be used, as well as what the purpose of the video is. Understand the behaviour of the target audience consuming the content, the objective of the video and customize it to fit the platform and your targeted audience.

2. Don't just rely on the script - Video scripts are crucial tools to be focused on the most essential factors for the video you want to make. However, relying excessively on a script during video production can actually hamper the video's authenticity. Capture the natural flow of essence of human emotions as they help to connect well with the audience. Make content that's unscripted but controls the narrative, versus being completely scripted but overly entertaining.

3. Testimonials help connect with the audience - Incorporating testimonials into videos is a great way to engage audiences and help prospects understand how they might use your products or services. These real-life stories, if outlined appropriately, can build authentic credibility for your brand.

4. Ensure quality and consistency - An impactful video content relies on two things: quality and consistency. In the absence of these, a brand may lose engagement and a long-term relationship with the audience consuming the content.

5. Trust the power of emotions - In the world where nearly half of the population is online digitally, people want to hear from other people, not just brands or companies. A simple, yet emotionally driven video with humane elements resonate with the target audience more than just a voice over. Many brands forget that stories are always, at their core, about humans. Find the human element in your story and hone in on that. Video is such a powerful medium if you can nail the human part of the narrative.

TOP MARKETING TRENDS IN 2020

Digital marketing is growing and evolving exceptionally and it is ideally no surprise that everything relying on it must move ahead at a breakneck pace to keep up with the changing modern world.

Constant updates, new and evolved platforms, and changes to algorithms, influences how people use and react to digital marketing, and how marketers reach their audience. It is vital to be aware of emerging or continuing trends stay ahead of the curve.

As we get closer to a new decade, let's look at some top digital marketing trends for 2020.

1. Shoppable Posts

A tremendous opportunity for businesses to connect and reach customers quickly and easily, thereby shortening the sales funnel and allowing the users to shop through social platforms. These platforms have made it easier for businesses to use the power of social media and to reach their customers. Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, provides tools to e-commerce stores to create shoppable posts, making it easy for users to shop directly from the post.

In 2020, shoppable posts are sure to lead the trend.

2. Content Marketing

For years, “content is the king” has been the truth of digital marketing. Interactive content allows you to showcase your expertise and stand out. It helps you to communicate with your customers and keep them engaged on the page for a longer duration. It helps in creating awareness by educating the customers about the products and services which is essential for a brand

3. Video Content

Consumers today look for new experiences online. A study revealed that whooping 91% are seeking and responding to more visual content. Video content has been an integral part of digital marketing in 2019 and will continue in 2020 and beyond

4. Google Ads Smart Bidding

Google Ads uses machine learning to optimize bids that provide you with several new abilities to help maximize conversation. It helps in choosing conversion action at the campaign level, set bids to change automatically when sales start or stop and optimize bids over multiple campaigns with a chosen set of conversion actions

5. Personalisation

Personalisation is truly the future of digital marketing. According to Dale Carnegie, “a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Personalisation is the best tool to increase conversions and the reason why marketers have been leveraging it to improve marketing efforts. A study shows that personalized email campaigns receive 29% higher email open rates and 41% higher click-through rates than traditional emails with no form of personalisation. In a survey of 1,000 people, 90% found personalisation appealing and are likely to give business to a company that offered them a personalized experience.

5 REASONS TO OUTSOURCE DIGITAL MARKETING TO AN AGENCY

Digital marketing is becoming multifaceted with the passage of time. Businesses are looking to leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

However, to gain results through digital marketing takes patience, focus, extensive knowledge of the best resources and practices to make campaigns run successfully that helps in leveraging the interest of the audience. Digital marketing agencies help you with creative services like website and logo design, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Paid Search Marketing. In this data-driven world, a digital marketing agency to help achieve your digital marketing objectives. Digital marketing is around-the-clock endeavour. Hence, it makes sense for companies to partner with a digital agency to keep up with the trends and stay connected with their customers on a daily basis.

1. Nothing beats experience. - A digital marketing agency exhibits the professional experience of working in and out with the tools and understanding the actions of the competition, the realization of professional reports, personalized methods for the analysis of the competition, techniques applied in other companies whose application has been successful for that market. Technical expertise and the resources to execute the strategies and initiatives lead to achieving the results in a digital marketing campaign. A digital marketing agency utilizes multiple fields of expertise to ensure that the campaign is visible to the right audience by utilizing innovative and relevant market trends and strategies.

2. Manage budgets accordingly - Digital agencies are responsible for the marketing spend that your company places with digital platforms. Tracking this across multiple platforms and campaigns is time-consuming and difficult. Besides the experience and expertise, an agency has all the right tools to help boost digital marketing campaign. Digital agencies are experts in effectively managing your digital marketing budget, has developed tools to make the process more efficient by tracking conversions, carrying out optimisation and direct budget to the most effective campaigns

3. They have the tools - Digital marketing requires the use of different tools to streamline each campaign. Many of these are premium services, and the costs increase with the addition of certain features or an upgrade. You will need analytics, keyword research, competitor analysis, paid search management, and automation tools. The cumulative cost of using these online marketing tools can be quite hefty for small and mid-size businesses. Digital marketing services already have these tools in place to help you make the most of your campaigns.

4. Allows you to focus on your business. - A digital marketing agency can take charge of your marketing needs. This will, in turn, allow you to focus on building and growing your business. You can spend time and efforts on defining the strategic direction of your company, look for appropriate efficiencies in operations, or spend more time on portfolio management or research and development. Having an agency to handle your digital marketing strategy will let you channelise your time and efforts towards growing the business. All you have to do is give them the budget and let them do the rest.

5. Keep up with trends - A good agency will give you great ideas on what techniques will give you results. They’ll provide a new perspective to your marketing strategies, assess marketing efforts and create new ideas based on the viewpoint of the consumers. This will help to streamline and evaluate campaigns. A variety of content can be employed to increase a brand's popularity and create brand awareness. Video, blogs, photos and social media embeds on a website keep your audience informed and entertained. Digital marketing agencies understand the audience's perspective for the brand's industry, thereby recommend the right content types to keep up with the topical and moment marketing trends. This helps in leveraging various digital platforms to connect with the audience.

REASONS EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY IN 2020

In the fast-paced era of today, technology and innovation have a major role to play. The last few years have shown the world a paradigm shift from analog to digital. It is no surprise that business too has become increasingly more digital as technology continues to evolve. With millions of people coming online, it’s essential for businesses to create an online presence.

With the change in the purchase pattern of the consumers, businesses look to keep up with the evolution of the digital era. Brick-and-mortar businesses are upgrading their business models to leverage the digital channels, or are amplifying the existing marketing efforts with the inclusion of digital marketing strategies to capture the very lucrative online marketplace.

Here is why every business needs digital marketing in 2020

1. Provides opportunities to create a customer base - Digital Marketing evens out the imbalance by providing medium and small businesses with the opportunity to pull in their share of audiences in a well-targeted manner. It lets the business connect and interact with customers 24X7 as per their convenience. This helps in creating a loyal customer base for the businesses which can lead to better sale opportunities.

2. It leads to more conversions - Digital marketing techniques and strategies not only attract more traffic to your business not just locally but worldwide. It gives the brand an opportunity to build awareness by allowing to interact with customers across various engagement points. The presence of brand across multiple platforms allows the customers to share their experiences. A positive and favourable review left by a satisfied customer leads the new ones to immediately convert.

3. It is a cost-effective way of marketing - Digital Marketing gives small and medium businesses a significantly savvier marketing channel that more effectively conveys and converts audiences at a reasonable cost, and sometimes free. Digital marketing lets you have control of the budget and spend. Businesses spending on digital marketing incur better Cost Per Lead (CPL) compared to other marketing channels. As per Gartner’s Digital Marketing Spend Report- “Up to 40% of respondents claimed to get considerable savings by using digital marketing methods of promotion for their products and services”.

4. Better ROI - Digital marketing helps to generate higher revenue compared to traditional marketing channels. Businesses using digital marketing techniques have a better chance of expanding their workforce and business. According to Google, companies using digital marketing strategies have 2.8 times better revenue growth expectancy. Digital marketing lets you gain a steady flow of targeted traffic that converts to sales. This allows brands to channelize their efforts in even more incorporating way, by guaranteeing better development and more benefits.

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IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON BUSINESS

Social media marketing significantly influences consumer decisions regarding a brand, company or product. Many companies don't realize the importance of social media platforms in supporting a brand's digital marketing strategy. As the ecosystem for social media is becoming the most dynamic and ever-changing mediums of the marketing world. it is increasingly difficult for businesses to differentiate themselves across social media platforms. However, with social media, you have direct access to your customers and the opportunity to stay connected. A great social media presence is an asset to strengthen brand presence as well as an effective way to attract new customers to your business. Social media platforms are proving invaluable in their ability to micro-target audiences that would otherwise be difficult to isolate and reach. It's essential to leverage these platforms effectively and reach your target audiences. Here is how social media can have an impact on the business:

1. Creating brand awareness - With nearly half of the world's population out there, social media platforms are definitely the place to reach out to the audience. It an ideal way to create brand awareness and stay connected with the customers. Social media platforms are the major source for people to get the latest information about new products, services, advertisements, deals or promotions. Social media platforms let you connect with the audience every time they are online. By keeping your posts entertaining and informative, you can grab the attention of your audience so you are on top of mind when they’re ready to make a purchase.

2. Boost sales and generate leads - Social media is an easy way for potential customers to gain information about businesses and products and increase traffic to the website. Lead generation is such an important benefit of social media for business as it offers advertising formats designed to collect leads. As the number of people using social media continues to grow and social sales tools evolve, social networks will become increasingly important for product search and e-commerce.

3. Enhanced brand loyalty - A 2017 survey of 5,700 marketers revealed that 69% are developing loyal fans for their brands via social media marketing. In the same vein, 66% of users between the ages of 18 and 24 years old are more loyal to the brands they follow on social media, while 60% of 25- to 34-year-olds favor the businesses they follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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WHY IT IS NECESSARY FOR YOUR BUSINESS TO HAVE A PRESENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media in the past decade has become one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. It provides incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide. Social media marketing significantly influences consumer decisions regarding a brand, company or product. Many companies don't realize the importance of social media platforms in supporting a brand's digital marketing strategy. As the ecosystem for social media is becoming the most dynamic and ever-changing mediums of the marketing world. it is increasingly difficult for businesses to differentiate themselves across social media platforms. However, with social media, you have direct access to your customers and the opportunity to stay connected. A great social media presence is an asset to strengthen brand presence as well as an effective way to attract new customers to your business. Social media platforms are proving invaluable in their ability to micro-target audiences that would otherwise be difficult to isolate and reach. It's essential to leverage these platforms effectively and reach your target audiences. To further reiterate why social media is so important for your business, let’s take a look at these points:

Low Cost

Social media marketing is possibly the most cost-efficient part of an advertising strategy. Signing up and creating a profile is free for almost all social networking platforms, and any paid promotions relatively low cost compared to other marketing techniques. Being cost-effective is such an advantage as it provides a greater return on investment and helps to retain a bigger budget for other marketing and business expenses. In addition to social media marketing being far more affordable than traditional marketing, it is also easy to get started. In just a few simple steps, you can easily set up social media profiles for your business on any social networking platform.

Easily Connect with Existing and Potential Customers

With nearly half of the world's population out there, social media platforms are definitely the place to reach out to the audience. It an ideal way to create brand awareness and stay connected with the customers. Social media platforms are the major source for people to get the latest information about new products, services, advertisements, deals or promotions. Social media platforms let you connect with the audience every time they are online. By keeping your posts entertaining and informative, you can grab the attention of your audience so you are on top of mind when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Key Factor in Search Engine Ranking

An SEO strategy is about producing quality content that generates a lot of inbound links to your website. Social media is a primary form of content consumption and with the click of a button, users can share content across their social media channels, thus increasing the number of inbound links to the content on your website. “Social signals” are becoming more and more key to boosting search engine rankings.

Social Networks Provide a Unique Platform for E-Commerce

Interactive videos allow customers to make a purchase decision directly through the video itself. Using Facebook apps, you can even build a sales portal directly into your business’ Facebook page. Alternatively, businesses can use social media to provide links to products and services customers can purchase online. Social media can be as powerful as a word-of-mouth referral, especially on Facebook where users are more likely to have offline, personal relationships with their Facebook friends. If an existing customer has something to say about your products and services, chances are high they will share their opinion with their friends and followers on social media.