Month: January 2020

Marketing is an important aspect of business development. Unless you run a monopolistic business, you are likely to need the services of a marketing agency sooner or later. Due to the demand for marketing services, there are hundreds if not thousands of marketing agencies ready and willing to create awareness for your brand. However, as with many things in life, marketing agencies are not created equal. While some are good at what they do, others promise what they cannot deliver. To help you identify a top-tier marketing agency, here are 10 characteristics to look out for:

10 Characteristics of a Top-Tier Marketing Agency

1. Good Communication

You cannot convince people to buy a product or a service without strong communication skills. Whether it is through traditional or digital marketing, good communication enables you to present your business to potential customers in an appealing and convincing manner. A top-tier marketing agency communicates its ideas coherently to you and to your target audience. If you find yourself struggling to understand the message coming from the agency, that might be a red flag you should not ignore.

2. Great Staff

A top-tier marketing company should have a team of enthusiastic and passionate personnel. Team members should be proficient in several areas and should work together like a well-oiled machine in complementary roles. Each member should be confident in the skills and abilities of the other members. For example, if you are talking to the company’s designer, he or she must be confident in the company’s copywriter’ s ability to deliver a compelling piece of writing to match a good art. The staff of a good agency should be proficient in sales, creative designs, copywriting, data analysis and more.

3. Problem-Solving Skills

Almost every marketing campaign faces some challenges during the planning process or during implementation. While some of these challenges are expected, others arise out of the blue. The mark of a top-tier marketing company is not its ability to avoid such challenges, but rather its ingenuity in overcoming challenges as they arise without compromising on quality or missing agreed deadlines. An average marketing company tries as much as possible to avoid difficulties, and when this fails, their campaigns are most likely to stall and eventually fail.

4. Creativity

Creativity is a major characteristic of top-tier marketing firms. Marketers who are good at their jobs often color outside the lines and are always bursting with fresh ideas. They are willing and ready to push the boundaries to deliver a marketing campaign that makes your brand stand out among your competitors. When not setting the trends, a good marketing firm is always alert to emerging trends and adjusts accordingly to match the demands of the market.

You do not want to spend your money on an agency that is always playing catch up. If their ideas do not impress you, it is unlikely they will impress your target audience.

5. Good Executors

In addition to being creative, a top-tier marketing agency should also be a great executor. Having creative ideas on paper and in presentations will not do much for your brand if the agency cannot implement them. A top-notch marketing firm has tried-and-true systems to help them execute the ideas they present to their clients during a pitch. They also ensure that the execution of these ideas happen within the agreed timeframe.

A poorly executed marketing campaign can ruin the good reputation of your brand. For example, a marketing firm can use influencers whose personalities, values and ideologies contradict those represented by your brand. This is likely to draw negative attention and reflects badly on your brand.

6. Data-Driven

Men lie; women lie; but numbers never do. Any marketing agency worth its name must use big data to run its marketing campaign. Data allows you to target specific audiences that are likely to spend their money on your product or service. Mastery of data enables a marketing firm to understand your target audience, which helps them tailor relevant marketing campaigns.

 Data analysis also allows a marketing company to measure the effectiveness and success of their strategies by establishing sales conversion generated from their campaigns. Data also helps you to strengthen your brand by showing you all the areas that need improvements.

7. Strong Online Presence

You cannot rely on a marketing agency that does not market itself. The website and social media pages of top-notch marketing firms are always up to date. They also rank higher on search engines and have a huge social media impact. A significantly high number of followers across various social media platforms is a good indication of a reliable marketing company. Another thing that separates a top-tier marketing agency from its peers is the ability to influence trending topics on social media platforms.

8. Focus on Story-Telling and Content Creation

Everyone loves a good story. A good story becomes a great story when told in an appealing, exciting and captivating manner. Effective and successful marketing campaigns rely heavily on good content creation. A top-tier marketing firm invests in experienced content creators who come up with catchy premium content that helps your brand to attract, convert, and retain customers. Story-telling humanizes your brand giving it a unique personality that your customers can identify with.

Relevant content presented appealingly gives you a competitive edge over your competitors. The content should change at each stage of marketing and on each social media platform to remain relevant.

9. Continuous Learners

The marketing industry is always evolving and advancing. What works today might not work tomorrow. Top-tier marketing firms spend a significant amount of resources in professional development for their staff. Marketing professional spend money and time reading, researching, networking ad learning new skills. There is always something new to learn. Marketing firms that are continuous learners stay ahead of their competition by offering their clients access to the latest and most effective innovations to drive their businesses forward.

10. Transparency

Business is all about money. Some marketing agencies have been in the spotlight for various reasons, including outsourcing important tasks to cheap contractors, offering kickbacks to media companies and engaging in fraudulent advertising. After dealing with such agencies, a brand rarely gets value for their money and sometimes ends up with a negative public image. A top-tier marketing firm promotes transparency in the following ways:

• They show interest in your goals and expectations
• They give you a clear and brief contract that clearly outlines the terms and agreements
• They are open about their strategies and tactics
• They work towards your long-term goals instead of offering you quick fixes

Work With the Best

Effective marketing campaigns will boost traffic and improve your sales. While you may be a great entrepreneur, marketing might not be your strong suit, or you just might not have time to run a business and handle marketing at the same time. We’ve compiled a list of some characteristics to look out for before settling on a marketing agency that will drive your business forward. When you want to work with a company that has all these characteristics and more, contact DM Collective in Calgary, Alberta for top-tier marketing services.

Technology has become the heart of the modern business world, and it is important for every company to have a healthy online presence. Nothing evolves faster than technology, and with new strategies, social platforms, and advertising techniques emerging every day, it is very difficult for a business owner to keep up. A strong partnership with a full service digital marketing agency is as important to a business as the professionals they rely on for legal or accounting advice. In this article, we will discuss five things you can expect from your full service digital marketing agency.

5 Services of a Full Service Digital Marketing Agency

Making a business decision is easy when you only have a handful of options to choose from. In the old days of marketing, businesses could choose between print, television, or radio advertising. Today, however, there are so many advertising options that the choice can become paralyzing. Digital marketing goes beyond advertising and engages concepts like customer engagement, brand loyalty, online reputation management, and more. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy to get lost in the woods and spend far more time and energy on digital marketing than you will ever recuperate from the results of your expense and labor.

A full service digital marketing agency is your guide to the confusing landscape of online marketing. They make it their job to keep up with the newest innovations and trends, so you don’t have to do inefficient, time-consuming research. They know how to manage your online presence using proven methods that will save you money and get results. Your full service digital marketing agency partners with you and gives you the means to achieve your objectives with the best return on your marketing investment. Here are some ways they can help.

1. Reputation Management

In the modern marketplace, it’s critical to pay attention to what customers and the general public are saying about your brand. A viral news story can create tremendous exposure, which can have a tremendous effect on a company.

However, a negative viral news story can cause irreparable damage. It is important for all businesses to take an interest in what is being said online so they can boost positive stories and smooth out negative ones. How a business interacts with customers online can quickly turn a negative press event into a positive one.

Businesses must also endeavor to have a strong, positive presence on review sites and in search engines. Recent studies have shown that customers perceive online reviews with nearly the same confidence as they perceive personal recommendations. It is important for every brand to have a presence where potential customers are looking, and to ensure that all the information listed about their business is accurate and fair. Click here for more information on an effective online reputation management strategy.

2. Brand Exposure

Traditional marketing always operated on the philosophy of achieving the highest visibility possible. However, that concept is expensive and outdated. Digital marketing understands that overall visibility isn’t as important as ensuring your brand has a good presence in the places where potential customers or clients are most likely to conglomerate.

Digital marketing is able to design their strategies for brand exposure with surgical precision by using the tremendous amount of customer data that is available. This results in exposure that is more effective and less expensive.

3. Dashboard Reporting

One of the main problems businesses have with their digital marketing strategy is simply getting organized. Even a basic digital marketing strategy requires the use of multiple social media platforms, all of which require their own passwords. Although different platforms are often similar, many of them have slightly different mechanisms and features that can take time to master. The availability and quality of analytical reports also fluctuate over different platforms.

A successful digital marketing strategy needs to have a maximum amount of impact with a minimal time obligation. Another problem with business social media accounts is that they can sap productivity by pulling your employees away from business-related tasks. With a full service digital marketing agency, you will be able to combine all the aspects of your digital marketing strategy under a single dashboard that will give you a comprehensive, instant snapshot from the moment you log in. You can also elect to have actionable reports sent as emails or text messages.

4. Results-Driven Strategies

Intuition is a powerful factor in business, but there is no substitute for hard data. Most people are aware of the analytical tools that are available through social media and advertising platforms, but it takes an expert to harness the full power of all that data.

A full service digital marketing agency will show you how to use smart tools to evaluate the effectiveness of all your marketing campaigns. Not only will you be able to asses the campaigns themselves—you’ll be able to separate and pay attention to individual components of each campaign.

It is tempting to stick with a strategy that has proven to be effective in the past, but with results-driven strategies, you can refine and improve every component of everything you do. You’ll be able to make decisions based on how people truly responded to your campaigns instead of relying on third-party assessments or interpretations. The more you study and get to know your customer base through analytical data, the more you can refine your company to provide the services that are most in-demand.

5. One on One Consulting

One common complaint about the technological age is that although it is more convenient, it has become far more impersonal. A superior full service digital marketing agency will pride itself on superior communication and be available for one-on-one consulting. You should think of your digital marketing agency as a partner that will help you achieve the overall objectives of your company. It is important to establish a strong relationship from the beginning with a good communication structure and a clear concept of purpose.

Some components of your digital marketing strategy need to be shared with everyone who is an employee of your brand. Always remember that any online interaction involving an individual who represents your company will contribute to the online perception of your brand. It is important that everyone who represents your brand understands expected conduct for both professional and personal online conduct. Click here to learn more about the benefits of local support from your digital marketing agency.

Efficient, Inexpensive, and Effective Digital Marketing

An online presence is no longer enough to be competitive in the ever-evolving modern business world. If you don’t ensure that your brand or business has a healthy presence on the right platforms, then the money you spend on marketing could result in a sunken cost. A full service digital marketing agency can dedicate all its resources to staying up to date with current technological and marketing trends to ensure that your business is taking advantage of the most effective strategies available.

Full service digital marketing agencies take the guesswork out of marketing and allow you to focus on the considerable obligations of running a successful business. With a superior return on investment, and access to a team of professionals with your best interests in mind, a full service digital marketing agency is the key to earning and maintaining a strong market share for your brand. Contact DM Collective to discuss how partnering with a full service digital marketing agency can propel your brand to greater profitability.