Month: March 2020

In the modern era, having a marketing consultant is no longer optional; it’s mandatory. Particularly in the digital realm, having the right marketing consultants can mean the difference between languishing at the bottom of the organic rankings or dominating the top results on the SERP (search engine results page). But aside from search engine optimization (SEO), there are a myriad of other marketing outlets you should keep in mind. Whether you’re a single-person business, a mid-size LLC, or a sprawling conglomerate, if you’ve had success without an ideal marketing plan, it doesn’t mean it’s a recipe for success; it just means that it’s a matter of time before your competition renders you obsolete with a superior marketing strategy.

But have no fear! Superior marketing advice is here! Excuse the over-the-top superhero cliche, but hey, it’s true. Having the right marketing team by your side is a must. Here are just a few quick overviews of the most frequently encountered marketing specialists and which are right for your business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing Consultants

If you have a smartphone or internet connection (ideally, both would be nice), you’ve probably come across the term “SEO.” So what is SEO? SEO is just a fancy way of describing the hidden rules and guidelines that determine which terms rank higher on Google. Sure, we could talk about Bing. But do you really use Bing? In all seriousness, SEO is essential if you have a digital presence of any kind.

Without having the right SEO set-up, your website will be penalized for a myriad of reasons. Duplicate content on your site? That’s a penalty. Massive globs and blocks of copy that aren’t coherently structured? Yep, that’s a penalty. Does your site menu look like it was hit by a tornado and a tsunami back-to-back? Yep, you guessed it—penalty. Plain and simple: designing a webpage that makes sense is a lot easier said than done. The right SEO marketing consultants will ensure your site conforms to Google’s relatively hidden rules while you sit back and watch the rankings climb.

What SEO Consultants Do

SEO specialists are adept at performing technical audits of your site, providing routine reports and analytics, monitoring your site’s backlink profile, and coordinating with content specialists to continually improve upon your existing website’s copy and content. Because there are so many constant algorithmic changes, what worked several months ago may not work now, so having SEO marketing specialists that stay up to date with changes and updates is a must if you want to stay ahead of your competition.

SEO also works synergistically with other marketing strategies, and aside from improving your organic rankings on the search engine by addressing your web domain itself, off-site SEO is also important. This can relate to local listings, which can make or break a business for brick-and-mortars. For example, if you’re a local locksmith in Calgary, you not only need a well-thought-out website, but you also need a well-structured Google My Business listing, which would be an example of an off-site initiative.

Because SEO is a long-term process, it doesn’t always bring the instant gratification that other marketing initiatives provide, but regardless, it is an essential aspect of marketing that needs to be addressed, particularly in the modern age of digital marketing.

Pros of SEO

• Must-have in modern digital marketing
• Works synergistically with other digital marketing strategies
• Relatively low-cost digital marketing strategy, depending on the complexity of the campaign

Cons of SEO

• May take months or years to see results
• Not always the best for niche businesses
• At the mercy of algorithmic updates

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing Consultants

While SEO is a hot topic in the world of digital marketing, PPC marketing is similarly important. Compared to SEO, PPC marketing can be thought of as the Robin to SEO’s Batman. While PPC is more like a superhero unto itself, not quite a leotard-wearing sidekick, the fact remains that PPC works synergistically with SEO in a variety of ways, and when most people think of digital marketing, SEO often comes first before PPC in their minds.

Like SEO, PPC marketing consultants are capitalizing on analytics and keyword-driven traffic to leverage user decisions to help businesses convert leads into customers. Just like typing in a keyword on Google brings up organic search results; typing in keywords brings up paid search results, too—whereas SEO consultants have to go after competitive keywords and create new on-site content to get the search engine to update the rankings organically over time. PPC is a matter of adjusting advertising dollars and optimizing keywords to garner instant results, which are tracked by clicks and resulting conversions.

What PPC Specialists Do

As the name suggests, PPC means that for every click you garner, you are paying for that click. That dollar amount is otherwise known as CPC or cost per click. Depending on the keyword in question, some clicks are more expensive, whereas others are cheaper. This means that while PPC is costlier, you only pay when users click your ads, but the downside is a user can click and not convert into a customer, meaning you just spent money for nothing.

PPC has other advantages in that campaigns can be optimized to re-target users who failed to convert with aptly named re-targeting ads, and you can adjust your budgets accordingly to pivot to different campaigns based on varying keyword phrases. Unlike SEO, PPC is the best way to immediately drive users to your website, or if you choose to, an alternate landing page of your choice, which could be an off-site landing page.

So, for example, you could have your PPC specialists target the phrase “locksmith Calgary,” and they can design custom-tailored ads to target users looking up that term. You can even go after the competition by having your ads show up if a user types in your competitor’s name. As you can see, this versatility makes PPC a very intriguing and lucrative option for businesses looking to dominate the digital realm.

However, PPC can sometimes demand bigger budgets, meaning, for smaller companies, having a PPC-only campaign may not be the best option, but as many marketing consultants recommend, having a mix of SEO and PPC is usually a very solid option.

Pros of PPC

• Directly target or re-target the desired audience
• Immediately drive traffic to newer domains
• Capitalize on captivating display ads

Cons of PPC

• Requires diligent management for maximum effectiveness
• Much more budget-intensive than SEO
• Requires more considerable A/B testing than SEO

Miscellaneous Marketing Consultants

While SEO and PPC are the bread-and-butter digital marketing strategies in the modern era, there are some miscellaneous marketing consultants that shouldn’t be ignored, either.

Social Media Marketing Specialists

Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or some other social media platform, social media is essential for digital marketing. It’s a great way to syndicate content from your website, engage organically with potential customers, and expand your brand’s presence into other avenues in the digital space.

Content Marketing

In SEO, as the saying goes, “Content is king.” Content drives SEO campaigns, composes PPC landing pages, and is present in virtually all social media posts. Plain and simple, if your content is lackluster, you will struggle in the digital realm. While the many technical aspects of digital marketing are important, content marketing specialists play a pivotal role in executing any digital marketing initiative, especially organic initiatives.

Web Design and Development

What good is a website if it’s not properly built? Web designers and developers are essential to ensure your site is properly structured and set up for SEO specialists to have success. Without an ideal website environment, technical SEO is virtually impossible. And without an attractive, easy-to-navigate website, your business is doomed to fail, especially if you’re an eCommerce platform.

There is no quick-fix or single solution to marketing success. It requires a holistic, turnkey marketing strategy, a strategy available only at DMC Local.

Find Expert Marketing Consultants at DMC Local

At DMC Local, we are a proud full-service lead generation-oriented marketing agency that prioritizes sales-driven leads over marketing, contrary to the strategy employed by most agencies. We specialize in local business located throughout Calgary, Edmonton, and Red Deer, but no matter your location, we are confident we have a digital marketing strategy will get you the results you desire.

With a full suite of SEO, PPC, social media, and web design/development marketing consultants at your disposal, we are a one-stop-shop to deliver an outstanding return on investment while concurrently driving your local growth and outreach. To learn how we can supercharge your sales with actionable leads, call us at 403-910-4595 or complete our online contact form.

Nobody denies that the internet is a powerful business tool. Social media platforms give businesses the power to target potential customers and interact in a way that has never been possible before. But many businesses don’t know how to harness the power of the internet and use it to increase their market share. Without knowledgeable consulting, you can dedicate enormous resources and still fail to get the results you want. In this article, we’ll explain five reasons why digital marketing agencies are critical to the success of your business.

5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Agencies Continue to Thrive

The majority of business is already conducted online, and that trend isn’t expected to change. Everywhere you look, you see people engaged with their cell phones to the exclusion of the rest of the world. If you want your brand, product, or service to be visible, you need to have a healthy presence where people are looking. However, as useful as the internet is, it also represents a huge amount of information. Without a carefully prepared strategy, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

Many businesses rely on the in-house expertise of their employees instead of digital marketing agencies. Although most individuals have social media accounts, they do not have an insider understanding to make effective use of the platforms. Digital marketing agencies regard social media platforms as a job, and they dedicate their time and energy keep up to date with the newest strategies and analytical tools to ensure you get the best return on your advertising dollar. Here are some ways that digital marketing agencies can make your online presence more effective.

1. Dashboard Reporting

Individuals who lack training in digital marketing tools often become distracted every time they log into their account. If you are a business owner and you have assigned social media marketing tools to an untrained employee, it’s likely you’ll end up paying for that individual to scroll through his or her wall. Even if your employee does manage to launch a campaign, that campaign is unlikely to take advantage of the best working practices.

Many people are unaware of the full power of social media dashboard reporting. All platforms offer a huge amount of analytical tools that can be analyzed and used to demonstrate the effectiveness of a campaign. These tools allow you to improve your strategies by focusing on the elements that have been proven effective. Dashboard reporting can eliminate the guesswork of traditional marketing and give you the power to reach potential customers like never before.

2. One Dashboard For All Services

Digital marketing agencies understand that it is inefficient to log in and out of all your social media platforms. All platforms require passwords, and the more time you spend logging in, the less time you spend engaged in productive activities for your company. Also, regularly logging in makes your business and your business’s social media platforms more vulnerable to hacking.

Digital marketing agencies can show you how to use tools to bring all your social media accounts together under one roof. This allows for a single login and has other advantages, like creating a single post that you can then publish on multiple platforms simultaneously. You can even schedule out your entire social media activity weeks or months in advance. A single dashboard allows you to maximize the time you spend improving your online presence to the greatest possible effect.

3. Results Driven

A huge advantage that digital marketing agencies offer is their ability to be entirely results-driven. Under the old model of traditional marketing, businesses had no choice but to focus on their reach, and simply hope that their campaigns were effective. However, in the era of digital marketing, businesses now have access to real, actionable data that provides scientifically accurate insights as to what parts of your strategies are working for you, and which parts need to be improved.

Digital marketing analytical tools are so precise that they allow business owners not just to evaluate campaigns, but to dissect and evaluate each component of a campaign. If your potential customers like the song of an advertisement but not the actor in the video, you can make that change and get the most out of your advertising. Results-driven digital marketing also offers businesses the opportunity to develop a better understanding of what their clients need and expect, which leads to greater customer loyalty and better overall service.

4. One on One Consulting

Every business is different, and each business needs a digital marketing strategy tailored to its own unique needs. Some businesses, like local auto repair shops, only need positive reviews and enough of an online presence that they can be found when people are in need of their service. Other businesses require regular internet traffic, and work on a business model that results in brand visibility

Whether you’re looking for innovative ways to enhance your existing marketing plan or you’re trying to get your marketing strategy up and running, an Edmonton marketing company can provide you with invaluable advantages. There is no shortage of digital marketing agencies, so how do you identify the best marketing company for your needs? Here are seven questions you should be asking before hiring an Edmonton Marketing Company.

7 Questions to Ask Before You Hire an Edmonton Marketing Company

1. Who Will Manage My Account and Execute the Work?

One of the first questions you should ask when evaluating the best Edmonton marketing company is who will manage your account and who will execute the work. While some agencies have an in-house team with decades of experience to manage the marketing, less reputable agencies will simply outsource a contract to “offshore” workers. Look for a company that performs the work themselves. You will get more consistency and much better results from people who actually know your local situation.

2. How Do We Compare to Your Other Clients Regarding Budget and Production Requirements?

Some business owners don’t feel comfortable with their business being the smallest or largest client for an Edmonton marketing company in terms of production requirements and marketing budget. Small business owners worry that they may not receive the same level of customer service that larger agency clients receive.

At Digital Marketing Company, we value every business and provide the same level of service to small businesses with a limited marketing budget and large businesses requiring web analytics, web development, content management, SEO services, and more.

Besides feeling comfortable with the level of customer service you’ll receive, make sure the agency you choose has the technical skills and tools in place to execute the projects you anticipate needing. Regardless of the size of projects you anticipate, take the time during your initial consultation to understand a potential agency’s processes to manage ongoing client relationships and fulfill all your current and future needs as your business continues to grow.

3. What Strategy and Planning Exercises Are Necessary to Get Up to Speed?

Once you’ve found the best marketing company in Edmonton, you’ll need to spend some time cultivating a relationship with your new marketing partner. Make sure you understand what type of communication the agency expects from you, how work will be managed, what the approval process is like, and what to expect regarding standard onboarding timelines and deliverables. The most reputable agencies will have a clear, articulable process in place to quickly get both the client and agency teams up to speed.

Before the onboarding process, make sure the agency’s team that will be handling your account has the necessary knowledge to help your business increase its market share within its industry. The knowledge the team should have includes familiarity with benchmarking and key performance indicators for your industry, as well as advertising and marketing strategies that speak to your buyer personas.

4. What Processes Are in Place for Client Communication and Collaboration?

One of the biggest red flags that a digital marketing agency is not right for you is they don’t have a solid standard operating procedure in place for how the agency manages communication and collaboration with the client. You are investing your hard-earned money into this new business relationship. You should be confident that your money is going into real work rather than administration and project management. No digital marketing agency worth your money will allocate over 10% of your budget for project management.

The best digital marketing agency has implemented solid processes and platforms to manage client communication, collaboration, reporting, billing, and project management. This means valuable time and money are not wasted on managing client relationships and business operations. Therefore, it allows for far more time to be spent actually getting work done.

How sophisticated a set-up an agency demonstrates in these non-core areas is often a great indication of their level of expertise in handling clients of your size and necessities. Before picking the best digital marketing agency, you should understand and feel confident in that agency’s procedures for setting timelines, completing projects, collecting feedback, analyzing results, and continuing to develop optimization.

5. What Are You Looking for in a Client?

Every agency has a different idea of what makes a good or bad client. To determine if you are a good fit for the agency and if the agency is a good fit for you, ask them what they are looking for in a potential client. Follow up by asking what they see as red flags when evaluating a potential client. Interviewing a potential agency is much like interviewing a new hire. The culture and organizational fit of the potential agency must be compatible with your business values and methods. This ensures your working relationship is smooth and enjoyable for both parties.

6. Which KPIs Do You Find to Be the Most Important? How Do You Report Progress?

Monthly marketing analytics reports can be incredibly frustrating if you don’t find them relevant to your business. Even worse, they may be presented as so many numbers that you can’t draw a single reasonable conclusion from the reports. Analysis should be presented in a manner that is easy to understand. Moreover, it should be clear how and why certain metrics are being measured.

For example, what does an increase in social media follows, and website traffic actually mean for your business? Are these increases large enough to justify what you are spending on paid ad impressions? The marketing agency you work with should report their results in black and white numbers that stakeholders outside the marketing department can understand easily. The reports should explain changes to qualified leads, paying customers, and increases in revenue.

If your potential agency is truly sales oriented, it will focus on reporting the number of leads generated, the quality of the leads, statistics on how the leads flowed through each sales funnel stage, the number of new customers each month and how effective the marketing tactics implemented are in generating traffic, leads and customers.

7. What Can I Expect During the First 90 Days?

One of the most compelling benefits of working with a reputable Edmonton marketing company is you can truly hit the ground running. You don’t need to spend valuable hours writing job descriptions, recruiting, onboarding, and training new hires. You have a dedicated team with years of experience implementing digital marketing plans for businesses of your size in your industry.

When evaluating the quality of a digital marketing agency, ask what the first 90 days of collaboration will look like. Ideally, they can tell you precisely what needs to be done to drive early results and when those deliverables should be executed. If the list of potential to-dos far exceeds the work that can actually be executed, there is a strong chance that the agency will take great strides to forge a long-term working relationship rather than simply taking direction and delivering only your specific requests.

Contact the Best Digital Marketing Company Today

If you don’t currently have a marketing plan in place, or you’re not satisfied with the performance of your current marketing plan, a digital marketing agency can be invaluable. The best Edmonton Marketing Company has results-driven strategies, performs their own work, knows how to achieve maximum visibility for your brand, and offers one-on-one consulting. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, contact Digital Marketing Company based in Calgary, Alberta today to discover what we can do for you.