Author: Josh Blyth

Particularly since the advent of online marketing, many businesses have been tempted to keep their marketing operations in-house. After all, we can all send a tweet or email and post to social media, right? However, as all too many businesses–from sole practitioners to large corporations–have learned from experience, marketing is best left to the experts. At DMC in Calgary, Alberta, we pride ourselves on delivering customer-first service aimed directly at expanding our client’s market share and increasing their revenues.

9 Things Outside Marketing Consultants Will Bring to the Table

1. Marketing Experience

Just as your business specializes in what it does, marketing agencies and consultants specialize in marketing. It’s all we do. This gives us a depth of knowledge and experience that simply cannot be matched by those cramming to do marketing in their spare time.

Strategy Meets Market Knowledge

Not only are marketing professionals educated in various techniques and strategies that have been developed over time, but they also are able to stay on top of the latest marketing trends to see where things are now and where they are going. As outside consultants keep your marketing plan up-to-date with the latest technology, strategy, and, trends, you can put your focus squarely on your business and customers.

2. Allow You to Focus on What You Do Best

By taking over responsibilities for marketing strategy and, in some cases, execution, outside consultants allow you to reclaim the hours lost to in-house marketing. Not only is this likely to make your marketing plan more efficient and effective, but it will also allow you to put your focus back on running your business as well as possible, knowing that your marketing is safely in expert hands.

3. Focus on Trends

With everything else a competitive business must focus on in today’s world, who has time to stay up on the latest marketing trends? Marketing consultants, that’s who. Because marketing is what we do, outside consultants are tapped into the world of marketing in all of its incarnations 24/7.

4. More Comprehensive Marketing Strategies

Many businesses that try keeping their marketing programs in-house do not even realize the full extent of what they are missing out on. Outside marketing experts are familiar with a broad range of tools and strategies with which non-marketing professionals are unaware. And, in today’s quickly evolving digital world, outside consultants also are able to stay on top of the latest online marketing trends.

Make Sure You’re on the Latest Platforms

Outside consultants keep track of where your customers are, including the latest online platforms. Not able to keep up with the newest crazes in social media, apps, messaging, podcasting, or any other of the constantly expanding number of online outlets and potential marketing opportunities? You don’t have to! Outside marketing professionals literally make it their jobs to provide their customers with the most current strategies based on the latest data.

5. Expand Your Reach

Sure, even non-marketing professionals could name a few familiar marketing platforms, both traditional and digital. But do you know how many you are missing? Do you stay on top of which platforms are currently generating the most traffic and which ones are frequented by users with demographics similar to your customer base?

Do you know the most effective strategy for allocating your marketing budget among online, TV, print, radio, and other media? Outside experts bring all of these answers to the table because understanding how best to deploy your advertising dollars is our business.

6. Make the Most of Limited Marketing Resources

Whether your advertising budget is measured in the hundreds of dollars or the millions, one thing remains true: no marketing plan ever has unlimited resources at its disposal. Therefore, one of the most important aspects of developing and executing an effective marketing plan is making sure that whatever resources are available are deployed to maximum effect.

Don’t Waste Your Money on Wrong-Headed Marketing

Unfortunately, for non-marketing professionals, it can be incredibly difficult to separate fact from fiction when it comes to knowing how best to spend their marketing dollars. Today, there are any number of platforms large and small clamoring for your ad dollars, but only experts with real marketing experience and knowledge will be able to separate the sound investments from the hype.

7. A More Consistent Approach to Marketing

One of the biggest challenges facing in-house marketing operations is that oftentimes, particularly in smaller companies, there is not a dedicated marketing team but rather certain individuals responsible for marketing who also serve other roles within the organization. In many cases, this means a business owner or manager trying to jump on social media to send out some promotions when not busy with other tasks.

Don’t Let Your Marketing Efforts Ebb and Flow

Unfortunately, this kind of hodgepodge approach often leads to inconsistent marketing output, and we all know that one of the keys to an effective marketing plan is consistency. When relying on in-house marketing, output often rises and falls as other responsibilities allow. When things get busy or time is particularly hard to come by, marketing is one of the first things to go by the wayside. However, this can mean sacrificing your business’s future success for its present needs.

8. You Retain Control

Some businesses fear that engaging an outside consultant for their marketing plan means handing over control of their business’s public face to an outsider. However, these concerns are largely unfounded. Marketing professionals work with their clients to formulate marketing plans and campaigns that take into account a business’s unique character and culture, strategizing on the most effective ways to communicate the business’s message to the largest possible audience of potential customers.

A good marketing professional will never make any moves with which their client is uncomfortable. Rather, they strive to accurately amplify the unique voice of each business, while helping to ensure that this voice strikes the intended tone.

The Right Outside Expert Actually Can Give You More Control

In fact, the right outside marketing expert can actually give you more control over your business’s marketing plan, not less. For example, at DMC, we provide our clients with a single dashboard from which they can oversee and manage their entire marketing operation.

9. A Fresh Perspective From a Knowledgeable Expert

A key part of an outside consultant’s role lies right in the name: outside. By bringing in a knowledgeable expert from outside your organization, you can provide a fresh perspective on how you can best achieve your goals and give your business the public face you desire. When one is “too close” to a business or is inside an organization, it can be difficult to see how that entity is perceived by potential customers and the public at large. An outside consultant can literally bring a valuable “outsider” perspective to your marketing strategy.

See What an Outside Marketing Consultant Can Do for Your Business

By possessing relevant expertise in the area of marketing, devoting themselves full time to the study of current trends and best practices and providing a fresh perspective, outside marketing consultants can bring benefits that no in-house marketing efforts, no matter how well-intentioned, can match.

At DMC in Alberta, Calgary, we pride ourselves on taking a customer-first approach to helping our clients achieve their business-related goals. Contact DMC in Alberta today to see what we can do for your business!

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.

Are you getting what you really need from your relationship with your digital marketers? Digital marketing agencies exist to make your life easier, but they can do their job best when you’re working together efficiently. And when your digital marketers are working efficiently, they’re a big part of improving your brand reputation and growing your bottom line.

7 Ways to Get the Most From Digital Marketing Agencies

1. Know What You’re Expecting Them to Do

When you sit down to talk to digital marketing agencies, don’t speak in generalities. Having only vague goals, like “get some more social media likes” or being unsure of how your digital goals are related to your long-term business goals, keeps your marketing agency from helping you effectively. As you discuss strategy, expect a good marketing company to ask you specific questions as they nail down exactly what you want them to accomplish.

Some Examples

If one of your goals is to increase the number of followers you have on your social media accounts, good digital marketing agencies will immediately want to know why. Are you hoping to find new customers? Do you want to use social media as a way to deepen your relationship with your existing customers? Are you just trying to increase brand awareness? Your specific goals will determine what your marketing agency can do for you.

Maybe you know you need to be producing more and better blog posts, but again, why? Do you need them to drive traffic to your site? Are you hoping your blog will be a source for lead generation as people sign up for updates? The more specific you can be, the more you empower your digital marketers to generate the results you’re looking for.

2. Be Completely Honest

Good digital marketing agencies have seen it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. You can’t surprise them with a failed strategy you’re a little embarrassed about or a public relations snafu you’re hoping no one remembers. But if you aren’t upfront from the beginning, you’re really only wasting your own time and money.

Don’t force your digital marketing partner to reinvent the wheel and stumble over marketing techniques that you already know don’t work for you. Be sure they know about any major public relations issues so they can protect you and find ways to bury it so you can move forward. And always be honest about the challenges facing your company.

3. Try Not to Micromanage

Few things are harder on a professional than when someone without much experience insists on grabbing the reins at every turn. You’ve probably experienced this with your own clients or customers, from the person who’s sure their low-resolution image will print perfectly on a giant flyer to the one who wastes half the day of your roofing project telling you how to do your job.

Of course, you should be involved with your digital marketing partner, and at every step, and your needs and goals are paramount. But you’re hiring marketers because they bring expertise to the table that you’re lacking. Let them do the job you’ve hired them to do.

How to Manage Without Micromanaging

Whenever you’re unsure of why your agency is trying a specific approach, don’t hesitate to ask. Great digital marketers can explain their strategies clearly. But remember that they’re professionals who know what they’re doing, and once you have a plan in play, it’s usually best to stick to it unless there’s a compelling reason to divert. Think of your marketing partners as you would a team within your own company. The best team leaders are the ones who clearly lay out the goals, choose the right people for the job, and then inspire and empower them to do what they do best.

4. Be Realistic About What Will Happen

Some digital marketing agencies are quick to make pie-in-the-sky promises about how quickly they can double your revenue or triple the number of Facebook followers you have. If the promises sound too good to be true, they probably are, and the companies who make them tend to view you as just another notch in their belt or number of dollars in the bank.

It takes time to build a great website and make it fully functional. It takes time for Google’s algorithms to notice your changes and give you the bump in rankings you need. It takes time to grab attention on social media. Trust the company that clearly views their relationship with you as a partnership and wants to work with you to steadily grow your business so everyone benefits.

5. Be On Time and Demand the Same of Them

When you’ve got meetings scheduled with your digital marketers, don’t skip them. They’re crucially important, and you shouldn’t work with any agency that doesn’t also treat them that way. But being on time also means producing necessary materials when they’re needed.

Some things the agency wants from you might seem like really low priorities in the bustle of the hectic workday, but those photos or bios of your managers or the graphics of your logo are important. Until you send them to your marketers, you can’t get that change to your website, that press release, or that updated business listing that will improve your brand reputation and generate more leads.

6. Let Them Know When Things Change

Remember that your marketing partners aren’t sharing the office with you. They won’t know you’ve developed a new product or made a major update to one of your services unless you tell them. If you make a new key hire or open a branch office across town, they need to know fast so they can update the necessary business listings as well as your website.

In the digital age, every second counts. If someone else tells a story about you or one of your people before you can get the story out there, then they control the narrative. By keeping your digital marketing partners in the loop, you can stay in control of your image and reputation online.

7. Be Open to Integration

One of the biggest reasons companies struggle to get the online reputation they want or generate the traffic they need is that they’ve siloed all their digital channels instead of treating them as a contiguous whole. While Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and your own website do need different things and require their own strategies, they should be integrated with your business and controlled by one, over-arching strategy.

If that’s been your habit up until now, expect your digital marketers to ask about bringing them all together and incorporating your social media accounts into the very fabric of your business. Be open to this. You probably contacted the agency because you needed help with your digital marketing, so let them bring their expertise to bear.

Get the Most From Your Digital Marketing Agency

At Digital Marketing Collective, we work hard to get to know you so we can all benefit. Our goal is nothing less than helping you grow your business and revenue by using our expertise to take advantage of everything digital marketing can do. Contact Digital Marketing Collective today to get started getting the most from your digital marketing agency.

Are you looking to power up your social media presence? Would you like to have the ability to know every time someone mentions your business on the internet? Do you dream of a perfectly designed website that will dazzle your prospects? At DM Collective in Calgary, Alberta, we can give you all of these things and show you the true power of partnering with a digital media agency: more customers.

What Is a Digital Media Agency?

In short, a digital media agency is your greatest ally when it comes to attracting new prospects. It is a company that specializes in understanding the most effective ways to market a business online. Part of the work of a digital media agency includes doing research and keeping up-to-date on the ever-changing landscape of technology and social media. Believe us, this task is a full-time job, and not one many business owners want to take on in addition to running their company.

Using its research and experience, a digital media agency can create a customized digital marketing strategy for you that will have you advertising on the platforms where you are most likely to reach people who want your services. It can design content for your website and social media that will appeal to your prospects. Importantly, it can work with the logic of search engines so that when people Google your services, your listings appear on the first page of the results.

Today, agencies that specialize in digital media provide the following services:

• Website design
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Social media management
• Reputation management
• Web analytics
• Digital advertising including Pay Per Click (PPC) listings
• Listings for your business in popular online directories
• Targeted email campaigns
• Content management
• Blog posts

The Power of Digital Marketing

The Numbers Tell All

Today, there are over 3 billion social media users. 78% of mobile searches for a business result in a sale. 88% of consumers choose a business based on its online reviews. These are just a few examples of the data that highlights the fact that digital marketing offers a huge growth opportunity for your business.

You Don’t Want to Miss Out

Falling behind on your digital marketing game is like saying goodbye to customers before they even reach your doors. Most people use search engines to find their goods and services. If they don’t locate your business, they will end up on someone else’s website and take their business to the competition. The visibility of your website and other listings in local search results is essential to your ability to attract customers.

New prospects are out there proactively looking for your services, but you need to have an online presence to get noticed. Once they have found you, you need to impress them with attractive visuals and engaging content to win their business.

8 Ways Partnering With a Digital Media Agency Can Help Grow Your Business

1. It Will Help You Attract New Leads

With all the ways to measure success on the internet these days, from the number of followers you have to your ranking in online directories, it is easy to forget that the whole point of building an online presence is to make more sales. An agency that specializes in digital media can help you develop your online presence strategically, so that the money and time you invest result in dollars, not just likes and comments.

2. It Will Increase Your Online Visibility

There are several ways in which a digital media agency can make your business more visible online. First, if you don’t already have a website and profiles on the key social media platforms, it can help you create them. Second, it can identify which online directories people look through when they need your services. Third, it can boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Having high SEO means that search engines will display your business on the first page of results when people search for relevant terms.

3. It Can Help You Make a Good First Impression

Most prospects will take a good look at your website, your social media, and your online reviews long before they meet you or visit your physical place of business. You wouldn’t leave your storefront unkempt, and it’s equally important to maintain an attractive presence online.

4. It Can Improve the Aesthetics of Your Digital Marketing

Part of making a good first impression includes using high-quality visuals and a pleasing layout for your website and your social media profiles. If you are not a design expert, no worries! Your agency can help you with the aesthetic component of your marketing.

5. It Can Help You Create Attractive, Relevant Content

Beyond aesthetics, the content you post needs to be interesting, entertaining, informative, and relevant to the needs of your prospects. Content can be anything from a Youtube video in which you explain your expertise to an Instagram photo of your team conducting business to a blog post in which you discuss a trending topic in your industry. Your agency can help you strategize what content to post and where to post it.

6. It Can Help You Understand and Manage Your Brand’s Reputation

Reputation management refers to being aware of how your brand is perceived and taking actions to ensure that prospects see it in a positive light. Your agency can help you track when and where your business is mentioned anywhere on the internet. It can also give you notifications about online reviews, so that you can respond to them as soon as possible.

For more information on reputation management, check out our blog post below:
https://dmclocal.com/what-is-brand-reputation-protection-6-things-you-need-to-know/

7. It Can Identify Tools to Help You Understand Where Your Marketing Efforts Are Paying Off

One of the best things the internet has to offer your business is consumer data. By using web analytics, a digital media agency can help you identify which demographics are most likely to buy your services. From there, you can target these demographics in your campaigns.

As your marketing efforts develop, your agency can help you track how many people responded to your listings, and which campaigns led to the most sales. With this information, you can tweak your strategy to be even more effective.

8. It Can Help You Communicate With Customers Over Channels They Prefer

Reaching out to customers in certain ways can be awkward. For example, most people don’t want to be interrupted by a phone call during dinner. In the digital age, many people prefer to communicate over online channels, such as Facebook Messenger and email. Your agency can help you design effective email campaigns that will promote your services. It can also help you use the most popular apps to enrich your current business relationships.

For more information on the benefits of working with an agency that specializes in digital media, read our blog post here:
https://dmclocal.com/5-things-you-should-be-able-to-expect-from-a-full-service-digital-marketing-agency/

Partnering for Powerful Growth

A digital media agency is a great resource when it comes to outsourcing your marketing in a way that will be cost-effective and extremely successful. We can help you take advantage of all the potential the internet has to offer. Contact DM Collective in Calgary, Alberta, for more information on our services. We look forward to making your business shine online.

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.

The internet can be a battleground, and your business needs a superhero to protect it against inaccurate information, competitors, and other nefarious forces. In a bygone era, you could rely on a commitment to good business practices to ensure a positive relationship with the public. In the modern digital marketplace, it is important to implement a variety of strategies for brand reputation protection.

What Is Brand Reputation Protection?

It has never been easier for a business to target and interact directly with potential customers. Gone are the days of the anonymous comments box where businesses could receive suggestions and complaints out of public view. Today, customers use social media to offer praise or vent their displeasure.

The unwritten rule is that even if customers leave a complaint on their personal social media account, they secretly expect the brand will hear their objection and respond accordingly. This unvoiced expectation creates a need for all businesses to implement an online reputation management strategy.

Brand reputation protection allows business owners to monitor the online discussion over their service, brand, or product. All businesses hope to be the focus of a positive viral media story, which can provide a staggering level of brand visibility. However, it is equally important to protect against negative viral media attention that can cause irreparable brand damage. Brand reputation protection gives business owners the power to influence the online discussion about their brand and provide course corrections when necessary.

6 Things to Know

1. It Should Prevent Inaccurate Listings

One of the first things you need to ensure is that any online listings that reference your brand have accurate information. It is easy to ensure the listings are accurate on pages you control.

However, there are many listings that harvest and copy information from third party sites. If these listings are inaccurate, or your business hours change, they could lead to customer frustration. Frustrated customers often leave negative reviews, which can severely damage your online reputation.

Digital reputation experts use smart tools to scour the internet in search of incomplete or inaccurate data. With the regular demands of a business, you don’t have time to search the internet for listings to verify their accuracy. Smart tools help provide business owners with the peace of mind that they will not be subject to a negative online response because of an inaccurate third party listing that they didn’t even know existed.

2. It Involves Cultivating Positive Reviews

Recent studies have concluded that potential customers give nearly the same credibility to online reviews as they do to recommendations from friends and acquaintances. Many people search for a business and make their final choice based on the star rating and the number of reviews that turn up in the search. Therefore, it is important for all brands to develop a positive presence on review sites.

One star reviews can be very damaging to your brand’s online presence, but there are some things businesses can do to minimize the negative effect. Businesses can request the removal of obviously illegitimate reviews, but this can be a time-consuming process. A better response is to bury negative reviews with promotions that lead to a proliferation of positive reviews. Your digital marketing expert can help ensure that all review pages have positive reviews that will help make your business a more attractive choice for potential customers.

3. It Uses Smart Tools

A single person, or even a team of people, cannot monitor the whole Internet in search of conversations that relate to your brand. Scrolling through thousands of pages of data would be time consuming and inefficient. However, it’s very important that you know what is being said about your brand so that you can respond appropriately and make sure the conversation remains positive.

Modern smart tools can effectively monitor the internet and provide you with simple, actionable reports to a single dashboard, email, or even text messages. The sooner you respond to a trending issue, the better chance you have of converting a potentially negative discussion into something positive for your business. Time is critical for brand reputation protection, and you should consider every mention of your brand as an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to superior customer service.

4. It Involves Proper Training for Employees

Things can get out of control quickly on the internet, and it’s important that everyone involved with your business has a strong foundation in professional online etiquette. All businesses should regard online interactions with the same importance and with the same expectations for professionalism that they have for employee interactions with customers in their place of business.

Every employee represents your business and has an influence on the online perception of your brand. This applies both to your employees when they are interacting with the public from a business social media account and when they make posts on their private social media pages. Your digital marketing expert can help you design and implement workshops so you and all your employees know expectations for online interactions that will protect your brand’s reputation.

5. You Must Keep Up-to-Date With New Trends

Brand reputation protection is as important to your business as your legal or accounting team. You don’t have to be a digital marketing expert to understand that technology evolves quickly. Marketing tactics that were effective as little as six months ago become obsolete and represent a sunk cost if your business cannot adapt and implement new strategies. Keeping up to date with modern techniques, tools, and methods is a full-time job that requires the diligence of an expert.

Many businesses attempt to handle their brand reputation protection in house, but this is an inefficient and ineffective strategy. Employees do not have time to research digital marketing trends and implement them while they perform their other duties. The result is that your business will be slow to learn and implement new strategies. Building a relationship with a professional digital marketing team helps ensure you will have access to the most dynamic strategies.

6. It’s the Best Return on Your Investment

Brand reputation management is like a shield that helps ensure your business will not be caught off guard by a negative viral media story. The information you receive from your brand reputation practices can also be used to magnify the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

The more you know about how potential clients respond to your services and your advertisements, the more you can adapt your business to suit the needs of your clients. With targeted marketing and smart tools, you can apply statistical analysis to ensure you get the most out of every marketing dollar you spend.

Take Control of Your Brand

The internet evolves fast, and if you don’t have a knowledgeable expert on your side, you and your business can quickly fall behind. The internet has enormous power both to elevate your business to new levels of profitability, or to bring it crashing down.

Disregarding brand reputation protection can also leave you vulnerable to smear campaigns from unscrupulous competitors. In the lawless wasteland of the internet, it’s important to have a protector on your side. Contact the experts at DM Collective today to discover how to take your brand to the next level.