Category: Digital Marketing

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.