by Brooke Jensen | Apr 18, 2020 | Advertising, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Marketing
Advertising apps have become an essential tool for most digital agencies due to how efficient they are at streamlining the ads into various mobile platforms. With the majority of the population around the world having access to the internet and spending a good percentage of their time browsing social mend platforms like Facebook or Instagram, having a way to manage all this can be useful. Advertising applications were made to assist in the processes of managing every aspect of offloading the various advertisements put into motion.
Using one will allow your team to completely manage every aspect of their client’s advertising campaign. By utilizing these apps, your team will be able to stay on top of things even while they are on the go. With that said, let’s go over some of the best advertising apps around that shall help you streamline your agency.
BuyerBridge
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Of course, we have to start off with this post by mentioning our own product! So what is BuyerBridge? BuyerBridge is a platform that is capable of providing all sorts of impressive assistance for your agency. Our app comes with account management, which allows you to easily manage your clients and location. You’ll be able to seamlessly create new Facebook AD accounts, office events, and add or organize existing accounts. Our platform also assists your agency in deploying, managing, and optimizing Instagram and Facebook automotive inventory ads and marketplace.
Guess what else makes us stand out for Facebook advertisers? We have been approved to syndicate pre-owned to ten Facebook Marketplaces worldwide. Meaning, if your clients are a dealership, you’ll be able to post their vehicles onto Facebook Marketplace with no hassle at all. Right now, BuyerBridge is capable of supporting dealers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The best part of all, you can integrate other platforms as well, such as CRMs, Inventory providers, website providers, and reporting platforms. We built a truly robust system that is capable of streamlining your agency’s advertising attempts and offers a seamless way to pull all of this off. When it comes to pricing, we have four different tiers available, Marketplace, Pro, Ultimate, and Enterprise. If you’re looking for an all in one platform for managing your Facebook and Instagram ads, then make sure you get in touch for us for a free trial and test run.
Buffer
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Running a successful campaign can be difficult for even the most experienced agencies out there, especially when it comes to handling the various social media platforms out there. Fortunately, there are plenty of apps out there capable of providing much-needed assistance in handling every one of them. Buffer is one of the most popular apps around with its main function allowing its users to schedule updates to multiple accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and Pinterest.
Buffer has become an essential part of managing the various clients an agency currently has contracted under. Instead of having to log into everyone’s social media accounts, Buffer allows you to integrate every social media platform into a single location, the Buffer dashboard. The dashboard will enable your team to schedule every content from there. By using a buffer, your team will be able to schedule all of the posts based on the most efficient share times for your client’s industry, post to every social network at once, and develop content and images within the platform itself.
When it comes to pricing, Buffer offers three different plans, the Pro plan, which costs $10/month, the premium plan, which costs $65/month, and lastly, the Business plan, which is $99/month. They also offer a free 14-day trial that allows you to test the platform out before fully committing to it.
Outbrain Amplify
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Outbrain is one of the leading advertising platforms out there and comes packed with all sorts of features useful for content and social media marketing as well. This platform primarily provides agency assistance with getting their content onto major publishing websites, such as CNN, ABC News, Fortune, People, Time, and Wired. Outbrain has also claimed that it provides over 50% better CPA then display advertising.
Using Outbrain will allow your agency to publish ads that are linked to your content on top of publisher’s sites, and in return, receive a targeted, engaged audience who are aware of the content advertised to them. This platform also offers its users a variety of options on how to operate your campaign. You can decide the pricing model you want to follow, including your CPC and budget. They also offer you an accurate targeting opportunity so you can make sure none of the advertising budgets doesn’t go to waste on people who won’t be interested in the product or service you are offering. The dashboard also comes with detailed information when it comes to analyzing, tracking, and optimizing your campaigns.
Sync2CRM
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Sync2CRM allows its users to automatically synchronize Facebook Lead ads and custom audiences with MailChimp, Infusionsoft, and Active Campaign. This is especially useful if your team is running an active email list, as this allows them to target Facebook advertising directly into your email list. By using Sync2CRM, your agency will be able to instantaneously synchronize Mailchimp and Active Campaign, along with getting an automatic one hour batch sync of infusionsoft tags and saved searches. This will allow your team to match every CRM email and phone field.
Sync2CRM offers first-time users a 30-free day trial, but once that is used up, you’ll have to start paying $12/month.
Socialbakers
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Considered one of the most impressive apps to have come out over the years, Socialbaker AI usage is quite distinguished. For that matter, Socialbakers has shown the advertising world that AI is capable of providing all sorts of impressive solutions to their problems. This platform seems to have successfully incorporated everything required to get the job done with the assistance of a robust AI. The tool provides is capable of helping your team discover the personas of each customer and the type of content they’ll enjoy. This has made it possible for more intelligent advertising spend and higher quality in content and customer engagement.
Socialbakers comes with some nifty features, such as listening and intelligence features that help your team control the narrative around their products and images. Furthermore, you can expect influencer marketing management, measuring and reporting functionality, and a way for you to engage the audience from a variety of platforms all available in a single location for a more streamlined and acceptable approach to managing the audience.
The pricing for Socialbakers comes in two different tiers. The first one is the essential one, which offers a price tag of $200/month for 10 profiles, while the $400/month offers 20 profiles. To get the complete package, you’ll have to get in contact with a representative to consult them.
Hootsuite
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Hootsuite is another excellent tool that is capable of streamlining your agency’s work. Social media management capabilities allow your team to schedule posts for Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, and YouTube. Hootsuite also comes with paid advertising functionality available for various platforms. This will allow your agency to run ads or promote an already successful content to stretch its reach and impression. This platform’s foremost functionally includes analytics, content management, paid content promotion, monitoring, scheduling, and team management. Another nifty capability this tool offers its users is the allowance to integrate with all the major social media platforms.
While Hootsuite does offer a 30-day free trial for new users, they also come with four different plans available. The professional plan will cost $29/month, which enables one user, 10 social profiles, and unlimited scheduling. The team plan costs $129/month and supports three users, 20 social profiles, and unlimited scheduling. The business plan will cost $599/month and allows 5-10 users, 35 social profiles, and unlimited scheduling. The last is the enterprise plan, but that requires you to get in contact with a representative at Hootsuite to receive pricing.
Hotjar
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Hotjar offers you a visual way to understand what the users do when visiting a website and social pages. This creates something known as heatmaps of web pages, which highlights specific parts that people actually interact with and scroll. Your agency can use Hotjar to receive rapid visual feedback, and it helps your team become aware of how people are using the client’s website. Utilizing these features will allow you to make the appropriate changes when needed, without having to be overly concerned about changing things without no reassurance behind the action.
This platform has far more working for it then it’s heat maps feature, it also comes packaged with tools connected to visitor recordings, form analysis, feedback polls, conversion funnels, and a way to gather instantaneous feedback from the website visitor. Hotjar can also be used to develop and analyze surveys and recruit test users from an existing customer base.
Hotjar is also able to integrate with most of the popular web platforms out there. This platform was built to work right out of the box on plenty of platforms such as Drupal, Joomla, Shopify, WordPress, and much more. Hotjar also comes with a variety of plans made for personal, business, or agency usage. The primary packaging is free and is aimed at students and enthusiasts. The Business plan will vary, depending on the amount of gathered data and pages viewed per day. The agency one will require you to get in contact with Hotjar, but it does offer a 30-day free trial.
Bitrix24
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Bitrix24 is mostly known as a social media CRM, but it does come with some other essential features. This platform will allow you to handle data from Facebook, Viber, Instagram, Telegram, VK, Slack, Skype, and many more. Its Open Channels feature allows its users to manage every social communication in a single place. Users will be able to save any conversation onto the Bitrix24s CRM, regardless of the social network or messenger used. It also comes with marketing and sales automation tools allowing it’s users to automate parts of their sales process, including social media advertising. This also comes packaged with traditional core CRM features, like email or telemarketing, quotes, invoice, and product catalog.
When it comes to its pricing system, Bitrix24 offers several different plans, with one of them being free. The three specific plans it offers are the Start+, which costs $24/mo, the CRM+, which costs $69/mo, the Project+, which coss 69/mo, and lastly the Project+, which costs $69/mo. Two business plans are also offered with the standard costing $99/mo and the professional costing $199/mo.
AgoraPulse
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AgoraPulse is a combination of marketing and social media management tools. This will allow your team to connect with Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to the platform, allowing your team to have the capability to control every aspect of your social media communications with no issue. It also offers a one-click reporting, giving your team the chance to access valuable statistics on CSV or PPT Formats. Similar to any other tool, collaboration has been integrated, making it a robust solution for large teams.
This tool will allow your agency to track who’s working on what and never miss out on anything currently going on. AgoraPulses also comes with a reliable CRM tool that allows you to rapidly label and group audiences into various segments, something any agency would consider invaluable for their work. While most people wouldn’t take ad comments into consideration when dealing with paid media campaigns, AgoraPulse has proven that they provide better results. The platform can collect comments from paid social media ads and send them into the inbox, making it seamless to gather feedback and plan for more impactful campaigns.
Conclusion
Technology has managed to evolve in ways most people weren’t expecting, but thanks to some incredibly smart people, these apps have become an invaluable tool to assist with achieving your agency’s work. Each of these mentioned apps works quite well at helping to streamline your agency’s workload and will ensure they are effective in meeting the needs of your clients. Just keep in mind that each of these apps does offer a free trial, so don’t be afraid to test them out before fully committing to the price plan, especially the highly expensive ones.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 17, 2020 | Advertising, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Marketing
The services provided by a digital marketing agency for the prosperity of any business out there trying to make it big in this digital age. Some companies would hesitate to hire an agency due to the notion that they’ll have to pay a large amount of money simply to get the results they want for their business. Fortunately, there are plenty of fantastic agencies that are willing to work with these businesses and do all the work for them at a smaller cost.
Chances are you are one of the many firms that help these smaller companies achieve their goals. The way companies spread the word of their brand has changed over the years, notably thanks to the power of the internet. While tons of options are available for businesses to spread awareness, most of these business owners aren’t sure what appropriate strategies to take or even have the time to implement it themselves. That’s where your agency comes in to provide the assistance they require to succeed in their goals.
Every digital agency is capable of helping business owners in their way. There are several services your agency can offer your clients, with some of them crucial to meet the goals of the clients’ needs. For this article, we’ll be going through several services your digital agency should be offering clients during the year 2020.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is typically on the top of any digital agency services offering. The main reason is that SEO affects every single part of a business’s online marketing strategy. SEO is crucial to ensure the website of the company manages to show up within online search engines, like Google or Bing. If an effective SEO isn’t implemented, potential customers won’t be able to become aware of the existence of the company, or it’s digital marketing efforts.
The reason for this is due to the power search engines have when it comes to choosing which site should emerge when people are executing online searches. They decide this based on a complicated algorithm that balances on various criteria to dictate if the website is what the searcher is looking for. Essentially, SEO is what optimizes every piece of online content so it can become more easily discoverable by these search engines. For instance, if the business hiring you is selling caps, you want the search engine to find their website first when people decide to type in hats into the search bar.
There are plenty of websites out there that have a term like hats associated with them. That’s why this service must be a part of a digital agency since it will help you provide a necessary service for your clients. Experts in SEO make sure to stay up to date with the latest criteria that shall place their client’s website in front of the correct customers. They’ll be aware of how to optimize every piece of content with related keywords, backlinks, internal links, and local optimization strategies.
The services provided by a digital agency and ensure every aspect of the client’s website is fine-tuned to gain the approval of the search engines. This is especially important now with how 2020 is spacing out due to the current epidemic affecting most businesses.
Strategy Development
Most companies these days are relying on digital marketing to spread the word of their business, but most of them don’t tend to have an approach in place. With so much information and tools available to them, it can be quite difficult to grasp why there’s a lack of concise strategy. Although, for most businesses out there, the excuses are quite understandable and apparent since they are limited in both time and expertise.
On the other hand, digital agencies are already equipped with the appropriate tools and the insight to come up with an effective solution for business problems. A team of experts will be placed to assess previous attempts, use tools such as Google Analytics to understand a customer’s persona and check-in with Google Benchmarking Reports to see how the business is currently performing compared to other competing companies. Your digital agency should also be capable of providing the appropriate budget and priorities for your client. You should come up with a plan for each step your client shall take on their journey, from brand awareness to conversion. Most importantly, you should be capable of advancing the strategy as your team monitors consumer engagement.
Content Marketing
Offering customers quality content will boost a company’s search engine rankings, raise brand awareness, validate their business in the eyes of prospective customers, and eventually drive conversions. Your digital agency should be capable of doing several things when it comes to making content for your client. Drafting engageable and shareable blog posts utilizing content management systems such as WordPress. They should also be able to come up with social media advertisements that will catch the attention of prospective customers. Lastly, the content should be fully optimized for search engines.
Any digital agency worth their salt should also perform content analysis, both when they are reviewing the existing website as they continue to add updates and improve the content strategy. Utilizing tools such as Google analytics will allow a content marketing team to remain up to date with reviews stats regarding bot crawlability, meta information, and keyword density, ensuring that the content is always being competitive.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEO and SEM are two different methods, while they do rely on keywords, that’s where the similarity between the two ends. SEM is all about paying a search engine to place a website in front of potential customers. It’s somewhat similar to that of Pay-Per-Click advertising. By using SEM, you select the keywords related to the product or services and then develop advertisements based on them. These are the types of ads most people will see when they are making a search query.
To get the ad placed on these premium spaces the chosen keywords will need to be bidding on. Every time a potential customer inserts a search query the search engine shall decide which ads to show them. This is done with the aid of a complex algorithm related to how much a person bids for a keyword and the quality score of the advertisement. By using Google ads, you’ll need to pay up for the bid each time Google has displayed the ad. In the case of pay-per-click advertising, the only payment that needs to be done is when someone clicks on the advertisement. Plus, there is a set of maximum amounts per campaign or keyword.
Most business owners won’t be able to grasp the concept that well, and it’s understandable why they would seek out a digital agency to provide them the expertise to pull this off. At most, they’ll want assistance on figuring out which keywords to use, how to create quality advertisements, and how much they should bid. As a digital agency, you should be able to reassure your clients that you’ll be able to successfully provide them with an SEM suited for them.
Social Media
For a business to succeed on social media, they’ll need to have a thorough understanding of each platform they are using. Each social media network appeals to a different type of audience, so being able to reach out to the ones that hold the customers for a specific product is essential. According to Statista, over 3 billion people are using social media globally, which is an enormous audience for businesses to spread the word of their products and services. Social media marketing all comes down to increasing the brand’s awareness by sharing content and engaging with the customer.
A digital agency should be capable of coming up with suitable content that appeals to the demographic a client wants to target. They’ll also be capable of setting up targeting Facebook ads to appear in front of a specific demographic. Your agency should also be capable of providing an in-depth analysis of the client’s current social media standing, come up with enticing social media campaigns to attract sales, and monitor social media comments about the client’s business.
Email Outreach
Email outreaches are considered one of the oldest digital marketing strategies that are still utilized by every agency out there. This strategy is still considered one of the best possible ways for companies to generate leads, hence the reason why it remains in play. Managing an email contact list, email personalization, and targeting product offerings is a crucial process of email marketing. While this strategy may seem simple for most, in reality, it’s very time-consuming and complicated.
As a digital agency, you should have the necessary skills to handle every aspect of this service seamlessly. You should provide assistance in growing your client’s email list, come up with engaging campaigns that generate conversions, and come up with effective mailing campaigns.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
A well thought out pay-per-click campaign will have the potential to receive high ROI since you are pretty much paying directly or clicks instead of playing for advertising in an attempt to earn clicks. As a digital agency, you’ll want to ensure you can come up with the appropriate strategies that will inspire the right customers to click on your client’s ads. Your agency should be capable of investigating the keywords needed for the client’s market and choose the best keywords for their objectives. Researching for the correct audience and coming up with strategic campaigns to organize ad groups. Furthermore, they should be able to oversee the content writing, set up a landing page for the PPC ad, monitor the performance of adjusted bids to optimize strategy, and remarket to customers who have a history of engaging with the ads.
Online video campaign
Almost everyone is making videos on this day, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. With places like YouTube providing a way for people to upload videos to show off their wares and such, it’s no wonder it’s become a popular way to market a company. When a business wants to include a video for their product landing page, they’ll start seeing a conversion increase totaling around 80%. Digital agencies are capable of providing their clients assistance with this and help them tap into the benefits provided by this type of medium.
If you’re considering adding an online video service, then you should be capable of planning, creating, and producing new video content that also includes explainer videos. Optimization of videos for new platforms is also a must, along with tracking the traffic generated by video marketing. Your agency should also be utilizing hosting services that provide detailed analytics that allow you to see even the parts where the consumer stopped videos, skipped ahead, or rewatched. Your team should be aware of how to fully use this information to design future efforts and create meaningful customer experiences.
Re-targeting
Re-targeting allows a company to offer a second chance to those who have visited their website and left without making a purchase. A small line of code shall be implemented into the website that provides a cookie to be dropped onto the computer of each visitor of the client website. Every time a person decides to browse the web, that cookie will prompt the retargeting provider to display the ads. This is a great way to remind any prospective clients about the products or services your client is providing and attracting them back to the website when they’re reading to spend some cash.
Conclusion
Digital agencies play a crucial role when it comes to helping businesses boost their presence online. By being able to effectively provide your clients with these services, you’ll be building a solid reputation amongst your clients and spread awareness to your agency. Each of these varies from one of another, but they do play a crucial role when it comes to providing your client with ways for them to reach out to more prospective customers. Make sure the quality you offer is top-notch, and you’ll be surpassing your own set of competitors over time.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 17, 2020 | Advertising, Agency, Small Business
As the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc all over the world, countries have placed their nation under maximum alert, and are implementing all sorts of rules to deal with this epidemic. When it comes to dealing with a deadly virus such as this, the lives and safety of people take priority above everything else. Business and government agencies are all doing their best to encourage people to avoid causing crowds and hitting up their usual public venues.
With the virus still lingering around and potentially spreading onto others, consumers are remaining inside in hopes of minimizing this virus and protecting their family and themselves. The usual behavior exhibited by people is radically changing, with people not only enduring at home instead of going to work but restaurants, stores, and other public venues where they would typically visit for fun. With customers residing indoors and filling their time online, digital agencies have increasingly become a small business best way to remain relevant during this epidemic.
Now more than ever, digital agencies are aware that small businesses require some guidance and support. With plenty of them having lost clients over time due to many of their usual clients trying to save up on their business finances, they’ll have plenty of time and room to help your small business prosper during these trying times. Some digital agencies are even doing their part by providing deals for small business owners, so taking advantage of these offerings will help in the long run.
Digital agencies are experts at making sure small businesses can get their presence out there, and that’s why you should be aware of what these digital agencies can do to help small business owners during this dealing epidemic. Let’s go over several things, shall we?
Customers are currently online
At this very moment, plenty of your current and potential customers are spending a considerable amount of time online. They are browsing through social media platforms to stay up to date with the latest news and staying in touch with those closest to them. This is the perfect time to reach out to these customers since the number of people who would be interested in your products are all in one place for a long time. Chances are, these customers may even be searching for a business like yours, but they aren’t quickly finding it, and they are most likely ending up in the hands of the competition.
The business world has changed, and people are taking an interest in brands by finding them through the internet. Regardless of what your small business is selling, your potential customers will become curious about your brand, and the first move they’ll make is looking for you online and see what others have to say about your business.
Meaning, these customers are going to expect to find an online presence, such as a social media profile or website. They’ll be searching for reviews left by previous customers so they can learn what they have to say about your business and if it’s a quality place to conduct business.
If those customers are having a hard time finding information about your small business, they may decide to pass on your business for another instead. There’s a high probability that plenty of potential customers will not take your business seriously, making you lose out on potential revenue and brand awareness.
Digital agencies are filled with experts who are capable of helping small business owners spread the awareness of their brand. Whether you decide to spread your business locally or internationally, they can come up with the appropriate strategy to spread the word of your brand and ensure your online presence is available for both existing and potential customers.
Improve your business
Digital agencies have the appropriate skills required to take your business from top to bottom. Their accumulated expertise as marketers and advertisers allows them to evaluate a small business brand’s needs and come up with a strategy capable of maximizing profits. These experts will work alongside the business owner to improve efficiency and productivity, By onboarding them for assistance, you’ll be capable of defining your current objectives and setting goals that can ensure you survive during this epidemic.
Furthermore, the concentration on gathering data and targeting is necessary to define your target customers, which is usually more specific than what most businesses will have at the moment. Hiring a digital agency shall ensure you are aware of who your ideal buyers are and assess their purchasing journey. Once you’ve finally learned what your foremost target audience wants, you’ll have to consider what your messaging and benefits should be when contacting your potential customers. The selling proposition should be aligned with the buyer since that will help establish a connection with the people who are making purchases from your business.
Cost and effectiveness
Many people consider hiring a digital agency to be an expensive decision to make. That hasn’t been a fact for quite a long while, thanks to the massive expansion of the internet. While only some of the top companies were capable of affording these agencies, small business owners would need to stick to placing ads on their local newspaper to get the word out. Fortunately, with everyone jumping online and gathering on social media sites, spreading the word of your company has become simpler and more affordable. Digital agencies have expanded their customer base to even small businesses and have provided massive assistance to these owners in need of spreading awareness to their business.
Everyone is currently stuck online and trying their best to endure this current situation. With the amount of social media platforms available online, it has become somewhat difficult to spread your message to potential customers. In this day and age, small business owners can easily create a social media profile for their business and post whenever they want for free. Plenty of digital agencies have come up with the best strategies and methods that are openly available for small business owners to use if they manage to understand the information.
Although, while certain parts of spreading your small business online are quite easy to understand and implement yourself, there is still a handful of challenging ones. That’s why, for a much thorough job, getting a digital agency to help you out is a smart move. Even though you’ll be spending money during these trying times, the cost-per-lead will be much cheaper than any other method of marketing your business. Plus, the return in your investment will be completely worth it once the epidemic has started to slow down, and our way of life normalizes.
Adjust your strategy
Tons of situations have occurred because of a direct or indirect influence of the coronavirus. With people being encouraged to follow the steps provided by the CDC to ensure the spread of the virus does not occur, there has been a shortage of certain supplies, such as hand sanitizer and other similar products. Tons of work culture is being temporarily restricted as businesses rise to deploy mandatory work from home policies, and travel and tourism are being completely halted because of temporary travel bans being placed due to massive causes of the virus.
Far too many things have changed, leading to many people becoming stressed out. However, the best thing anyone can do as a small business owner is to search for ways to move on forward and soothe the nerves of customers as best we can by having clear and concise messaging about the situation.
Trying to make sure the ads are up-to-date is crucial at the moment. If the business is providing an essential item that is currently popular and flying off the shelves, small business owners will need to ensure they are not advertising products that have run out of stock. The risk of showing any ads for a product that is no longer in stock will lead to an adverse reaction for a long time.
Digital agencies are capable of providing ways for you to adjust your current strategy if need be. While you may have been savvy enough to set up your own campaign to spread the word of your small business, chances are some of those strategies are working in this current epidemic troubling us all. Not every company can smoothly transition over the way they are promoting their business, either because they naturally don’t have the appropriate knowledge to do so, aren’t sure how to implement it, or merely don’t have the time to do so.
Regardless of the reason, digital agencies can assist during these trying times and come up with ways of adjusting your current strategy. They’ll inform you of everything you need to know and what you can do to ensure your business continues to not only retain current customers but acquire new ones in the long run.
For example, let’s say you are running a mildly successful pizzeria that was doing quite well before this deadly virus ruined everyone’s year. Trying to get the word out that you are still running your place can be accessible by just making a post on Facebook. But, how do you assure your customers that you are doing everything you can to make sure the pizza doesn’t become tainted by the virus, What kind of measures is your business taking to ensure the customer doesn’t have to open their doors like usual during the delivery process?
While it may be simple to get it out there on your social media platform, you’ll want to make sure the message is clear. This can be quite a trick to pull off with how nervous people are of contracting this virus and potentially spreading it throughout their family members. Fortunately, digital agencies are experts at crafting the appropriate message and ensuring you manage to spread it effectively.
Increase ROI
One of the most necessary services a digital agency can provide a small business owner is a steady and reliable improvement in their return on investment (ROI). The higher an ROI is, the more profit the small business will be gaining. Making it a wholly justifiable reason to hire a digital agency, especially when getting enough money to keep your business running and playing your employees.
Some of the best digital agencies out there will always test out and rework their strategies to ensure your ROI manages to increase and improve the overall efficacy. The agency you hire will take a close look at your website traffic, determine the best online platforms that should be your business’s main center, and continually maintain the balance between the marketing activities and the results that are collected.
While it’s true that some of this can be solely done by you, take the time to consider what kind of people are hired by digital agencies. All sorts of experts on marketing strategies, managers, designers, and so on are brought on to work in these agencies. Hiring these agencies to assist your business will save you time and money during the long run. They’ll handle all of the heavy stuff while you concentrate on providing your customers with the necessary products they require during this current epidemic.
Conclusion
This deadly virus has managed to have a negative impact on every aspect of our communities, and ensuring you can provide your customers with safety should be your priority. Many businesses are being affected by this virus, and staying up to date with current events is crucial to maintain your operation fully functional. Digital agencies will be capable of handling your online presence and make sure your customers are aware of what your business is currently providing for them. This should allow you to focus on running your business throughout the day and ensure your staff and customers are in good health.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 17, 2020 | Advertising, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Marketing, Small Business
The idea of losing out on some of your most important clients can make even the best digital marketing agencies worry. Customer retention strategies aren’t something you should only begin implementing into your business as you start noticing clients dropping off. Being proactive is the best way you can ensure you manage to keep your customers from leaving you and potentially falling in the hand of another agency.
Keeping your customers is a crucial part of your agency’s capability to maintain success and has a positive effect on your budget. That’s why customer retention strategies have become a crucial part of almost every business. For this article, we’ll go over several ways strategies that can help digital marketing agencies retain their customers.
Positive first impressions
One of the most effective ways you can retain your customers is by creating a positive and unforgettable impression. When you’ve managed to make a positive impression on your client at the start, you’ll have a higher chance of dealing with them in marketing collaborations in the future. This type of engagement shall lead to your digital marketing agency receiving more sales and revenue.
There are several ways you can secure a positive first impression.
First of all, you can send your client a welcome email that can encourage any new customers to sign up for future email updates. When using this strategy, consider making an additional effort to greet the new customers by creating unforgettable first impressions. Make sure you manage to pull off a friendly tone when speaking to potential new customers. Your clients may walk into your building or chat with one of your representatives on social media. These potential clients must be greeted in a positive and friendly manner so they won’t be turned off from wanting to acquire your services.
You should always keep in mind to create content that is intended for your target audience. By coming up with personalized and targeted content, you’ll be able to develop a lasting relationship with your clients.
Remember, if your potential customers’ first experience with your agency doesn’t manage to go well, it can have a massive impact on them. While it’s possible for your company to make amends, it will take time and effort to accomplish this.
Choose your clients carefully
When you’re out looking for new clients to onboard, it can be difficult to turn them down, but there comes a time when this becomes necessary. There are a variety of reasons why you should be picking when choosing what you decide to conduct your business with. Having to deal with problematic clients will take a huge chunk of your team’s day in order to solve the issue they are complaining about. Furthermore, there is a chance that the client will make such a huge stink about the situation that your reputation can be damaged, even if there is nothing you can really do to satisfy the client.
The best thing you can do is let them go instead of wasting time delivering work and services that won’t satisfy them until they decide to go away on their own terms. This approach will only fuel the fire and lead to your reputation from being further damaged in the long run. Chances are, you’ll be eventually spending more time seeking out for new clients in the market instead of concentrating on keeping an existing client satisfied.
Clients are the lifeblood of your business and ensure that you can keep your business running, so you’ll need to keep the majority of your clients. If you manage to select the appropriate people from the start of your acquisition stage and say no to clients who won’t fit well with your agency, then you should be capable of keeping most of your existing customers.
Be aware of their business goals
It’s pretty much improbable to deliver any fantastic results to your clients if you are not aware of what they wish to achieve with their business. You’ll need to take the time to understand the ins and outs of their offer, along with getting an in-depth assessment of what their main objectives will be. While utilizing KPIs has always been an integral piece for digital marketing, they won’t really mean too much if your client isn’t fully aware of how this manages to affect their business.
By taking the time to assist your client and making it clear on how your agency’s marketing efforts in helping them achieve their business goals will ensure their trust in your agency increases. Plus, it will make it easier for them to remain as one of your many customers for a long time.
To pull this off, you want to ask them the appropriate question to start the meeting in a positive direction. Consider coming up with some questions you can ask during the meeting with your client to better understand them, which should allow you to collect valuable information to help align your strategy to your client’s goals.
Some questions you can consider asking them are:
- What is your company’s best selling product/service?
- Who are you trying to target?
- Who do you consider your main competitors and what sets your business apart from theirs?
- What’s the value of your customers to your company?
Coming up with questions that will be relevant to their interest in advance will ensure the meeting runs smoothly and make sure you are capable of managing the first couple of months of handling your relationship with the new client.
Temper your expectation
Being able to deliver more value than you initially promised is considered another fantastic way to retain your existing clients. Take the pricing you offered into consideration before you manage to make any concrete promises on what you’ll be presenting to them. You don’t want to overextend yourself on promises and not deliver them at the end of the day. This will lead to you being placed in a negative light in the long run. Don’t make any promises you won’t be able to keep, instead try to deliver on what you’ve already promised so you can retain more clients.
By over-delivering on your promises, you’ll likely have the client tripping over their own feet and renewing their contract once again. And, let’s not forget the possibility of them spreading the word about the astounding work you’ve managed to provide for them.
Report monthly to show the value
While you may be increasing sales for your client, that doesn’t mean that they are automatically attributing the results due to your efforts. Coming up with a monthly statement may seem like a hassle, and your client may only skim through it instead of fully absorbing it, but solely receiving the report and being aware of your ongoing progress and accountability will make the client very happy with your agency.
The moment your client sees that monthly report inside their inbox during a specified date every month, they’ll become quite thrilled to see what the agency has managed to accomplish for them over the past several weeks. The report should be delivered consistently, without the client requiring to ask for the report.
Developing your own report all comes down to the type of service you are offering them, but it should be a smooth, branded reporting template that should be easy for your team to include pie charts and slide graphs inside. For instance, if your digital marketing agency is in the inbound market, the reporting should highlight the content you’ve developed that month, traffic, and other relevant stats, along with the number of leads every single one of these activities has managed to provide for your client.
Communication efforts
When you are staying in touch with your client every step of the way, it will develop trust and increase the possibility of them renewing their contract with you. Some agencies tend to make the mistake of only communicating with their clients when there is some progress or for an update on what’s currently happening, but this is a fatal mistake. You should be communicating with them at all times, even when you don’t have much to say to them.
Your client will become nervous if they aren’t being told about what’s going on and start to assume that the agency they hired isn’t pulling their end of the bargain. You can either call them or email them during the start of the week to let them be aware of what the tea is currently working on and what they’re attempting to accomplish. At the end of the week, send them another message telling them what the team has done, and if they are currently ahead of or behind schedule, or if they need confirmation from the client to proceed.
If something has gone wrong on your end, don’t try to hide it from your client. You should be reporting even the bad news to them. Client retention doesn’t mean you should roll over for your client, there are moments when you’ll have to inform the client something they won’t like to hear, so don’t hesitate to do so. Most of them would prefer to be told about the bad news than going a long while without any updates.
You should also take the time to consider how your client would like to stay in communicating with your agency. While some agencies would prefer to place everything in a single email, chances are, your client may be the type of person who has trouble managing their email because they receive so many each day. If that is the case for any future clients you acquire, then you’ll have to come up with alternative means of communication. Consider using other communication platforms such as Slack, Skye, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, text messaging, or any other way you can get in contact with them, as long as the method works for both parties.
Personal touch
When you are hiring an account manager, make sure you place a higher priority on seeking out people who are likable and empathetic instead of getting someone who is overly organized and far too serious about marketing. While having a skilled account manager is essential for the success of your business, you want to make sure they are a people person at foremost. Account managers hold a critical role they must play in customer retention, and including a personal touch to their approach will make a whole lot of difference.
Your account manager should be empowered and motivated to surprise their clients regularly, by either sending them a birthday gift, or holiday gift, taking them out to lunch, or solely getting touch with them over the phone to check in and offer any advice they may currently need. There are a variety of ways you can include a personal touch to your customer interaction with your agency.
This all comes down to reciprocity, which is something that occurs naturally to most people. If someone does something helpful for you, there is a chance you’ll return that favor and do something kind for them. This is one of the main reasons why personal touches will have a massive impact on your customer retention rate.
Conclusion
Customer retention is the key for any business to succeed out there no matter what industry they may be involved in, and that’s especially true for digital marketing agencies. We rely on our customers to approach us and allow us to provide them with the assistance they need to take their business to a whole new level.
To pull this off, you’ll need to make sure you are not only providing them with the work you’ve promised, but ensure you stay in touch with them, letting them know your team is doing everything they can to meet their business objectives. If your client is satisfied with the work you’ve done, then they’ll most likely recontract you on the spot. Hopefully, this article has managed to give you ideas on how to improve your customer retention strategy.
by Brooke Jensen | Apr 13, 2020 | Advertising, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Small Business
The deadly virus known as the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 has managed to affect the world in all sorts of ways, from social interactions, public health, and especially the economy. These uncertain times have become worrisome for most people, especially small business owners who are unsure if they’ll be able to maintain their business from running due to this epidemic. Small business owners will need to deal with the sudden change to their campaign performance because of this ongoing situation.
This worldwide epidemic has shifted the way advertising has been running in the past few weeks. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising has seen an influx in recent months, and many people have predicted that Facebook and Instagram will be seeing a downturn in certain areas. With businesses having to adjust their approach, people staying inside their homes more, and the world reacting to this deadly virus, many of them are turning to the news for the answers to their questions and solutions for their current problems.
Quite a few advertisers are already benefiting from the recent increase in new audiences who are finding their way to advertisers sites, and some are even being converted into new customers. On the other hand, the results aren’t exactly stellar, and several strategies will need to be modified. Indeed, now is the best time for most small businesses to continue their advertising campaigns, and many experts have agreed. Let’s go over what’s currently happening with the Facebook and Instagram ad industry.
Online activity is at an all-time high
With the majority of businesses that aren’t considered essentials closed, and most people are remaining inside the comforts of their homes to lessen the chance of spreading the deadly virus, social media engagement has increased to all new highest.
Since most people aren’t going to their favorite hangout spots or engage in various outdoor activities, they are using Facebook and Instagram much more often to stay in touch with one another. This means that the number of impressions is also on the rise, and the probability of your ads reaching out to your target audience is also increasing by the numbers. This means that small businesses will witness an overall decrease in operating costs for their advertising campaigns.
Facebook has seen quite a significant rise in numbers of the past couple of weeks. According to them, they’ve seen several numbers go up, such as:
- The rise of 70% of it’s Messenger group video calls, and their usual demand for video calls on WhatsApp has gone up by double the usual amount.
- The amount of messaging has gone up by more than 50% for both Messenger and WhatsApp.
- U.S. traffic from Facebook to other websites has generally increased by more than 50% on a daily basis.
The increase in activity has yet caused any problems for Facebook’s capability to deal with traffic, but Mark Zuckerberg has commented during a press call that the company is getting ready to respond if they see a spike in traffic surge even further.
“We’re trying to make sure that we can stay in front of this challenge,” he said. “Right now, this isn’t a massive outbreak in every country around the world but if it gets there, then we really need to make sure we’re on top of this from an infrastructure perspective and make sure that we can continue to provide the level of service that people need in a time like this.”
This is excellent news for many small business owners who are currently running advertising campaigns. However, this doesn’t mean we are encouraging everyone to start testing out any new initiatives during this time unless you’re capable of doing so while running your campaign for the next couple of months since you’ll be positioning yourself in a more favorable position for attention.
In the case of Instagram, this social media platform was hit the hardest compared to Facebook. Instagram saw a 14% decrease in engagement rate by followers as the coronavirus epidemic continued to progress. The reason behind this decline would have to do with the number of people using other mediums to receive their news or remain connected with friends and family members, such as Facebook, Another thing worth mentioning is that Instagrams engagement rate has been on a downward spiral as of late, suggesting that this platforms engagement rate will continue to decline compared to Facebooks.
The Competition
Whenever a disruption occurs to the average business day, the usual reaction for most small businesses is to pause their advertising campaigns, with the idea to restart them once the situation has concluded. While some would consider this a smart move, if you still have the finances to do so, it would be a much better move to continue running your ad campaign during this ongoing epidemic.
Since your competitors are most likely out of the competition for the moment, your shared customer base will be ripe for the picking. As a bonus, since you share the audience lower, you’ll eventually start noticing a decline in operating costs as well, hence making your expenditure more effective.
According to analysts, they are predicting that Facebook’s ad revenue shall see a 19% decline during this year because of the current situation, totaling around $15.7 in loss of profits. This indicates that a large chunk of your competitions won’t be getting in the way of any of the advertising campaigns you run during these trying times.
In a recent blog post on Facebook done by the executives of the social media platform, they disclosed that the company has “seen a weakening in our ads business in countries taking aggressive actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19.” While the platforms total usage has managed to increase during this epidemic, with message rates going up during the past month in countries that were hit the hardest by this deadly virus, although “We don’t monetize many of the services where we’re seeing increased engagement,” Facebook’s Alex Schultz, VP of analytics, and Jay Parikh, VP of engineering wrote.
Instagram has also witnessed a decline, as previously mentioned, but that doesn’t mean the decline in audience engagement won’t remain effective. Plenty of people are still using Instagram to post their news and any other things that can help them make it through these trying times. They even ran a hashtag campaign called Stay At Home to encourage their users to remain home and receive the latest news from the people they follow and use the hashtag in the meantime. This offers an excellent opportunity to share information about your business’s brand and advertise your products/services when they search the Stay At Home tag.
Instagram has also recently monetized its IGTV, although this monetization option is only being made available to specific channels during the beginning of the month. In-stream advertising shall begin running near the top of the most popular video creators content. According to a report done by Bloomberg, the creators of those programs shall receive over 55% share in the advertising profit on IGTV, which is considered the same rate that YouTube pays out to their content creators.
At the moment, IGTV is slowly growing in popularity, and the capability for creators and influencers to monetize on the platform is crucial for its rise in popularity. This will attract more creators and make them consider spending more time on the platform while trying to onboard their user base to this platform. Since they are already fully capable of generating revenue on both YouTube and Facebook, this evens out the playing field and offers Instagram the chance to compete against these two platforms.
With IGTV allowing advertisers to run their campaigns on the channels of the content creators will allow you to gain an edge on your advertising. Small business owners can have their ad campaigns run on these channels while people search through the various content, providing a chance for them to stumble upon the ad and clicking on them to see what it’s all about.
Another neat feature that is being published is the capability for Instagram users to stay up to date with the latest posts. Since users aren’t exactly the greatest fans when it comes to dealing with social media algorithms that show content out of order, even if it means they are seeing posts that end up being currently relevant to them. Small businesses aren’t fans of this as well, especially if it means their content is missed out by not being on top of a user’s feeds. Instagram plans to deal with this by adding a feature that’s known as the “latest post” feature, which should allow users to remain up to date. This is a feature that will be displayed over a user’s main feed alerting them that a new post was made and allow them the opportunity to catch up with the content.
Keep Posting
As a small business, you’ll need to ensure your brand remains active to gain new audience members and increase engagement rates. Studies have revealed that people should consistently post only 1 or 2 times a day. This will ensure your feed remains fresh and relevant since you have an even higher chance of attracting a higher audience amount to your daily content. Being aware of what hours are the best moments to publish a post on your account is crucial, especially when you are dealing with the platform’s algorithmic timeline.
The recommended time you should post your content has varied amongst experts, with most agreeing to different hours. Some of them have stated that the best time to make a post is between the hours of 8 am to 9 am or 2 pm to 5 pm for the first post of the day. This type of inconsistency can cause confusion to occur amongst the audience and yourself.
In truth, every business will have to experiment what times they see the most views on their page since one strategy that works for a clothing brand, may not work for a service provider. To find out what suits your daily posts best, you should make it a habit to check in on the insights feature that is available under the Instagram Business or creator account. This should be capable of providing you with the information you need to identify the peak hour your audience is most active and allow you to schedule accordingly, ensuring your post starts to appear on top of their feed daily.
This is fantastic news for small businesses that are struggling to engage with their customers on Instagram and are struggling to have their content appear towards the top of the user’s feed. If Instagram decides to roll it out soon enough, it can become a crucial part of your advertising at peak posting times. This additional bump in visibility will allow small businesses to create engaging posts, which then allows them to bump in the algorithm at a later date well.
Don’t make fearful posts
Unfortunately, some people have been trying to capitalize on this current epidemic by making ads that prey on the fears of the people. Facebook has already forbidden ads which are attempting to profit on people’s concerns over the coronavirus, and they are planning to expand that to target any adverts and commerce listings on a face mask because of large profiteering pushers, and Facebook plans to extend this coronavirus ad restriction further by including all listings on hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes, and test kits.
Instagram has also gotten involved in the banning of these types of ads on its platform. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri provided some additional context for the decision through a twitter post:
“Supplies are short, prices are up, and we’re against people exploiting this public health emergency.”
Conclusion
Facebook and Instagram are both witnessing a surge in people engaging on their platform. This has given small businesses an excellent opportunity to ensure they can get the word of their brand out there. But you should still take the time to consider your strategy and what you can do to adjust your advertising campaign accordingly. Right now, the iron is hot, and this may be the only chance you have to strike it.
