The Approach of a Full Service Marketing Agency
Everyone knows what a full service marketing agency does right? Wrong.
Although the goal of our blog for 2018 is to better serve our marketing neighbor's in Boise, Idaho, we feel that it is pertinent to discuss what techniques are applicable to a full service marketing agency, today.
There are many factors that lead to creating successful client campaigns and we want to shed some light on them to better create a knowledge base for Treasure Valley marketers and client.
Focusing on Client Goals
Wherever you go (aside from the wilderness) marketing is everywhere. It has become the language that our world revolves around. But brands have to find ways to stick out, get noticed, and earn returning customers.
To begin a successful campaign many things have to be addressed. This leads us to goal setting:
What's the web presence like? To develop a better user experience we require more functionality than a client's competitor. This doesn't mean creating loaded websites that take aeons to load sleek graphics and fancy menu screens.
We needed to define the goals of the site and make it easy to access. Usability is incredibly important and helps get the message across: read more about our definitions of usability for the local brand here.
As many local agencies focus on branding, design and content marketing, we additionally need to make sure that a holistic approach is taken.
What is an ad agency?
In this niche, agency means many things, be it creative content-development, digital marketing, media buying, search engine marketing, social media monitoring, design and production services.
This is a huge umbrella of tasks.
A digital marketing agency that specializes in web development & digital advertising works continually to understand the latest marketing processes, not just “branding & advertising”.
We empathize with clients who spend years cultivating a brand, It just needs to be well known in your community. A marketing agency will help clients know when to consider re-branding.
To remain relevant in an ever-changing landscape, sometimes an update is needed. That's where the know-how of marketing processes is important. As we recently wrote, local search has a huge impact on your success. For instance, updating and creating local citations can help your search engines ranking immensely.
Types of advertising agencies:
Full service Agencies: This could be a small team (like the creatives at Off The Vine) or even big enough to fill a floor of a New York Skyscraper.
Interactive Agencies: An agency offering one or a mix of: Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.
Creative Boutiques. Very creative and innovative ads
Media Buying Agencies. Buys spots for advertising and sells it to the advertisers.
How do ad agencies work?
Advertising Agencies Have Clients: The usual way an agency gets work is through a pitch. A pitch is an audition, with the client giving a brief to a number of advertising agencies, and choosing the one that best resolves the brief.
However, some ad agencies will take the pitch a step further and create a full fledge campaign brief that documents the ways to earning client wins.
Agencies and clients share victories. This is why agencies implement a variety of software to track important analytics for clients. We want to see traffic going to your site, people clicking on your ads, and purchasing your products.
Agencies have to stay nimble and innovative, as Google, the market and even the world changes daily. I don't think the guys on Mad Men would be particularly successful in todays world. Agencies should value transparency and provide data that is teachable and honest. The client shouldn't feel that the processes of their agency is a strange kind of voodoo.
Are We Marketing To Millennial's Yet?
Who's the target audience?
These are sort of redundant questions in the grand scheme of things.
Understanding a brand strategy is a marketing agencies forte. This means understanding the wants and needs of the audience, but can play into a larger scope. Expanding the marketing funnel is the work of an agency. It means creating visibility above all else.
Whether you're delivering a quick experience on-site for millennials or ease of access with the elderly. It's all one in the same.
These are all possible customers, and while it takes some forethought into who they are and what they want, it is rarely successful to single out users and cater entirely to one demographic.
How to Expand Your Audience
These days brands are able to expand across a vast terrain of social media platforms. Let's discuss how to leverage these sites and access their users without being a twitter wizard, or a snapchat legend.
Youtube Marketing
YouTube is constantly changing and growing with some 3 billion hours of content thus far. Like every Google property, the search algorithm is always evolving, standards increasing, and usability held high.
Content ads stay one step ahead of those who would use the algorithm to game the system for "potentially massive gains in unearned advertising revenue".
Digital advertising used to seem like a West World version of the Wild West. but today brands have to uphold a sense of decency, and it's pretty important that their representation (us, the ad agency) stay true to that.
Youtube, Vimeo, and the like all have their place in your successful campaign. Understanding what makes a brand work on these platform is why you go to an ad agency. Here's a slew of items to consider:
Camera Technology In Marketing
There's VR interfaces, 360 degree videos, and more drone videos than you can count in 2018. These kinds of videos show up on all the major social media channels and in Facebook groups and all the latest industry news.
Marketers can leverage these kinds of tech to create useful content, answer questions and give suggestions for their communities. It is hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t crossed paths with these kinds of content out there in cyber-land.
This means that today ad agencies are more relevant than ever when it comes to creating media for platforms like Facebook and Instagram and not limited to Youtube or Vimeo.
Understanding the social contract between platform and content creators is fundamental for your campaigns success. Unlike traditional agencies, a full service agency makes it their duty to produce quality content and uphold high-end production capabilities. nowadays we have famous vloggers with niche followings who simply record on their iPhone, while others have high-quality cameras and editing equipment to produce top-tier content, on top of employing an entire staff.
As stated before, within the YouTube platform there is value in producing content of quality instead of simply phoning it in.
Demographic still matters across these platforms, but that's where media buying happens. It means getting your ads in front of people with similar interests. Luckily, as the YouTube algorithm continues to change, it becomes easier and easier to advertise to your demographic.
Here's Off The Vine Productions on set.
Facebook For Ad Agencies
Speaking of easy places to buy ad space. Facebook is a cheaper tool for advertising to your following, surprisingly. Boosting posts is quite easy and effective.
Facebook’s algorithm changes all the time. Anyone who has used the site for a few years has probably noticed that Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, which is referred to as EdgeRank is always changing the way it functions for better or for worse.
The factors that makes you rank are too complex to start listing out. But there are certain things to consider when developing content that you want displayed to your demographic:
Does it make sense: Are your ads confusing or convincing?
How to market to existing clients: Are you sending redundant messages to return clientele?
Crafting a content marketing strategy: Is the content helpful or intriguing?
Identifying and tracking goals: Is the success of your ad campaign trackable?
At one time Facebook valued all types of users profiles, all kinds of posts, and all groups/community pages equally. As many tried to game the system the algorithm was changed. Now Facebook looks for high quality news, and most likely factors in trending news, to decide what's relevant.
Kind of eerie. However, it means that marketers have to make business look alive to reach their target audience. No longer can you sit back and post nonsense (or not at all) on a clients Facebook feed. Facebook (And Google for that matter) wants to make sure that business are actively involved in their community, to determine that they aren't suddenly or permanently closed.
as more and more consumers, the growing number of smart phones is a huge indicator, make internet research part of their shopping experience. Building a website, or social media presence, or an entire brand, has become an art. If these factors look unappealing or say a site doesn’t work properly for tablet or mobile, the consumer will go elsewhere. Quickly.
"The web is no longer like the Wild West. Creating quality content disseminating it correctly is what counts."
Have a Focused Strategy
Marketing is a mixed bag. While it can be important to generate content and post on social media. It can all be done for no benefit if there aren't actual goals involved. Becoming active in the community is a must. Shoutout to local Boise business, Bittercreek, who always has great community events happening and engages with their audience constantly. They know their niche and how to engage clientele. Getting people out to events is very difficult, but hats off to them for knowing how to perform!
It's important to find topics about what your business doesn't and weigh in. Reddit is great platform for this because you can easily search threads and find people discussing certain topics.
If I were going to develop a reddit strategy, I'd plan out what categories my business needed to garner attention in. What's my audience reading? What am I reading in relation to my business?
Next I'd monitor reddit for mentions of clients brand (if applicable), niche, and related keywords. Utilize TrackReddit.com to track keywords related to those items. Tracking keywords will help us identify opportunities to engage redditors and contribute value to the community.
We might also find critiques or negative discussion of a brand. This is paramount to understanding what differences we can make in the brand and how to affect some change!
Now that you are listening and acknowledging your audience on various platforms, make yourself accessible to your customers. Make your presence known!
Don’t let bad reviews sit on your page for days on end. get out there and respond quickly and use some tact. After all, this is a brand you've worked to perfect so treat it and the community with respect!
We hope that these small actions will help you understand what is going to make 2018 in the Treasure Valley so different and exciting.
Speaking of 2018 in the Treasure Valley, the Idaho Ad Agencies site is a great place for local agency news and has made us aware of the Idaho Advertising Federation, and the IAF Silver metal award that goes out to an individual who is making contributions to advertising by advancing the industry’s standards right here in Idaho, by demonstrating creative excellence, and promoting social welfare. They're accepting nominations now.
Small business in Boise has a set of hurdles ahead but taking the steps to build a strong brand and a stronger community is a challenge we should all take part in!
Are you a local marketer? We'd love to hear about your past wins and verticals you foresee for the next year. Reach out in the comments or on Facebook.
