Digital Marketing

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 50 ● Cost Per Click – This calculates the price that it has to be paid to Google if one plans to advertise with the said platform. 4. Google Keyword Planner This research tool helps businesses gauge the most effective way to gain more traffic from Google. It provides additional keywords in relation to a certain topic and can track the number of times the said keywords appear on search engines. Aside from new keywords, which are great for search engine optimization or SEO, the tool can also suggest topics for blogs. Some of the useful key features are: ● Target Options – This is used to show search volume and search trends at a certain geographic location, and that includes the country, state, province or city. Moreover, it allows business owners to choose a different language, especially if they are targeting a non-English speaking country. Furthermore, one has the option to request for keywords from external search engines. ● Date Range – This allows the choosing of a specific date range for relevant keywords that only normally have high rankings on special occasions. This Google Keyword Planner’s feature is beneficial to those who are planning for seasonal campaign on certain events –

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 51 Christmas, Valentines Day, Children’s Day and June weddings, to name a few. ● Search Filter – This includes a Negative Keyword feature in which one can add a word to their campaign and this action will hide the said campaign for searches that contain the same word. Other features included in Search Filter are Keywords to Include, which is the opposite of Negative Feature, Keyword Options which enables one to choose one or all of these four options: Only show ideas closely related to my search terms, Show keywords in my account, Show keywords in my plan, Show adult ideas. ● Search Volume Data and Trends – This shows the statistical data of existing keywords. ● Keyword Multiplier – This enables entrepreneurs to combine two to three keywords by combining service and location. After clicking “get forecast” or “get search volume”, it will provide the historical data that is being asked. 5. Hootsuite It is a Social Media Management System that tracks and manages social network channels, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, WordPress blogs, Vimeo, Tumblr, Flicker, Mailchimp and Slideshare. Here are the main features of this platform: ● Scheduling to automatically schedule posts across all social media channels.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 52 ● Content Curation to discover impressive contents to be shared, instantly post contents from any webpage, appoint individuals to check content quality. ● Promote to increase brand visibility to target users through paid advertisement. ● Analytics to have a visual data of the performance of one’s team and posts. ● Monitoring to uncover conversations about a specific brand and its competitors by keyword or location. ● Team Management to authorize team members to access social accounts with the absence of passwords, limit employees access, assign tasks to each department, monitor all social media messages in one place. ● Security to receive immediate alerts regarding suspicious activities on one’s social media account. ● Apps and Integrations to discover new business and marketing tools. 6. Active Campaign It is used to handle email marketing, marketing automation, messaging, customer relationship management (CRM) and sales automation that gives the possibility for a brand owner to maintain relations with their core audience. It gathers data for customized messaging and it has other various useful features that are provided below: ● Email Marketing to create and personalize email designs, send bulk emails, preview email, check spam, monitor delivery, validate links, and organize automated nurturing emails.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 53 ● Online Marketing to customize landing pages and emails for intended audience, develop customized landing pages, support mobile-optimized emails and forms, to monitor efficacy of keywords, links, search rankings, and to integrate with Google AdWords. ● Lead Management to record marketing asset, leads, contacts, marketing interactions, web visits, and email clicks, ensure data quality, builds list of target audience, track emails and websites opened by audience and their comments on social media and keywords they use, and sync lead and contacts. ● Sales to capture customers’ contact information, sales team and customers’ engagement, and track primary audience’s location. ● Social to schedule automated posts and add social share buttons. ● Service to provide live chat support. ● Reporting and Analytics to give insight regarding web analytics, ROI analytics, revenue analytics, and SEO/keyword analytics. ● Platform to allow changes and tests regarding CRM deployment and create templates. 7. Design Wizard This tool offers the possibility for businesses to create high quality designs for social media ads, invitations, marketing campaigns, business cards and a lot more as it has well designed pre-made templates to achieve incredible results in a timely manner.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 54 It is easy to navigate; thus, even those who lack design experience can use it without much difficulty. It has many features that designers love, such as: ● Thousands of professionally designed templates ● More than one million premium images ● Free image storage ● Free Buffer and Hubspot integration ● Easily upload own images, logos, and fonts ● Image resizing ● Custom color palette 8. ClickFunnels The main function of this tool is to capture email addresses, sell products, and convert free customers into paying customers. It has pre-installed funnel options intended for different products or services. Users may also have the option to create a professional design for their website and marketing funnels for customer engagement and conversions. The main features of the tool are: ● Custom Domain – This makes it possible to add a new custom domain for one to connect their external domain that can be used for all of his funnels. ● Membership Funnel – This fortifies security when accessing one’s content.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 55 ● Order Pages – This allows one to include different payment methods for customer orders. ● Sales Funnel – This converts prospective visitors into buyers. ● Share Funnel – This duplicates an entire funnel from another account. ● Upsell Pages – This enables one to offer additional products or services to customers. ● Webinar Funnels – This is used for attracting a business’ target audience to attend webinars. 9. Basecamp Being immersed in growing one’s business presents the tendency for one to be loaded with countless tasks and activities to ensure the growth of their company. There is a possibility that projects and ideas could be saved everywhere, making it difficult to retrieve important files when necessary. With Basecamp, the scenario can be prevented because Basecamp enables one to collate all documents, organize staff delegations, meetings, projects and other activities and keeps all important documents in one place. Basecamp has many useful tools that also give updates to team members, and these are:

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 56 ● Calendar – This is for creating a schedule for events, meetings, changes and upcoming projects for members to be notified. ● Check-in Questions – This is for asking questions anytime, and comments are arranged in one place. ● Client Access – This is for collaborating with clients in one site. Messages and emails can be sent to clients and those conversations can be kept private. ● Direct Messages – This is for having a private conversation with one person or a small number of members. ● Discussion Board – This is for customizing and sending of messages or posts with images or files to staff members. ● Email Forwards – This is for discussing forwarded emails and sending replies to senders. ● Group Chat – This is for communicating with team members in which responses are received immediately. ● Hill Charts – This is for monitoring updates and long-term progress. ● Notifications – This is for disabling notifications momentarily and scheduling email notification time. ● Reports – This is for supervising tasks that are delayed and have been completed. ● Search – This is for searching keywords, people, images and files. ● Storage – This is for uploading documents and files. ● Task Manager – This is for assigning tasks to members of the team.

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DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 58 5 Key Reasons Why Digital Marketing is Important for Startups Online presence entails the visibility of brands, businesses, or products and services on search engines. It makes it easier for potential clients to discover how to deal with a business’ representatives without difficulty. Online presence for businesses is not entirely limited to just being easily searchable or visible on the internet. Indeed, topping the search results on search engines can do wonders to a business’ audience reach. But for a business to truly thrive using digital marketing, ranking high on search engines once or twice is not sufficient. In this fast-paced and competitive industry, internet presence is considered to be the new “face” of every business.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 59 As such the initial goal of every business owner when creating a website or social media page is to gauge the audience’s attention. When clients come across the business’ website, they should see and feel the “wow” factor, or see what makes the brand stand out from its competitors. Leaving a good first impression helps leave a vivid perception or image of what a business does in the minds of every customer. A good first impression likewise has a ripple effect on customer instinct and preference. It will boost a business’ competence in such a way that customers will assume the business can provide the best products and services in the market. When customers like what they see in a business’ website or social media page, there is a higher possibility of conversion. What has been discussed above is a general overview of what an internet presence is in a nutshell and how crucial it is to businesses in the present-day market. Startup owners who are new to the world of digital marketing may pause and think, “What’s in it for me?” It is essential to dig deeper into the role and benefits of digital marketing in order to have a better understanding of it. Digital marketing highly benefits startups at present, and the following are the 5 main reasons why: 1. Startups Have Access to Free Advertising

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 60 In the digital arena, there is no need for startups to depend on traditional advertising in the form of TV, newspaper or billboard ads. Traditional forms of advertisement are known to cost millions. Meanwhile, by simply utilizing marketing resources that are readily available on the internet such as social media, startups will have the capability to advertise their products and services without spending a cent. As a matter of fact, even if a startup is only handled by a single individual, they can already get started with shaping the startup’s online branding goals. Effort paired with commitment and a clearly defined set of objectives are the key ingredients necessary to make products and services widely known to the target audience. 2. Startups Lead Free Customers to Conversion Conversion Marketing or Conversion is a term that refers to converting a customer whose first intention is to browse products and services without any plans of becoming a paying customer. There are various tools that are effective in ensuring maximum conversion, but there are a few that exceed expectations. These are: ● Content Marketing ● Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ● Social Media Marketing ● Email Marketing 3. Startups Build a Closer Relationship with Customers

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 61 Many appreciate a business that genuinely cares for the needs and wants of their customers. One simple way that a business can make their customers feel valued is through providing fast responses and accurate accurate information. Both should be executed simultaneously as customers become immediately dissatisfied if a business’ customer service is not responsive enough and if there is an incorrect piece of information given to the customer. An improved relationship with customers can increase customer experience and retention; consequently building and strengthening trust and loyalty. When this is achieved, it opens the perfect timing for businesses to upsell products and services. 4. Startups Get Consistent Return of Investment (ROI) Return of Investment is simply the profit gained minus costs. With the right strategy, it is possible for startups to survive in the digital world moving forward. Continuous efforts to generate a steady flow of traffic will undoubtedly help businesses gain higher ROI in the long run. The continuous flow of traffic will eventually convert into more than the ideal amount of sales and leads for a startup. 5. Startups are able to Entice Clients to Respond to Calls-to-Action (CTA) Calls-to-action are clickable buttons, banners, graphics or texts that include verbs to prompt customers to act or take necessary actions immediately. Some examples of powerful CTAs are:

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 62 ● Contact Us ● Download ● Order Now ● Sign Up ● Start Your Free Trial A CTA can be used to guide a customer into converting by clicking the Buy button or pushing through with a purchase or subscription. It is similar to that final “push” or “nudge” of encouragement that a person needs in order to make a decision or come into terms with the options they are presented with. Digital marketing is continuously developing into a hotspot for different industries to thrive and expand. When used wisely and accordingly, startups can go on to develop into well-known and highly respected household brands.

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DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 64 4 Awesome Benefits Of Hiring A Digital Marketing Agency (2019) Digital marketing serves as the cornerstone of every successful business. It serves as the main channel of today’s businesses in constantly raising awareness for their brand, improving advertising campaigns, and maintaining a high level of engagement on their social media platforms. With ever-multiplying strands of networks on the internet, the utilization of multichannel approaches plays a significant role. However, running a business comprised of different branches that need equal attention can be daunting. Business owners tend to stretch their presence too thin to the point where it completely compromises the quality of all their services. Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency is the top leading factor that can help solve this.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 65 Collaborating with a digital marketing agency can make business owners— particularly those who are indecisive on whether to pursue the development of an online branding or not —map out their advertising plans for the different branches and features of their services. While working with an agency for digital marketing suggests shelling out more money, this article will prove why it is still is a must for all businesses. Below is a list of the top benefits that a digital marketing agency can provide: 1. Provides the Required Expertise At first glance, it may seem impossible for businesses, particularly those that are still new in the industry, to possess all the needed resources that will aid in handling the entirety of the company’s operations. For instance, hiring individuals with the right skill set can either be time-consuming or too expensive. Operating with a digital marketing agency at the business’ side means working with a set of individuals with distinct expertise and skillsets that are very useful and adaptive depending on what the business chooses to focus on. It is to be expected that the business’ campaigns will change constantly. Variation of campaigns depends on timely events, special days, and annual celebrations such as company anniversaries, Christmas and New Year. As such, it will not be financially feasible for a business to deploy an individual whether full-time or part-time to take care of all the tasks for the business’s marketing objectives, especially when their skills are not constantly needed.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 66 Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency, on the other hand, will help the business gain the expertise it needs to handle a particular field at a particular period of time. In addition to this, hiring a digital marketing agency enables businesses to broaden the scope of their internal marketing team. This will consequently leave a positive impact, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Here’s a good example: Rather than hiring individuals who are experts in social media analytics, ad managers, and even SEO specialists for the internal marketing team, hiring a Digital Marketing Agency with expertise fused into one package can handle all of the business’ core objectives. 2. Offers Cost-Effective Options and Rates One of the leading benefits that a Digital Marketing Agency provides is cost-effectiveness. For businesses that are still practicing the traditional ways of marketing, they tend to have a tough time to compete against other businesses for ad space. A small business with a limited budget simply cannot compare to the marketing tools and resources that a large enterprise has. On the other hand, there are affordable rates offered by digital marketing agencies, depending on the services needed by the business and the duration at which the agency’s services will be hired. By providing businesses with budget-friendly options for digital marketing, even small businesses can expand their advantages at a smaller cost.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 67 In addition, relying on traditional marketing tactics that involve middlemen will often entail hidden charges. Whereas, a trusted digital marketing agency will enumerate all the charges coupled with working for a particular business. 3. Thrusts the Business On Top of the Latest Trends Working with a digital marketing agency enables small and mid-sized businesses to keep their pace in the constantly changing marketing trends, search engine algorithms and buyer behavior in the digital marketing landscape. Maintaining an equal focus on the latest trend about the different aspects of digital marketing (such as email marketing, SEO and Social Media Marketing) is difficult. However, hiring a digital marketing agency means that businesses will have a team of experts that will help fill in the company with up-to-date digital marketing trends that will effectively boost their unique marketing strategies. 4. Creates Space for Developments Apart from keeping businesses updated with the latest digital marketing trends, providing cost-effective service, and building a team of experts, digital marketing agencies also enable businesses to focus on their growth. A digital marketing agency is able to respond to the ever-changing needs of businesses as well as help in handling pressing issues that the business has been trying to resolve for some time. With the aforementioned benefits that a digital marketing agency can provide, small to mid-sized businesses can now readjust their focus and work on other

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 68 objectives and factors essential to keeping the business running and generating higher ROI. The new generation of businesses and customers make outsourcing digital marketing a key element for better securing long-term success. Aside from the efficiency and cost-efficiency of hiring a digital marketing agency, it is likewise an option worth investing time and money on for different industries. If the business and the agency is able to build a solid collaboration on a project, then this could also mean opening doors for more advantageous partnerships for future goals that each party may have.

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DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 70 Digital Marketing In 2020: An Era Of Fictions Digital marketing is a blanket term for all marketing products and services that solely depend on utilizing digital technologies. With the internet as its backbone, digital marketing holds an intensive selection of effective avenues and tactics to make a particular business soar with flying colors in the industry. However, with so much inaccurate information that plagues the internet regarding digital marketing, it is not surprising that it is enshrouded with fictitious theories and misconceptions.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 71 Due to this, marketers are having a tough time formulating strategies. This is due to the blocks of doubts barricading digital marketing. Below is a list of the most prevailing false assumptions and misconceptions involving digital marketing. Let’s debunk them one by one. 1. Focusing on Content Marketing ALONE Works the Revenue Magic This is true — and false. Content marketing serves as the foundation of every game plan for digital marketing. However, people in the industry exaggerate the importance of content marketing and in the process, end up gradually transforming its value into a mythical quality. Although digital marketing relies on high-quality content to amplify the effectiveness of every strategy, remember that every content requires the backing of other marketing channels for it to be able to execute its purpose accordingly. Every marketer should have a balanced focus on every marketing channel to bolster the effectiveness of any strategic approach of promoting brands with the help of content. 2. Loads of Content is the BEST It is true that content marketing is a fundamental pillar for a digital marketing agency to thrust the brand upward. However, it is a high dependence on

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 72 content marketing that businesses to thinking that generating a massive amount of content is required, regardless if there are also other advertising mediums available. With the emergence of new platforms that serve as mediums distributing content, such as social media and live streaming platforms, marketers are often constrained to stretch their reach too thin just to prove that the business’ reach is widespread. Marketers should know that it is better to concentrate on creating top-tiered content for selected channels instead of providing contents to a large volume of channels across the internet but completely compromise the content’s quality in the process. 3. ROI Measuring is EASY This is absolutely a myth. Measuring ROI will never be easy. The internet is loaded with heaps of marketing channels, and it can be expected that customers are active in each and every channel available. Compiling data from different channels is not a piece of cake. Calculating a strategy carefully is essential for businesses to collect data and insights with ease. 4. Email Marketing is ALWAYS on the HATE LIST The only reason why customers tend to hate email marketing is when the construction of the content fails to convey its relevance to their lifestyle and choices as customers.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 73 This does not mean that email marketing, should generally be overlooked. The answer is not to cross out email marketing in a business’ list of marketing avenues. The correct solution is to use email marketing the right way. Employing email to market a business is, quite honestly, not as complicated as it may sound. Businesses should send emails with relevant information that can engage their target recipients. The frequency of sending emails should also be monitored and carefully planned. Over-sending an email will most likely annoy the receivers. Email marketing may require a huge amount of time, but with proper usage and execution, it can deliver a positive and long-term impact on the business. 5. Digital Marketing is SOLELY all About Technology It is true that technology serves as the very core of digital marketing. At the same time, it also plays a role in amplifying the effectiveness of the good old marketing methods that businesses used to be accustomed to in the past. It is important not to disregard the traditional techniques as they serve as the very foundation of the business’s marketing efforts. Always remember that the most effective advertising and branding strategies are usually those in the form of digital and traditional marketing fused into one. Traditional and digital marketing should not be viewed as separate contexts. 6. SEO is DEAD One of the leading fictitious theories in digital marketing is SEO has ceased to be an effective tool for building online branding and generating higher audience impact for businesses.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 74 SEO is more than alive. In fact, it is relentlessly evolving in such a way that old techniques are being replaced and reconstructed to meet dynamic customer demands and industry trends. Google’s algorithms are constantly being updated, and this causes a ripple effect on both old and new practices in search engine optimization. Presently, SEO is heavily dependent on holistic marketing approaches. Holistic SEO strategy caters to 4 segments of optimizations: – On-page – Off-page – Technical – User experience or UX This fact alone proves that SEO has never been more alive, that this aforementioned approach is the bridge for greater organic search results compared from long ago. The internet is comprised of mindsets vulnerable to common misconceptions on digital marketing. Learning these misconceptions plays a vital role in digital marketing. It serves as a basis for limitations and exceeding expectations. Nevertheless, with or without these misconceptions, it is the marketer’s job to put maximum effort into their digital marketing strategies as it is the key to acquiring a higher percentage of new customers, reinforcing the brand’s reach, credibility, and visibility as well as retaining existing customers.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 75 10 Must-have Traits To Be A Successful Digital Agency The major roles of a digital marketing agency involve achieving advertising goals, enhancing customer acquisition and retention, generating higher traffic and ROI as well as driving more leads for the business. Building a cohesive and effective branding is what a company needs to thrust themselves closer to their prospective audiences. However, due to the vast field of competitors in the given landscape, standing out and proving an agency’s worth is not as easy as it seems. Given the fact that all the other agencies thronging for clients share the same vision.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 76 That being said, for agencies to be able to prove that they are among the best and most competitive in the industry, possessing the 10 must-have traits that make a digital agency successful is essential. Here are the traits that a digital marketing agency should possess that will make them stand out among the rest. 1. PROFESSIONALISM Agencies won’t be able to achieve success if it consists of a team of staff with limited expertise. It is important to know that achieving success is dependent on the skills of an agency’s staff. Clients are not all the same. Each client has a set of specific demands, preferences and expectations. As such, having a team of skilled and flexible professionals who can work well together to meet all client requirements effectively boosts the agency’s level of competence and reliability. Aside from exhibiting high level of skills and significant work experience, upholding objective decision-making and excellent work ethic will surely take a digital marketing agency places. 2. GOAL-ORIENTED A successful digital marketing agency always sets its eyes on its core goals. It is to be expected that a perfect marketing campaign with minimal drawbacks hardly exists. That said, when it comes to encountering factors that can potentially impede focus on the digital agency’s main objectives, the company should be able to deliver a feasible solution to counter it. One of the most striking qualities of a goal-oriented digital agency is that it is usually comprised of a team that is capable of delivering stellar results even while under pressure. This means maintaining composure and concentration despite facing countless external factors negatively affecting the flow of work.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 77 In addition to this, each and every part of the agency’s workforce should have a mindset that these problems are just stepping stones to providing 100% quality of services. 3. COST-EFFECTIVE While companies and businesses often seek top-tiered services that will help them implement their marketing strategies, affordability is also a crucial factor that helps them choose which digital agency to collaborate with. Cost-effective and excellent services help digital agencies attract and retain more clients. This is why digital agencies should consider providing rates that will accommodate businesses with limited budget. 4. OPEN FOR INNOVATIONS Changes in the digital marketingworld move rapidly. An agency that is constantly keeping up its pace with innovations has a higher rate of succeeding. Of course, this can only be made possible by broadening the scope of the agency’s brand with the helping hands of the agency’s team of experts. 5. GOOD COMMUNICATION Another key factor that agencies need is good communication. A marketing campaign will more likely fail if open and effective communication is not practiced among the team. At the same time, communication pertains to the direct relationship between the agency and its clients. Good communication boosts brand presence and ensures personal connection with the team as a whole and with the clients.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 78 6. CAPABILITY TO MEET CLIENT DEMANDS & REQUIREMENTS WITH PRECISION As much as possible, digital agencies should do their best to deliver the right services to the right client. Providing services with maximum precision is one of the leading traits that a successful digital agency should possess. This prevents the occurrence of issues related to misdelivered services and eventually improve productivity. 7. AVAILABILITY Providing round-the-clock service availability gives a plus point to the client’s point-of-view. Being able to reach by the clients with ease is essential in establishing a digital marketing agency. This proves that the agency is offering nothing but efficient services to all its clients. 8. GLOBALLY PRESENT While having branches across the nation and around the globe provides an immense boost in brand exposure and ROI, there are also other ways that digital agencies can be globally present and competitive. A globally present digital agency in the present-day marketing scene knows how to be equipped with readily available resources, such as the internet and social media. Global presence can be achieved through carefully studying the digital behavior of clients. This enables agencies to expand audience reach as well as choose the right avenues to help them connect with their prospect clients virtually.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 79 Global presence these days is not just about having physical stores or branches. It is also about reaching out to a wider audience by spreading messages and campaigns that will adhere to their needs and demands. It is about being involved in current events and trends that significantly affect target audiences and industries. More importantly, to be globally present means to remain relevant amidst the changing demands, trends and the growing competition. 9. DIGITALLY IN-SYNC Staying ahead of the latest technological innovations is also a must. Technological innovations are instrumental in enhancing fluency in the digital landscape. Possessing familiarity and being equipped with relevant advancements is a vital necessity for a digital agency to thrive long-term. Possessing a mastery of all related technological advancements can change how to devise their strategic approach. Search engines are also part of helping digital agencies maintain their digital synchronicity. Google’s algorithm changes constantly, learning from one source to another each time a user searches for something. Due to this, with the constant change in algorithm, agencies should learn how to adapt to these changes and steadily build their online visibility. 10. COMPASSIONATE The last but certainly the most crucial determining trait of a successful digital agency is how compassionate it is to its workforce and clients. Are the staff being treated with much respect and positivity? Do clients feel welcomed and valued by the agency? An agency that values friendly and professional relationships with the people it represents and works with shows genuine concern and desire to grow, thrive and assist clients in need of its services

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 80 The digital marketing industry is a tough competition; changes in the digital ecosystem are constant along with many other companies belonging to the same nature of work. Standing out from a sea of competitors can be quite challenging. But, with the proper mindset, coupled with passion and commitment, achieving success is not impossible. There are still several other traits that comprise a successful digital marketing agency aside from the ones mentioned in this article. The key is to find a way to maintain composure while acquiring new strategies and keeping up with changing market and client demands.

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DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 82 5 Reasons Why You Should Hire A Virtual Assistant Now Many entrepreneurs often overlook the significance of getting a virtual assistant for their businesses. The main reason why is that they think that hiring a full-time, physical assistant is the only option they got. But it is NOT. The truth is, virtual services are now dominating the professional relationship of the business industry. In fact, almost all business-related transactions at present are solely revolving around email, Skype and phone—a significant shift in communication that speaks volumes about the multiple possibilities that remote work can offer to both businesses and employees.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 83 Here are 5 reasons why hiring a virtual assistant is a must: 1. Saves Time For every successful business, time is the most valuable asset to have a tight grip on. Of course, it is a close second to generating income or money. Time enables business owners to think strategically, draw correlations, and forge ideas. Without the luxury of a carefully budgeted time, business owners will more likely hamper their company’s growth rather than work towards pushing it to further development. As a business owner, hiring the right person to handle the company’s tasks can, at times not be as conveniently available as one would expect. After all, it is important to hire staff who possess the right background, skill sets and attitude for the job. In order to achieve this, the hiring process usually takes an extensive amount of time and consideration. From brainstorming and sifting through piles of résumés to setting up interviews and then narrowing down candidates to the one who best fits all the requirements. It is indeed a very complex and time-consuming process. The beauty of hiring virtual assistants is that there is a bigger pool for potential candidates since business owners can hire internationally. There is also a higher chance of hiring a larger quantity of staff without compromising experience and skills. Location and distance will no longer be a problem as there are online communication tools that help make a collaboration for remote employees possible.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 84 Similar to experienced and well-trained in-house staff, virtual assistants are also able to execute administrative, clerical and more advanced tasks in the most efficient way possible. This provides businesses a great advantage to maximize time and resources. Apart from that, virtual assistants enable business owners to focus more on their business strategies and campaigns. 2. Banks on Cost-Effectiveness Hiring a virtual assistant generates several cost-effective advantages. Aside from the convenience of time and distance, virtual assistants are likewise commonly more likely to be available on-call. Not only that, their work can be paid per hour or even per project, as compared to paying in-house employees with 8-9 hours of work on a daily basis. Another aspect that business owners can eliminate in a virtual assistant setup, is the responsibility of settling the virtual assistant’s benefits and contributions. The responsibility of paying the virtual assistant’s benefits and contributions is usually fulfilled by the remote employees themselves. Spending money on training resources are usually either optional or complementary since businesses that hire remote employees would rather skip the training part and hire virtual assistants who already possess the skills and background needed for the job. 3. Maximizes Existing Manpower In every company, administrative and clerical tasks play a vital role regardless of how tedious it can be. It usually involves taking care of papers involved in the business’ overall operations, handling transactions with suppliers, service providers, business partners and clients as well as ensuring that all employee

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 85 requirements, benefits and contributions are properly settled and consistently updated. It also involves answering calls and scheduling company-related events and tasks. Due to its time consuming nature, having office-based employees focus on administrative and clerical tasks can take a valuable chunk of concentration away from the more demanding and skills-specific factors of keeping the business up and going. This is usually true for businesses with limited resources or manpower. Hiring virtual assistants to take care of clerical jobs enables companies to make the most of their resources and staff. It gives business owners the opportunity to distribute tasks accordingly without having to overload each staff with excessive responsibilities that go beyond the job they initially signed up for. 4. Reduces Conflicts Since virtual assistants are not physically present in the office, they are not prone to office drama and can thus perform their work efficiently and without bias. Conflicts among employees are inevitable in any workplace. After all, employees differ in terms of personality, professional background, personal experience and beliefs. Employing virtual assistants is instrumental and minimizing workplace tension and misunderstandings. While virtual communication can at times be misconstrued, it is still less prone to argumentative confrontations among the staff involved. In fact, remote employees working under the same team are more focused on getting the job done and cooperating with one another since they are either paid for every output or time that they provide to their employer.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 86 This gives businesses a great advantage for productivity. Instances of gossiping, tardiness and habitual absenteeism are instantly eliminated while efficiency is boosted. 5. Extends time for rest and recreation Having a virtual assistant at a business owner’s disposal significantly reduces workplace burnout. Virtual assistants, especially those well-equipped with advanced skills and extensive experience in the tasks that they are assigned to do evens out the daily workload and time it takes to accomplish a company’s core objectives. Business owners and employees work better with a well-rested brain. By including remote workers into the team, business owners get to render more time developing new strategies and products for their business, while in-house employees no longer need to worry about having to shoulder additional tasks on their plate. Virtual assistants or remote employees, on the other hand, can contribute their skills at a time that is most convenient for them; thus, making the entire setup a win-win situation for all the parties involved. Indeed, working smart beats working hard. Being successful is not constant if businesses fail to embrace the ever-changing trends and demands in present-day market scenes and industries. Brand new names will eventually emerge and will try to outwit existing businesses one way or another. As simple as it can be, hiring a virtual assistant provides big and small benefits for businesses—and all of these advantages are instrumental in gearing companies for greater heights of success.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 87 Your Digital Agency Talent Tree The digital world is constantly evolving and so are the methods needed to thrive within it. This is the sole reason why marketers aspiring to build a digital marketing agency should consider hiring the right individuals to carry out the needed responsibilities coupled with it. However, hiring professionals for a digital marketing agency with an inadequate amount of budget and time is difficult. At the same time, building a digital marketing agency from scratch means knowing what skill sets should be sought after in order to ensure that the company is helped run by competitive, efficient and reliable individuals.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 88 Below is a list of some of the key skill sets that should help comprise the anatomy of a well-functioning and dynamic digital marketing agency: CREATIVES This particular expertise is essential for building brand awareness, mapping out original campaigns as well as introducing the brand’s name by generating innovative concepts. Individuals possessing this skill set are responsible for sending out messages to promote the brand by using powerful content and eye-catching visuals. Carrying creative skills at the disposal of a digital marketing agency will help understand the intent of each client as well as increase the rate of conversion for the company. A creative skill set is usually comprised of the following experts: ● Content Marketers ● Digital & Graphic Designers ● Social Media and Online Campaign Managers ● Email Managers ● Executive Advertisers BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP BUILDING Keeping the brand’s pace to match the rise of social media has never been more important than the current era. However, for a digital marketing agency to be able to do this, the assistance of professional representatives responsible for building relationships between the agency and their key clients is essential. Relationship executives take advantage of their natural charm and likable demeanor as their leverage to collect useful contacts for the business’ reach.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 89 Apart from that, they are also responsible for maintaining the agency’s reputation as well as boosting its visibility. This particular area of competence is commonly embodied by the following professionals: ● Digital PR Executives ● Inbound Marketers ● Public Affair Consultants ● Public Relationship Executives ● Social Media Marketers ANALYTICAL MANAGEMENT Analytical management involves translating data statistics and interpreting data and insights before disseminating it to the rest of the team. A team specializing in analytics can be considered as the agency’s “bread and butter” in solving business-related issues as well as in implementing strategies on how to effectively make the most of the business’ operating resources. They are also adept at mapping strategies to increase lead generation, setting rational goals, progress monitoring and keeping track of ROI. Analytics come in many forms, but below are some of the most common professions paired with this particular type of skill:: ● Acquisition Analysts ● Analytic Analysts ● Business Analysts ● CRM Data Analysts ● Email Marketers ● Marketing Managers

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 90 ● PPC Analysts STRATEGIZING Aside from Analytics, a digital marketing agency also requires a team comprised of experts in formulating a strategic approach towards attaining the company’s main objectives. They are great at giving life to the team’s input by using their ideas aptly to aid in the business campaigns. As mentioned above, professional marketing and business strategists work well with staff belonging to the analytics team. Their cooperation are reliable at ensuring that all resources are being employed effectively. With an expert strategist under a marketing agency’s wing, planning and directing marketing strategies, managing the company’s budget, and overseeing the roles and contributions of each employee becomes more organized and systematic. Excellent strategizing involves the roles and responsibilities of the following professionals: ● Digital Marketing Managers ● Digital Strategy Planners ● Marketing Directors ● Marketing Executives ● Project Managers ● SEO Specialists Employing for business growth means hiring specific skill sets to fill in all the key roles that the business requires in order to rise among the toughest competition. Obtaining the help of all the aforementioned experts and

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 91 including their contributions to the agency’s overall operations can leave a positive and long-term developments for the company.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 92 Assembling Your A-team To Outsource Your Digital Marketing Agency In every business, the quality of the services offered do not matter if the target audience find it difficult to grasp what the products or services’ purpose is for. To counter this, assembling a team of experts who will work on boosting marketing strategies for the brand is a must. So today, you will know the importance of having the right person to help you meet that 101% efficient service! So what type of experts should businesses hire? 1. Graphic & Web Designer

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 93 Visuals play a big role in marketing. People tend to get more attracted to websites with creative and eye-pleasing visuals. Apart from possessing expertise in using the most sought-after software for web design and development, web designers should have a good grasp of how to create and maintain a website. This includes taking into account important web designing factors such as user experience, standardized code and interface design. On the other hand, a graphic designer is just as important for businesses because they create the very image of your company and makes a good impression for clients. They do so by designing a business’ logo, brochures and business cards. With graphic designers, business owners get to have all the great visuals that they need and gain the loyalty of their clients. 2. Copywriter Aside from being responsible for generating detailed information about a brand’s products or services. A copywriter is a person who amplifies the strength of a business’ promotions and campaigns. They are adept at educating customers about different services as well as convincing potential customers with service-specific keywords. Copywriters can modify existing product or service content to reach the maximum satisfaction of the customers, thereby effectively boosting brand popularity. When partnered with great visuals, copywriters can take advertising to a whole new level. Graphic designers take care of a business’ first impression while copywriters help create a lasting impression. 3. Analytics Manager

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 94 Analytics managers carefully analyze data to help influence customers in their decision-making. Analytics managers likewise help business owners know which strategies are working from those that are not. They help identify certain adjustments in implemented strategies where needed. The right analytics manager possess an excellent understanding of the flow of the business and are likewise capable of using their knowledge about marketing to help steer the customer right at the doors of the business’ establishment or shop. 4. Web Developer Statistically speaking, around 4.33 billion people or almost half of the world’s population will be online by the time 2019 ends. This only shows how the internet is continuously influencing society. This can prove to be a big advantage for online businesses. But, to be able to gain the digital advantage in the world of business, hiring the skills of an expert web developer is a must. Aside from having a vast knowledge of CSS, HTML, and Javascript, web developers help business owners shape their website accordingly. They can build a brand’s website from its layout to its essential functions, ensuring excellent user experience and customer retention are taken into consideration. Web developers can also implement the necessary website adjustments to make it easier for customers to obtain seamless access to the business’ website. 5. Advertising Manager The advertising manager’s duty is to extend the business’ reach through employing different methods of advertisement. Among these methods include social media, pay per click, amazon advertising and any other relevant platforms that could help boost the promotional strategies of the brand.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 95 The role of an advertising manager helps achieve the most pressing responsibilities of running the business. They provide advice on marketing strategies, resulting in more leads, reinforced site traffic, and higher conversion rates. A great ad manager knows how to move smoothly and accordingly, and they are also creative and detail-oriented. They focus on raising brand awareness as well as building customers’ interest in the brand’s products and services. 6. Social Media Manager With the highly influential presence of social media nowadays, it is not a far-fetched reality that business owners will use it to their brand’s leverage and boost their online presence. The most suitable social media manager is someone who knows the proper methods to bolster brands on different social media sites. Social media managers help accomplish any social media tasks needed by the business. They deliberately map social media marketing tactics that can help businesses increase followers or subscribers on their pages. They are likewise instrumental in developing a brand’s reputation on a long-term basis. This will definitely result in more client engagements. 7. SEO Specialist Having good visuals and website is rather useless if it has zero or little visibility on the web. In a nutshell, SEO specialists employ in-depth knowledge of keyword research that aptly represent the business. Doing so helps build the website or the business’ online presence and push for higher rankings on the biggest search engines being used by the majority of today’s customers.

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 96 People tend not to read past the first page of a website. A good SEO specialist should be able to provide the visibility needed by a business to match the pace of their competitors. Each of the roles listed in this blog are essential to the growth and branding of all types of businesses. Without a web designer and a web developer, businesses lose leverage over established competitors in terms of enhancing customer acquisition and retention. Businesses without a reliable advertising and social media manager collaborating together will find it harder to devise promotions that resonate with the needs and demands of their target audiences. Without the help of a copywriter and SEO specialist, a business’ website and social media presence will not deliver content relevant to the services being offered, and will likewise not get the proper traction to gain higher rankings on search engines. It is important to keep in mind that you should know the proper placement of your manpower. Your business’ A-Team should possess people who are experts in their respective fields. They should be able to move smoothly in the complicated world of modern marketing, provide content to establish authority, develop interactive resources, address your brand socially, improve your website concepts and design, boost engagement campaigns and lastly, enable you to make the most of your resources without having to drain your pockets. With the combined capabilities of these experts, you can grow your digital marketing agency in no time.

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DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 98 Starting A Digital Marketing Agency 6 QUICK AND EASY STEPS Starting a digital marketing agency requires a lot of effort. It takes a long and hard process, but, with the right knowledge and resources, it will be easier to get the right leverage and keep up with the competitive industry. This blog will discuss the fundamentals of starting your own digital marketing agency in 6 easy steps! Let’s get started. STEP 1:

DIGITAL MARKETING: Collated Articles to Help Your Digital and Marketing Agencies 99 GIVE SPACE FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE When starting any business, having sufficient background about your chosen niche is a basic requirement. You should also spend time to continue educating yourself about the trends and fundamental aspects that affect the industry where your business belongs. Metaphorically speaking, you have to keep in mind the significance of understanding the battlefield where you want to deploy your arsenal. Otherwise, your strategies will not work out well. Educating yourself about different marketing strategies that click with your business increases your chances of targeting a more specific demographic of your target audience. Some of today’s most universally applicable marketing strategies include: ● Social Media Marketing ● Email Marketing ● Content Marketing The above-mentioned strategies work well with the following practices: ● Website Designing ● Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ● Graphic Designing If you feel like you have already gathered sufficient knowledge about your chosen market, this is when you really should continue your research and strive to know more. Never stop learning. Development and growth in your business, whether big or small, should be constant. Remember, if you look at your resources with a keen and positive eye, you will always learn something new that can benefit you and your clients.