Essential Digital Marketing Trends to Dominate in 2024
COVID-19 changed how we do business forever. Since the pandemic, about one in four businesses have increased their use of online platforms to reach customers. Fit Small Business reports that online shopping, in particular via social media, is projected to continue increasing, with over 95% of items purchased online by 2040.
It’s essential to learn how to adapt to the times. With the right marketing strategy, you can boost business instead of falling behind. Here are the ten marketing trends our team believes you need to succeed in 2024. With these tips, you’ll get ahead of the competition (always a good thing) and reach new customers.
1. Generative AI
Generative AI is set to transform digital marketing in 2024 by enhancing customer experiences and driving efficiency through chatbots, predictive analytics, personalized content, and ad targeting.
McKinsey’s latest AI report shows that the average organization most often uses AI marketing and sales and in product and service development, where previous research determined that gen AI adoption could generate the most value. The biggest increase from 2023 is in marketing and sales, where reported adoption has more than doubled.
Content Marketing Institute found that 72% of B2B marketers use generative AI tools for content-related tasks. And research by Gartner predicts that by 2025:
- 80% of customer service and support organizations will apply generative AI technology to improve agent productivity and customer experience.
- Generative AI will primarily be used for content creation, chatbots, and operations automation.
If you haven’t joined the AI train yet, now’s a good time to do so. That train has left the station and shows no signs of slowing down.
2. Local SEO
Local SEO isn’t new, but we will say this: It’s becoming more and more critical in the aftermath of COVID-19, with mobile searches being the majority of web traffic. Many consumers search Google to find local businesses.
With many businesses closed during the pandemic, consumers needed to confirm business hours, locations, and other pieces of information. Now, local SEO can help you draw consumers into your shop, allowing you to make a sale. Google also updates its search algorithm throughout the year. If you’re focused on making your marketing digital, it’s important to keep up with the trends, lest you run the risk of losing potential sales.
3. No-Click Searches
Search engine optimization (SEO) allows businesses to boost their search engine ranking. A higher ranking will help more consumers find your business online, but it’s not enough to develop a strong SEO and content marketing strategy. Instead, it’s essential to remain up-to-date with SEO marketing trends like no-click searches.
Featured snippets have been very buzzy over the last year with new functionalities from Google, but they’ve actually been around for a while. Featured snippets appear as brief answers to help users find the information they’re looking for. These snippets can appear as summaries, Q&As, bullets, and other formats. In other words, users no longer have to click on a website to find the information they need. In some cases, the Google Assistant will read the information in the snippet for a voice search as well.
Learning how to appear for these no-click searches can help you get ahead of competitors. It can also ensure consumers recognize you as a go-to source of information. First, make sure to update your keyword research. Look for long-tail keywords and phrases. You might notice that the writers have phrased many of these queries as questions. Provide readers with a quick summary of what they’re looking for at the beginning of a post. Then, go into more detail within the following paragraphs. Structuring your posts with featured snippets in mind can help you get noticed by more consumers.
4. Ad-Blocker Blockers
As you consider these digital marketing trends, take a look at your website. How are you making the visitor’s life difficult? A negative user experience (UX) could cost you clients. In fact, 88% of online shoppers won’t use a website after having a bad experience. Another 44% will tell friends about the bad experiences they had online.
Blocking ad blockers is another way you could frustrate visitors. A negative UX could impact your brand’s reputation. Does your website prompt users to turn off their ad blockers? Try replacing your on-page ads by looking for creative ways to advertise to your target audience instead. For example, you can use influencer marketing to reach new leads.
5. Visual Searches
Visual search continues to be a significant trend in digital marketing for 2024. It leverages advanced image recognition technology to enhance the search experience, making it easier for users to find products and information using images instead of text. In other words, consumers can take or submit photos to prompt an online search.
As image and video searches become more popular, new SEO digital marketing trends are developing. Make sure to always include alt text with relevant descriptions in your images. Write for the user, not the search engine.
Images can also help your site’s SEO when you add them to your sitemap and use the target SEO keyword within the file name. Using high-quality images can also help. Low-quality stock images, on the other hand, might fail to build trust with shoppers.
6. Customer Segmentation
You no longer have to focus on a broad target audience to bring in customers. The key nowadays is customer segmentation. Segmentation allows you to create a personalized approach for each audience group you’re targeting. Each group has their own distinct wants, needs, and behaviors. The added benefit is that you can begin to see what actionable steps are best for the groups you are targeting and what is best left on the cutting room floor.
Above all, bear in mind that people are not static. They are dynamic, subject to changing tastes and preferences. As such, you should account for this when looking for digital marketing trends and how you respond to them. Understanding your customers will help you forge stronger connections and lasting relationships, enabling you to tailor strategies and communication to meet their specific needs and leading to more effective marketing campaigns.
7. Interactive Content
As people click around and explore your website, your search ranking can improve. Low engagement, on the other hand, can cause your ranking to drop. Interactive content is a great way to get people to engage with your website. Consider different formats like polls, surveys, contests, quizzes, calculator widgets, and more.
Take Airbnb, for example. Their Design Personality quiz is similar to popular online quizzes like on Buzzfeed. They are colorful, quick, and, most importantly, shareable. The result is fun interactive marketing that takes a form most people are familiar with.
8. Inclusivity
Now more than ever, people don’t want to see homogenous content that excludes marginalized groups. Take a look at the photos and videos you post or feature on your website. Do you include people of different sexualities, races, genders, and religions? What about people with disabilities?
A recent article in Forbes highlights multiple great ways to incorporate more inclusive practices in your digital marketing efforts, including an important reminder to be open to feedback and continuous improvement. Being open and willing to adapt your approach to reach a wider audience is of the utmost importance for anyone seeking true inclusivity in the marketplace. Support equality, and you, in turn, support your customers.
9. Social Media e-Commerce
Don’t forget about your social media marketing strategy! You can now use your social media posts to help consumers find your products and checkout. You can streamline the buying process for your customers and generate more sales by using social media and shoppable posts.
On top of these benefits, incorporating social media in your marketing strategy can help customers find an experience that feels tailor-made to them. Whether you are simply trying to find ways to make emailed newsletters feel more personal or attempting to reach your base through live shops with apps like TikTok or the ‘Gram, just make sure to avoid these social media marketing mistakes so your efforts aren’t wasted.
10. Virtual Events
Marketing trends like virtual events and webinars are still significant in digital marketing for 2024. They’re also low-cost and can reach a global audience, which can help your ROI. According to a report by Grand View Research, the global virtual events market size was valued at $77.98 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.2% from 2023 to 2030.
Viewing patterns, live participation, and opportunities for Q&A are a few key ROI metrics you should keep in mind while planning for your events. Focus on bringing in engaging, informative speakers and creating high-quality content for your audience. Otherwise, they might struggle to see the value in your virtual events. Regardless of your topic or approach, your goal for customer engagement should remain purpose-driven and data-focused.
Honorable Mention: Influencer Marketing
Who do your customers turn to for recommendations? Teaming up with an influencer has been a trend for a while and is still strong in 2024. Make sure you look for an influencer who suits your niche. Brands recognize the value of partnering with influencers who have a strong connection with their audience, often leading to higher engagement rates and more authentic interactions.
Micro-influencers, those with smaller but highly engaged followings, are becoming increasingly popular. There is also a growing trend towards performance-based contracts, where influencers are compensated based on the results they deliver, such as engagement, clicks, or conversions. This ensures a better return on investment for brands.
Boosting Business in 2024: 10 Marketing Trends for Streamlined Success
With these top marketing trends for 2024, you can stand out from the crowd and generate more leads to scale your business. Feeling a little lost on the next steps for improving your digital marketing strategy? We know–it can feel overwhelming with how the digital world is rapidly evolving. Just do one simple thing: drop us a line, and we’ll help you get started with a step-by-step, effective game plan that gives you measurable results.
Why an Emotional Appeal in Advertising Is So Important
Have you ever scrolled on social media, saw an ad that pulled at your heartstrings or made you giggle with laughter, and instantly bought something?
If so, that was the work of emotional advertising, part of the more general concept of marketing communications. As the name suggests, emotional ads use emotions to connect with consumers and entice them to buy a product or service.
And it has a high success rate!
Thanks to our natural emotional responses, consumers are more likely to make an emotional purchase than an informed purchase. With that said, let’s explore the importance of emotional appeal in advertising.
Understanding Emotional Appeals in Advertising
The emotional marketing strategy aims to create an emotional connection between the target audience and the product or service in the advertisement to influence the consumer’s decision-making. The consumer will actually make decisions subconsciously, without the rational brain even knowing it!
The Difference Between Rational and Emotional Appeals
Rational appeal in advertising focuses on logic and reasoning. These ads persuade consumers to make a purchase decision using rational thoughts or those based on the facts and features of the product or service. Rational ads may highlight the following:
- Benefits
- Functionality
- Price
- Quality
Conversely, emotional appeal focuses on evoking an emotional response and getting the consumer to purchase based on desire. The power of emotional advertising effectiveness surpasses that of rational appeal.
The concepts come from the three persuasive techniques: pathos, logos, and ethos. Pathos appeals to emotion, logos appeals to logic, and ethos conveys credibility and authority.
Examples of Emotional Appeals in Advertising
One of the best-known marketing campaigns that uses positive emotions is Coca-Cola. Their historic “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” campaign invokes happiness and creates a positive association with their product. This persuades consumers to buy Coca-Cola and share it with their loved ones.
Dove’s Real Beauty campaign also used happiness to show that others typically view us more beautifully and happily than we envision ourselves. The campaign was a massive success and still widely circulates on the Internet today.
Nike’s advertisement with Colin Kaepernick used a sense of pride to make its target audience feel good about the brand and themselves for supporting the company. Pride is a valuable emotion to help build brand loyalty. Further, celebrity endorsements, like those from Kaepernick, can help elicit a stronger consumer response when combined with emotional appeal.
On the other hand, Apple uses desire for the newest technology to get consumers to buy the latest iPhone model yearly. Even if there aren’t significant differences between the models, consumers are always lining up for the next iPhone!
Anti-smoking campaigns use fear appeal ads, showing rotting teeth and black lungs, to convince people not to smoke or to quit.
Political campaigns will use comparison to highlight the positive attributes of their campaign and the negative qualities of their opponents.
ASPCA and the UN World Food Program (WFP) often invoke sadness by showing abused animals or testimonials from hungry children to get consumers to spring into action and donate to their campaigns.
Does it really work, though?
It sure does! The New York Times reported that ASPCA raised $30 million from one campaign alone!
The Types of Emotional Appeals and How to Use Them
There are two primary types of emotional appeals in advertising: positive and negative. Some examples include:
- Adventure
- Anger
- Comparison
- Fear
- Greed
- Guilt
- Happiness
- Humor
- Love
- Outrage
- Pride
- Sadness
- Trust
Both are powerful tools to use when creating emotional appeal advertising.
However, when consumers have a consistent negative emotional experience with your product or service, it can be bad for your brand awareness. So, while negative emotions can be a powerful tool in emotional appeal, you shouldn’t always use them in your campaigns.
Whichever emotion you use for a campaign, ensure you use the same appeal across all marketing channels. Integrated marketing services can help you achieve this.
Tips for Using Emotional Appeals in Advertising
So, how do you go about using emotional appeals in ad campaigns? Follow these tips to help you create emotional content that will influence consumer behavior.
Create an Objective
The objective of your ad is its purpose. What action do you want the viewer to take after seeing the advertisement?
Once you know the objective, you can identify which emotions will help accomplish that goal. The feeling should be appropriate in the ad’s context. For instance, using happiness and excitement in an advertisement for an organization like Save the Children would be off-putting.
Use Visuals
Visuals are imperative for helping consumers see your message. You should use pictures and videos in your advertisements to elicit a stronger emotional response.
Observe Your Competition
Monitoring your competition can help you stay on top of market trends and allow you to form better marketing strategies. If your competitors use a specific emotion, you should consider utilizing the feeling or a similar one, especially if the consumer response is positive.
Track Changes in Customer Behavior
Spending habits and consumer actions change over time. This means you must pay attention to changes in your audience’s behavior, so your advertisements don’t miss the mark.
Remember that Pepsi commercial with Kendell Jenner? The one where she stopped a protest and created a bond between protesters and the police with just a single soda?
You don’t want your advertisement to end up with a response like that commercial did. The backlash was harsh and lasted several months.
Conduct market research and perhaps even hold focus groups regularly to ensure you are current on consumer spending habits.
Additionally, since so many different types of advertising exist, you want to ensure you continue to advertise on the right platforms, whether it’s on social media, television, or elsewhere. Research the best places to promote your business to achieve your goals.
Let’s Have a Chat About Your Advertising Campaign
Emotional appeal in advertising has the power to convince consumers to buy your product or service at a moment’s notice. You're missing out on precious consumer dollars if you don’t incorporate emotions into your ads.
To improve your advertising campaigns and attract more customers, let’s have a chat. Our team at EraserFarm can help create emotional advertisements that will have consumers lining up to purchase from your business!
How Has TikTok Changed Marketing?
Last year, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world, with 850 million downloads.
Because TikTok continues to dominate digital advertising trends year after year, it’s no surprise the app has changed the way businesses create content and social media marketing campaigns.
It is its own ecosystem, after all!
How has TikTok changed marketing, exactly? Let’s dive into the details.
TikTok’s Audience and Reach
If we’re discussing how TikTok has changed marketing, we must start with its audience and reach. TikTok has a solid user base with Gen Z. In fact, nearly half of TikTok users are Gen Z. However, this also means that half of TikTok users are from other demographics, too, like Millennials and Gen X.
TikTok is the sixth most popular social media platform, with one billion monthly active users (MUAs). This is nearly double the app that first introduced short-form videos, Snapchat. In its entirety, over three billion people have downloaded TikTok, compared to one billion downloads for Snapchat.
Further, HubSpot details the following about TikTok:
- By 2024, retail brands will spend more on influencer marketing on TikTok than Instagram.
- It has the fourth-highest audience engagement rate for user-generated content (UGC) campaigns.
- Its cost per mile (CPM), or cost per thousand impressions, is half that of Instagram.
- The largest audiences are in Brazil, Indonesia, and the U.S.
Hubspot also mentions that TikTok has the fourth-best algorithm. The PBS documentary TikTok, Boom expertly discusses how the TikTok algorithm operates to explain how TikTok creators generate more followers.
How Has TikTok Changed Marketing?
The TikTok user base is clearly massive. With this many active users, how has TikTok changed the marketing industry? We explore some of the ways below.
TikTok as a Search Engine
TikTok is becoming a search engine, especially for younger people. This is caused by most people having short attention spans, and TikTok provides quick and concise information. It is also because video content significantly helps viewers retain information better than other forms of content.
Although Google is still the top place people go to search, many younger generations are using TikTok to search for things like restaurants to try.
Social Media Marketing Is More Creative
TikTok marketing takes creativity to the next level because the app comes loaded with features like:
- AR effects
- Editing tools
- Filters
This encourages businesses to get more creative with their content. Following TikTok trends and using hashtags are also fantastic ways for companies to make content they wouldn’t otherwise create.
More Engaging & Personal
Since many TikTok videos are personal and intimate and often tell a story, it helps to form a bond between users and your brand. This is contrary to other platforms that are more curated, like Instagram.
Thus, TikTok is the ideal place to capture the hearts of your target audience.
Additionally, TikTok videos are more engaging than content on other platforms. Users spend nearly an hour on the app daily, with younger users spending an hour and a half daily! For comparison, the average user spends just 30 minutes a day on Instagram and roughly 20 minutes on YouTube.
Marketing Is More Interactive & Entertaining
TikTok videos tend to be more fun and entertaining than on other platforms. After all, the app became popular for people recording themselves dancing and lip-syncing! And because of features like Live and Duets, TikTok is incredibly interactive.
For entrepreneurs who want to connect with their audience and promote products or services in a fun way, TikTok is the place to do it.
Global Reach
TikTok has users in 150 counties, making it the ideal platform for those who want to reach a global audience. For instance, if you’re an eCommerce brand that ships internationally, you want to focus some of your marketing efforts on TikTok.
Even though platforms like WhatsApp and LinkedIn are in more countries, 180 and 200, respectively, TikTok still offers a far more extensive global reach because users spend more time on TikTok than other apps.
Marketing Is More Shareable & Efficient
It’s super easy to share TikTok videos with others. That’s why many marketing experts agree that if you’re a startup or small business trying to create a viral video, you’re more likely to go viral on TikTok than on Instagram Reels.
It’s even more likely your content will get views or go viral when you collaborate with TikTok influencers or content creators in your industry. With access to the fan base of those with a large following, you can create new content that is highly shareable and likely to draw a lot of attention.
Is TikTok a Good Marketing Tool?
TikTok is one of the best social media marketing tools for large and small businesses. The app allows you to:
- Build brand awareness.
- Create a community.
- Form partnerships.
- Sell products and services.
Also, you can track analytics in real-time to assess your ad spend and the effectiveness of your campaigns. If you notice an underperforming video, simply access the metrics page to see why.
- Did you post at an unusual time?
- Did the video lack creative features?
- Was the video less engaging than your usual content?
- Was the video targeting a group outside your core audience?
These are just a few questions to ask, as there could be many reasons why a video missed the mark. However, using analytics, you can always check in to see what content your audience loves (and performs well) and what content you should avoid.
This way, you can maximize your ad spending and ensure your content and ads always perform well. Go one step further and use the information to help your brand expand its audience!
Take Your Social Media Marketing to the Next Level
TikTok has changed many aspects of digital marketing for the better! Content is more creative, engaging, and interactive, which is great for viewers.
If the TikTok community continues to scroll past your TikTok ads and videos, then it’s time we chat about your content creation and digital marketing strategy.
Contact us at EraserFarm to learn more about how our team can help take your content to the next level!
What is a Social Media Agency? | Social Media Agencies Explained
What Is a Social Media Agency? Social Media Agencies Explained
Six billion people: that’s a lot. Yet, that’s how many people experts predict will be active across various social media channels by 2027.
If your business doesn’t have an active social media presence, then now is the time to get the ball rolling. However, having an in-house marketing team is too expensive for some businesses and may not even make sense if your company is small. So instead, consider hiring a social media marketing firm for help.
What is a social media agency, you ask? Let’s find out!
What Is a Social Media Marketing Agency & Why Does It Matter?
A social media agency handles all marketing efforts related to social media.
Here’s how it works: the agency crafts and executes your social media marketing strategy. This can include the following:
- Developing a long-term plan
- Creating different social media campaigns
- Producing and posting content
- Tracking essential KPIs and metrics
Although this case study promises the future of social media in marketing is exciting, there is still a lot of flux and uncertainty. This makes it even more challenging for businesses to stay on top of emerging social media trends - particularly if you are small and everyone wears many hats. So creating a successful social media strategy will be difficult if you don’t fully understand or have the bandwidth to deal with social media marketing.
The agency's social media management tools will ensure your business can attract the right customers so you can profit from an effective social media presence.
What Services Does a Social Media Agency Offer?
Unlike digital marketing agencies, which offer a host of different marketing tools, a social media agency specifically focuses on the services mentioned below.
Content Creation
Content rules supreme in any social media strategy. Luckily, an agency will use expert content marketing tools to get new customers interested in your company and ensure recurring customers continue to stick around.
They can create various social media posts for platforms like:
- Snapchat
- TikTok
- Youtube
Plus, you want your posts to get seen, right? The agency will ensure your content meets all the latest SEO standards for maximum exposure.
A social media agency can also help your company with influencer marketing or form partnerships with other businesses to reach a broader audience.
For example, suppose you’re an eCommerce business that offers different digital organizational tools. In this case, you can collaborate with an organization influencer to promote a free download, such as a calendar template, for potential clients to try.
Content Scheduling
Posting high-quality social media content is not enough to get your target audience to notice your business. You also have to know when to post for the greatest reach.
An agency can create an automated content calendar that posts content at the most optimum times per platform. This is possible by using industry, location, and product data.
Paid Media
Paid social ads (media buying) help brands reach their ideal demographics faster through highly-targeted campaigns.
A social media agency has the expertise to use media buying, like Facebook ads, to reach your target market and increase lead generation, all while staying within budget. Without these skills, you may lose money on paid campaigns because you’re unable to fine-tune ads to hit your goals. Social media agency strategists know how to tweak things to get the most bang for your buck with paid media!
Community Management
Being active on different social media platforms is one of the best ways to engage with customers and build brand awareness.
However, it’s incredibly time-consuming. Even sending out a tweet to alert customers of an issue means you must have someone online all day because customers expect real-time interaction.
An agency can not only engage with your customers on social media, but they can provide customer support when issues arise. Since more people are using social media for customer support, it pays to have someone consistently monitor customer messages so you can deal with your daily business operations.
The Benefits of Working With a Social Media Agency
The value of working with a social media marketing agency is endless. When you have social media management professionals as part of your team, you never have to worry about this aspect of marketing again.
Two major benefits of social media marketing are standouts.
Boost Engagement
A social media agency will increase customer engagement by consistently interacting with your target audience. This will lead to more leads and conversions.
And while engagement across your social media profiles is crucial, better engagement also helps guide customers to your site, driving up website traffic. Again, this will help you all across the board, boosting your search engine results page (SERP) rankings and driving overall visibility to customers.
Save Time
A social media agency has the know-how to execute stellar, in-depth social media campaigns across various social networks. Because this work is labor-intensive, they can save you a lot of time and trouble.
Small businesses that feel overwhelmed with the time commitment of managing multiple social media accounts don’t have to spend any time working on these campaigns when they work with an agency.
How to Identify a Trustworthy Social Media Agency
Finding a trustworthy social media agency can feel like a daunting task. Here are some pointers on knowing if the agency you want to work with is a good match:
- They provide a timeline of results
- An actual human from their team manages your accounts
- They strike a balance with automation
- Pricing is not tied to ad spending, and they understand your social media marketing budget
- They measure profit
- You can access your accounts and account data at any time
- They notify you when something isn’t working
- They are transparent
If any agency offers you something that doesn’t align with these, consider it a red flag. Unfortunately, many agencies will overcharge and not provide results.
When in doubt, ask other business owners for a recommendation on the agency they use.
Start Connecting With Your Audience on Social Media
If you think your small business couldn’t afford to hire an agency, think again. Because they save you time and money in the long run and have the potential to generate new leads and convert customers, your investment could really pay off for you!
At EraserFarm, we love to talk shop about all things marketing! So book a call with us. We can discuss your business goals and talk strategy for your social media plan.
What Does a Creative Agency Do?
Successful marketing requires a full-time effort, but recent stats show that most small businesses dedicate up to two hours a week to promoting themselves. However, most consumers rely on marketing to guide their buying decisions. What does a creative agency do to execute your business’ bright marketing ideas into a brilliant reality?
What Does a Creative Agency Do for Brands?
Modern marketing involves many facets of promotion, and agencies may have particular specialties and skills. For this reason, a marketing company may prefer to label itself as a design, digital, or ad agency.
A company that wants to endure must think beyond a few successful campaigns that lead to a small boost in sales. The key to long-term success is crafting content and communications that distinguish your brand and draw in the target market.
Creative agencies strategize and develop a well-rounded plan of attack to help companies do more than win short-term sales. Creative agencies aim to achieve genuine influence and build brand loyalty. A creative agency can create a tailored, multi-pronged initiative that allows small and midsized businesses to reach their marketing and business goals.
Who Do Creative Agencies Assist?
A competent, creative agency can work with various types of companies. They may work with a restaurant that wants to spread the word about a new deal or a nonprofit that may want to raise awareness for the plight of an endangered species.
Here are a few other industries that find value in working with a creative agency:
- Medical offices
- Sports complexes
- Hair salons
- Insurance companies
- Financial institutions
- Real estate agents
- Law offices
- Entertainment and video production houses
Pretty much anyone who wants to connect with an audience can find value in working with a creative agency.
How Does a Creative Agency Differ From Other Marketing Agencies?
Agencies will typically go by different names to highlight their expertise.
Digital Agency
Digital agencies focus on website design, search engine optimization (SEO), content creation, social media management, email campaigns, and more. They can also help with analytics to measure the success of their strategies.
Advertising Agency
You guessed it - the focus of an ad agency is more on advertising. They look at where to place ads and what ads work best for your business. Not all advertising agencies offer comprehensive marketing services.
Design Agency
A design agency will focus on the visual appeal of products for a business.
Social Media Agency
Social media agencies specialize in creating messaging for social platforms. Accomplishing successful messaging requires a range of talents because a company must create pithy written content, scroll-stopping images, and excellent videos.
SEO Agency
An SEO agency helps your website rank highly in online searches. They typically focus their time on keywords and high-quality content that works with the algorithm.
Public Relations Agency
A PR firm spreads the word about an organization with public messages that are not direct pitches or offers. They often distribute positive messages in media outlets.
Creative Agency
Creative agencies provide a mix of the preceding services, which provides a one-stop shop for marketing and promotion.
What Is a Day in the Life of a Creative Like?
The one thing that remains consistent for a member of a creative agency team is that no day is the same. Here are some of the roles you will find in an agency and what their day may look like.
Art Director
Art directors craft the overall aesthetic for projects. From inception to completion, they guide the project through production and edits to final execution. An art director must have a keen eye and technical acumen to bring a client's vision to life.
A typical day for an art director may involve receiving direction from the creative and managing directors for new concepts and feedback on running projects. The art director will transmit these ideas to an in-house team or work with expert contractors to complete the work. The art director approves the designs and brings drafts to the creative director for review before finalizing.
Director of Search Engine Optimization
An SEO director boosts your website visibility and online presence. This expert reviews site performance and determines how you can optimize your page with relevant keywords and phrases.
SEO directors might start the day reviewing changes in traffic, checking conversion rates, and digging into other metrics. They will then coordinate with their team for tactics to optimize campaigns.
Substantial time goes toward studying the latest industry developments, changes in search engine algorithms, and competitor strategies. When they discover technical SEO issues, they work on rapid fixes.
Account Executive
Account executives focus on building and supporting client relationships. If you're a new client, your first point of contact is often the account executive, who helps you find solutions to your marketing struggles.
The AE may spend the first part of the day finding clients who can benefit from creative agency services. Throughout the day, the AE may also communicate with existing clients to tailor service packages that meet their needs.
Video Producer
A video producer's job involves more than holding up a camera and calling, “Action!” The video producer works in a studio or on location to create the perfect setting. The producer may have to coordinate with multiple individuals to coordinate filming sessions.
After a video is shot, it may require hours for color correction, retouching, and other edits. The video producer also inserts motion graphics and 3D elements to give videos that high-class professional presentation consumers expect.
Managing and Creative Directors
Directors are the team’s leaders. These professionals may have started the agency as a solo or small operation and understand the basics of each assignment and the requirements for a successful campaign.
Managing and creative directors often cut their teeth at larger firms. From their experience, they understand everything that goes into making multimillion-dollar campaigns and can bring that expertise to small and mid-sized businesses.
These directors hire expert specialists to provide enhanced service to clients. Their day might start with a quick team meeting to set objectives and help everyone stay on track. They will review the progress of projects and keep campaigns on schedule. As emergencies arise, these team leaders step in to put the fires out and resolve challenges.
How Does a Creative Agency Help Brands Grow Stronger?
A creative agency aims to make its clients more popular and attractive to their ideal audience. You can expect a creative agency to help you with the following:
- Bring a fresh viewpoint and marketing expertise
- Produce high-quality content worthy of a multinational corporation
- Uncover the best marketing strategies
- Execute marketing plans quickly for faster return on investment
A creative agency helps your company have the presence in the marketplace you desire.
Are You Ready To Discover How a Creative Agency Can Help Your Brand?
Creative agencies help you maximize your marketing budget and efforts by dedicating hours to creating and refining great campaigns. The ROI for a business that wants to take things to the next level is limitless.
What does a creative agency do for your business? If you're ready to find out for yourself, let's talk. EraserFarm is all ears whether you're ready to work on a project now or just want to discuss your plans.
What Does It Mean to Be a Social Media Strategist?
Data from Statista shows that in 2021, nearly 4.3 billion people used social media. That number is projected to increase to almost six billion by 2027!
With easy access to so many people, it’s unsurprising why social media content is a necessary component of anyone’s digital marketing strategy. So much so that now, plenty of people work as social media strategists.
But what does it mean to be a social media strategist? Read on to learn more about this position and how a strategist can help your business with its social media marketing.
What Is a Social Media Strategist?
A social media strategist designs campaigns over various social media channels to achieve your company’s goals. Their role focuses on the “big picture.”
Simply put, a social media strategist comes up with a strategy for your social media campaigns and hands it off to a social media manager to implement it.
While a social media strategist may help manage the day-to-day activities and help drive engagement, their most important role is to build brand awareness. In addition, they focus on bridging the gap between offline and online activities.
A social media strategist will be able to handle the following:
- Plan and schedule content
- Collaborate with other team members, such as graphic designers, copywriters, and content creators, to create marketing campaigns
- Measure campaigns’ performance
- Analyze how other channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), email, and PPC complement and interact with your social media campaigns
- Monitor business mentions
- Analyze competitors’ social media campaigns
If you have a social media team, the social media strategist is the backbone of that team.
What’s the Difference Between a Social Media Strategist and Social Media Manager?
Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is a social media strategist?” you may wonder how the role is different from a social media manager. While many use the two job titles interchangeably, these creative services have some crucial distinctions.
Social media managers focus mainly on the day-to-day activities of social media. Generally speaking, a social media manager helps to implement the strategy given by the strategist by managing a team of social media specialists.
Further, social media managers are usually only thinking about executing one campaign at a time, and their focus is on the execution of the campaign.
Some of their duties include:
- Content creation (focusing on high-quality content)
- Engaging with customers on different social media accounts, such as
- TikTok
- Identifying customer trends
- Planning and implementing digital campaigns
Some social media managers will analyze engagement and web traffic metrics to help build online communities, but this is not a requirement. Strategists tend to have more skills when it comes to analyzing statistics.
Conversely, while social media strategists may also aid in daily activities related to social media, they do much more. Strategists think about the long-term goals of the company. They need to do research and create more comprehensive marketing campaigns and strategies.
However, the required skill set for both industry professionals is quite similar. They usually need the following:
- Analytical skills
- Communication skills
- Copywriting skills
- Management skills
- Multitasking skills
- Some graphic design skills
- Time-management skills
Although their roles differ, managers and strategists work together to increase your business’s online presence and help achieve its goals.
What Does a Social Media Strategist Do?
We could give you a long list of responsibilities for a social media strategist. Instead, we’ll cover what we believe to be the three most important responsibilities of any social media strategist.
Develop, Implement, & Manage Social Media Plans
A social media strategist must identify the following:
- Potential customer demographics
- Where the target audience engages on social media
- How they communicate
- What makes them tick
With this information, they can analyze social media trends and develop a social media strategy. Once fully developed, social media specialists will implement and manage it through various social media posts.
They may work with a social media manager during the implementation stage.
Define the Most Important Social Media KPIs
With the social media campaigns in place, your strategist will then track the results. Social media analytics is instrumental to the success of your campaigns and offers powerful insights. Of course, your strategist needs to be well-versed in the basic metrics, such as
- Clicks
- Comments
- Likes
- Shares
But they may also focus on even more important KPIs, like:
- Brand mentions
- Engagement
- Followers
- Impressions/views
- Leads
- Email signups
- Sales
- Website traffic
Your strategist will use these KPIs to alter the digital marketing strategy when necessary for the best results.
Build an Online Community on Social Media
Although daily engagement is essential for a social media strategist, what matters more is building a community and cultivating influence.
Your strategist will use different tools, like storytelling, humor, and polls, to create a following of responsive and loyal customers. They will also guide your business in connecting with its target audience so that the customer relationship can go beyond sales and leads.
Do You Need a Social Media Strategist?
To know if you need to hire a social media strategist, look at who is already on your team.
A strategist is an excellent idea if you need someone to help with your big picture and create an overarching social media strategy. But if you only need someone to help with content creation, posting, and engaging with customers, you may be better off with a social media manager.
Additionally, if your current social media strategy isn’t getting the ROI you expected, a strategist can help assess why. Then, they can create a plan to reach your desired targets.
If you feel completely lost when it comes to anything social media-related, then a strategist can definitely help you.
Social Media Strategist Salary: Pricing to Expect
A strategist isn’t free, so you’ll need to add their fee to your social media marketing costs. According to Indeed.com, the average salary for a full-time social media strategist is around $52,000 per year. This is if you hire someone to join your in-house team.
However, you can also employ a strategist on a project basis. The strategist can deliver a strategy that is ready to implement. Prices will vary depending on the scope of the project and your strategist’s experience.
Grow Your Business With the Right Strategy
Growing your business’s online presence through various social media platforms is necessary to build a loyal customer base and reach your goals. Bringing a social media strategist on board can expedite achieving those goals. Want to learn more about our digital marketing services at EraserFarm? Reach out, and let’s have a chat!
What are Creative Services? The Complete Guide for Businesses
PR Newswire reports that the creative agency market will have an incremental spend of more than $320 billion between 2021 and 2026. The increased spending for creative services proves that businesses need fresh ideas to keep their customers interested and engaged.
But what are creative services exactly?
Creative services are basically creativity for hire - like writing, design, and production - that give your business some oomph. They handle the creative messaging that lets the world know your business exists. You can tap into these services at design studios, advertising agencies, and branding agencies. Creative agencies play a vital role in helping businesses stand out in their market and increase profits. So why should your business consider hiring one? Let’s see what makes them worth your while!
What Services Does A Creative Agency Offer?
A creative agency provides marketing initiatives and creative solutions to help businesses improve their marketing, ad presence, and brand identity. They can help your business with any creative strategy, work, or promotion. This includes:
- Advertising, brand, content, marketing, or social media strategy
- Measurement and analysis
- Content creation
- Communication services such as media buys, paid placement, sponsored content, influencer marketing, and PR
You’ll find the following positions in a creative services company:
- Account manager
- Art director
- Brand and content strategist
- Copywriter
- Creative director
- Campaign director
- Editor
- Graphic designer
- Producer
- Videographer
- Web designer or developer
How a full-service creative agency provides its services can vary from company to company. For example, some creative agencies work within a specific industry, such as plumbing or HVAC. Other agencies may only work in-house for a large corporation. At EraserFarm, we’ve worked with many clients in diverse industries, such as food and beverage, medical, and nonprofit sectors to invigorate the brand voice and get messaging out there to be seen and heard. We love showcasing what our teams have created - take a look at our creative work to see some of our best creative projects to date. Creative agencies can offer an extensive range of services, but we’ll focus on four of the most common services available below.
Advertising Services
Most businesses don’t have the knowledge or bandwidth to create and execute a successful advertising campaign. They also often know what they want to say, but don’t know how to say it. Thus, a creative agency will generate advertising ideation based on market research to understand the target audience and oversee the execution of the campaign. And they’ll do it in a way that sounds like your authentic brand. Depending on the campaign, the agency may need to hire out some of the services. For instance, the designers at a creative agency can create a billboard, but they may need to hire another company to print and hang it.
Consulting Services
You can hire a creative agency to consult with your business on a variety of topics. Some common examples include:
- New products or services
- How to lower marketing overhead
- New markets and demographics to target
If you require consulting services for many aspects of your business, a full-service agency in your area is your best bet.
Design Services
If your business needs to revamp its image or create new promotional materials, a creative agency can help. Whether you need a new logo, design templates, or even new signage, you’ll want the design expertise of a creative or design agency.
Digital Services
Digital marketing has increased global touchpoints, but IT demands can be intimidating unless you have experience in the field. With the growing importance of technology, many creative agencies now offer expert digital services. Using digital services can create an entirely new user experience. Even making technical advances to your website or app can go a long way with new and returning customers. Digital offerings can also give your customer an immediate answer or pathway to a solution for those with an urgent need, or even entertain them.
What’s the Difference Between a Creative Agency & Other Agencies?
A creative services company is an umbrella term that can include other agencies. Different agencies you may be familiar with include:
- Ad agencies
- Design agencies
- Digital agencies
- PR agencies
- SEO agencies
- Social media agencies
While these agencies have a specialized focus, a creative agency usually encompasses more than one of these services. For instance, when a business works with a digital agency, they are working with a company that focuses on a specific digital space instead of a company that has a more diverse list of services.
How Can a Creative Services Company Help Your Business?
There are many ways creative services can help grow your business. Below we highlight the top five benefits to consider.
Brand Strategy & Identity
Your brand identity drives every aspect of your business, such as
- Your tone
- The design of your website and business cards
- How employees speak to consumers
- Your pitch to prospective clients
A creative agency can help you craft a brand identity that aligns with your target audience. Then they will create a brand strategy that is the driving force behind your business. This includes everything from copywriting and graphic design to brand standards and competitive analysis. Having a polished brand identity and strategy can help make your business recognizable and memorable.
Brand Engagement
After implementing your brand strategy, a creative agency can help you analyze how well customers respond to it. Examining and interpreting data is crucial in driving brand engagement. Your business can use the data to take actionable steps toward increasing customer engagement.
Video Marketing
Video marketing often helps improve a business’s success on social media and search results. Data shows that video content generates leads and enhances engagement. Although anyone can do their own video production, having the professionals of a creative agency handle your production is best. They can take care of the strategy, scriptwriting, post-production, and everything in between. This will give your video marketing what’s called “high production value,” so that your messaging shines through and gets your customers interested in what you have to offer.
Social Media
Social media marketing may seem easy to handle in-house, but realistically, building a strong social media presence takes a lot of time and effort. When you join forces with a creative agency, you don’t have to worry about spending hours figuring out which platforms to join or what content to create. Instead, a creative agency can easily help your business develop a winning social media strategy.
Digital Marketing
The world of digital marketing is admittedly overwhelming, making it difficult to know where to spend your ad dollars. However, a creative agency can use data to understand where your customers are on the internet and how to reach them best.
Should you invest in SEO, content marketing, or PPC marketing? The professionals at a creative agency will be able to tell you, and they’ll craft a plan to maximize that investment.
Get Started With Creative Services in Tampa
At EraserFarm, we offer a personalized, boutique creative agency experience. Want to create brand loyalists? We know how to do it. Need help with an overall marketing strategy? We got you! Our agency is small - on purpose. Our team works closely with each client to create tailored marketing and creative solutions that build an emotional connection with your consumer.
We’d love to have a chat. Reach out to us today to book in, and find out how we can help grow your business.
The Ultimate Guide of Video Production
Video production involves the whole process of creating videos, including short films, business marketing videos, full-length movies, music videos, television commercials, and more. While the specifics for each might vary, the overall process is the same, and it includes pre-production, production, and post-production. When running a video production business, search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to helping you rank.
Online presence is crucial for the growth of your business. It also makes it easier to reach a new audience while increasing your website's visibility to the right people. You can rank top on SERPs with video production SEO, expanding your organic reach. Here's the ultimate guide to video production SEO.
Key words are key
Keywords are vital because they’re the main link between what users are looking for and what you’re offering. Using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Planner, you can input your services, such as video production or video producer, to get keyword ideas and their monthly search volume.
When you use relevant keywords throughout your website and content, you'll most likely rank high when customers and prospects search for the services or content you provide. Before settling on the keywords to use on your video production website, consider their relevance, search volume, competition, ROI, and intent.
Make your website mobile-friendly
Statistics indicate that 70% of web traffic comes from mobile phones, and 80% of the highly-ranked websites are optimized for mobile. A mobile-friendly website is accessible from any device and doesn't compromise user experience. Making your video production website mobile-friendly helps you attract more clients while increasing your rankings on SERPs.
Create SEO blog content
Creating video production blog content that uses the relevant keywords is crucial to ensuring that it ranks and the right audience finds it. You can start by writing your SEO content outline, especially if you are not familiar with search engine optimization. Ensure the content you create is well-written because users and search engines value high-quality content. You should write it for the readers, ensure it's engaging and readable, consider search intent, be trustworthy, and keep your content up-to-date.
Invest in local SEO for video production
Local SEO for video production companies enables you to optimize your online presence for better rankings on search results and more local traffic, increasing revenue and sales. For your business to appear in local search results, Google considers proximity to the searcher, relevance based on the search query, and prominence, which depends on what other clients say about your services or products. Optimizing your address and city makes it easier for users to find your video production business online and offline.
Video production website audit
A website audit enables you to identify the SEO opportunities you missed and correct any SEO pitfalls, including matched anchor text links, keyword stuffing, and more throughout your website's content. It lets you focus your SEO efforts on your audience first, then the search engines later. A website audit allows you to spot issues that hurt your business's SEO and conversions, such as broken links, slow page load times, hidden content, and more. Repairing these issues helps improve your rankings and conversions.
Endnote
Video production SEO is crucial as it helps increase your business' visibility on search engine results, drive more traffic to your site, and increase conversions. Want better results with your video production SEO? Contact our team at EraserFarm today.
What is a Creative Agency? Creative Agencies Explained
Developing long-term relationships with your clients and maintaining their interest in your brand is not easy; it requires patience and work. Marketing plays a significant role in this case: it elevates your brand’s reach and increases the potential value of your goods and services. Creative agencies are crucial in this regard, as they can enable you to implement strategies that ultimately increase profits.
Navigating the world of varying creative agencies to get this support can be tricky. Below, we will comprehensively break down how creative agencies work for you in this article, as well as introduce the major types of creative agencies.
What Is a Creative Agency?
Creative agencies typically offer a range of services that help strengthen a brand’s marketing, ad presence, and overall brand personality. If you require any innovative strategy, work, or publicity, enlisting the services of a creative agency should be your plan of action. While you know your brand and target audience best, a team of creative and marketing professionals is the key to communicating these things most effectively.
These agencies provide strategy-building, content creation, measurement and analysis, and communication services. They comprise a team of experts that can uphold your brand’s needs. This team can include an art director, a creative director, producers, videographers, writers and editors, web designers and developers, and account managers—among other specialists that may make their agency unique.
Types of Creative Agencies
There are a variety of creative agencies you can choose from to cater to your unique requirements:
1. Digital Agency
Businesses can obtain an advantage over their competitors and engage with customers much more effectively by using online methods. A digital creative agency focuses on developing the design and marketing of your products and services available online. They enhance your online presence by creating mobile and web applications that incorporate social media marketing, online ads, and campaigns.
The agency may also focus on search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure your content ranks well in search results. Search engine optimization is a practice where search engines are studied for their algorithms to determine what causes search results to rank higher than others. When these fundamentals are applied to a marketing campaign, the visibility of your brand in searchable online spaces is front and center.
Since they also collect information regarding how well your implemented online campaign is performing, they can guide you on audience engagement, the do’s and don’ts of social media advertisement, and click-through rates.
2. Advertising Agency
This type of agency aims to promote your products and campaigns in a way that stimulates the interest of audiences. A creative advertising agency strategizes to increase your customer pool by attracting new consumers while ensuring that the existing ones remain loyal.
These experts conduct market research, obtaining data regarding the latest trends and brand perception. This allows them to effectively pinpoint placements for created ads and improve brand popularity. They also have connections with media outlets, which makes the advertisement process much smoother for their clients.
3. Design Agency
A design agency’s job is to make products and services look attractive so that they appear much more enticing than their competition in the targeted market. This entails the designs of both digital services and products.
Designers will create style layouts for mobile or web page marketing tools; for example, websites and e-newsletters. Similarly, packaging design is just as vital as your product—the packaging is the first thing that a consumer will see and collect information about the product from. Design firms provide product and packaging designs that make your product look attractive while retaining its functionality and convenience.
Endnote
Running a successful business with the proper marketing strategies requires that you put effort into crafting your content. Working with a creative agency that is friendly, responsive, and aligns with your brand image and values can get you the content you need, while most effectively spreading the word of what your business has to offer.
Investing in this type of partnership ensures your content is created carefully and makes a great impact. Start the discussion today and contact EraserFarm for a consultation with a multifaceted advertising agency dedicated to communicating your brand’s unique personality.