Blog – Logical Media Group

Why Your Company Should Use a Fractional CMO Agency

LMG Staff — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 16:05:49 +0000

For some organizations, assumed hires are a full-time Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Chief Information Officer (CIO). However, whatever the circumstance may be, there has been a turn of the tides in the C-suite staff. A more startup viewpoint may be more effective to bring the track record that traditional leadership team members exude but without the financial investment that can be needed in sustaining often lofty salaries.

As fractional CMOs are becoming normalized, delve into why hiring an agency for outsourced and short-term CMO needs may produce next level results for your marketing goals, sales development objectives, and internal fund allocation.

Hiring a fractional Chief Marketing Officer through a marketing agency versus a full-time CMO

Although the highlights are for finances and strategy, there are a variety of other factors to take into consideration when deciding between hiring a fractional CMO and having a salaried full-time in-house CMO on staff.

The C-suite can be bolstered by a company employing a full-time in-house CMO due to the strategic and relational closeness that can be found within the executive-level leadership team and a company’s clients. Also, a fractional CMO can often bring a new perspective which still aligns with a marketing department’s goals and objectives. However, there are a few factors to ponder prior to hiring a CMO, whether full-time or outsourced.

Finances and cost

One factor that is often the most criticized when hiring a chief marketing officer is the financial health of an organization. For better or worse, hiring for a position on the C-level can be expensive due to the likelihood of the professional expertise that a marketing leader brings to the table. Additionally, by hiring a marketing executive to take on the breadth of what an organization’s marketing initiatives look like, a company must consider the time — and therefore, money — spent on onboarding, training, and, quite possibly, new tools or platforms to develop marketing. Ultimately, a CMO can offer your organization a more prudent way to distribute internal funds.

In comparison to a full-time CMO that is on staff and receiving (at the very least) an average salary of $175K per annum, with a fractional CMO costing anywhere between $200 and $400 per hour — and not working more than a 20-hour part time employee — the cost savings look favorable to having a fractional chief marketing officer.

While taking into account the expenses of deploying projects for digital marketing plan items like content creation, SEO tasks, paid search and social services, and email marketing services, a fractional CMO agency can service those digital marketing channels and tackle said projects, while also providing the marketing leadership strategy that is desired.

Although an advantage to employing a chief marketing officer is that it allows an organization to hone in on marketing tone and brand voice, as well as taking on larger projects such as employment branding, the cost of having the CMO on staff can strangle the strategy from moving forward and digital marketing tactics to be deployed.

The weight of employing a fractional CMO agency, then, is taken into consideration even with an average cost of content creation (usually no more than $100 per hour), paid media campaigns (a monthly budget can be upwards of $5k with more fluid campaign prices with the full allotted amount, and SEO optimizations (typically ranging $100-$150 per hour) in place. With a monthly amount for all the digital marketing channels used, plus hiring a fractional CMO agency, the overall marketing department should lower the ceiling of the organization’s costs.

Having a fractional CMO agency come on board that can execute on your digital marketing efforts, tactics, and campaigns, and honing an organization’s marketing strategy, while also costing a fraction of a full-time c-suite marketing executive, is an ever-increasingly attractive organizational solution.

Digital marketing leadership strategy

By hiring a fractional CMO through an agency, organizations have access to a wealth of strategic minds focusing on the needs and wants of a business. Ranging from elevating the marketing team through the utilization of a more strategic content marketing plan with digital optimizations at the forefront to implementing automation for team effectiveness and efficiency, the digital marketing leadership presented through a well-built out strategy from an agency for fractional CMO services is paramount to an organization’s success.

For the digital marketing leadership strategy to come to fruition, the fractional CMO will understand all aspects of the organization, not just the marketing department channels. Whether it’s solely the CMO or other c-suite executives, having an understanding of other business needs is a benefit for organizations. A fractional CMO, that has proven marketing methodology due to having executive-level leadership, can use the marketing processes seen, learned from, and built upon from previous outsourced CMO experiences to the advantage of your own marketing strategy.

Advantages of hiring an agency for part-time fractional CMO services

Although hiring a full-time chief marketing officer can be a boon for business needs, bringing in a digital marketing agency as a proxy of an experienced marketing professional in the form of an outsourced — or fractional — CMO often can highlight areas for business growth in a more tactful way.

Not only is the perspective of an outsourced Chief Marketing Officer different than that of a full-time, salaried employee, but using fractional CMO services means there is a brain trust of experts from which the CMO can tap into a wealth of knowledge in an assortment of marketing channels.

Additionally, the methodology that a fractional CMO deploys is an advantage for improving marketing efforts and marketing tactics for a business. Employing a fractional CMO through an agency allows for the CMO to strengthen the amalgamation of methods through which they work best and see the most vital results come to pass for an organization. Whether a fractional CMO relies heavily on inbound marketing methodologies or a combination of methodologies that often see go-to-market strategies intertwined, the benefits of a varied methodological standpoint from an outsourced CMO can be crucial for a business that does not depend on a full-time CMO.

How Logical Media Group can transform your digital marketing strategy through the use of a fractional CMO

If you’re looking for assistance with business needs and seek a partnership with a marketing agency to further develop and grow your marketing processes, consider hiring a fractional CMO through Logical Media Group.

Whether you’re seeking fractional CMO services to achieve higher organic SEO metrics, reaching a higher ROAS for your paid media channel, or simply ensuring your marketing strategy aligns with your sales development goals and business objectives, Logical Media Group has diligently worked on and subsequently accomplished navigating the often smooth but sometimes choppy waters of marketing and business development.

Whether your organization is looking for a different perspective on your marketing team’s long term vision for SEO, paid search and social, organic social media, and other marketing campaigns through a mixture of channels, or simply need the guidance of an experienced marketing professional, Logical can help. We have the right team members your organization needs to fulfill and exceed the KPIs your company’s marketing team has established. Our team will also maintain a keen eye on using current and up-and-coming metrics to get the most out of the marketing goals that have been put in place.

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What is Holistic Marketing and How to Take Advantage of being a Holistic Marketer

LMG Staff — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:49:49 +0000

By Brittany Gora and Katherine Rupp

As more businesses work to refine their presence on the Internet, staying relevant in a vast online landscape continues to be competitive. To win over potential customers, you must integrate all your efforts, and this method of incorporating all strategies is part of holistic marketing.

By definition, “holistic marketing” refers to considering an entire business and all its sectors. Essentially, you’re thinking beyond just one specific department. You’re considering all departments, working in harmony. It sounds like a beautiful thing that’s too good to be true—but good news is, you can achieve this. We’re breaking down how you can be a holistic marketer both inside and outside of the office.

Understanding Holistic Marketing Concepts

Today, customers make their purchases after careful consideration. Thus, it’s crucial to capture their attention from the start. To do this, all efforts should align with a larger company-wide mission. Often, these goals look like encouraging customer retention and promoting brand awareness. By creating a plan ahead of time, you can intentionally and quickly develop meaningful relationships with your clients or customers.

Honing the skills of being a holistic marketer is just one step through which the tapestry of marketing is created. There are facets to being a holistic marketer that tend to sway towards the professional aspect of business, however, what shouldn’t be taken for granted are the personal characteristics.

Tapping into the Breadth of Holistic Marketing Strategies

One of the concepts of holistic marketing includes bringing together the vision of each department or organization’s marketing channels and funnels that upward. While the company as a whole should have a mission, each department needs one as well. If your company is working in silos — and each channel doesn’t understand their purpose — you’ll face disadvantages such as communication breakdowns, duplicated deliverables, and wasted time and money.

Once a common goal is settled upon that is congruous with and ladders up to the mission and vision of the organization, it is disseminated throughout the company. As each employee understands the ultimate purpose of what they do and why they do it, it solidifies the holistic marketing concept of attaining an objective for the greater good, including the client. This aspect of internal marketing is vital to move forward with more external facing marketing efforts.

Once internal marketing has been addressed, the next weave of the holistic marketing tapestry is integrated marketing. The integration of different holistic marketing strategies and tactics is, ideally, what takes place when an organization is seamlessly running on all cylinders. By fusing the elements of integrated marketing into a full holistic marketing approach, the more well rounded the final product.

Additionally, both relationship marketing and performance marketing play their own separate parts as holistic marketing concepts. Through forming the more deep-seeded bonds through relationships with customers — truly building brand loyal consumers and cultivating a connection with those who use the product or service — and understanding the consumers that take action on paid marketing services and engage with a brand with performance marketing goals, holistic marketing can be seen as such, comprehensive.

Not only are commonalities in goals an important characteristic of holistic marketing, so should the fusion of its features, strategies, and tactics such as initiatives to increase brand awareness and pursuing the concept of cohesion to achieve a level of compatibility in strategies.

Therefore, through the amalgamation of various elements of business strategies running throughout a company, being a holistic marketer means taking a bird’s eye view of the target market and understanding that the cross-pollination of marketing channels and strategies can have great, and fruitful, impact on a business and clients.

Being a Holistic Marketer

No doubt, planning future initiatives requires a great deal of time and effort. After devoting time to the organization you’re part of and its future success, what is crucial and comes into play in holistic marketing is to carve out time for yourself.

Being a holistic marketer requires a large amount of autonomy and a skillset that is unmatched. It can be quite the task to keep on top of trending holistic marketing strategies, understand the nuances of each of the four types of marketing that comprise holistic marketing, and maybe even carve out your own niche within digital marketing (for instance, you might be someone who excels in SEO or Paid Media).

Remember to take intermittent breaks throughout the day, and lean into healthy ways to decompress during this time. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Calling family members or friends for a chat
Cleaning up your home
Cooking a meal or preparing a snack
Listening to music and podcasts
Reading a magazine or book
Participating in creative hobbies like drawing, making music, painting, or sewing
Squeezing in a workout or meditation

To improve on your proficiencies in holistic marketing, an important point to remember is to be a full person. Bringing your humanity into being a holistic marketer should make it easier to transfer real-life experiences, opinions, and research into your holistic marketing strategies and initiatives.

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Three Google Analytics 4 Features to Get Excited About

Miriam Reid — Wed, 25 May 2022 12:19:36 +0000

In October 2021, Google announced its latest iteration of the Google Analytics (GA) platform: Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and there are plenty of exciting new GA4 features that we believe will make this update worth the learning curve.

The three GA4 Features That We’re Most Excited About:

1. Enhanced Measurement

While Google Analytics Universal focused primarily on page views and page-based tracking, Google Analytics 4 features shift their focus to more event-based tracking. With GA4’s Enhanced Measurement, you will automatically be able to track a number of unique data points, including:

Scrolls, so you’ll know how many visitors get to the bottom of a specific page.
Outbound Clicks, so you’ll know each time a visitor clicks on a link that leads them away from your domain(s).
Site Search, so you can track the most searched terms on your site.
Video Engagement, so you can track when a visitor plays an embedded video, their progress, and how many visitors finish the video.
File Downloads, so an event will be captured each time a visitor downloads a document, compressed file, video, or audio file from your website.

These enhanced measurements allow you to view the whole story of how visitors interact with your website, without requiring extra coding or the hiring of a developer on your end. These insights make it easier to optimize your website(s) based on the actions most often taken by your visitors.

2. Funnel Analysis

Funnels were previously only available for GA360 users, but now all users will now be able to utilize funnels as they are found within GA4 features. Even better, the GA4 funnels are more customizable, allowing you to build retroactive funnels that can also be segmented. And if you’re intimidated about building your own funnels, GA4 also provides default funnel templates that you can start with.

Having this visual of your funnels makes it even easier to view trends, see which steps in your funnel have the biggest drop-off, and more. This allows you to make continual improvements to your funnel over time based on your findings.

3. User Lifetime

As the name suggests, User Lifetime reports generate metrics that allow you to see the value of a user since they first interacted with your website(s), outside of a specific date range. This metric is extremely valuable because it feeds into the bigger picture of how your marketing strategy is performing, how many of your customers are returning, and what kind of ROI you’re getting from a specific lead.

The Bottom Line

While GA4 is still in its infancy and still has some kinks to work out, there are a lot of reasons why you should be excited about the latest iteration of GA. Specifically, the transition from page-based tracking to event-based tracking gives you a clearer picture of how users interact with your website(s) and with your overall marketing strategy.

Interested in learning more about how GA4 features could impact your business? Reach out to Logical so we can partner in your Google Analytics strategy.

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How to Treat Disengaged Email Subscribers

Miriam Reid — Thu, 19 May 2022 11:49:15 +0000

We know how frustrating it can be to spend time writing an email to list, only for it to garner little to no results. While there could be various factors causing this — including your subject line choice, call to action, email deliverability, etc. — sometimes your subscribers are simply disengaged. So what do you do when this is the case? We’re breaking down everything that you need to know about re-engaging your email subscribers.

How to Re-Engage Email Subscribers

Email marketing subscriber lists are sometimes referred to as either ‘clean’ or ‘dirty.’ Having a 100% clean list means that all of your subscribers are engaged and interact with your emails (through opens and clicks) on a regular basis. Having a 100% dirty list, on the other hand, would mean that no one opens or interacts with your emails because your subscribers are outdated, no longer interested in your content, or are spam. Most email lists will fall somewhere on the spectrum between ‘clean’ and ‘dirty,’ but if your email marketing subscriber list is more dirty than it is clean, it’s a good idea, then, if you’re wondering how to re-engage email subscribers, to consider a re-engagement campaign.

A re-engagement campaign is a series of emails that is either sent to an entire email marketing subscriber list or a segment of a list that is deemed ‘cold’ or ‘disengaged.’ The purpose of a re-engagement campaign is to ask subscribers whether or not they would still like to be receiving our emails. We remind them of the purpose of our email content, who our email content is for, and how our email content can help them. Then, we ask them to take an additional step if they would like to keep hearing from us, like clicking a link or button. This is important because most email platforms track opens by tracking whether or not the ‘images’ in an email load, so opens from subscribers who receive plain-text versions of your emails are not always counted.

After the re-engagement campaign is completed, to keep the list as ‘clean’ as possible, we remove the subscribers that did not open the emails or did not indicate that they would like to keep hearing from us. Keeping a clean list makes it easier to learn about your audience and what content they like, accurately track open and click rates, and means that you’re not paying for subscribers who are no longer opening or reading your emails.

Transforming Email Marketing Subscriber Lists

So how do you know if your email list is more dirty or clean? Below are signs of each to be on the lookout for.

Signs of a ‘dirty’ or disengaged list:

Open rates consistently under 20%
Click rates consistently under 1%
Infrequent emails to list (less than one per month)

Signs of a ‘clean’ or engaged list:

Open rates consistently at or over 25%
Click rates consistently at or over 2%
Regular emails to list (one per week or more)

The Bottom Line

While having a disengaged email list can be frustrating, it’s not the end of the world. By sending a re-engagement campaign to either your entire list or specifically to subscribers who are disengaged, you can remind subscribers why they joined your list in the first place and ensure that you’re not paying for subscribers who have gone cold. And if you’re frequently dealing with a large number of disengaged subscribers, contact us to see how the Logical team can help you with your email marketing.

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An In-Depth Look into Analytics with Google’s Switch to GA4

Chris Piteo — Wed, 04 May 2022 13:41:03 +0000

Google’s web analytics newest update, officially dubbed Google Analytics 4, is replacing Universal Analytics by July of 2023. The switch to GA4 will provide an even more in-depth look at predictive insights, further integration within Google Ads, and cross-device measurement capabilities.

Google Analytics has been one of the most useful tools for businesses to understand their customer preferences and enable them to craft better user experiences. Unlike your brick-and-mortar-style store, organizations can not see the customer physically walk into a store or observe how they interact with the products. This in-person feedback allows us to adjust and build out the user experience to completely satisfy a customer’s journey from search to purchase.

Analytics has allowed us to take a deep dive into how customers find a website and how they are interacting within that space. Ultimately, digital marketing strategies can be adjusted to be more profitable based on what is working for a business. To understand the constant shifting of consumer behaviors and to facilitate privacy-driven habits, a more updated analytic approach was needed.

The Switch to GA4 from an ROI Perspective

Improving ROI from your marketing in the long term lies within the ultra-intuitive G4 insights. Machine learning will automatically give you helpful insights and allow you to understand your customer across any device or platform. Even as the industry continues to change regarding restrictions on cookies and identifiers, and with the switch to GA4, Google Analytics will continue to provide key insights that will allow your business to stay on top of what’s next.

Wouldn’t you love a system that’s constantly learning and making suggestions for the betterment of your business? GA4’s new powerful interface will automatically alert you of any significant trends in your data. This may come in the form of a product seeing higher demand because of emerging needs from the consumer.

One of the more powerful tools GA4 has at its disposal is the ability to anticipate future actions a consumer may take. As seen below, the predictive metrics include Purchase, Churn Probability, and Predicted Revenue. The churn probability function allows you to efficiently invest in retaining customers when marketing budgets are limited. Predicted revenue gives you the ability to create audiences to not only reach higher-valued customers but understand why certain consumers are more likely to spend than others.

Further integration with Google Ads allows businesses to create audiences that can reach their customers with the most relevant and helpful content however they engage with you. In addition, conversions from YouTube engaged views that occur in-app and on the web can now be seen alongside conversions from Google and non-Google paid channels, organic channels, social and email. This gives you the most holistic view of the impact of your marketing efforts.

Google’s Consumer-minded analytics

The new customer-centric measurement uses multiple identity spaces, to give a more complete view of how consumers are interacting within your business. Tracking users who found your business from an ad on the web and then later installed your app to make a purchase there helps understand the complete customer lifecycle. All the way from acquisition to conversion to retention. With the needs of consumers always evolving, it’s imperative to have these insights to make real-time decisions on winning or retaining a customer.

More than ever, now is the time to bolster your digital marketing efforts and invest in smarter analytics. Allowing you to respond to any changes in consumer expectations, developments, and technology standards for user privacy. As technology continues to change, this new GA4 version of analytics is designed to adapt to that landscape.

Eventually giving businesses the ability to include modeling to fill in gaps where data may be incomplete. Allowing for the most advanced analytics swiss army knife at any business can utilize to measure marketing results and meet changing customer needs. To learn more about GA4, Universal Analytics and the switch to GA4, and all the intuitive new features visit Google’s Analytic Help center.

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Tips For Spring Cleaning Your Digital Marketing Efforts

Brittany Gora — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 14:19:26 +0000

Spring has sprung, and with this new season comes spring cleaning.

As you tidy up around the house and your physical office space this year, consider looking at your digital marketing efforts as well. You may feel tempted to keep things as they are — after all, it’s easiest to “set it and forget it.”

However, this mentality can limit you and your company’s potential.

The reality is, digital marketing tactics change all the time — not to mention your priorities have likely changed as well. So, you must remain agile and adjust your digital marketing strategies to keep up with new technologies.

Here, we’re offering some key tips for spring cleaning your digital marketing efforts.

Reevaluate Your Goals

Because the change in seasons is a fresh start, it’s an ideal opportunity to reflect on goal progress.

When you completely refresh your home, you typically go room by room, right? Follow this same process as you optimize your digital marketing endeavors. If you need, jot down a list of all your digital marketing efforts so you don’t forget any crucial approaches or platforms.

First, take inventory of all the social media platforms you currently utilize. Then, examine each and determine what seems to be effective and what seems to be unproductive.

For example, upon your review, you may find little to no engagement, so you commit to increased activity on your social media accounts. If you’re currently posting once a month, create a goal to post weekly. Or, if you’re posting weekly, challenge yourself to post daily.

Perhaps after evaluating your approaches for each platform, you’d like to try promoting your business with new services. In fact, maybe one of your goals is utilizing Amazon.

By taking the necessary steps to begin advertising on the site, you’re certain to reap the benefits from promoting your offerings within the space.

You may even want to start, or strengthen, your email marketing strategies. Strategize how you can launch campaigns so you begin benefitting as soon as possible.

Now, if these initiatives seem daunting, consider enlisting support from an agency. The longer you wait to roll out the efforts, the more you may miss out on critical opportunities for your business.

Assess Goal Sizes

Once you identify and tweak your goals, think about how you’ll attain them.

In most cases, you won’t be able to complete a considerable initiative overnight. Businesses may even benefit from breaking larger strategies into smaller tasks. For instance, if your goal is to rebrand, create separate tasks for:

Brainstorming new color scheme
Redesigning your company logo
Assessing current and future offerings

Perform A Collective Cleanup

Step 1: Build Your Budget

Now that you’ve gotten more specific about how you’ll tackle your goals, it’s time to take on the actual cleaning process.

Your first task is an obvious one: to optimize your digital marketing, you must start with your budget. After all, you may discover money hiding behind ineffective techniques. Instead, you should prioritize allocating funds to better meet your new goals.

A prime example of this is pushing more money toward the channels your target audiences actively use versus the channels you utilize “just because.” Likewise, you could consider setting aside more of your budget for marketing automation, which provides a more convenient way to reference ROI across all your different platforms.

Step 2: Shape The Social Media Side

Following your budget audit, another tip for spring cleaning your digital marketing efforts is to tidy up across platforms.

Start with deleting old social media posts — just be careful not to delete too much. Your account should still convey that you’ve been a reputable expert in your industry, and this will mean showcasing, if possible, a long history.

Next, examine the accounts you follow, including removing any fake or inactive followers. Also remember to update your accounts to reflect promotions for any upcoming holidays as well!

Step 3: Plan Your Paid Media Campaigns

Look at your paid media efforts as well. Whether you’re just starting a PPC campaign or you’re maintaining it, you’ll want to frequently check on its performance.

If necessary, clean up ad copy, ensuring you avoid some of the most common mistakes. You may also realize your campaign needs better target keywords. Be sure to conduct thorough PPC keyword research prior to committing to specific terms.

We’ll add that, if your business relies heavily on interactions during the summer months, now is the time to start building remarketing efforts. You’ll really want to reach your audiences who previously purchased around that time, and upper-funnel campaigns can help you do that.

Furthermore, check on — and analyze — the conversion tracking for your current paid campaigns. Make sure that:

All conversion action items are firing correctly
There is attribution to each platform and the value is being recorded accurately
You’ve set up Thank You pages
You’ve connected your clients’ CRMs to the platform properly, which will ensure the attribution process is as seamless as possible

Finally, perform competitor and impression share analyses. Spring is ideal for acquiring more reliable information than, say, the past six months; previously, you probably prioritized a heavy spend during the holidays and then scaled back on spend earlier this year. These insights will only help you to make sound decisions for your paid campaigns moving forward — and who doesn’t want that?

Step 4: Watch Your Website, Including SEO, Content Marketing, and User Experience

Of course, you also must visit your website and review everything. Keep in mind that ecommerce sites may require different optimizations versus non-ecommerce sites.

Here are several considerations:

- Rework website navigation, which will provide search engines with ease of access to your pages, as well as alleviate user frustration
- Improve page load speed. If your pages load slowly, visitors will likely bounce.

Optimize images. After adjusting your images, you will likely notice a difference in page speed

Remove broken links and pages that don’t serve a purpose. By doing this, you are clarifying functioning and updated pages to crawlers. Plus, you will prevent user confusion that stems from navigating to 404s or irrelevant content

Ensure all URLs are the HTTPS versions of the pages. It’s important to provide users with a secure experience, especially when they offer sensitive information

Additionally, inspect the actual copy on each page. Refresh duplicate or old content, and plan your upcoming blog posts. Strive for informative, unique content that’s up to date and caters to your audience’s interests, taking advantage of relevant terms where they make sense.

Above all, focus on intent. People want accurate and thorough answers to their queries and more, so think about how you can provide as much helpful information as possible without prematurely sending users away from the site.

Lastly, improve user experience for both the desktop and mobile versions of your site. Every session should be seamless for your users — from the second they land on your homepage to the moment they click to confirm their purchase.

By making these changes, you’ll notice a huge difference in the time spent on your site. Plus, you’ll likely see more conversions, meaning more revenue and better relationships with your customers.

Get Curious And Check Out Other Stuff

Finally, when it comes to understanding how to spring clean your digital marketing strategies, do some research and gather inspiration! Revisit the effective campaigns you’ve seen from other companies.

Additionally, check on your fellow industry competitors and analyze what they’re doing. What does their website offer? How do their ads look? What about their social media pages? If their approaches seem to be working, identify ways to utilize these to boost your own digital presence.

Closing Thoughts

When you’re cognizant of your digital marketing’s current performance — and you take action based on missed opportunities — you’re certain to see positive results, such as authority, brand awareness, and conversions.

However, after you optimize your digital marketing, make sure to periodically check back in. Generally, you should review your initiatives every three to six months or, at least, once annually.

We hope our tips for spring cleaning your digital marketing efforts aid you this year, but if you are in need of more help, we’re here for you! Our teams will collaborate with yours to devise powerful plans to meet your unique needs. Contact us today.

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Logical Media Group Acquires SoMe

Chris O'Neill — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 22:07:49 +0000

Logical Media Group was born out of a desire to build something unique in the digital marketing landscape of Chicago. What started as a passion project on nights and weekends became a full-time search marketing operation in 2006. While our organic and paid search services took off, we had a vision greater than expertise in a single channel. Then and now, we seek to create a holistic digital marketing offering. We do this by developing the skill sets and interests of our existing talent base, and by adding to our team to bring our services to the next level.

In 2014, Logical took its first step toward expansion when we acquired The Ocean Agency, which offered web design as a complementary service to our customers. Now – more than 7 years and multiple new service offerings later – we were ready for the next step. This summer, Logical acquired SoMe Digital Media (SoMe), expanding our integrated digital marketing services to include data-informed brand marketing, brand messaging and creative services.

In the early days of Logical, the challenge of building a successful digital marketing agency was daunting enough; the idea of acquiring two other successful businesses along the way would probably have seemed impossible. Since its inception, Logical has embraced change and evolution: chasing innovation and refusing to back down from a challenge so that we could be the best possible partners to our clients.

Our strength at Logical has always been our data-driven strategies and technical prowess. But as we continued to scale and evolve our strategies as omnichannel marketers, it was clear something was missing. We needed to compliment our analytical approach to digital marketing with a best-in-class creative perspective. We knew how to find the right audiences, now we needed to be able to draw them in. Fortunately, our vision has become reality with the acquisition of SoMe, pairing the strength of our analytically driven digital services with another agency offering a similar overall product, only with a far more creative minded perspective.

This is a move that will dramatically elevate our capabilities across every channel, but more importantly will increase the value we are able to pass along to our clients and partners. Additionally, we will now have an experienced creative team for branding services, graphic design, video creation, content strategy, and paid advertising creative. Logical is now a fully functional one-stop-shop for digital marketing.

SoMe’s owner Madhavi Rao will be joining Logical and assuming the position of Director of Marketing and Operations. I am excited about having an extremely qualified digital marketer and agency owner (Rao) heading up Logical’s digital marketing. Additionally, we’ve added her staff of branding, creative, and content experts who have worked with some of Chicago’s biggest brands.

Through both acquisitions, there was a tremendous opportunity to teach and develop new teammates, learn from new teammates, work on new accounts and integrate new services. With this one in particular, we will be expanding our creative and brand messaging service offerings to ultimately help grow our customer’s businesses. I am excited for this next step and the value that we will bring to the marketplace.

Logical Media Group, founded in 2006, is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Chicago, IL. Logical specializes in delivering clients exceptional digital marketing strategies across all paid channels, SEO, content marketing, ecommerce, business analytics, web design, branding, and creative capabilities. The company is forecasted to do $6M in revenue with 50+ team members in 2021.

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Easy User Experience Improvements for Any Website

Chris O'Neill — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:31:56 +0000

We’ve all been there — you type in a website’s URL or find it from the Google search results only to be directed to a wonky site with difficult-to-find information. The worst is when it happens from a mobile device and the website isn’t responsive (when web pages automatically render well on a variety of devices to adapt to screen size). We’ll rotate our phones with the hope that the website design and copy will clearly align, but in the midst of our frustration, we close out of the tab and think less of the business we were trying to learn more about or make a transaction from.

And if you’re a business seeing a high bounce rate (the percentage of website visitors who leave quickly without exploring other pages) on your web traffic reports, something is clearly amiss. It’s time to make some user experience improvements.

User experience, shortened to ‘ux’ in the digital marketing world, is a crucial part of your business. Just as you’d want a customer to have a satisfying experience entering your brick and mortar store, the same applies to your ecommerce store and overall digital presence. While they might not be able to be greeted in-person or use their sense of touch, taste, smell, or hearing to immerse themselves in your product/service online, your goal should be to come as close as possible to creating a positive experience.

Here are some E-Commerce Growth & Trends We’re Watching that are worth taking a look at if you need to adapt your strategy to fit 2021’s digital realm.

Some key components of user experience are:

Desirability.
Accessibility.
Usability.
Credibility.

Your website should improve ux design and copy elements to make your product/service desirable, easy to find and search for, and sustainable.

Not sure how to improve website ux? Check out our recommendations for easy user experience improvements, below.

5 Easy UX Improvements for Any Website

Design a clean and simple layout.

Information overload is a huge turnoff to website visitors. When a user visits your homepage, or any other page on your website, make sure the copy is straight to the point, minimal, laid out in a way that makes sense. Implement bold headlines with a clean sans serif font (we use futura), use original, professional photography, and don’t use too many colors. In fact, just stick to your official brand colors. You should improve ux design first, then dive into your content.

Create engaging content.

This is the ultimate way to develop a satisfying user experience. Tell your brand’s story, use relevant keywords (without overloading), and include compelling elements like blogs, success stories, customer testimonials, and videos. When users/customers feel connected to your brand, it allows the opportunity for more brand exposure. If a customer loves the experience they had on your website, they may share it on social media, write positive reviews, and most importantly — keep coming back for more!

Provide necessary information.

What are your business hours? What is the best contact information for customer service? Are your products broken down into categories and easily filterable? These pieces of information and more, should be a one-click find on your website. The moment the user is sent on a wild goose chase to track down simple information, is the moment you could lose them as a paying customer.

Optimize, optimize, optimize.

This all takes place on the back end of website development, but the efforts that take place behind the scenes often make the final product more satisfying and easy-to-use. To start, test site speed, internal links, responsiveness, keywords, and overall SEO/SEM strategies.

KPIs are important to measure, too! And if you’re trying to optimize locally, be sure to follow our Do’s & Dont’s When Optimizing for Local Search.

Be you.

Using industry jargon, salesly language, and stock photos just doesn’t cut it anymore. Chances are, if a user is visiting your site, it’s because they’re already curious about purchasing a product/service or learning more. Stick to your brand mission. Visit your website as though you are a customer experiencing it for the first time. Remember that the most effective components of user experience are simple and relatable.

At Logical Media Group, we help businesses take their ux to the next level. Contact us today to take the first step in improving website user experience!

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Morality in Advertising: Gender

Lindsey Pellegrini — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 15:05:13 +0000

When we think about morality in our lives and actions, we need to move away from a stereotypical black-and-white view and be comfortable with peeking into the grey. One of the biggest challenges we face is our consumption of media and its portrayal of our cultures through not only content, but advertisements, as well.

It is fair to say that advertisements exist within our society and individual lives. So how does this affect our perception of our world? Does this affect how we interact with each other? In the 1950 and 1960s, women were shown baking in a kitchen while looking immaculate, leading to the molded “housewife” identity. Smoking ads also had a huge impact on image, and people thought that if they smoked, they could look like the people they see in tobacco ads. Advertisements also cater to different genders by introducing stereotypes for specific products, which can impact how we view gender as a whole.

Gender advertising simply put is images used in advertising to depict gender roles. These are heavily used in advertising to display how each gender interacts with each other in the ad. Some stereotypical gender traits are as follows:

Masculine Traits:
- Power
- Strength
- Athleticism
- Competitiveness
Feminine Traits:
- Beauty
- Submissiveness
- Nurturance
- Cooperation

These narratives can take an unhealthy turn in terms of products being marketed. For example, women tend to purchase more dresses than men, so we’ll market to mostly women. This can change depending on the brand, such as a brand specifically advertising unisex/gender-bending fashion. Women also experience ads for dieting products, which upholds beauty standards, with language such as “You want that bikini body? We can help.”

Let’s take a look at some examples of gender-focused advertising. The first we’ll talk about is Rakkasan Tea Company. Rakkasan Tea Company is run by veterans from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Brandon Friedman and Terrence Kamauf, the co-founders, found themselves drinking a lot of tea from locals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their goals are not only to promote tea to men, but also import tea from post-conflict countries to help promote peace and economic growth.

Their products, such as tea mugs, have a cabin feel with quotes like “Ulysses S. Grant Drank Tea.” Some of their other advertising uses language like “Mad Jack Churchill Fought Nazis With A Longbow, Bagpipes and Scottish Broadsword, Drank Tea.” Diesel Jack Media, the Media Agency for Rakkasan, said “The campaign is designed for military members, veteran and military families, and anyone who doesn’t feel welcome in American tea culture.” Through this new marketing effort, are they moving away from masculine gender norms? Is this an effective way to promote tea to men?

Another example is the razor from the brand Billie. Billie is the first razor brand to show women with body hair in their ads. They also strongly promote a “completely clean” product line, along with donating 1% of their revenue to different support groups for women around the world. A lot of their marketing style uses realistic female bodies with pastel colors.

While their product makes efforts to reduce the stereotypical shaving ads we’ve seen in the past, showing actual body hair is a bit of a small step. Through their marketing efforts, are they successfully moving away from feminine gender norms? Is promoting a shaving product with body hair too easy of a step?

Overall, when it comes to gender stereotyping in advertisements, there have been massive improvements over the years as ads evolved. The two products spoken about here have done well in some areas, while still lacking in others. For Rakkasan, does keeping a masculine, militaristic image help target tea to men? For Billie, is showing women with body hair the best that can be done?

The biggest part is now that we’re speaking to it, there seems to be more questions than answers. It is helpful to review those questions, such as what are our current limitations? Does the client have proper creative to use? Would the client be opposed to any significant changes? There are other layers to consider as well, such as race, sexual identity, how gender roles are portrayed outside of the U.S., and plenty more. It is time to ask ourselves, as marketers, that if marketing reflects culture, how can we adapt to be the change we want to see?

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LMG Awarded 2021 Great Place to Work Certification

Tiffany Patel — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 20:45:03 +0000

Logical Media Group is a full-service digital marketing agency located in the River North neighborhood of Chicago whose mission is to craft exceptional digital experiences for people to transact, connect, and explore. We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been awarded a Great Place to Work for the second year in a row!

Great Place to Work Certifications awards companies with top workplace culture, and are based on employee feedback provided via anonymous surveys over a two-week period.

As the Director of People, creating a Great Place to Work is a top priority and thought goes into every decision made to ensure it aligns with our values and resonates with our team. When I reflect on how we increased our GPTW Certification score by five points, going from 88% to 93% from 2019 to 2020 and the overall average of all statements in the survey increased from 83% to 87%, proud isn’t a strong enough word to describe how I feel.

While we are certainly celebrating this win and the increase in our scores, we also use the data from this survey to understand where we have opportunities to improve. A solution to our lower-scoring questions is starting our Digital Marketing Apprenticeship again, which will give our team support to improve their work/life balance, improve diversity by expanding our hiring, and provide an opportunity for recent graduates or career changers to break into the digital marketing industry, so we can promote from within! We’re excited to kick this program off again and will continue to listen to feedback from our team on how it’s going.

Like many companies in 2020, there were challenges presented that we’ve never faced before and the fact that we increased engagement of our employees in the midst of a global pandemic is greatly attributed to everyone who works at Logical! Without our team being comfortable raising concerns and our managers listening to what was being said we wouldn’t have seen the success we did.

You can check out our page here if you’d like to learn more about how we did! If you’re interested in working at Logical check out our careers page here.

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