Explore and applaud the triumphs of Black-Owned Agencies that are reshaping and revitalizing marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes across the US and beyond.

These black-owned agencies can be a valuable addition to your C-Suite, contributing to the transformation of your growth strategy in harmony with the evolving marketing landscape.  In fact, the research supports choosing diverse suppliers like agencies. For example, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) found that companies working with diverse suppliers, including Black-owned agencies, experience a 133% greater return on investment compared to those that did not prioritize diversity.

Additionally, a study by the Harvard Business Review revealed that diverse teams, which included representation from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are 45% more likely to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year. This highlights the correlation between diversity and innovation, suggesting that working with Black-owned agencies can inject fresh perspectives and creativity into marketing strategies.

Following extensive research, we were astonished by the limited resources available for Black-owned marketing agencies and design firms. For over nine years, we have been tracking minority-owned agencies on our agency search platform, Agency Spotter. However, even in our own records, the representation of Black-owned agencies was minimal.

To address this gap, we leveraged our networks and sifted through numerous lists of freelancers and solopreneurs. The outcome is a meticulously crafted compilation of Black-owned agencies that you absolutely need to meet.

Delve into this thoughtfully curated collection of over 40 Black-Owned Agencies, showcasing excellence and creativity in the marketing arena. With your active involvement and leveraging our enterprise services management platform, SpotSource, we are dedicated to growing this list and fostering transparency around diversity and inclusion. 

Authentique Agency

Atlanta, GA

In Atlanta, GA, The Authentique Agency stands as a full-service marketing consulting firm, leveraging the power of identity.. Certified Minority and LGBT owned, they are intentional about creating brand campaigns that genuinely reflect multicultural and LGBTQ life, voices, and viewpoints.

Beaman Inc.  

Chicago, IL

Based in Chicago, IL, Beaman Incorporated is a full-service communications firm specializing in media relations, corporate communications, advertising, and community outreach. Their agency has a team of storytellers who take great pride in creating narratives that spark interest and engage. They have mastered the art of communicating effectively with the media and have the ability to develop and pitch story ideas that journalists want to write about.

Beyond 8

New York, NY

Beyond 8 challenges creative boundaries to execute authentic, diverse and interactive virtual + in person experiences across fashion, tech, art, music and lifestyle industries. Our mission is to cultivate meaningful partnerships, develop innovative strategies and execute high level events while promoting multicultural awareness and inclusivity.

b.ID Creative

Houston, TX

At b.iD, building clients’ brands is their top priority. They are a boutique agency whose aim is to deliver high quality and highly creative designs tied together with top-level service from conception to execution.

Black Digital

Washington D.C.

Black Digital is a Black-owned marketing agency founded in an effort to empower small businesses with a full range of marketing and advertising services. They are determined to provide you with a return that is greater than your initial investment.

Bliss Consulting Services

Atlanta, GA

Bliss Consulting Services, INC., is a full-service consulting agency servicing the metro Atlanta and Los Angeles markets. They were founded with a single mission, to offer strategic and creative services to minority businesses that result in blissful experiences. Bliss Consulting Services approaches each client with fresh eyes and develop custom-made strategies that address challenges while managing client expectations.

Blue Surge 

Lindenhurst, NY

Burrell Communications

Chicago, IL

Burrell is a full-service marketing and communications agency. The agency is well-known for its creativity and strategic approaches. Burrell Communications is driven by innovation and is committed to deliver their clients results year after year. This is perfectly summed up in their mission statement, “consistently deliver innovative, creative, market-moving ideas.”

Carol H. Williams Advertising

Manhattan, NY

Carol H. Williams Advertising is a full-service integrated Black-Owned agency that specializes in broadcast, digital branding, print, and radio. They have helped many Fortune 500 companies craft award-winning multi-cultural campaigns. Carol H. Williams Advertising has worked with brands like AllState, Disney, Google, and so many more. The agency was founded over 20 years ago and has grown to be the largest, independent and female-owned, African American communications agency in the United States.

Consciously

Consciously is a branding + content agency helping companies become a larger part of the communities they serve by Connecting Value to Values. They build purpose-driven and inclusive brand platforms that help companies nourish their business ecosystem. Founded in 2016 as a purpose-driven outsourced marketing department, Consciously has evolved their approach into a method that provides practical ways to codify, share and see results from business purpose.

Creative Theory

Washington D.C.

Creative Theory restores the balance by amplifying voices and telling necessary stories that overturn common narratives. They are boardroom advocates— a voice for the overlooked, from concept to completion. Creative Theory help brands understand who they are, so they can add to the conversation, not the noise.

duGard Communications

Nashville, TN

duGard Communications (dGC) is an award-winning, strategic communications firm specializing in public relations, marketing and business development services to a broad range of brands, companies and non-profit organizations. dGC has developed a highly successful track record of building strategies tailored for individual clients that articulate key value, enhance growth and improve business success.

Duma Collective

Johannesburg, South Africa

Duma Collective a creative communications agency that services FMCG brands, event productions, agencies, performing artists as well as government departments in South Africa and the rest of Africa.

Era Bright

Atlanta, GA

Formed in 2016, EraBright specializes in lead generation via SEO, content marketing, paid advertising, website design and more. They have a wide range of experience, expertise, and tools to create and implement strategic marketing campaigns developed to generate leads and sales for your business.

First and Last PR

Jersey City, NJ

First and Last PR is a highly regarded, award-winning, Independent Beauty Public Relations and Digital Media Marketing Firm providing services to leading luxury and consumer product goods companies, mid-sized beauty firms, and the next generation of innovative beauty and lifestyle brands.

Fuse3 Advertising

St. Louis, MO

Fuse3 Advertising is a full-service integrated marketing agency that creates digital, broadcast, print, and experiential marketing programs. Since 1997, this agency has been committed to being smarter and reaching higher. This black-owned agency has worked with a number of familiar brands such as Obama for America, St. Louis Baseball Cardinals, and Gillette.

Gilbreath Communications, Inc.

Houston, TX

For more than a quarter of a century, Gilbreath has produced marketing and communications solutions and campaigns that have helped launch and transform brands, grow businesses and engage audiences throughout the U.S. Their expertise covers five key areas: strategy; advertising and creative services; marketing; digital media and technology; and communications and public relations.

Kin

Brooklyn, NY

Kin is a new breed of creative companies using kinship to unleash business and culture as forces for good in our world. They partner with the most progressive individuals, organizations, and brands to innovate initiatives, experiences, services, and products that create a lasting impact.

Kurieo

Kurieo’s diverse team has a unique and fresh perspective, infusing each project with ingenuity and passion. Through thoughtful design, their team crafts your story into a comprehensive narrative that seamlessly blends your online presence with the physical world to create a well-rounded, immersive experience for your audience.

Lemonade Stand

Riverside, CA

Lemonade Stand is a full-service digital marketing agency that excels in providing clients around the world with tangible, measurable results for their online business and presence. They specialize in Website Development, Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Marketing, Analytics, and Video Production.

M-Squared PR

MVD

Los Angeles, CA

MVD Inc is an innovative boutique creative agency specializing in strategic positioning, immersive experiences and integrated marketing. Founded in 2002 MVD Inc boasts an impressive roster of A-list clients and Fortune 500 companies in the music, film, fashion and technology industries.

M16 Marketing

Atlanta, GA

M16 Marketing is an award-winning web design and digital marketing firm based in Atlanta. On average, companies who work with M16 increase their conversions and/or revenue by more than 250%. The company partners with forward-thinking startups, small businesses, and major brands helping them to Achieve Sustainable Success.

Palette

Brooklyn, NY

Founded in 2014, Palette Group is a commercial creative agency focused on producing content for campaign activations both online and offline. Their experience is rooted in producing, directing, and developing products, lifestyle photography, and video production.

Pop N’

Atlanta, GA

Pop N’ is a Multicultural Marketing Collective focused on digital and social content creation and experience design. They craft campaigns and content that give people a reason to genuinely care about your brand. In addition to this, Pop N’ listen both socially and culturally and build strategies to create the right experiences for the right audiences.

Philly Reps

Sanders\Wingo

Austin, TX

Located in El Paso and Austin, Sanders\Wingo is a creative agency that provides multicultural advertising and public relations services. The agency is known for reaching beyond industry clichés to deliver bold ideas and real results. They have worked with clients such as AT&T, the American Heart Association, and Shell.

SATURDAY MORNING

Sumnu Marketing

Las Vegas, NV

Sumnu Marketing is a family-owned marketing firm that focuses on providing permanent marketing communications solutions for small businesses. However, over the years the company has become the go-to firm for “grassroots” marketing and community outreach for corporations and non-profit organizations.

Studio B

Team Epiphany

New York, NY

Team Epiphany is a full-service creative agency that has worked with brands such as Nike, HBO, Cadillac, and more. Through the power of business-proven personal relationships, Team Epiphany makes magic happen for their clients. The agency has garnered acclaim on Inc. Magazine’s elite list of “Fastest-Growing Private Companies”​ annually since 2009.

The JDot. Agency

New York, NY

Since its inception in 2007, The JDot. Agency has quickly become one of the hardest working PR firms in the fiercely competitive New York market. Their goal is to devote unrelenting ideas and energy to each and every project.

The Official Maleeka Group

Atlanta, GA

As the go-to agency for small business owners, entrepreneurs, personalities, and growing brands, The Official Maleeka Group pulls all the strings they need to gain you trustworthy and earned media attention. They anticipate the excitement and execute on your vision to become a household name.

The Sax Agency

Los Angeles, CA

SAX is a multidisciplinary, boutique-style marketing, media, branding and advertising agency. They create solutions that blend structured business, fluid creativity, and cutting-edge innovation.

The Sayles Group

Translation

New York, NY

Translation is an agency of creative entrepreneurs actively engaged in the culture in which we work. The common thread in all of their work is a firm commitment to transformative engagements that get powerful business results for their clients. Translation is the bridge between true consumer insight and brand aspiration.

TwentyFirstCenturyBrand

San Francisco, CA

TwentyFirstCenturyBrand partners with founders & CEOs of the world’s most innovative companies to realize transformational growth through excellence in marketing. Founder Jonathan Mildenhall and his co-founders Alexandra Dimiziani and Neil Barrie have assembled a team of the world’s best left and right brain thinkers: CMOs, Strategists, Data-Geeks, Storytellers. This agency knows what it takes because they’ve built some of the world’s best brands.

Twice Media Productions

Houston, TX

Twice Media Productions produce compelling videos to help bring your vision to life. When you need help communicating a message visually, Twice Media Productions is here for you. This agency gives you that extra push to take your marketing campaign to the next level.

UWG

Walton Isaacson

Culver City, CA

Founded in 2006, Walton Isaacson is an independently held, certified minority-owned full-service agency. Aaron Walton and Cory Isaacson have built a world-class agency that has helped numerous brands build their relationship with consumers. The employees at Walton Isaacson spend each day with the goal of becoming your brand’s most valuable partner. A few of their clientele includes Lexus, Whirlpool, Dove, and so many others. 

Whit PR

Union, NJ

WhitPR is a New Jersey-based boutique strategic communications firm offering public relations, social media, and experiential marketing services. With more than 15 years of experience and a decade as Founder & CEO of WhitPR, a boutique public relations firm she’s been crafting narratives for some of the biggest movements and moments we’ve seen.

Zora Digital

Chicago, IL

Zora Digital is a minority and women owned digital marketing consulting firm based in Chicago. They’ve worked at and developed strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Today, Zora Digital helps healthy lifestyle brands with a spirit of innovation navigate the digital landscape and create significant ROI at a great value.

Since the first website launched in 1983, digital marketing has continued to evolve. Today it’s hard to find a company that doesn’t have a web presence or leverage digital media to attract customers and establish their brand. How do you stay ahead of the curve and make sure your company is making the most of the available technology? Looking for web development trends and taking advantage of them are one way to stay current and support your company’s web efforts.

Today, we will look at a handful of trends that we’re seeing in the web development universe.

1. The power of WordPress and other low-code and no-code tools

WordPress continues to innovate, updating the features and functionality of its CMS and making it even more user-friendly. Powering over 40% of websites, this open-source platform has block themes that allow you to edit and customize all components of a site, without ever needing to change the theme. And the improvements just keep coming with the latest 6.2 version enhancements continuing to roll out a more intuitive experience for site creators.

Other low-code and no-code tools also continue to serve a web development need. If you work for a smaller company that doesn’t have technical team members, these simple yet powerful tools can help more quickly develop and design websites, web applications, and even workflows.

2. Accessibility improvements

Differently-abled visitors to your website need to be able to engage with the content, yet the vast majority of websites are not fully accessible. Designers should be aware of various considerations including color contrast, closed caption screen reading, ALT text attributions, and more. Developers can use plugins to help comply with various digital content accessibility regulations and guidelines.

There are added benefits of upping your company’s accessibility game and ensuring that every internet user can consume content on the portal. An accessible site improves the reputation of your website, increases your audience, and elevates SEO ranking.

3. Responsive design

Today’s websites need to be capable of being viewed on a variety of devices. In fact, these days more people are seeing your site on a mobile device than on a desktop computer making mobile-first web development increasingly important. Web pages that automatically scale and adjust to the size and resolution of the user’s device provide an optimal viewing experience for reading and navigation.

Mobile-friendly design also delivers better marketing and branding by providing seamless user experiences, enabling easy engagement, and optimally presenting design elements. With Google set to launch its mobile first index this year, responsive design can also help increase site ranking.

4. Performance improvements

Website optimization is all about speed, meaning how quickly the pages of your website display in the browser. Adhering to new standards like Google Core Web Vitals improves site performance and boosts organic search engine rankings on Google.

Elevating performance has other benefits. Fast-loading, visually stable, responsive sites improve the presentation of your brand. Rapid load speed translates to a better start of a customer journey, laying the foundation for quicker engagement, longer visits, and more conversion.

5. Front-end CSS plus JavaScript frameworks

CSS frameworks are a design construct that is supported by HTML, the underlying structure of a webpage. These frameworks deliver speed, depth, design, and functionality, and have become the simplest way to effectively design a website. Add in a painless learning process, task automation, and cross-browser compatibility and it’s easy to see why developers and designers rely on them.

JavaScript is the most popular software development language, and these frameworks are programming libraries that contain pre-written code for use in standard programming tasks. JavaScript frameworks support the creation of reusable components, as well as manage application states, and handle routing and navigation.

Combining front-end CSS with JavaScript frameworks makes the magic happen—with each component contributing to more efficient, robust website development.

As web development trends continue to evolve and companies have to find the best way to take advantage of any of these trends, agencies like 3 Media Web are here to help. 3 Media Web’s team of experts is changing the way businesses succeed online—and your business could be next.

Any other day we fast forward through the commercials or tune them out…but not during Super Bowl Sunday. This is the one day that people look forward to watching commercials.

This year, brands went all out in securing celebrities to be featured in their ads. Alicia Silverstone, Miles Teller, and Ozzy Osbourne are just a few of the stars who graced our television during the big game.

Here are the best Super Bowl commercials of 2023.

BUD LIGHT – “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy”

Agency: Anomaly

This year, Bud Light wowed Super Bowl viewers with an extremely relatable commercial. In this ad, actor Miles Teller and his wife and Keleigh Sperry Teller make the most of being stuck on hold with customer service. They turn the frustrating experience into a dance party as they crack open a Bud Light.

PopCorners – “Breaking Good”

Created In-House

PopCorners brought their A-Game for their very first Super Bowl commercial. Inspired by the original “Breaking Bad” storyline, this ad reimagines what it would have been like had Walt and Jesse used their talents to Break Into Something Good^TM.

Uber One – “One Hit for Uber One”

Agency: Special Group

Uber One’s Super Bowl commercial features Diddy helping the membership service create a song. Diddy may not do jingles, but he sure knows how to make a hit song. This commercial also features Montell Jordan, Donna Lewis, Kelis, Ylvis, and Haddaway.

Check out what agencies work with Uber

Pringles – “Best of Us”

Agency: Grey Group

Have you ever found yourself with your hand stuck in a Pringles tube? Well…this commercial is dedicated to you. This ad shows that anyone is capable of getting their hand stuck in a Pringles can: surgeon, judge, and even Meghan Trainor.

Google – “Fixed on Pixel”

Created In-House

In its latest Super Bowl commercial, Google shows how users can fix photo mistakes with the power of Pixel. Watch Amy Schumer, Doja Cat, and Giannis Antetokounmpo relive their photos the way they remember them.

Discover what agencies work with Google

Workday – “Work-Day” 

Agency: Ogilvy

In this commercial, we learn that “rock stars” have no place in the corporate world. Rock stars such as Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Clark Jr., Joan Jett, Billy Idol, and Paul Stanley, have worked hard to earn their titles. See what these legends have to say about people calling each other “rock stars” in the workplace.

Busch Beer – “Shelter”

Agency: The Martin Agency

This commercial features the unveiling of the “Busch Guide”, a book of outdoor survival advice. As Busch Guy introduces “shelter,” a familiar face emerges from the tent. As Sarah McLachlan’s “In The Arms of an Angel” begins playing, Sara emerges from the tent and begins a plea similar to the one featured in ASPCA commercials.

See what agencies work with Busch Beer’s parent company AB InBev

Rakuten – “Cher Is Back”

Created In-House

Alicia Silverstone reprises her role as her iconic ’90s role as Clueless character Cher Horowitz. This 2023 Super Bowl commercial shows Cher doing what she does best…shopping. There is no doubt that this ad left many viewers feeling extremely nostalgic.

Learn More

With the Super Bowl being the most watched annual sporting event in the world, brands must sieze the moment and create an impactful ad. While some of these commercials were developed in-house, many of these brands worked with creative agencies to make a memorable spot.

Learn what agencies the Fortune 500 are using by visiting Agency Spotter’s Brand Page.

Related Links

• The 15 Best Commercials of 2021
• The Best Super Bowl Commercials of 2020
• 30 Most Influential Marketers on LinkedIn
• Twitter’s Most Influential Marketers

With the help of Agency Spotter, you can now find the perfect IT and Software Development firms to help your business grow. The Yelp-like reviews marketplace, Agency Spotter, has added a total of 12 new services under the new category of IT & Development. The company now covers companies and their reviews across 56 service areas spanning design, development, marketing, and other IT and digital services.

Newly added services include:

• Artificial Intelligence
• AR/VR Development
• BI & Big Data
• Custom Software Developers
• Cybersecurity
• E-Commerce Development
• Game Developers
• IoT Developers
• Mobile App Developers
• Software Testing
• Staff Augmentation
• Web Development

The addition of these services will allow more decision-makers to better navigate the complicated service supplier landscape. With the increasing importance placed upon companies to partner with the right service provider, Agency Spotter’s verified reviews allow a business to properly assess potential new suppliers.

Read the full Press Release here.

Is your organization being asked to reassess and possibly reduce marketing spend? With decisive action, Brand Marketers can be strategic about how they allocate and protect their marketing budget while optimizing their return on investment.

Introduction

In times of economic uncertainty, it is the perfect time to make sure your marketing budget works smarter. Contrary to popular belief, the answer is not always to completely cut your marketing budget. Instead, Brand Marketers can use a focused and nimble strategy to maximize marketing spend during times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. According to the 2022 Gartner CMO Spend and Strategy Survey, marketing budget recovery efforts continue to rebound after a dramatic dip due to COVID-19 unprecedented lows. This upwards trend can be the data-driven boost that marketers need to stay the course and even expand marketing spend during an uncertain economic climate.

Want to hear us talk about this LIVE? Tune in to 15 Minutes to Maximize Marketing Budgets on LinkedIn Live. 

The Case For Expanding, Not Cutting Spend

The case can be made that investing in marketing during a downturn is the smartest decision a company can make. During the 2008 financial crisis, an analysis by Kantar Millward Brown showed that businesses that maintained or raised their marketing during a recession had significantly higher sales after the economy recovered. History is a great teacher if we pay attention. A McGraw-Hill Research study looking at 600 companies that decided to advertise aggressively during the slowdown had sales 256% higher than those that stopped. Studies during and after the core of the COVID-19 Pandemic show similar results.

We saw how turning up the heat on advertising worked in Vrbo’s favor when they decided to increase marketing spend to 90.8 million during the early days of COVID-19 while their competitor Airbnb allocated a conservative 8.9 million for their marketing budget. Such a bold move by Vrbo resulted in its bookings recovering to 61% of its pre-pandemic levels versus a drop of 15% by Airbnb.

Know Your Numbers

Know what you can change and what you should change. Every agency supplier relationship and contract is different. Do you know which agencies and budgets you can modify in the short-term if needed? If you do have to take the extraordinary step of canceling a contract, do you know how much it will cost, including penalties, to exit?

Do you know your channel performance? Knowing your numbers and which channels are underperforming is key to adapting your spend without sacrificing what is working in today’s climate. Is TV getting more traction as consumers stay home due to rising inflation costs? Are in-person events still recovering from the pandemic and likely to suffer based on the economic climate? Are there certain months where a channel underperforms for your company or industry? Take a closer look across performance so you can optimize this year’s spend and impact by combining the best of both the digital and offline channels.

Strengthen Agency Partnerships

Marketers need to work with agencies to identify the areas of opportunity to cut. Don’t just surprise your agency, saying your budget is cut by 30% starting next month. Collaborate with your agencies, and they may surprise you with how well they are able to modify plans backed up by data. 

The one thing you probably can’t do is cut off all your agencies and work with an in-house team. Gartner’s insights offer that 61% of CMOs would be unable to deliver their Marketing Strategy with their current in-house talent. This is where working with the right agency is critical.

If you are working with one of the Largest Marketing Agencies in the world, don’t be afraid to get specific in your campaign brief by identifying the exact talent you need to execute the strategy. If the larger agencies present a challenge, remember the benefits of a smaller, boutique agency.

Marketing Campaign and Agency Performance are not areas where you can just  “set it and forget it”. Measure campaign outcomes relentlessly and be prepared to reallocate spend to a better-performing channel or cut campaigns as needed. Some agencies are really well-tooled to change spend proactively as performance shifts.

If your current agency isn’t able to adapt to the changes you need, make sure that you can quickly access vetted agencies with verified reviews either from within your roster of approved agencies or outside of it. Finding the right partner with the right service capabilities fast is key. Showing continued stewardship of your budget and pivoting as necessary ensures that you continue to earn your budget year after year.

Confirm and Implement

Once you have prioritized the areas of your marketing budget that can be cut, you need to think about the company’s strategic bets and may need to discuss the larger company implications. For example, if your company is committed to investing in minorities or a specific geographic metro or region, and you have identified that commitment as a likely area of deep spending cuts, who should you escalate this to so that the whole company stays aligned? You may even be able to make the case that budget cuts will need to come from somewhere else if the company wants to maintain its strategic growth in geographic markets or with minority groups such as  LatinX, Black, and LGBTQ+.

At a minimum, you want your company’s leadership to understand that pulling back in areas will likely lead to much slower growth both during the recession and for a significant period afterwards. Some cuts may take years to recover from if your competitors continue to invest and dominate those markets.

One more area for leadership to consider is who will leave since many organizations have invested heavily in hiring talented people and retaining staff. Cuts in budget can leave the most talented and driven internal staff looking for new opportunities at other companies where they can make more of an impact.

Once you have coordinated and reviewed your plan with the relevant leaders, it is time to set things in motion. You will need to communicate your plan internally and to your agency partners to set implementation of the changes in motion. If you were able to save part of your budget, don’t forget to celebrate that win! If you and the leadership had to make tough decisions, be honest and as transparent as possible about it. Remember, these decisions often have ramifications that impact real people and their families. While you might not be firing your agency, they may have to layoff people because of these decisions. If marketing is cut for an area that was previously seen as an area of growth, there may be staff reductions or reassignments within your own company as these decisions impact what sales and operations will be able to do.

You can use Agency Spotter to find marketing agencies and IT software development companies, read reviews, see their case studies, and better decide who is the best-fit partner for your current needs. Search by Service is the #1 search filter used by companies looking for marketing agencies. In addition to Service, Agency Spotter has a variety of searching filters on the site, including agency size, geographic location, ownership diversity, and industry experience. Feel free to explore the many top agencies that are listed on our site and find the agency that provides what you need for your brand’s next big project.

LinkedIn boasts over 875 million members in 200 countries worldwide, so it’s no wonder that organizations are trying to uncover new methods to connect with their audience on this business-oriented social media platform. Many CMOs are pulling out the metaphorical drawing board to redefine what it means to create connections. But creating an effective content strategy for Linkedin doesn’t need to be complex or revolutionary — it just has to put your audience first.

What Does an Effective LinkedIn Strategy Include?

Putting your audience first is easier said than done, requiring an understanding of their interests and goals. So how can you craft a strategy that works? To get started, stay consistent in your approach and commit to these 5 tips to grow your reach, become a thought leader in your niche, and increase the number of leads you convert.

1. Do Your Research 

People get a little confused when they hear this tip. Every organization claims to do research, but it’s often focused on their own end goal rather than what their audience is looking for. 

Here’s what I mean. Instead of building a buyer’s persona specifically for a brand solution that you offer, create an open-ended brand persona to find what content your audience is searching for. What you might discover is that most people aren’t going to initially look for a product or service — they’re looking for a story. And that may mean reconsidering your online presence and allowing some flexibility in the way you post.

Yes, you should still define your persona. Consider age, demographics, industry, and occupation — all typical factors of a buyer persona. However, then you’ll need to find out who your target audience gets their content from, what kind of content they prefer to digest, and what issues they want to discuss. Identify other brands your audience interacts with, even in different niches, and take your content cues from them.

Even in a crowded room, you won’t have to yell to get attention when you’re saying things that people want to hear.

2. Put Authenticity First

There’s no replacement for having a genuine connection with your target audience. People like to do business with other people, not faceless corporations. Personalize your outreach and authentically connect with your audience based on shared interests, insights only you can deliver, and stories they’ll want to hear.

Spotlight employees, talk about events outside of work, and share the type of content that would genuinely resonate with your audience. Every business has hashtag days or informational videos on why their product is the best. Instead of doing the same old, same old, utilize your individuality and share what makes your organization unique. 

One caveat: Whatever type of content you decide to create, it should be an accurate reflection of your company’s vision and work. If you create a false narrative for your audience to digest, even in the name of humanizing your brand, it’ll inevitably lead to turmoil in the future.

3. Make Internal Support a Key to Growth

If your employees aren’t your first brand advocates, then you’re doing something wrong. Tying into authenticity, your employees should be the first audience that you connect with on LinkedIn. 

One mistake that many organizations make is talking all about the solutions they can provide and not spotlighting the individuals who make those solutions a reality. If you’re aiming for authenticity and ensuring employees are at the forefront of your initiatives, they can help you grow your organic reach twice as fast as you can alone. 

But don’t coerce employees into posting about you on LinkedIn. Instead, create initiatives encouraging them to get involved and like, comment, and share when you post. Better yet, build value into the content that they’d actively want to share as professionals in the field. By making your employees feel valued and engaged, you can build your brand’s credibility from the inside out. 

4. Utilize Your Resources

You put a lot of effort into creating the best results for your clients, but do you do it for your own organization? Often, businesses are so focused on generating revenue that they forget to maximize their own internal resources. You may already have assets that can be repurposed into great content, like onboarding videos, seminar presentations, case studies, or white papers. Turn these into helpful tips, spotlights, and LinkedIn articles.

And when it comes to allocating time for developing tactics or producing content, working on your business shouldn’t be at the bottom of your list. It should be at the top. When leads see you on LinkedIn, visit your Google business profile, or land on your website, they don’t necessarily see the impact you have on clients. Rather, their first impression is the work you’re doing for your own company. Make sure you’re investing the resources to present your brand’s authority no matter where they find you.

5. Boost Job Posting and Featured Articles 

While this tip is focused more at business leaders or job candidates, it’s a great final step to include if you’ve already maximized the value of our previous strategies. Incorporating boosted posts and featured articles can be a great tool for growth hacking or to extend your reach with potential job seekers, other industry professionals, and — through those gateways — potentially, more members of your target audience. 

When writing a featured article, remember that it still needs to do the following:

• Grab attention from the first line
• Tell a story
• Engage with your target audience

You’ll already be competing against hundreds of businesses trying to further their reach. However, by prioritizing information that’s intrinsically valuable to your followers, a boosted post can help you connect with a closely-related affinity audience.

Don’t Yell into the Abyss; Talk to the People 

LinkedIn is filled with not-so-humble brags, “pick me” posts, and thousands of individuals who want to be influencers in the business world. However, at times, it lacks connection and authenticity. 

In 2023, make genuine connection a primary goal for your content strategy, and you’ll see just how many individuals and businesses are ready to be your brand advocates. In a social network filled with brands, companies, and individuals screaming at anyone for attention, it’s time to get specific and start having a real conversation with people who want to engage.

Related Links:

• 5 Tips to Develop an Effective eCommerce Strategy
• How to Build Brand Loyalty and Affinity
• 30 Most Influential Marketers on LinkedIn
• Email Marketing Best Practices That Drive Results

No matter how strong a storefront you’ve got, the world of eCommerce gets more crowded and competitive every day. Your business needs a way to stand out from the pack.

There’s no silver bullet to becoming an eCommerce titan. But from the tech powering your store to the digital campaigns that promote it, there’s plenty you can do to win over customers and pull ahead of your competition.

Start with these five tips to lay the foundations for sustainable, effective eCommerce growth. 

Leverage your data

We can’t stress this enough: your eCommerce strategy needs to be fuelled by data.

Information from your store should inform every part of your eCommerce planning and marketing — and will set you up to put our four other recommendations into place.  

Here’s the good news. It’s a safe bet that your store has robust tools (or plugins) for tracking just about every data and conversion point you can think of. Is a particular CTA outperforming expectations? Is your bounce rate particularly high on one part of your site? If it’s part of your business, odds are good that the platform powering your storefront can track it. 

That means when it comes to your data collection, you need to work smarter, not harder. As great as granular data is, it’s easy (and unproductive) to get bogged down by data-driven analysis paralysis if you try to track every little aspect of your business. And if you’re spending more time collecting and organizing your data than you are putting it into practice, it’s time to refocus.

Start by deciding what data affects your business goals. Identify specific KPIs that you want to track before you start collecting data — or launch any campaigns — and be consistent about how you measure them.

Just as importantly, once you understand the data that matters to your plans, don’t waste hours every week pulling it. Building automations and live reports to generate the data you need lets you focus on analysis and strategy — rather than the busywork.

How do you figure out which data you should pay attention to?

Establish your strategic priorities early

This goes back to those KPIs. When you’re building a plan for growth, you need to establish clear, specific goals early. Pick the audience you want to reach, the positioning you want to take (what’s the USP that sets you apart from your competitors?), and what a successful campaign looks like for your business. If you’re just starting, that might mean awareness-focused goals or building your email list. Later, you may get more sales-focused. Whatever your priorities, they should be guiding your plans, not reacting to them.

After all, it’s harder and less effective to pivot midway through site upgrades or a media campaign — not to mention costly. Try to decide on these priorities upfront if you can.

Just as importantly, ensure you get everyone on the same page about these decisions. A strategic foundation only works if your team, partners, and stakeholders are on the same page. That means looping different people in based on the project. Still, new or mystery stakeholders who show up after the fact are a surefire way to derail your plans.

Pick the right eCommerce technology

From your storefront to your email marketing to your customer rewards and service, you need the right tools if you’re hoping to provide a compelling experience for your customers. Even the best mechanic can’t fix your car with their bare hands — and you shouldn’t expect your business to thrive online without the right tech stack to support it. 

Whatever functionality you tackle first, a universal priority is picking applications and plugins that properly integrate with your storefront. No matter which platform you’re on — Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, etc. — there should be options available that seamlessly work with your store. That’s true of your CRM, email marketing, payment system, rewards, etc. The easier it is to pass data back and forth between your tools, the more successful you’ll be in the long run.

Of course, your store may also have some built-in tech that’s been doing the job well enough. This is when you have to balance your available tech budget with the potential ROI of an upgrade. Take email marketing. If your store’s built on Shopify, you already have access to some basic options, like cart abandonment emails with the ability to customize, add product links, and include some basic incentives. But as you get to know your customers better, you may want more tools.

It’s important to do your research when making this upgrade. Mailchimp is obviously a reliable staple — but if you’re on Shopify, the toolset available through Klaviyo integrates natively and provides extensive options for customization and automation (even including SMS marketing in your customer email flows).

Remember, choosing quality applications is important, but always look for solutions that fit your eCommerce ecosystem and needs.

Understand your buyer journey

Do you know what steps your customers take between first encountering your business and making a purchase? What about after you’ve made the first sale? You should. 

The Customer Journey is a core concept when it comes to eCommerce marketing and growth. It means understanding how your customers move from awareness to conversion to purchase — and then to brand loyalty and advocacy. Do most customers first encounter your brand on social media? Do first-time buyers tend to take the plunge during a sale, or after you’ve blogged about a product?

Understanding the specifics of what’s working and where there’s friction will help focus your strategy. 

Here’s the thing. Most businesses will have acquisition plans in place to attract and convert those new customers. But it’s just as important to understand how they interact with your business after a purchase — and what will bring them back for another.

Have a plan in place for remarketing and retaining customers

No matter how big or small your eCommerce business is, we know that retaining existing customers is easier — and more efficient — than winning over new ones. But you can’t take for granted that customers will stick around after a sale. You need a plan in place to keep them around.

Email marketing is one great way to do that. Whatever application you’re using to manage your email lists (see our third tip), you should have some sense of your customers’ journey after a purchase. Then, you can start providing extra incentives for them to stick around.

Don’t spam their inboxes with junk, but offer them value in exchange for signing up to your mailing list and returning to your business. Extra discounts, early access to sales, and smart content that responds to what they’ve bought with other products & ideas they might appreciate. This is a great chance to use those custom email flows in Klaviyo, as an example.

You’re nurturing those customers to show that your business’s value goes beyond its core offerings. Delight them with unexpected value, and you’ll build brand loyalty — and maybe even turn those customers into advocates for your business. Make sure you have a plan (and the tools) for user reviews and UGC. If your customers are happy enough to rave about your business, you need to give them a place to do that.

Don’t forget remarketing campaigns to capture people who bounced before buying or customers who might be interested in other products, services, or discounts. This lets you reduce abandonment and find efficient opportunities to upsell. 

eCommerce success isn’t built in a day

Wherever you start, remember that your eCommerce growth isn’t going to explode overnight. 

It doesn’t hurt to hope for instant wins, but a sound strategy takes time and commitment to building your business. If we could leave you a final tip, it would be this: remember to keep the lines of communication open when it comes to your strategy. Checking in early and often with stakeholders and the teams executing your plan will help things go off without a hitch. 

Of course, if you’re looking for more insights, you can always check in with the experts from Major Tom at our Mercury Blog where we regularly dive into web development, digital marketing, eCommerce strategy, and more.

Related Links:

• 30 Most Influential Marketers on LinkedIn
• 10 Reasons to Hire a Social Media Marketing Agency
• Email Marketing Best Practices That Drive Results
• How to Build Brand Loyalty and Affinity 

Brand loyalty has entered the chat. Amidst a global pandemic, inflation and consumer expectations for social responsibilities, brand loyalty has re-emerged as a hot topic. Brand loyalty certainly isn’t new, but it’s regaining momentum as organizations look to build and maintain customer relationships in uncertain and evolving times.

Understanding brand loyalty

It may feel elementary to start by defining what brand loyalty means, however, I believe it’s important. To some, the mention of brand loyalty immediately brings out commentary on the latest rewards programs. (Don’t get me wrong. I’m a sucker for half-priced Sonic Cherry Limeades all day long!) But the true essence of loyalty is much more complex.

True brand loyalty is a connection that extends well beyond a product or service. It’s an emotional connection, and one that is based on a level of pure affinity and devotion. For example, I share such allegiance with the brand Patagonia.

Patagonia has a passion for the outdoors like I do, but that’s not the only reason I feel a connection to the brand. My strong feelings, and why Patagonia has cultivated a loyal following from so many others, is its immense commitment to the environment. In an industry known for large waste production, Patagonia makes business decisions based on what’s best for Earth, even if it’s at the expense of a business opportunity. And as a result, I have true loyalty – both in terms of emotion and my pocketbook.

How to win your customer’s heart

A brand’s proactive position on social responsibility is just one of the many factors that build and maintain brand loyalty. Other top loyalty factors include affordability and product/service quality as well as delivery. Research that supports affordability is consumers’ top reason for advocacy, while delivery issues are the single biggest reasons consumers abandon top retail brands online.

But uncertain times are putting pressure on brand loyalty and increasing brand abandonment. Consumers are changing their shopping behaviors due to price increases, lack of product availability, more nimble competition and more.

Amazon is a great, though expected example. Amazon has changed the way people experience the functional aspects of a brand. Amazon is super convenient by quickly delivering readily available product. Amazon is also good at removing the friction from online purchasing. From start to finish—from single-click purchases to effortless returns—the customer experience is seamless.

In addition to delivering functional benefits, Amazon also cultivates emotional attachment. A few examples are value-adds that make members feel special, such as expedited delivery, subscriptions to Amazon music and Prime Video or perks at Whole Foods. Amazon knows what it takes to build customer loyalty to a brand, and it delivers it.

Loyalty begins with emotion

Loyalty is emotional, so are consumers. Loyalty is always about connection and expectations. Brands that hit on both will always do better. An example of this is Apple. It has a steady stream of product innovations that get consumers excited. Plus, its overall customer and service experiences are top-notch. I think there’s also the cachet of being an Apple user that is self-expressive (what it says about me for using Apple). That creates a desire for consumers to associate themselves with that cool factor. All of these are tied to emotion and affect loyalty to the brand.

Listen to your customers

At the end of the day, people will advocate for brands that functionally and emotionally address what they care about. And the best ways for brands to do that is by constantly listening to their customers. I’m massively committed to listening to the customer voice. In fact, I follow the adage, “What you have to say is interesting, but what your customers have to say is everything.”

Brands need to regularly solicit feedback so they can evolve their positioning and messaging to align with customers’ changing expectations and priorities over time. Then it comes down to execution and delivery, and the authenticity behind it. Consumers today are smart, so they know when something is believable or just another marketing message. But if you are authentic with your customers, and truly deliver what they care about most, you give your brand the best opportunity to win.

Want to hear more? Check out our podcast episode on how customer loyalty can help brands through the ups and downs of economic uncertainty. Available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Related Links:

• 30 Most Influential Marketers on LinkedIn
• 5 Useful B2B Marketing Tips in a Time of Stress
• Email Marketing Best Practices That Drive Results

Expand your network by following LinkedIn’s most influential marketers. This list includes 30 innovative leaders using the power of LinkedIn to share knowledge and inspire others.

This list contains new faces as well as leaders that have brought wisdom and insights to the marketing industry over many years. Some of the most successful marketers have social media accounts that are multi-faceted. They are cheerleaders for their own company and at the same time they are driving change in the marketing industry by inspiring everyone around them.

If you are seeking marketing trends, leadership advice, or even the latest campaigns then be sure to check out these influential marketing leaders. 

We’ve provided a link to each individual’s LinkedIn account so you can join their community today. 

Andréa (Feddersen) Mallard

Chief Marketing Officer at Pinterest 

In 2018, Andréa joined Pinterest as the Chief Marketing Officer. She oversees the global marketing and creative teams responsible for telling the Pinterest story to Pinners and businesses all over the world. Previously, she served as the CMO of Athleta, an apparel brand owned by Gap Inc.

Andréa has received honors such as Ad Age’s 2021 Leading Women and 2021 Marketer of the Year. Be sure to follow her on LinkedIn if you’re interested in marketing, innovation, and leadership advice.

Antonio Lucio

Former Global CMO at Facebook, HP Inc, Visa and Pepsico Int.

Antonio has worked with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 companies. From 2018 to 2020, he acted as Facebook’s Global Chief Marketing Officer. 

Prior to this, he was the first Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the new, HP, Inc. Antonio holds a number of accomplishments, a few include Forbes 2019 Most Influential CMOs in the World list and PRWeek’s 2018 Outstanding Marketer of the Year.

Bozoma Saint John

Former Global Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix

Bozoma has one of the most active followings on LinkedIn and most recently served as the Global Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix. Before that, she was the CMO at Endeavor. At Endeavor, she drove the marketing efforts for Global Marketing clients and premium brands. Bozoma has also been a top marketing and brand executive at Apple, Uber, and PepsiCo.

In 2022, Bozoma was inducted into the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame. She was also named the #1 Most Influential CMO in the world by Forbes (2021).

Chris Capossela 

CMO and EVP, Marketing and Consumer Business at Microsoft

Chris joined Microsoft in 1991 and has now worked there for over 30 years. As CMO, he leads marketing across both the consumer and commercial businesses. In 2022, Chris was inducted into the inaugural Forbes CMO Hall of Fame. 

With over 140,000 followers, there’s no denying that he is one of LinkedIn’s most influential marketers. 

Dara Treseder

SVP, Global Head of Marketing, Communications & Membership at Peloton Interactive

Dara is a leader with expertise in building and leading high-performing global marketing. In her current role at Peloton, she sets the strategy and goals to build the brand and drive the company’s growth in interactive fitness. 

Over the years, Dara has received a number of accolades. Her most recent include being named on the Forbes 2022 World Most Influential CMOs list and the Forbes 2022 Most Entrepreneurial CMOs list. 

David Edelman 

Former Chief Marketing Officer at Aetna

During his time at Aetna, David was responsible for leading research, design, and strategy-related initiatives. Prior to his role at Aetna, he spent eight years at McKinsey & Company. He is now teaching at the Harvard Business School and working as an advisor to start-up executives. 

Interested in a feed full of digital marketing and technology, marketing strategy, customer experience, and technology investment? Give Chris a follow on LinkedIn.

Deirdre Findlay

Global Chief Marketing Officer & Head of Consumer Revenue at Condé Nast.

In 2020, Deirdre joined Condé Nast as the Global Chief Marketing Officer & Head of Consumer Revenue. In this role, she oversees all consumer marketing & consumer revenue efforts globally. 

Prior to this, Deirdre held roles at Stitch Fix, Google, eBay, and Digitas. In 2021, she was honored in Adweek’s 50.

Diego Scotti

EVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Verizon

For over seven years, Diego has worked at Verizon as their Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. His job entails overseeing the global management of Verizon’s brand, including digital marketing, creative development, sponsorships, and more.

For multiple years, Business Insider selected Deigo for their Most Innovative CMO list. In addition to this, Forbes named Diego on the 2022 World’s Most Influential CMOs list.

Emeka Ofodile

Vice President of Sports Marketing at ESPN

In his role as VP of Sports Marketing, Emeka oversees global brand strategies for ESPN’s entire portfolio. Emeka first joined ESPN in 2002 and, over the past two decades, has developed innovative marketing strategies.

In addition to being one of LinkedIn’s most influential marketers, he has received a number of awards – Top 100 Marketers (2022), AdWeek 50 (2021), Top 100 Diverse Leaders in Sports (2020), and CMO Club Rising Star (2019). 

If you’re looking for some more sports in your feed, be sure to give Emeka a follow. 

Eric Toda

Head of Meta Prosper & Global Head of Social Marketing at Meta

In 2020, Eric joined Meta as the Head of Meta Prosper & Global Head of Social Marketing. In addition to being a marketing executive, he is also an angel investor and active advocate for the Asian American community. Before joining Meta, he held leadership roles at Stitch Fix, Gap Inc, Airbnb, Snapchat, and Nike.

Eric’s work has received numerous awards including Cannes Lions, Webbys, and Clios. Follow Eric on LinkedIn for insights into business, equality, diversity, marketing, and racial justice.

Fernando Machado 

Chief Marketing Officer at Activision Blizzard

Fernando joined Activision Blizzard as CMO in April 2021. He is now responsible for the marketing initiatives of some of the most well-known games in the industry such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. 

Before he served as the CMO for Restaurant Brands International where he encouraged Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons to push the creative boundaries as a way to generate growth. As a highly ranked marketing leader within the industry, Fernando has received numerous accolades. 

Frank Cooper III

Chief Marketing Officer at Visa

In May 2022, Frank joined Visa as the Chief Marketing Officer. He leads the global marketing organization with the goal to drive demand for the company’s products, services and solutions. He was acknowledged by Fast Company as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business and was a four-time recipient of Billboard‘s Power 100.

Give Frank a follow if you are interested in branding, digital transformation, financial freedom, or DEI.

Jenna Habayeb

Chief Brand Officer at Ipsy/BFA

In April 2019, Jenna joined Ipsy/Beauty For All (BFA) Industries, a digitally native beauty tech company, as the Chief Brand Officer. Under her leadership, the company has also seen success on social media. Her team became the third largest beauty brand on TikTok. Additionally, Ipsy/BFA succeeded in driving year-over-year growth on Instagram.

She was recently featured in the Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO List of 2022.

Julia Goldin

Chief Product & Marketing Officer at the LEGO Group

As the Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Julia is responsible for leading and inspiring the creation of LEGO® play experiences. In this role, she is responsible for leading and inspiring the creation of LEGO play experiences. In addition to this, she aims to market and grow the brand through content, communication, and digital channels.

Prior to joining the LEGO Group, Julia was the Global Chief Marketing Officer at Revlon and had a 13-year career within the Coca-Cola Company.

Kevin Miller

Chief Marketing Officer at The Fresh Market

Kevin has a 35-year track record of leading marketing and advertising teams for Fortune 100 companies. He currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer at The Fresh Market.

The company has received a number of awards while under Kevin’s leadership such as the 2021 and 2022 #1 Best Supermarket in America and 2022 Southeast Innovator of the Year.

Kevin Warren

EVP & Chief Marketing Officer at UPS

In May 2018, Kevin joined UPS as the Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Marketing Officer. It’s Kevin’s highly developed perspective on data-centric business and non-traditional engagement channels that is driving change at the company. 

He is a current member of the Executive Leadership Council and a founding member of the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA). Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for marketing, innovation, and leadership insights.

Lorraine Twohill 

Chief Marketing Officer at Google

Lorraine first joined Google in 2003 and was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer in 2009. As CMO, she is responsible for telling the evolving story of Google. 

In 2018, Lorraine accepted the Creative Marketer of the Year award at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. She was also named Adweek’s Grand Brand Genius in honor of her role in shaping Google’s marketing efforts.

Maria Winans 

Chief Marketing Officer at Kyndryl

After spending nearly 30 years working at IBM, Maria became the CMO of Kyndryl, an information technology infrastructure services provider that designs, builds, manages and develops large-scale information systems with a global base of customers that includes 75 of the Fortune 100 companies. Maria first joined IBM in 1991 as a sales representative. Later she became CMO for IBM North America

Maria encourages others to, “Be rooted by your culture, but not constrained by it.” Check out her account for all things technology, marketing, and Kyndryl coverage.

Marisa Thalberg 

Executive Vice President, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at Lowes

At the beginning of 2020, Marisa began her career as the Executive Vice President, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at Lowes. In this role, she is responsible for leading the company’s marketing organization and innovating new ways to inspire and engage customers. 

In addition to being one of LinkedIn’s most influential marketers, Marisa has received a number of awards. For 2021, 2019, 2018, and 2017 Forbes named her one of the Top 50 Most Influential CMOs in the World.

Marvin Chow

Vice President, Global Marketing at Google

Marvin first started his journey with Google in 2010. Over 10 years ago, he assumed the role of Vice President of Global Marketing at Google. In this position, Chow leads brand, product, growth, and performance marketing for some of their largest and most strategic products.

During his time there, he has led the narrative development and launch of the Google Assistant among many others. For your daily dose of technology, marketing, and industry representation, give Marvin a follow on LinkedIn.

Melissa Grady Dias

Chief Marketing Officer at Cadillac

Melissa first joined the Cadillac team in September 2018 as director of Media and Performance marketing. In September 2019, she was appointed Chief Marketing Officer at Cadillac. As CMO, she leads the strategic marketing for the Cadillac brand around the world. 

Prior to this role, Melissa was Senior Vice President of Digital and e-commerce at Jackson Hewitt. 

Noel Mack

Chief Brand Officer at Gymshark

As Chief Brand Officer of Gymshark, Noel is responsible for the global brand strategy and brand marketing. He brings over a decade of experience in the creative industry to this role. He was a recipient of Adweek’s 2022 CMO Award.

Join Noel’s community of over 82,000 followers today for a feed full of brand, culture, community, e-commerce, and marketing. 

Rachel Ferdinando

SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Frito-Lay North America

Raja Rajamannar

Chief Marketing & Communications Officer and President, Healthcare at Mastercard

Raja is the chief marketing and communications officer for Mastercard and president of their healthcare business. In this role, he is in charge of leading the company’s marketing transformation.

Raja was listed among the Forbes 2021 Top 5 World’s Most Influential CMOs and Business Insider’s Top 25 World’s Most Innovative CMOs. 

Sarah Franklin

President & CMO at Salesforce

Sarah is the President and CMO at Salesforce. In her previous role as EVP and GM of Platform and AppExchange, she led Salesforce’s developer initiatives with a focus on democratizing technology. Sarah is passionate about empowering people to pursue successful careers in technology and bridging the skills and equality gaps by making technology accessible to all.

Follow her on LinkedIn for everything technology, branding, advertising and marketing.

Todd Kaplan

Chief Marketing Officer at Pepsi

In March 2022, Todd was promoted from Vice President of Marketing to Chief Marketing Officer. During his time at the company, he has helped to reposition the Pepsi brand to celebrate “unapologetic enjoyment.” This included the well-known  Better with Pepsi campaign they did with McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s. 

Join Todd’s community of over 40,000 LinkedIn followers for insights into marketing, creativity, leadership, and more.  

Tyrona (Ty) Heath

Director, Market Engagement, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn

At LinkedIn, Tyrona is responsible for scaling education on their Marketing Solutions product. Since 2015, she’s managed the education strategy across the organization to ensure the program has the highest quality. Before this role at LinkedIn, she worked at IBM, Founder, and Google. 

Follow Tyrona on LinkedIn for all things B2B marketing and diversity, equity and inclusion related.

William White

Chief Marketing Officer at Walmart

In May 2020, William was appointed Chief Marketing Officer of Walmart. He is responsible for customer insights, strategy, and full-funnel marketing planning and execution. Before joining Walmart, William held leadership roles at Target and The Coca-Cola Company.

In 2021, he was recognized by Forbes, Adweek, and Business Insider, as one of the world’s leading CMOs. Follow William on LinkedIn if you’re interested in marketing, innovation, and advertising.

Ukonwa Kuzi-Orizu Ojo

Global Chief Marketing Officer, Amazon Prime Video & Studios

As the Chief Marketing Officer at Amazon Prime Video & Studios, Ukonwa is responsible for leading the global brand and originals marketing. Previously, she worked at M∙A∙C Cosmetics, where she oversaw brand positioning and increased the company’s presence and appeal to global consumers.

Throughout her career, Ukonwa has received recognitions such as Business Insider’s list of 25 Most Innovative CMOs and World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Marketer of the Year.

Zaria Parvez

Global Social Media Manager at Duolingo 

Zaria is a rising star in the marketing world. As the creative genius behind the most famous owl on TikTok, she helped Duolingo go viral and reach millions of users. In March 2022, Zaria was promoted from Social Media Coordinator to Global Social Media Manager. 

In 2022, Duolingo won AdAge’s Social Marketer of the Year award. Join Zaria’s community of over 30,000 LinkedIn followers today!

References:

Information: Subjects’ LinkedIn, Personal Website, and Company Website

Related Links:

• Twitter’s Most Influential Marketers
• 25 Marketers Leading Brand Transformation
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• Quick-Service Restaurants’ Most Influential Marketing Leaders

Atlanta, GA — Agency Spotter, a free marketing agency ratings and review site that is one of the world’s most trusted agency search resources, recently announced its partnership with Green Places to be a certified carbon neutral company. Agency Spotter’s commitment to carbon neutrality offsets 93 metric tons of carbon emissions for the 2022 business year.

“Through Agency Spotter and our enterprise solution, SpotSource, making better, more informed, data-driven decisions is fundamental to our company’s mission. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to use our platforms to encourage other business stakeholders, small and large, to spend with service suppliers who care about sustainability and diversity,” said Brian Regienczuk, CEO and Founder at Agency Spotter. “As we do that, we continue to reflect and take action on how we operate and make smart choices for the environment. We hope those choices become easier for everyone, and we look forward to continuing to do our part and then some.”

Partnering with Green Places simplified the carbon neutral certification process for Agency Spotter, which can be overwhelming for businesses without dedicated personnel to manage corporate social responsibility initiatives. Now that Agency Spotter is carbon neutral, Green Places will work with the Agency Spotter to build an ongoing sustainability plan to reduce its footprint going forward.

For details about Agency Spotter’s commitment to carbon neutrality, visit https://app.greenplaces.com/sustainability/agency-spotter.

About Agency Spotter

AgencySpotter.com is a free marketing agency ratings and review site that is one of the world’s most trusted agency search resources. Utilized by more than 300,000 professionals a year, the Yelp-like site helps everyone from small and medium business owners all the way up to marketing executives at the largest companies in the world as they search, shortlist, and hire marketing agency partners.

SpotSource is an enterprise cloud platform that digitizes internal service supplier data and processes, validates supplier service offerings, and collects internal ratings, all of which help transform decision making and improve supplier management. SpotSource is part of Atlanta-based Agency Spotter Inc. and is bringing to life supplier marketplaces inside Fortune 1000 companies to increase data-driven decision making, speed efficiencies, spend effectiveness, and overall performance.

For more information, visit AgencySpotter.com. For updates and news, follow us on Twitter and visit our blog.

About Green Places

Green Places helps businesses fight climate change by providing simple, turnkey solutions to both offset and reduce their carbon footprint. The company serves as a sustainability manager for businesses that lack dedicated in-house resources, developing sustainability plans tailored to each customer and utilizing science-backed solutions that help customers reach their sustainability goals. For more information, visit www.GreenPlaces.com 

“Houston, we have a problem.”

If you know the story of the Apollo 13 near-tragedy in space, you recognize that when something unexpected happened to the ship, the astronauts never panicked. Nor did they attempt a fix right away. The first thing they did was stop everything and examine all of their instruments and gauge readings. They assessed the situation carefully before making any moves.

As B2B marketers facing a more complex, less predictable market that’s constantly challenged by changing pandemic situations, rising costs and inflation, supply chain issues, and potentially permanent shifts in how customers interact with your company, we must not panic or make sudden changes.

Like the Apollo 13 crew, we need to stop and take the time to read all of the gauges around us—and then revise our plan to adjust to the new challenges and environment.

As you pause to reflect on your current course—and prepare to make the necessary adjustments to better keep your marketing goals on track—here are five useful B2B marketing tips to help you think more strategically.

1. Simplify your message.

Very few B2B products are not impacted by the introduction of innovative technologies and processes. As products become more complex, B2B marketers (and their product managers) are eager to showcase the product’s technology and sophisticated innovations. However, there’s a tendency to use a barrage of technical jargon and deep-dive explanations.

Are your sales tools bogged down by pages of details? Are your explainer videos far too lengthy? Do you have complex infographics that look like the schematics to the space shuttle?

Can visitors to your website understand who you are, what you do, and for whom you do it within a few seconds of visiting your website? If not, you run a significant risk they’ll leave before fully understanding your basic value proposition.

The bottom line is simple: Complex products do not require a complex explanation.

2. Know your true competition.

If you were asked to write down the name of your biggest competition—the one to whom you’ll likely lose the most business this year—you’d probably pick one or two of your biggest competing companies. And you wouldn’t be alone. But if you’re like most B2B companies, you’re going to lose the most business when:

1. The customer decides to do nothing (the status quo).
2. The customer decides to do it themselves (solve their problem with current resources).

Yet, how much time do you spend creating marketing strategies, messaging, sales tools, and sales training programs that are designed to compete against the status quo or customer DIY? Consider putting your resources into strategies, messaging, and sales tools that help you overcome your true competitors.

3. Prioritize efforts on the customer journey segment(s) that need the most help.

Take the time to assess your current marketing initiatives, campaigns, and sales tools. Are they truly helping to accelerate the segments of the customer journey where sales are most often thwarted?

Here’s the total customer buying journey path:

Everything that marketers do should directly or indirectly focus on accelerating customers through this journey map. But not every journey segment needs the same attention.

For example, if your biggest challenge is converting leads from the “Consider” stage (where the customer reviews their vendor options) to the “Evaluate” stage (where the customer invests time and resources in testing your product against others), creating sales tools and campaigns to generate awareness with new prospects isn’t going to help because those efforts are designed for an earlier stage of the journey.

Take the time to gauge the full customer buying journey to determine where your sales opportunities are most slowed or blocked. This will help you redistribute and refocus your energy and resources on marketing initiatives that more directly impact the acceleration of the customer’s buying journey.

4. Seek customer mindshare—not just awareness.

Most B2B companies—especially those with complex products—don’t have the luxury of short sales cycles. The time between when a prospect becomes aware of your product and when they purchase it can be weeks, months—or even years.

Most B2B lead-generation campaigns are developed to create awareness for your offering, communicate critical sales messaging, and then entice a response via your call-to-action (“request a demo,” “talk to our expert,” “let us tell you more,” etc.). The hope is that the campaign will reach a qualified prospect actively seeking a solution and ready to engage in a discussion, presentation, or demonstration. By launching campaigns that rely on the luck of good timing, we consider ourselves fortunate if we garner a 3% response or click-through rate. The 97% who don’t respond are defined as not interested.

But here’s the challenge: there are numerous solid prospects in that pool of nonrespondents—they’re just not ready to engage in early discussions. For example, you may have reached a prospect two years before they’re ready to purchase.

That’s where “mindshare” campaigns come in. Campaigns focused on mindshare generate awareness—and then maintain that awareness over an extended period of time through a well-designed, carefully synchronized series of outbound marketing initiatives that entice customers to establish an opt-in relationship with you that allows you to communicate with them regularly.

By establish an ongoing relationship with your prospects (via e-newsletters, blogs, tutorials/videos, and other free resources and engagement tools), you lessen your dependence on the luck of timing to generate qualified leads.

5. Leverage your personal value messaging.

There’s a tendency to assume that individual consumers base their purchase decisions on emotions, whim, and personal desire, while savvy business decision-makers base their procurement on research, analysis, data, ROI calculations, and strategic business goals. Personal needs and emotions, we believe, don’t typically play a significant role in business decisions—especially for significant business purchase decisions.

However, researchers are proving this notion of the impersonal business buyer to be a myth. Research indicates that the personal value that buyers perceive in a B2B product has far greater impact on the decision process than most marketers have thought.

A study conducted by the CEB Marketing Leadership Council, in conjunction with Google, found that the perceived personal value in a product had almost twice as much impact on the purchase outcome as the perceived business value. Personal value can include professional, social, emotional, and self-image benefits.¹

To identify the right personal value messages for your products or solutions, start by talking with your customers (something B2B marketers don’t do enough). The following questions can help structure the conversation and identify the personal value your customers perceive in your products or solutions.

1. Has our product/solution helped to accelerate your career?
2. Has our product/solution helped you gain professional recognition?
3. Has our product/solution strengthened your visibility in the company or impacted company success?
4. Has our product/solution improved your reputation as a leader or out-of-the-box thinker?

Once you’ve defined the personal value messages for your product or solution, infuse your messaging—including value propositions, elevator pitches, and sales stories—with personal value and emotion. This will enhance customer appeal and both strengthen and differentiate your overall sales messaging.

Safe splashdown

Ultimately, as we know, Jim Lovell and his crew of the Apollo 13 used innovate ways to solve daunting problems to make it home safely to Earth. But it all started with a pause, a deep breath, and the calm efforts to assess the situation and develop new plans to revamp their journey.

And so, as we face our own turmoil and changing market conditions, take this opportunity to pause, take a deep breath, and then begin the assessment process necessary to keep you on the track to success.

References

¹ Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner), “From Promotion to Emotion: Connecting B2B Customers to Brands,” October 2013.

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Whether you’ve been considering hiring a social media marketing agency for a few weeks or a year, the same questions are often lingering in the back of your mind. Things like “is it worth it?”

We decided it was time to go beyond the surface and look at what it really means to hire a social media marketing agency—and to find out once and for all if it’s actually worth it. Are you ready? Let’s dig in.

1. They’re Experts in Their Field

You wouldn’t ask a dentist to fix your beloved convertible. So why do you expect that just anyone, anywhere will have the expertise to establish your brands online and grow your following across social media with maximum benefits? 

Hiring a social media marketing agency puts an expert on your team. They know exactly how the algorithms work, what times work best for each type of content, and what is most likely to resonate with YOUR audience. 

2. Results-Driven Resources at Your Fingertips

When you hire a social media marketing agency, you get more than just a team of experts who will completely devote themselves to getting you results. You will also benefit from results-driven resources, like scheduling tools, monitoring tools, and reporting tools. This will make growing your social media presence easier than ever before.

3. Achieve Results FAST

Forget buying followers and never really reaching your goals. A social media marketing agency is a team of niche geniuses who are prepared to evaluate, strategize, and ACT on your behalf to grow your audience and boost conversions fast and effectively. 

4. You Can Work Smarter Instead of Harder and Save Time

Let the experts handle the madness of community management, social copywriting, paid ads management, and strategy while you put your focus where it matters the most: leading your team and your business. 

5. You’ll Receive Timely, Accurate Reports

One of the best parts about hiring a social media marketing agency is that you don’t have to do a thing and you’ll still get weekly or bi-weekly, monthly and quarterly reporting calls to see a complete picture of the wild success your business profile has attained with information directly from a strategist studying your account. 

6. You’ll Build a Dedicated Audience

One of the best ways to keep your brand at the forefront of people’s minds is to create and publish content that speaks to them about your brand. 

Social media marketing agencies have built-in production studios and tools that dedicated social media content creators will utilize to design eye-catching graphics and thumb-stopping videos. This will draw people into your brand “story” and sell your products without you ever having to lift a finger. 

Over time, your audience will know what to expect from you and even look forward to seeing what might drip down their social media pages from your brand. 

7. They’ll Utilize a Deep Understanding of Each Platform to Drive Results

In addition to being experts in the social media sphere, a social media marketing agency also houses experts on specific platforms. Need a Facebook ads expert? Pinterest genius? Twitter connoisseur? They’ve got you covered. 

8. They’re Very Familiar with Handling Large Budgets

Whether it’s an ad budget or a content creation budget, a social media marketing agency is skilled in the art of handling large budgets for a number of different social media needs. 

Invoicing, payments, card changes – you name it, they’ve dealt with it. So you can rest easy knowing your cash is in good hands and trust the experts to keep you informed and alert while you battle the competition. 

9. They’ll Handle Anything and Everything Influencer Related

From finding influencers to paying influencers to shipping products around the US (or the world), nobody wants to deal with the hassle of influencer marketing. 

Social media marketing agencies are equipped and ready to handle the influx of community management needs, payments, and more that come along for the ride – and you’ll get a comprehensive report of what’s happening every step of the way from dedicated social media marketing influencer strategists. 

10. It Just Makes Sense

You can’t experience growth without risk. And at the end of the day, hiring a social media agency just makes sense, even if it is a little scary.

Every year, millions of companies around the world experience exponential growth thanks to social media. We think you should make one of those companies YOURS and see for yourself why hiring a social media marketing agency has never been easier and never been more empowering for businesses. 

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While brands have a variety of marketing channels from which to choose, permission-based email is one of the most effective methods for building relationships throughout the customer journey. With a 36:1 ROI and more than 90% of internet users using email, this channel offers hard-to-beat efficiency and scale when managed skillfully.

There are a few key strategic components to consider when planning your email program.

Know Your Goals

Why are you launching an email program or a new stream within an existing program? Understanding what you hope to achieve will help you determine the way to develop an email program. Are you nurturing new prospects or leads? Trying to increase purchase frequency? Improving loyalty?

With your goal(s) in mind and an understanding of your customer’s journey with your brand you can determine what type(s) of email will best meet your goals. Trying to keep customers informed about on-going product news and announcements? A newsletter or similar scheduled campaign may work well. Need to convince a new prospect to buy for the first time? Consider a nurture series.

For most brands a mix of automated and ad hoc or calendar-based emails can help achieve a variety of business goals.

Measure for Success

With your goals in mind, determine specific business metrics such as sales goals, increasing household penetration (HHP), driving trial of a particular product, or increasing advocacy. Before you launch any email consider how to measure success and set up appropriate tracking and attribution to ensure reporting on metrics that matter. To provide more insightful measurements, look for KPIs beyond opens and clicks. Even if you cannot measure all the way to sales consider process metrics. For example, coupon engagement and visits to your where to buy page can indicate intent to buy.

Establish Value

Permission based email requires a recipient to sign up before you begin emailing them. Before someone provides their email address and consent you need to convince them they will receive value in exchange for their permission. Consider what value looks like to your audience? Do you need to provide a discount on your product or service or will a piece of exclusive, premium content work just as well? Emails can provide value through offers, information, tools, resources, and more.

Decide on the value proposition of the email program and communicate it clearly to subscribers. Set clear expectations upfront  and be prepared to deliver against them. It is far better to under promise and over deliver than set an unreasonable expectation of value up front that leaves your audience dissatisfied.

Be Relevant

Not every customer needs to be spoken to the same way or about the same subject. Targeted email marketing is sending personalized emails to subscribers based on specific characteristics. This targeting comes from the information consumers have already given through their interactions based on age, gender, previous products purchased, sales shopped, abandoned cart and so much more. Targeting aids in delivering the right message at the right time to consumers. Recipients are much more likely to engage when messages are relevant to them.

However, it is important to balance the benefit of more relevant emails with the increased effort and eventual return. Focus your targeting and segmentation efforts where they have the biggest impact and consider how to vary messaging efficiently. Sometimes unique audiences may need completely different emails. Other times two or three copy versions will have the same impact.

Explore and Learn

It can be tempting to set up an email automation and forget about it or churn out very similar emails month after month. Resisting that temptation and setting up plan to continuously test and optimize your emails will improve your efforts and drive higher returns.

Approach testing in a structured manner just like you learned in high school science class. Have a hypothesis, determine what and how you will test it, and establish your measurement plan. There are many options for testing in email including subject lines, creative, day of week, time of day, frequency, and messaging. When setting up your test make sure you can isolate what drove the difference in results. Keep it simple and test frequently rather than trying to structure a single overly complicated test.

Following these best practices will help create a positive subscriber experience leading to real business results.

Need help creating or managing your email marketing program? Response Media is a full-service customer acquisition and CRM agency with expertise in email strategy, creative, execution, and measurement. We help top brands intelligently grow through data-driven, personalized digital marketing at scale.

For additional information download our White Paper about email best practices. 

References

Litmus, The ROI of Email Marketing, 2019 |  Constant Contact, 10 Email Marketing Statistics You Need to Know, 2022 | eMarketer, Email Marketing 2019, 2019 |

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ATLANTA, April 28, 2022 – For its latest Top 30 New York City Digital Agencies Report, Agency Spotter ranked New York City digital agencies based on credentials, focus area, project work, related expertise, and verified client reviews.

Insight on the Winning NYC Digital Agencies:

• 80% are B2B & B2C focused
• 47% have multiple locations
• 20% are women-owned
• 13% are minority-owned

These top NYC digital agencies work with some of the world’s most renowned brands, including BMW, Canon, Expedia, JetBlue, and PepsiCo.

Looney Agency earned first place on this Top 30 New York City Agencies Report. They believe the most important skill for solving any problem is creativity–the ability to generate a variety of unique, culturally relevant insights by combining a network of rational and emotional ideas. Looney Agency has ability to nail your reason for being is why our integrated marketing campaigns connect so well with consumers across all media channels.

“This is an agency that’s got a tremendous amount of experience and there is a level of professionalism here and attention to detail in the work that we’ve never had before.”

– Joseph Agresta, Jr, President Benzel-Busch Motor Car Corp Automotive

Some of Looney Agency’s clients include Benzel-Busch, Gym Source, NFL, and Panera Bread.

This top report includes verified client reviews, project work, and more. The top marketing agencies were selected based on Agency Spotter’s proprietary research methodology, which uses their websites’ extensive data along with qualitative and quantitative insights to evaluate many factors including each company’s qualifications, experience level, positioning, and client feedback. Agency Spotter’s top agency research reports are issued on a regular basis and are continuing to roll out across more than a dozen service areas. Interested companies are encouraged to claim their agency or apply to get listed and review the report methodology to be evaluated for future coverage.

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ATLANTA, April 25, 2022 – For its latest Top 30 Atlanta Digital Agencies Report, Agency Spotter ranked digital agencies based on Agency Spotter’s proprietary research methodology. This report examines Atlanta-based agencies that specialize in web, mobile, e-commerce, social media, CRM and more.

Insight on the Top Atlanta Agencies:

• 66% are mid-sized agencies
• 40% focus on digital strategy
• 10% are women-owned
• 10% are minority-owned

These top digital design agencies work with some of the world’s most renowned brands, including Adult Swim, IBM, The Coca-Cola Company, and Philips.

Response Media earned first place on this Top 30 Atlanta Digital Agencies Report. This agency collaborates with its clients to meet their goals, improve performance, and drive results. For 30 years, they’ve worked as true partners with established, global brands all across.

This agency focuses on understanding and addressing the needs set of their clients’ audiences so their company can nurture them at each stage, from consideration to purchase. Their clients come to them for their expertise in customer acquisition, email and direct marketing, marketing strategy, media buying, social media marketing, digital strategy, marketing automation, and data analytics.

Michael La Kier​, Director, My Coke Rewards of Coca-Cola states, “I would not hesitate to turn to Response Media again given their deep, unparalleled, data-driven marketing expertise in crafting winning strategies.”

“I would not hesitate to turn to Response Media again given their deep, unparalleled, data-driven marketing expertise in crafting winning strategies.”

– Michael La Kier, Director, My Coke Rewards, Coca-Cola.

Response Media’s clients include Comcast, Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike, and Wells Fargo​.

Sociallyin placed second on the Top Atlanta Digital Agencies Report. Sociallyin is a 100% focused social media agency.

This agency aims to help medium-sized and large brands with different aspects of their social media such as developing a strategy, original content production, community management, ROI modeling & listening, influencer strategies, and more. Some of Mighty Roar’s clients include Dick’s Sporting Goods, TGI Friday’s, Toyota, and The Winter Olympics.

Top Atlanta Digital Agencies

1. Response Media
2. Sociallyin
3. Mighty Roar
4. Launch
5. Look Listen
6. Headword!
7. Black Bear Design
8. bounteous
9. Narwhal Digital
10. Brandware

Explore the full Top 30 Atlanta Digital Agencies Report, including verified client reviews, project work, and more.

The top marketing agencies were selected based on Agency Spotter’s proprietary research methodology, which uses their websites’ extensive data along with qualitative and quantitative insights to evaluate many factors including each company’s qualifications, experience level, positioning and client feedback. Agency Spotter’s top agency research reports are issued on a regular basis and are continuing to roll out across more than a dozen service areas. Interested companies are encouraged to claim their agencyor apply to get listed and review the report methodology to be evaluated for future coverage.

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Not all influencer marketing agencies are created equal. There are so many out there (I would know – I’m the president and CEO of one). From boutique shops to mega-agencies with offices across the world, it can be overwhelming. What makes them all different, and which one has the resources for what you need?

Like any interview, you’ll want to ask effective questions. Finding the right influencer marketing agency can be a game-changing experience for your brand and business.

There is no hard-and-fast rule to shopping around for “The One,” but there are certain indicators that a good influencer marketing agency should have. Sure, “experience” and “time in business” are obvious ones. But let’s go beyond the basics and look at 5 key questions to ask when considering an influencer marketing agency.

1. Can you tell me about past brand collaborations and campaign management experience?

Project management details are critical. We know that today’s consumers are drawn to brands that they feel an authentic connection with — that’s the role influencers play. However, these collaborations can be complex to produce. The work that goes into them can sometimes be overlooked or undervalued.

Ask an agency what their day-to-day process is like. How much experience do they have with the nuances of working with managers, negotiations, and contracts? Remember: you are outsourcing and putting your business name on the line. It’s an investment. A positive influencer collaboration associated with your brand can introduce long-term partnerships and loyalty.

Find out what elements of a campaign are most important to them. Dig deeper: do they have examples of past campaigns that exceeded expectations, and why? Are there case studies they can share? See if their previous results fall in line with what you hope to achieve. Ask for client testimonials and references.

Top influencer marketing agencies will create a sensory-driven strategy that connects your brand message with your desired demo on an emotional and psychological level. You’ll want an agency who not only delivers results, but can zero in on your goals to achieve what you have in mind — maybe even beyond what you planned. They need to demonstrate a keen understanding in this space.

2. What sets your agency apart?

Influencer marketing is not a new practice. It has evolved overtime to become a major part of modern business strategies. The result is thousands of agencies competing for your business. Ask your agency: How do you distinguish yourself from the others?

An experienced agency with success under its belt will be able to demonstrate why they’re different. It could be years of collective experience across the team. It could be success scaling campaigns or special knowledge of unique niches. Have they won any major awards or secured repeat clients? Whatever their “standout” quality is, they should have a solid answer and evidence to back it up.

3. How many influencers do you have access to?

Pay close attention after you ask this question. Does the agency you’ve approached represent influencer talent, in addition to selling influencer marketing services? Or are they purely an influencer marketing agency without operating as a talent management agency?

If they advertise having a network of influencers, do they strictly use their own influencers, or do they go beyond to find the right candidates for your brand? And if they don’t have a network, then how do they find influencers for campaigns?

Top agencies will have a third-party technology platform to aid researching, vetting and securing influencers. These platforms have filters to help narrow down the search for influencers. A good agency partner should be able to tell you what those data points are: audience data, demographics, engagement, affinities, past brand collaborations, etc.

How many targets are they able to provide you? Do they use a technology-minded approach for recommendations, or will they use a combination of tech and hand-vetting? I’ve learned this is a “common sense” business. Computers can’t do everything.

4. How do you measure and report metrics?

You’ll want an agency that places a strong emphasis on metrics and understands the importance of stats tracking. All clients are different, but in my experience, the top data they are most interested in is: Impressions, reach, video views, engagement, engagement sentiment analysis, and clickthrough rates. Ask your agency what their reporting will show, and if they can provide an example of a report.

Most technology platforms will provide real-time tracking for key metrics. Influencers can also manually provide screenshots of analytics to be transcribed for reporting.

Ask your agency  what their reporting cadence is like. How soon after a campaign is completed will the metrics be available? Can the performance of the influencers’ posts be seen in real time through a shared dashboard? Sometimes you need answers right away, especially if you may want to pivot or put paid behind a post..

5. What is your knowledge of platform trends?

Meteorologists follow the weather, economists follow the market, and influencer marketing agencies follow online trends. A good agency should be able to answer this question on their feet. Ask them to highlight 3 trends they’ve seen happening online.

Your agency needs to have its finger on the pulse. Things change every day and sometimes that means pivoting a campaign on the fly. Ask your agency what they do to elevate their awareness of what’s happening online. How might they communicate sudden changes or opportunities to you? Go even further: Can they show any examples of past client successes that occurred because they took advantage of a trend?

These 5 key questions should guide you to specifics that go beyond the same sales pitch. Take time to get the answers you need, and don’t get blinded by glitzy credential decks.

The right influencer agency can change the trajectory of your brand, and the research is the reward! See examples of winning agency relationships here.

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After digging through endless search results for an SEO agency, you’ve finally narrowed down your list to a few top choices. Once you start talking with different teams, what do you need to ask them to make sure they’re a good fit?

Are you looking for an agency to supplement your internal teams, or take over the strategy entirely and drive results for your business without your help? Are you looking to improve rankings to grow awareness, or increase the number of qualified leads from organic search? 

To find the right SEO agency partner, start by asking these questions below.

1. How do you measure SEO success?

Before a potential SEO agency starts to talk about their process or their tactics for improving success, first you need to know how they quantify success? What are the metrics and measures that they use to test strategies and deliver results for clients? 

A smart SEO agency should ask about your business goals. Their SEO goals should align with your business goals, so that all of your extended teams are working towards the same goalposts. More traffic may not be as valuable as qualified leads, for example, and both will require different strategies to execute.  

2. Do you offer any guarantees for page 1 results or traffic? 

Oh, they have a guarantee for results? Be afraid. 

Any SEO agency that promises page one rankings should raise your internal alarms, as Google isn’t in an SEO’s control. There are many strategies that can boost rankings or traffic from organic search, but it’s not an exact science. 

Instead of guarantees, the right SEO agency should show previous results for clients of similar industries. Even though results from one business may not correlate to your own business, it at least shows that some strategies by this agency have worked in the past. 

3. What SEO tactics and strategies do you use? 

After discussing your business goals, it’s time to talk strategy. Ask your potential SEO agency what strategies have worked well in the past, and which ones they may be using on your own business. You could also ask what strategies have stopped working, to see if they’ve been keeping up with the latest SEO trends. 

A good SEO agency should be taking a wide-angle view of your site, optimizing all of your content, improving your user experience, and auditing technical SEO factors. If the agency only talks about keywords and keyword research, they may only be scratching the surface on what needs to be done. Keywords will play a part in an SEO strategy, but should never be the only part of it.

4. Have you faced any manual action penalties? 

Most agencies wouldn’t have had to deal with this recently. It’s not a bad thing if the agency hasn’t experienced one––it may be a good sign. A manual action is likely to happen to SEOs who use “grey hat” or “black hat” techniques that are intended to manipulate Google. Trying to manipulate Google is a bad idea, much like guaranteeing results from an SEO strategy. 

Rather than making changes to manipulate search engines, a quality SEO agency will instead make changes to a website to help or engage the end-user. Google’s goal has always been to deliver the best results and experience to searchers, so an SEO agency’s goal should be the same thing. Helping your search visitors will end up helping your business in the long run. 

5. What is your strategy for growing backlinks?  

Backlinks are important to a good SEO strategy, but they’re also one of the more difficult to execute. Some agencies focus on other areas of SEO where they can have more impact, while others focus their efforts entirely on backlinks. What you need to watch out for is link farms, or purchasing links. 

Google has repeatedly said that purchasing links could lead to a negative impact to SEO, or even a manual action. Reputable SEOs don’t use link farms or buy backlinks, as they tend to be from low-value domains that Google has already flagged as spam or junk domains. Purchasing links for your business site is more likely to get your own site flagged as spam, or reduce the overall trustworthiness of your domain. That’s no way to grow your business. 

Instead, a backlink campaign should be like a PR campaign, focusing on generating traffic from highly relevant websites within your industry. If your target audience is likely to visit that partner website and your own, it makes sense for a backlink to point to your domain, as it helps out the end-user to answer a question or consume your content. 

A good SEO won’t over-focus on backlinks. Google Search Advocate, John Mueller said in 2020 “Links are definitely not the most important SEO factor.” He then added:

I’d forget everything you read about “link juice.” It’s very likely all obsolete, wrong, and/or misleading. Instead, build a website that works well for your users. 

They matter. But they aren’t the most important thing anymore.

Find and Qualify Your Next SEO Agency Partner 

Your next SEO agency partner should be just that, a partner. Your teams may be excited to get SEO off their plates, but they should know that SEO works better when everyone is working towards the same goals. Your new SEO agency will guide your team through discovering new keywords, revising your content strategy, and implementing technical fixes. 

There are many SEO agencies out there, and finding the right one for your business will take time. These questions will help you get started to find the agency that feels more like a partner, connected with the rest of your teams. Together, you can improve rankings, boost traffic, and grow your business organically online.

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The world has already been heading towards a digital format but COVID has sped up that process. Once the world went indoors the prevalence of digital media excelled faster than it already had been. Though the world is on its way back to normal, the social media aspect will remain vital for any company’s success. Here are five ways to enhance your brand in this new year. 

Cross-Promote

Having a social media account for each platform is essential for your brand’s success. Every platform has a different audience and they connect to people in different ways. Taking advantage of your different accounts is key to promoting your brand efficiently and effectively.

For example, a post on your Instagram account promoting your Twitter account will benefit your brand. Followers you already had will be more inclined to follow you on Twitter which gives your company another opportunity to be promoted. This will also help your brand connect further with current clients because you can express the company in a different light via different social channels. Cross-promoting is an easy way to gain loyal followers across all your platforms which benefits your brand in the long run.

Engage

Gaining followers is great for your brand but keeping them is what matters. By engaging with your audience, you build a relationship that makes your brand relatable. At the end of the day, people want to align with the brands they use because it brings them comfort.

Easy ways to engage with your followers are liking comments, replying to comments, and replying to direct messages through social channels. This shows that there are actual people behind the brand that cares about input from their customers. Making your consumers feel valued and heard will improve your sales and customer retention.

Use Compelling Visuals

Visuals should be a huge part of your brand’s content. Because so many companies use social media nowadays, it is important that your visuals stand out from the rest. Visuals are a fun way to capture your audience’s attention and promote your product or service without being monotone or text-heavy. Using them as a post on your timeline is important but so is utilizing the “story” feature on the apps that allow it. With that being said, getting creative with your visuals is the perfect way to set yourself apart.

Having aesthetic posts will drive traffic to your social channels and give your brand credibility overall. Product or service sales are the goal but getting people there and keeping them there is the first step.

Use Captivating Captions

Creating good content to post for your brand is essential. However, it does not stop there. Captions are a vital part of your post. If you are proud of the content you are about to post, writing a caption that captures the audience’s attention will be the cherry on top. Think of a caption as the “closer” to your post. You want your post to be great from beginning to end. Puns, exclamation points, emojis, and hashtags are all ways to enhance a caption.

Don’t be afraid to be relatable in your captions because that is how you will be able to connect with future and current customers. Show them that there is more to your brand than just a product or service. When you become relatable you gain credibility.

Hashtags

Using hashtags is an easy and efficient way to gain more attention on a post. You can hashtag anything that relates to your post because when it comes to promotion, the more the merrier. For example, people utilize Instagram’s explore page to search common hashtags and see where they are being used. Using keywords that relate to your product or service as hashtags will facilitate the promotion of your company. Though it seems like a minute detail, it can mean all the differences when people are searching.

Final Thoughts

2022 is the perfect place to start focusing on your brand’s online reputation. Use the five simple tips above to drive traffic to your site and to stay relevant in the digital world.

Related Links:

• Finding Success with Your Digital Marketing Strategy
• Gen-Z and Digital Media: Generational Adaptations to Digital Media
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• Author
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Cate Boller

Cate Boller is a Social Media and Marketing Coordinator at The GCMG Agency with a background in marketing communications and digital marketing. When she’s not at the agency she enjoys trying new restaurants, visiting family, playing soccer, and spending quality time with friends!

Latest posts by Cate Boller (see all)

Commercials reached a whole new level of creativity in 2021. At times, these ads made us laugh and even cry, but they were so well-produced that we often didn’t mind watching them a second time.

From commercials that aired during the Super Bowl, Tokyo Olympics, and everything in between, here’s our list of the best commercials of 2021.

Amazon: Alexa’s Body

This commercial centers around a woman who fantasizes what it would be like to have Michael B. Jordan as the “beautiful vessel” for her Alexa.

Apple: Fumble

Apple created an ad showing consumers the benefits of the Ceramic Shield glass used in the iPhone 12. This fun 30-second commercial shows a woman accidentally dropping her iPhone in the most relatable way.

Cheetos: It Wasn’t Me

In this commercial, Mila Kunis takes the advice of rapper Shaggy. Every time her husband Ashton Kutcher catches her eating Cheetos, Mila has the perfect response: “It Wasn’t Me.”

Dove: Reverse Selfie

In 2020, Dove conducted a self-esteem research project and found that 80% of girls have already applied a filter or used an app to change the way they look in their photos by the time they are 13.

This commercial shows the pressures around social media and how it’s hurting the self-esteem of young girls across the world.

Etsy: Give More Than A Gift – Bus Stop

Dedicated to the unexpected friends who got us through the past year, this holiday campaign tells the story of an unlikely bond between two people. This heartwarming commercial will leave you smiling.

Ford: Night Swimming

This commercial is the complete opposite of your typical truck ads. Ford created a stunning commercial that features beautiful underwater scenes of people swimming at night.

This ad creatively demonstrates Ford’s best-in-class 800mm wading depth. Watch commercial here.

Heinz: Draw Ketchup 

Heinz Ketchup decided to conduct a little experiment. They invited consumers across five continents to participate in a simple task: draw ketchup. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that most people drew Heinz Ketchup.

Heinz later used these drawings as new labels for its bottles.

HP: Parallel Lives

During the Olympics, HP debuted this ad to showcase its efforts towards sustainability. The commercial presents HP’s goals of becoming the world’s “most sustainable and just technology company.”

“Parallel Lives” addresses climate change and shows viewers how the brand is using ocean-bound plastic in its product.

M&M’S: Come Together

The Super Bowl ad features a variety of relatable scenarios. It ultimately shows us that with a little bit of laughter, empathy, and M&M’S we can move forward. The commercial features well-known actor Dan Leavy.

NIKE: Play New

NIKE’s latest campaign invites people to discover sports in new ways. The commercial shares that it doesn’t always have to be about winning when it comes to sports. People can simply find joy by participating in an activity that they love. 

The ad features athletes Sabrina Ionescu, Dina Asher-Smith, and Blake Leeper. Singer and dancer Rosalía also makes an appearance.  

Peloton: Unspoiler Alert

This commercial quickly came together in response to the debut of HBO Max’s Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That. The episode showed Mr. Big’s (Chris Noth) untimely death after using a Peloton bike.

This humorous commercial features Chris Noth himself and a voiceover by Ryan Reynolds. The ultimate goal was to show that the Peloton and cardiovascular exercise are good for you.

Procter & Gamble: Love Leads To Good

P&G paid tribute to parents with this commercial during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This commercial explores the important role all parents have in raising their children to be good.

Rocket Mortgage: Certain Is Better

Tracy Morgan appears in the comical commercial to show us why being certain with Rocket Mortgage is better than just being pretty sure.

Toyota: Upstream

This emotional spot shares the story of Jessica Long’s incredible journey from double amputee to becoming a 13-time Paralympic gold medalist.

Visit Iceland: The Icelandverse

This Icelandic tourism campaign is a genius parody of Facebook’s Metaverse announcement. A Mark Zuckerberg lookalike introduces us to the ‘Icelandverse’.

The commercial saw massive success. Five days after its initial release, it was reported to have been viewed over six million times. They even gained the attention of Zuckerberg himself. He released a social media post that said: “Amazing. I need to make a trip to the Icelandverse soon. Glad you’re wearing sunscreen too.”

Learn More

Creating an amazing commercial starts with partnering with the perfect agency partner. Many of these brands worked with creative agencies to help develop one-of-a-kind ads. Use Agency Spotter, to aid in your search for the perfect agency. You can search by location, budget, service, and so much more.

Strategy is a word that is commonly misused within the marketing industry. We hear it time and time again when it’s thrown around to describe the process of building a campaign or a project, but without any real forethought that ties to bigger business and marketing goals.

That is not a strategy.

Digital marketing strategies are the approaches to achieve goals by using channels such as email, SMS, social media, paid media, websites, and other digital platforms. This also requires identifying the target audience, ideal outcomes, tasks necessary to accomplish said outcomes, and appropriate digital properties and channels that will be implemented within the strategy. It can be as simple as driving awareness around a new brand partnership or as complex as creating an omnichannel campaign to get consumers to register to the brand’s customer online portal and complete the member profile survey.

Identifying what the success of these strategies look like varies based on the goals set. However, there are commonalities within all positive outcomes. I recently had a conversation with our VP of Client Strategy Jennifer Streck about digital strategies and why some are more successful than others. The elements below are what we uncovered:

Brands Must Know Their Audience

This may seem a bit obvious to state, but it is true. Understanding your target audience is an important key to developing a successful marketing strategy.

To truly know your audience is to realize that they are not necessarily monolithic. Streck mentioned how she’s noticed how some strategies failed due to overgeneralizing their base. “It shows that you are not paying attention to your consumers. Assuming that all of their behaviors around purchasing or researching are identical can isolate a portion of the audience. That can ultimately lead to a loss of potential revenue and wasting resources.”

Implementing a personalized and relevant approach to a brand’s campaigns or efforts should produce favorable results instantly. Eighty percent of consumers said that they are more likely to purchase when brands offer them a personalized experience.¹ Creating a unique and bespoke relationship with your audience requires tapping into the most important marketing tool of all: your data.

Data is King

How would you know if a campaign worked if you never looked at the data? To be honest, a lot of marketers are not properly utilizing the statistics and results they have available to them. A recent study showed that 87% of marketers aren’t fully using data to guide their strategies despite its importance.²

“When I’m preparing a strategy, I start with the data. I’m not just talking about the number of email addresses or site visitors or anything like that. I’m looking at demographics, psychographics, offline data, and research studies on their consumers. I want to know what motivates the audience. What are their barriers? That’s how I can identify the best approach to take,” Streck responded.

“I want to know what motivates the audience. What are their barriers? That’s how I can identify the best approach to take”

– VP of Client Strategy Jennifer Streck 

Data encompasses such a robust amount of information. Marketers that are leveraging first-party data, third-party data, and behavioral analytics are set up better to create those personalized strategies that we were referring to. They’re also going to be ahead of the curve once Google removes the ability to tap into the third-party identifiers come 2023.³

Using data is key when setting up a strategy and when the campaigns are over to see what worked and what didn’t. But more than anything, it is a necessary way of checking up on how the overall strategy is performing amidst the campaign. If you’re noticing that the audiences aren’t responding how you assumed or if the tools and channels you’ve implemented are acting awry or just not to expectations, that is when you need to go in and adjust.

Adjusting When Needed

Sometimes, the marketing strategies you implemented don’t perform the way you think they should. Or perhaps, a new social network or trend is captivating your audience in a way like no other. It is the moments like that that require changing your strategy. Being cognizant of your strategy’s performance in real-time can also save your brand a lot of time and money, too.

One recent world-altering moment caused many brands to reconfigure their marketing efforts — the COVID-19 pandemic. Retail brand Uncommon Goods recognized that shopping behaviors of consumers were shifting, rightfully so, which meant spending more with Facebook and experimenting with TikTok.⁴ As of last fall, while some products had organic success through the video-based social network, conversion rates via paid ads were low. That didn’t discourage the brand as they remain “optimistic” about the platform.

But, some strategies don’t require a lot of adjustments, if any. According to Streck, “it depends on the business strategy and what you’re trying to accomplish. Maybe it doesn’t require major pivoting but just adjusting the messaging or the channels. That’s where testing and segmentation can come into play.”

Testing is another method of adjusting while in the middle of a live strategy, but isn’t always needed. “If you are able to A/B test, then that is an efficient way of learning and seeing what works versus what doesn’t. But, I wouldn’t say that testing is 100% required but it is definitely going to make success more likely.”

Changing the Narrative Around Benchmarks

Digital marketing strategies can require a lot of moving pieces — audience analysis, digital channels, reporting and insights, and a supportive budget. But there is one component that gets more praise than what is necessary: benchmarks.

As mentioned earlier, data is crucial to the success of a digital strategy. Did your consumers buy the product teased in the email? Or did they complete the registration to become eligible for the brand’s sweepstakes campaign? Diving into the results is one path of identifying success, but acknowledging the benchmarks for similar campaigns or industry standards can also provide that pat on the back.

However, benchmarks are quite relative and ambiguous. “Often, you don’t know what you’re comparing yourself to,” Streck said when opining about the importance of benchmarks. “I mean, you don’t know what went into the benchmarks for an engagement rate or an open rate. As a startup, you may be comparing yourself to more established bands that are only emailing their active databases.” So just like in real, regular life, comparing yourself or your brand to the next is not the best thing to do.

Instead of going off the assumed performance of competitors and other like-minded brands, Streck suggests that brands refer to the results of their older or more comparable campaigns as the benchmark of success. “And I really try to encourage our clients to benchmark their own performance and then compare it to that and always try to improve your own performance.”

To Wrap

Finding success within your digital marketing strategy is a loaded exploration. It requires a level of proactivity which means being intentional with the marketing efforts of your brand. To truly see success means to correctly identify who you are targeting. It means knowing and using the information you have readily available or creating paths to gaining more insights than what your brand had previously. It requires being aware of campaign performance from start to finish and refining when you see opportunities to do so. It means looking in the mirror and recognizing the wins and losses within your own brand instead of solely what is happening in the industry. So, to truly define success is not simply a checklist you can mark off but a dive into the culture and space in which your brand thrives and filling the gaps effectively to satisfy the market and demand.

References:

¹ Epsilon | ² Invoca | ³ Digiday | ⁴ eMarketer

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