digital marketing blog

January 23, 2019

8 Reasons to Hire a Virtual Marketing Agency


Running business operations requires much effort and time. It could leave you exhausted and at times, you end up with little or no enthusiasm. To avoid burning out just when you badly need results, you need to outsource some of the critical functions. Presently, everyone has embraced digital technology, and if your entity is not in line, you may end up lagging behind in your line of business. However, computer-driven media does not necessarily mean ditching the old platforms such as print media. Nonetheless, marketing can take many forms, but it is the digital ones that have a high potential for results.


As the name suggests, virtual marketing agencies do not operate from a brick and mortar office. Every professional hired by the entity works remotely, but they are all interconnected online. If one has got internet linked via back office software, the workflow does not get interrupted. However, from time to time, the team needs to, and they do indeed meet up to map out their clients’ strategies. Their meeting place can be anywhere from your boardroom to a coffee break at an eatery.
Remain relevant
Whether you have any marketing background or not, you don’t need to be told that you must carry out intensive industry research. Launching a campaign of any magnitude without studying consumer behavior can have a severe backlash. You must understand the industry. Take for instance the print magazine that people used to love. Most of them have now stopped publishing hard copies and have moved their publications online. If you are in this sector, it would be detrimental to continue churning out volumes of papers and taking them to newsstands. Few people will buy them, but there are millions of readers online. Marketing agencies know about these developments and can guide you on the right strategies to adopt.
Does this leave you feeling scared of losing out in the competition? If so, there are compelling reasons for you to hire a virtual marketing agency.

You tap into the endless creativity
Virtual marketers can be a weird lot. If you have never met them, you should walk into their offices one day. They are the type of guys that come to work dressed in rugged jeans and t-shirts. You hardly see creatives adorning in suits and ties. However, you should not mistake this for a fun club since these are some of the most talented people you could ever meet. Their diversity regarding education and work experience makes them the go-to persons. Furthermore, their technological know-how and innovation in solving problems are second to none. Their teams come fully equipped with:
  • Creative directors
  • Skilled graphic designers
  • Copywriters
  • Media buyers
  • Media planners
  • Office assistants

Competitor evaluation
Virtual marketing agencies have an in-depth knowledge of the market where businesses operate. They know the approaches that work as well as those that do not. Following an intensive interaction with different clients, they can quickly adopt strategies that can easily turn around your fortunes. Take for instance campaigns that target millennials. Placing print ads for such a group might result in their getting ignored. However, buying media on online social platforms will get the attention of these youngsters. Only an outsourced agency can evaluate and know this. The marketers will:
  • Help identify where your target audience hangs out
  • Determine the most appealing content
  • Streamline your campaigns on social media
  • They research on keywords, analytics and search management

No staffing headaches
To succeed in your marketing efforts, you must be consistent. An employee who suddenly falls ill when you are running a crucial campaign can ruin everything. That person who takes leave of absence for unavoidable circumstances could be the best that you have. For example, he or she might be the only one who understands how to curate content and optimize blogs. Besides, the timing of their leave could coincide with an important festive season when you had hoped to cash in on consumer spending. With a marketing agency, such worries do not exist.
  • No need to carry out recruitment, the agency hires its team
  • Agencies have their way of dealing with staffing issues
  • If one of their employees falls sick or goes on leave, that becomes none of your concerns
  • With a virtual agency by your side, none of the matters affecting employees can bring your campaigns to a halt. You expect them to deliver come rain or shine

Data analysis, monitoring and research
Following the emergence of internet platforms, there is a high potential for gathering data and analyzing it to your advantage. An in-house team may not be of much help here. However, digital marketing agencies go out of their way to study and gather market information. They finance or procure data on consumer behavior. Out of the results, they identify trends that help in understanding why people opt for product B as compared to C or the other way around. With such feedback, virtual marketing agencies, can restructure your web content and ensure that prospective clients visit and engage your company by buying your product or service.
  • All you need is develop key performance indicators and share them with the marketers
  • They then figure out performance against your measures
  • Agencies identify metrics that they can monitor in different channels
  • They provide you with reports on a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly basis

No training needed
Agencies come fully equipped with a team of content writers, web developers, marketers, media monitors, graphic designers, SEO professionals, you name it. If you were to hire all these yourself, it could end up being a huge gamble or counterproductive. Moreover, such people may take time to fit into your organization’s culture. This is not the case with an outsourced marketing agency. They come fully loaded with a skilled team that is passionate about what they do. You do not need to take them for seminars or hire people to train them. On the contrary, they are always ready and raring to go; all you need is to give them a little shove by way of a briefing.
  • You save money that could have gone to staff training
  • The company saves time that could have gone towards arranging for seminars
  • There is no need to invest in software

The aspect of an outside perspective
Employees working inside an organization may not have a wide knowledge of what goes on outside. On the other hand, someone could be having brilliant ideas but holds them for fear of making his or her bosses look bad. Marketing agencies consist of people who brainstorm consistently and come up with solutions on how best to achieve results. They approach your problems from the outside view; a consumer’s eye. It might be difficult for you to ‘step out’ of your organization for a while and look at it from the other side. Virtual marketers are your best bet.
  • You eliminate bias and promote out-of-the-box thinking
  • People no longer remain frozen in the notion that they can keep doing things the same way as before
  • An outsider sees things differently since they do not know you or any of your employees

Helps you focus your energy where needed
Running successful online marketing campaigns requires hiring an experienced and deeply motivated team. Plus, you need to re-focus your attention towards ensuring that the new hires understand what you do on a day-to-day basis. All this takes time and you could spend much money on in-house training. Your efforts could result in strained resources and reduced profits. Why not let a virtual agency take the burden? The resources you could have spent can go a long way towards growing other aspects of your business. With an outsourced marketer, you only must appraise them on your needs, objectives and timelines. You need not train or manage anyone.
  • Running a business requires your commitment, time, and energy
  • Agencies have all the time to run marketing aspects on your behalf since that is their area of specialization.
  • They take time to understand your business and deploy measures for the right marketing tactics

Reduces costs significantly
When faced with the prospect of outsourcing or grooming an in-house team, many organizations make comparisons and opt for the latter. However, you eventually realize that a virtual agency is less costly. Do you know why? Part of the reason is that these agencies do not have physical offices. Their employees work from home most of the time. They can even meet at a coffee house and develop a strategy in no time. As a result, they charge you a retainer or commission that is much lower than what you would have paid your internal team. Another cost aspect is that you need not subscribe to marketing tools available online. Most agencies already have them.
  • Virtual agents do not have to work from an office
  • They pay no rent for use of premises
  • No need for them to buy furniture or office equipment
  • Every team member works from the comfort of their home or wherever they feel most productive
  • Part of their cost comes from internet subscriptions or online coordination tools
  • They pass these benefits over to their clients through reduced fees

In a nutshell
Many companies prefer to hire in-house marketers, and with good reasons. Part of this stems from the fact that insiders know the brand better than others. Besides, they live, breath and eat the organization’s culture which makes it hard for outsiders to match these aspects. However, having an external point of view helps expand your vision. The level of expertise found in virtual marketers is unmatchable. These are people drawn from the best pool of professionals in the industry. They bring with them unrestricted passion and the desire for results.
At the same time, outsourced agencies are more in touch with reality. They view your business from an outsider’s point of view and with no bias. Ordinarily, your in-house team may feel constrained by the fear of making you feel disappointed. Also, every so often, an employee will fall sick or take leave, and you cannot deny them this. It will be a massive setback if the person who goes away is the one you highly depend on to drive the advertising strategy.
Agencies have their unique way of procuring data from their peers or carrying out their research. They use an array of tools that would be expensive if you were doing it alone. Fortunately, they can leverage this by offering you up to date statistics that are measured and found to work. Hiring your team also means that you must take them through training and induction. Virtual marketers need none of this as they come fully equipped and only need a briefing on your expectations.
Running a business requires focus with no room for distraction. In-house marketers can divert your attention, and by the time you come around, you will have lost much ground to competitors. Agencies take and bear the burden for you. Someone else receives the beating and fights to get you ahead. In the meantime, you are more than happy to concentrate on your area of specialization. You only begin to see results trickling in as if by magic.
Every organization worries about cost minimization versus revenue maximization. Here, a virtual marketing agency is your best bet. Outsourcing your marketing work can significantly reduce your running costs. Since these professionals save money by way of not having a physical office, they pass these benefits to your company.
Lastly, by their position in the market, virtual agencies are more in touch with reality than you. They keep up with the current trends and are also on the lookout for emerging ones. Reputable agencies will tell you what strategies can work well in the present. They bring new perspectives into things you were doing before but yielding little or no results. They can determine where to find your audience and target it correctly. In the end, your brand remains relevant.

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May 14, 2018

Beyond keywords: What really matters in SEO content

Going beyond keywords to write high-quality content that attracts new customers and is SEO-friendly is the way to go, says contributor Jessica Foster. Here she shares eight ways to create content that satisfies people and engines.


Just when we thought the saying “Content is king” was gone for good, there it goes showing its sneaky little face again in the search engine optimization (SEO) world.
Bearing in mind also that “Content is queen,” it appears that content is, in fact, pretty danged important — so important that a new sub-industry has squeezed its way into the search engine world: SEO content writing.
Otherwise referred to as “SEO copywriting,” SEO content writing has a bad reputation for being chock-full of keywords and little else. Though this may be more of a stereotype than reality, there is something to be said for going beyond keywords to write high-quality content that attracts new customers AND is SEO-friendly.

What’s the deal with ‘high-quality’ content?

The focus is typically on “high-quality” content — a term that becomes more subjective by the minute. It leads to questions like
  • What really makes SEO content “high-quality?”
  • Is it measurable?
  • More importantly, can it be recreated again and again?
The standard formula of:
keyword research + good writing + on-page SEO = high-quality content
may not be the move anymore. It’s simply not enough. In fact, keywords may be even less important than we all think.

Beyond keyword research

Being consistent with great SEO content writing doesn’t mean it should be formulaic.
Depending too much on robust keyword research and on-page SEO will result in dry content that appeals more to search engines than it does your target audience. Mastering the art of SEO content writing can be the difference between attracting a few website visitors and creating dedicated customers
That all being said, there is a sweet spot between creative content and “content” as we know it. The key lies in going far beyond keyword research and really understanding how words can be used to both attract traffic and drive conversions.

1. Keyword research, the right way

Though this post is all about going beyond keywords, it’s worth addressing what level of keyword research should be done before hopping into content writing. Keywords are still a component of SEO content — but perhaps shouldn’t be as important a component as traditionally thought.
First, your approach to writing new content should fit in with your existing SEO strategy. This should be a no-brainer, but it is a frequent issue I see in SEO content.
For instance, many business owners and SEOs outsource copywriting with little collaboration with the writer on what keywords are to be used. And, even if keywords are provided, it is unlikely that the writer really understands the fundamentals of using keywords in their writing beyond “keyword density.” This results in content that is incohesive and not SEO-friendly.
Second, when it comes to performing keyword research for your new content, look beyond the data. Sure, SEO tools can tell us a lot in terms of search volume and competition level, but can they tell us what content is really engaging to users? Doing a Google search on your target terms and seeing what post titles come up and how many comments and even social shares they get will give you some ideas as to what content is drawing people in and enticing them to engage.
Finally, SEOs and copywriters alike can spend far too much time focusing on terms they think are relevant without stepping back to see the full picture.
Sure, your rankings may increase due to great SEO, but there are many other factors to consider. Is your audience reading through the entire post? Are they sharing it? Are they opting into your calls to action? These elements of your writing should be your main focus. Be sure to have an outline in place, along with your keyword research, to ensure that you aren’t skimming over what matters most: what is going to help you drive conversions.

2. Get organized

How often have you had a new content idea pop into your head and instantly put fingers on the keyboard?
As much as I am a fan of writing when you feel inspired, there needs to be a structure for your content from the very beginning. Content that is too “stream-of-consciousness” or unorganized simply doesn’t convert well. There is a difference between having a conversational tone and writing whatever comes into your brain. I’m here to say that there is a way to capture that creative flow, all while putting out content that works.
Create an outline of the potential post or page, including the title and headings. Organize your content into sections that are cohesive and keep the reader interested. Figure out if and where the content fits into your website overall and what purpose it serves. You can even go as far as to decide what internal links will be used. Having a plan will both help in overall organization and ensure that it fits into the framework of your existing site.

3. On-brand is your best friend


One component of SEO content writing that is rarely, if ever, talked about is branding. As more SEO experts become aware of the intersection between SEO and a larger marketing strategy, it becomes apparent how big a role branding plays in a business’s success.
Your website content is no exception. This is why hiring out for copywriting outside of the brand, or even the industry, can be a risky move. For one, you risk having the overall tone of the writing shift and become incohesive with the rest of the brand message, and even the most subtle variations can be picked up by readers.
A good way to ensure that your content is on-brand and stays true to the business message is to utilize language that is used throughout the existing site and marketing materials.
For instance:
  • Does the brand use the word “passionate” rather than “driven?”
  • Are there elements of their tagline that can be broken down and used throughout the text?
  • Does their About page have a conversational tone or a professional one?
These are all subtleties to look out for that can make all the difference.
A great SEO copywriter will be able to pick up on the tone, vocabulary and message a brand is putting out and capture it in the posts and pages. There should be no question from the target audience who the content came from and what the message is.
On-brand content means that users can come to depend on the brand acting and sounding a certain way. It ultimately comes down to trust. If a user trusts a brand and understands its core mission, then they are more likely to buy.

4. Integrity & authenticity matter

Integrity and authenticity may seem like “fluffy” words that have no place in the often formulaic world of SEO. But when it comes to writing content that drives more than just traffic (i.e., sales), then these two elements can be the difference between website visitors and paying customers.
There are many SEO and marketing strategies that can drive traffic to a page. What matters is what actions users take once they get there. No amount of strong-arming will convince a user to buy. It takes integrity and authenticity to get them there.
People are becoming more and more aware of shady marketing tactics, and traditional methods of manipulation simply don’t work anymore. A website that makes it clear what the brand’s message is, the service it provides and how it can help potential customers truly has a leg up on the rest. Your content should be authentic, honest and in line with the ethics of your business. Otherwise, you will lose your customers before you even get them.

5.Know your target audience

Creating great SEO content goes beyond writing what you think your target audience wants to read to truly listening to what they want to know.
Are you in tune with their needs? Are there questions in the comments section that should be addressed? Are you writing down their common concerns and pain points? If so, these all open the door to creating solid content that will meet their immediate needs and drive them to seek out your services.
It is not enough to do keyword research to see what they are searching for. If that is the foundation of your content, you are likely to attract some readers but little else. But if you are able to keep them on site longer by creating a vast web of information, you are more likely to get them hooked from start to finish.
Even more, if you engage with them using language they understand and bring up their pain points, you are likely to convince them to fill out that contact form, subscribe or pick up the phone.
If you are struggling to think up fresh and engaging content ideas, be intentional about paying attention to what your customers and potential customers are telling you and asking for. Then, do a quick search to see if any other sites have addressed this issue, and how.
If you aren’t snatching up those opportunities, and another business is, you may be leaving money on the table.

6. Micro-engagement makes the difference

Long-form content can be a bore. For that reason, keeping readers engaged throughout the content can be quite difficult. However, mastering the art of micro-engagement can take your SEO content to the next level.
When it comes to informative content that can be a bit of a yawn, it’s a good move to try some different tactics to keep users engaged. Micro-engagement, as I refer to it here, means incorporating elements in your content to keep readers clicking, scrolling and reading more.
This is where a solid understanding of your target audience really comes into play. You should have a sense of what kind of content keeps your audience engaged. Testing different approaches and looking at the results can be a great data-driven method for seeing what works and what doesn’t.
Here are some suggestions to boost micro-engagement:
  • Numbered or bulleted lists.
  • Engaging photos (that are relevant to the text).
  • Funny GIFs or memes.
  • Informative and interesting videos.
  • Infographics.
  • Quizzes or surveys.
  • Visually appealing design.
  • Calls to action.
  • Block quotes.
  • Bold text.
  • Thought-provoking questions.
  • Stories.
  • Examples.
  • Helpful tips.
Incorporate a few of these ideas into your SEO content and see the difference. Over time, you will get a sense of what your audience likes, what keeps them engaged and what entices them to perform certain actions on your site. This list is by no means exhaustive; feel free to get creative with it and see what happens!

7. Content ‘freshness’ and competitive analysis where it counts

"Freshness” usually refers to having fresh new content on your website, but I believe this should extend beyond that. In other words, you should be putting unique ideas out into the world. How do you do that? By making competitive analysis a part of your SEO content strategy.
Scroll through any SEO or digital marketing site, and you are likely to find the basic posts and pages: “What is SEO?,” “Why You Should Hire an SEO Expert” and the like saturate these sites, and these topics are covered ad nauseam.
What these sites, and others outside of the SEO industry, fail to do is proper competitive analysis when coming up with new content ideas. That is, they are rewriting and reworking the same content that their competitors are using. This is not a good move.
What takes businesses to the top is looking at what competitors are doing and doing it better. Sometimes this even means doing something different. Whenever you are about to write a new piece of content, look to see what your competitors are doing, and consider how you can take it up a notch.
Your best approach is to stay ahead of the curve.

8. Data is everything


You simply can’t create great SEO content without looking at the data.
With a vast array of tools, SEOs and business owners alike should be looking to see what content is performing well, and why. They should be tracking conversions everywhere users are performing an action and seeing what works. This data will indicate the kind of content they can and should create in the future.
Staying on top of your analytics will not only show you the numbers in terms of traffic, but time on page, bounce rate and other valuable metrics that indicate how your content is performing. Through these, you can learn from your mistakes and imitate the strategies that are working. Without this knowledge, you are essentially flying blind and are again playing the guessing game.
Following the data throughout the process will help ensure that you are on the right track and that your utilization of the above principles is working for your business.

To close

There is no cookie-cutter approach to SEO content, but the fundamentals are still there. Write content for people, structure it for search engines and create an experience that is engaging and bound to drive the traffic you deserve.
Written by: Jessica Foster 
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January 23, 2018

11 Digital Marketing Buzzwords to Know and Love in 2018

Well, it’s 2018, so now's the time to get your marketing plan in place, if you haven't done so already.
To help, we think you'll need to be aware of these marketing buzzwords in 2018.

Don’t worry, they’re not the useless jargon style buzzwords so many people loathe. These are useful marketing terms that will need to be part of your vocabulary this year.

Here are your digital marketing buzzwords for 2018:

Algorithm – Everyone wants to talk about Google’s algorithm updates or the Facebook algorithm making it hard for businesses to get their marketing messages in front of their target audience, but what does it really mean?

Well, you can think of an algorithm as a formula. It’s a set of rules Google or Facebook uses to determine what content shows up where. So, Google uses its algorithm to determine which businesses and websites show up for certain searches, while Facebook uses its algorithm to determine which posts are most important and relevant to its users.
SEO – SEO stands for search engine optimization and it's the way that we optimize for Google’s algorithm.
SEO involves optimizing your business’s website for searches by adding keywords, meta-tags and other information that search engines need to know in order to rank your business in the right searches for the right consumers. Don’t forget there’s more than one kind of SEO. 
Marketing Automation – Marketing automation is exactly what it sounds like - it's software which enables you to automate certain marketing tasks.
Even if this makes it sound hands off for you, you still need a human touch to set up your automation and make sure everything continues to run smoothly.
AI – AI stands for artificial intelligence, and it’s taking over the marketing world. You can think of AI as any time a machine mimics human intelligence.
Those algorithms we mentioned earlier are one example of how AI impacts your marketing strategies - the algorithms replace humans by quickly figuring out which businesses or websites should show up in your search results, News Feed, etc. AI is also used in advertising to determine which consumers see your business's ads in search results or their Facebook newsfeeds.
AI is already an important part of digital marketing, but we expect it to become even bigger in 2018 and beyond.
Customer Journey – Your consumer’s path to purchase is longer than you think and involves multiple touchpoints across different channels and devices.
People don’t purchase products or services after the first click – it's much more complicated than that. The customer journey is one of the most important things to understand when creating a digital marketing strategy. 
Omnichannel – Along the same lines, omnichannel marketing means creating a seamless online presence (and marketing plan) that reaches customers wherever they’re searching or browsing.
Because the consumer’s path to purchase is longer and more complicated than it used to be, omnichannel marketing is more important than ever.
Attribution – Attribution is a fancy way to say figuring out which marketing channels are driving ROI (ROI was one of our buzzwords for 2017).
Attribution can be tricky, though, since consumers will likely interact with your business in a few different ways (visit your website, scroll through your social media, be served a retargeting ad or any other number of ways) before making a purchase.
You can track attribution through the first way a customer ever interacted with your business, assign attribution to each step of the way or even use the very last action/interaction before the customer made a purchase.
Geofencing – Geofencing is a form of location-based marketing.
It's setting a virtual boundary around a specific location. Think of it like drawing a circle (or polygon) around your business on a map to target people who are in the area.
Businesses that have an app can use geofencing to target people near the business and draw them in with a special offer or promotion.
Micro-Moments – Google talks about micro-moments all the time - they’re those little moments in your life when you need help with something so you reach for your phone.
Micro-moments are broken down into moments such as “I want to know,” “I want to go” and “I want to do,” among others. The point of micro-moments is to understand that there are plenty of small moments when you can be there for a consumer if your business has a consistent, correct online presence.
Smart Content – For a long time, everyone was saying that content is king, but it looks like smart content may be planning to usurp the throne.
Smart content is a term that people are throwing around a lot right now. It refers to personalized content that's designed to meet a consumer’s needs. This could be anything from adding the consumer’s name to an email or personalizing a call-to-action depending on where the consumer is in the buying cycle.
Hyperlocal – The word “hyperlocal” is nothing new, and neither is the marketing concept. But, with Facebook and Google making it easier and easier for local consumers to find the right business in their area, having a hyperlocal marketing strategy is imperative for businesses that want to compete in today’s digital world.
Local search marketing is a good place to get started with a hyperlocal strategy so that your business shows up when local consumers are looking for your products and services.
These are the buzz terms we expect to see a lot of in 2018. Some have been around for a long time, others are new, but it's worth considering what each means in a modern context, and how they relate to your approach. 
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Photo by: Alisa Mulder - Unsplash
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