Posts Categorized: Inbound Marketing

Successfully marketing a brand may demand a lot of time and patience. Small business and start-up owners tend to wear many hats, eventually neglecting the marketing aspects of their operations. Eventually, some come to the painful realization that the sector is a key pillar to the success of their enterprises when the damage has already been done.

Outsourcing marketing services has now become a common practice for small and large brands. It is a smart move that enables businesses to tap on the skills of a talented pool of experts. Here are seven benefits outsourcing digital marketing services.

1. Access to the Latest Technology

Most marketing departments are usually cash and technology-starved. Others work with a mixed assortment of non-compatible tools. With thousands of tools available, it may be challenging to choose the right technology for your marketing campaigns. Data-centric marketing agencies invest in the latest software to craft and implement your strategies.

2. A Pool of Experts at Your Disposal

Hiring a qualified in-house marketing team can be an expensive, time-consuming endeavor. Hiring a digital marketing and advertising agency can grant you access to top talent to visualize, create, and implement your plan. SEO, social media marketing, PPC advertising, email marketing, website design can easily overwhelm your in-house marketing staff.

3. Keeping up With Industry Trends

The digital marketing landscape is ever-changing, with more algorithms and software launched to ease your brand-building process. Social media has taken center-stage, with nearly a third of marketers stating that Facebook is their most important social platform. Marketing firms are constantly improving on techniques and strategies to better serve their clients. Stay attuned to the latest trends by subcontracting marketing services to a reliable agency.

4. Assured ROI

A full-service marketing agency has to continuously prove their worth by delivering on the potential goals agreed-or you may have to pull the plug on their retainer. The result is that you get a marketing partner that is interested and invested in your success. It may translate to better outcomes for your company.

5. Fresh Insight and Perspective

It is relatively easy for in-house marketing teams to become complacent, especially when office politics come into play. You end up falling into a marketing rut, stuck with outdated, non-performing strategies. Outsourcing marketing services can bring in new and innovative ideas to spruce up your marketing campaigns. Consistency is key in creating a successful brand.

6. Less Time Consuming

Coming up with a robust in-house marketing unit is a slow process, involving hiring and re-training the new employees. With the average employee moving out of their current employment after every 2.8 years, it can be quite disruptive. A marketing agency will hit the ground running, with the experts tackling issues with your strategies immediately.

7. Increased Efficiency

An external marketing company can help augment the efforts of your in-house team. Your staff can focus on the core of your business and activities that generate the most impact. Besides, you do not have to worry about shortages in staffing during annual leaves or layoffs.

Whether as a small or large brand, digital marketing is an essential ingredient in the success of your business. Outsourcing marketing services can help streamline operations in your in-house department, increasing efficiency. Think Cre8tive is a digital ad and marketing agency in Fort Worth that can transform your current marketing efforts.

What is Organic Marketing?

Organic marketing is best defined by what it isn’t. It isn’t paid marketing. Paying for advertisements via Google or Facebook, for instance, are considered non-organic sources of traffic. Organic marketing is making it easy for your customers to find your business naturally. This might occur through a non paid google search via use of SEO best practices, or perhaps it is done on Instagram with the proper use of hashtags. Either way, organic traffic is great because once your organic marketing strategy is in place, it doesn’t cost nearly as much money to generate new leads.

Beyond that, traffic that is generated from organic marketing tends to close at a much higher rate. Statistically, inbound SEO leads will close at an average rate of 15%, whereas outbound leads from direct mail, PPC advertising, or other sources close at around 2%. That’s not a typo, it’s actually standard performance in many PPC campaigns. Beyond the close rate, there are a number of other advantages to developing a great social media and SEO strategy for your business. As more and more shopping is done online, having an organic marketing strategy is essential.

Top Tips for a Successful Organic Marketing Strategy

Pay Attention to SEO Titles: Though you may not be able to judge a book by its cover, that doesn’t stop people from doing so. Same goes for SEO titles. Strong titles for content generate clicks. Be sure that the most important keywords are included first in the title, followed by the next most important, and then the brand name should follow. Titles should generally only be 50 or so characters long and MUST be relevant to the content on the page. If you aren’t sure what keywords are most important for your SEO strategy, we would be happy to do a keyword analysis with you to find the optimal key terms for your business.

Implement Tracking and A/B Test: This is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of generating organic traffic via SEO and social media. In order to know if something you are doing is working, it is imperative that you identify the end result you are trying to achieve, and all of the steps along the way. Then find ways to track each o those steps. How many new visitors did your new article generate? Where did those visitors go after they finished reading the article? How many joined your mailing list? How many purchased a product? These are all vital pieces of information that you need to know. With information, you can also A/B test to find the most effective ways to market to your organic audience.

Optimize Social Media Platforms: Not every social media platform is needed for every business. Start by identifying where your ideal customers spend their time. Is it Instagram? Snapchat? LinkedIn? Where will they be most receptive to seeing your brand? Then, make sure your social presence on those platforms is optimized to generate new traffic and sales. A few key things to remember on social media: Have an easy to remember handle, recognizable photo or brand logo, and a trackable link back to your website.

Use “Evergreen” Content: As often as possible, post content that will stay relevant forever. For example, a review of the iPhone 3 is something that nobody cares about anymore. It is dead content. However posting an article about how to use an iPhone camera is great, because even as Apple comes out with new iPhones, the camera feature will remain relatively untouched. Keep content relevant and post content that will stay relevant for a long, long time.

Managing all aspects of an organic online marketing campaign can be time-consuming. There are so many facets that if you haven’t been specializing in the area, it can be easy to miss key aspects to generate leads. This is where most businesses give up on organic online marketing – because they aren’t aware of current best practices. Let us handle your SEO services and other online marketing strategies. This will let you focus on the things that are most important to keeping your business healthy and growing.

When CEOs and business owners get overwhelmed by their workload over time, they often put other priorities like marketing on the back burner. Unfortunately, putting marketing on the table only results in decreased profitability and unmet goals.

If you’ve been struggling to keep up with your company’s marketing and you’ve been falling behind, it may be time to invest in a full service marketing agency. But, if you’re unsure, here are a few signs when it’s time to make that outsourcing decision.

1. Your in-house team is as overwhelmed as you are. Overworked and overwhelmed employees is a problem not just because it increases your turnover rate but also because it stretches their talents and limits their productivity. Stress can manifest itself as underwhelming performances and half-hearted decision making. By transferring some of your in-house team’s responsibility to a marketing agency, you increase your team’s productivity and reduce stress for everyone.
2. You can’t tell what’s working and what isn’t. It’s vital that your business is able to analyze your strengths and weaknesses as a company so you can achieve your goals. If you’re unable to figure out why you’re not maximizing your ROI or what inbound marketing initiative is best to drive leads, a marketing agency can find those answers for you.
3. Your competitors use marketing agencies. Marketing agencies give you a leg up by taking some of the weight of responsibility off your shoulders and more hands on deck. When your competitor has a marketing agency and you don’t, it could cause your business to fall behind. New people bring fresh perspectives, especially when they’re working from the outside. Just be sure that the marketing agency you choose to hire understands your needs as a business and your company culture. You may be outsourcing your agency, but it’s important that you work together as a business partnership.

Ready to hire a full service marketing agency?

Google receives more than 100 billion searches every month. Without the proper content and marketing strategies, the customers making those searches won’t find your company’s website. That’s where Think Cre8tive comes in.

Think Cre8tive is a full service marketing agency that offers SEO services, PPC advertising, social media marketing, and web design all in one place. For more information about our services, contact Think Cre8tive today.

One of the functions of websites is to drive traffic to your services or products. In addition to providing information about your business or products, it ideally also entices potential customers to try it out for themselves. Hopefully, that traffic then converts into sales. However, one of the challenges for every business is figuring out how to build organic traffic online. We’ll break down some of the best ways to make this happen for your business in this article. The more traffic you get, the higher the chance that a percentage of those will convert into sales. For example, if say, 1% of your traffic turns into a sale, having 100,000 visitors to your site is way better than 1,000. So let’s jump into the wide world of figuring out how to build organic traffic online and bolster your business’s online presence. 

What Is Organic Traffic Exactly? 

There are two main types of “traffic” in the online world. One is paid traffic, which stems from visits to a site because of advertisements that the business pays for. Organic traffic is essentially “free” — people come to your site because they’ve done an online search for a specific set of keywords that directs them to your site. There’s no third-party referral via advertisements. 

Organic traffic is important because it gives you more control. Paid advertisements are an important piece of the pie, certainly, but by establishing a strong flow of organic traffic, you know that people coming to your website are doing so because of the keywords that have led them to you — keywords that describe your business, products, or services. It’s an important part of branding your business. 

How Do I Build Organic Traffic Online? 

One of the most important ways that you can boost organic traffic is by making good quality content and publishing it regularly. For example, businesses that release 16 or more blog posts a month see almost four times the traffic compared to companies who do four or fewer monthly posts. 

Social media is also an important aspect. It can really help to get your business out there, and with over 70% of adults using Facebook (according to the Pew Research Center), this is a step you can’t afford to miss. Indeed, 70% of online referrals are generated from what’s called “dark” social networking (that is, one user sharing with another), through messaging apps, e-mails, and private browsing. You want to take advantage of that and provide shareable links and interesting content to promote your brand. 

Being smart about your keywords is also important. When you’re building your content, you want to be sure to include keywords that are more geographically specific to your area and what you’re trying to promote. 

Paying attention to content marketing, making good relationships within the online community of your industry, and staying up to date on trends (and adjusting accordingly) can all also be key when it comes to starting to build organic traffic online. 

How Else Can I Strengthen My Business’s Online Presence? 

If this all sounds a bit daunting — or you’ve started to build, but aren’t sure where to go from here — contacting a digital marketing agency or full service marketing agency isn’t a bad idea. They can help with specific areas like SEO services or social media marketing, but can also help develop a more comprehensive plan for your business going forward. 

Having a good website is also important, so if you’re looking to revamp or update, hiring web design services can give your online profile a nice boost. Online users do judge a book by its cover, so to speak, so if your website is clunky to use or outdated, they’re much more likely to go elsewhere for the same information — something you don’t want! 

In our digital age, having a healthy online presence is crucial when it comes to building a customer base, maintaining it, and growing it. Seek out a marketing firm that can help you expand and deliver with confidence.

So you’ve built a website. Now what? Digital marketing requires much more to drive your business than putting a website online. The most challenging part is to build organic traffic online and ensure that the right eyes get to your website. This requires significant search engine visibility. Driving targeted traffic to your website and developing custom strategies derived from extensive experience are important ways to build your business and build organic traffic online that your full-service marketing agency can provide. Not familiar with the world of digital marketing, search engine marketing, or social media targeting? Let’s take a spin around some important facts.

• Google receives over 100 billion searches each month. That’s billion with a “B.”
• Approximately 53% of marketing professionals point to blog content creation as their number one inbound marketing priority.
• Almost all (94%) of B2B (business to business) marketing professionals utilize the social media platform LinkedIn as a significant part of their content marketing strategy.
• A July 2015 study by Moz and BuzzSumo found that long-form content of over 1,000 words consistently receives a higher number of shares and links than other types of content.
• Companies that use a strong keyword in their business name rank 1.5 spots higher than those with weak or no keywords in their name.
• Companies that publish sixteen or more blog posts per month receive nearly 3.5 times more customer traffic to their website than companies that publish a maximum of four monthly posts.
• Approximately 75% of SEO occurs off-page and 25% occurs on-page.
• SEO (inbound) leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail efforts or print advertising programs) have a 1.7% close rate.
• Approximately seven out of ten of the links search users (your potential customers) click on are organic.
• According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 72% of adult internet users use Facebook on a regular basis.
• The Social Media Marketing Industry Report discovered that nearly two-thirds of marketing professionals cited Facebook as the most important social media platform for social media marketing programs.
• According to the 2017/18 Global Digital Outlook Study, about 43% of marketing professionals worldwide are ramping up their investment in digital marketing. Nearly 50% are already spending at least half of their entire marketing budget on digital marketing efforts.
• A report from SalesForce Marketing Cloud noted that 83% of customers “love” or “like” when a company responds to them on social media.

Contact your full-service marketing agency to help you build organic traffic online and bring your business to the next level.