15 Top Marketing Trends To Keep An Eye On In 2021

27Jan

by Forbes Agency Council | Expert Panel

How well an agency capitalizes on marketing trends can make or break it, so keeping an eye on the latest is essential to get ahead of the competition. From simpler strategies, such as influencer and micro-influencer marketing, to larger, more complex methods, such as automation and the state of digital marketing overall, all of these elements are important for agencies to understand.

What are the defining marketing trends of 2021? What sort of marketing and advertising will be the most popular in the coming year, and how can an agency leverage its knowledge around these trends?

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com, on January 27, 2021. Read the rest of the article here.

How Your Brand Could Benefit from Story-Driven Marketing

By Christopher Tompkins

26Jan

Copywriting

Imagine this: you’re on a blind date. The person finally shows up and they’re attractive, but the first thing they say is “Hi. I make a decent living and am in good health. We should date.” You probably wouldn’t be looking forward to the next hour and a half, would you? And if they continued on like that, you’d probably be praying one of your friends called so you could fake an excuse to leave.

The above is a real-world comparison to what it looks like when brands put very little effort into their marketing strategy. A brand strategy without a gimmick to attract customers is plain old content marketing—it’s the equivalent of putting a product on the shelf unassembled and out of its packaging. The product is still good, but people are going to pass it by if you don’t put effort into the presentation. The presentation is called story-driven marketing.

Story-driven marketing is the hook that will get audiences to keep their eyes on your content. Without some kind of narrative, your online presence will amount to a series of boring, transparent product placements, and we both know that nobody wants to read that. You need to give your audience a reason to want what you’re selling, some kind of real-world applicable reason why they’ll benefit from interacting with your product.

Now, this does not mean that you need to turn your Twitter feed into a Dungeons and Dragons campaign or turn every post into a novel. There are simple, short, but effective ways to create a narrative around your brand that is enticing, not exhausting.

For example, let’s say you’re a mop company and your deal is that you have a series of mops with flexible, curved handles that make doing chores less of a strain on the back and shoulders. It’s not hard to come up with a scenario where this feature would be useful. Maybe you knew someone who lived on their own and had to do all their own housekeeping but the labor was putting a lot of strain on their back and, voila, you went out and secured the patent for your mop that day. This not only humanizes your brand, but also outlines a clear situation in which your mop is preferable to other mops on the market.

Doesn’t that approach sound a lot better than “Hello, we’re Mop X. We’re anti-back pain” and then a link?

Brands do not spring fully formed like Athena into existence; every brand has the elements of a story within it: the inciting incident, when you decided there was a need for your company; characters, the people who inspire you or helped your business come to be; and a climax, the moment your business finally went live.

A product is a product, no matter how innovative or useful it might be. The story behind your product or company is going to be what captures the audience’s attention and has them thinking “not only do I like it, but I like them.” If you don’t capitalize on the human elements of your brand, you’re making your customers fight an uphill battle to take interest in it.

Not everyone is a skilled writer or has the capability to craft a narrative around their brand or product. If you think your business could benefit from story-driven marketing but aren’t sure you’re the best person to implement it, give The Go! Agency a call. Our skilled creative team can tell the story of your product in a way that will turn your brand into a household name.

Marketing Budget Surplus? 15 Smart Ways For Agencies To Use It

By Christopher Tompkins

22Jan

Media Mentions

by Forbes Agency Council | Expert Panel

Sticking to a marketing budget is one important way of ensuring an agency’s long-term success. Going over this budget, especially unexpectedly, can strain your processes and resources. On the other hand, finding you have a surplus in the marketing budget offers greater opportunity and flexibility moving forward.

If your agency has extra funds to spare in its marketing budget, you’ll want to use that money wisely. To help, members of Forbes Agency Council shared 15 smart ways to invest your surplus marketing budget to generate maximum returns.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com, on January 22, 2021. Read the rest of the article here.

5 Ways to Beat the Google Algorithm

By Christopher Tompkins

19Jan

Marketing

Have you ever written a blog post or produced a video that you were sure was going to be a hit with your audience, only to find out that it wasn’t doing as well as you’d hope, or worse—it was completely tanking. Well, the good news is that it might not be your fault. The bad news is that the fault could lie in the very hands of the thing we all depend on to get eyes and clicks on our work: the Google algorithm.

The Google algorithm is a mysterious thing; because they won’t divulge how it works, not wanting to give the key to their success away to other search engines, mastering the algorithm takes a lot of guesswork on the part of successful brands and marketers. But, let’s be honest, we’re not webmasters here, even if Google was transparent about the way their algorithm works and changes, a lot of it would sound like Greek to us. How it works isn’t necessarily important. What really matters is…how can we beat it?

Be mobile compatible. We know that back in 2015, Google changed its algorithm to favor sites that had mobile capabilities. Make sure your site works on cell phones, iPads, and other mobile devices.
Be consistent and authoritative. Priority is given to top tier websites that publish regularly. By authoritative, we don’t just mean well-written, but published by an expert source that gives valuable, unique insight to its readers.
Diversify your strategies. Don’t think you can hack it just being good at one thing. The algorithm prioritizes sites that have a diversified outreach, not the ones that stick to the strategies they find important. Basically, just because your website is pretty and optimized for mobile doesn’t guarantee you a spot on the front page. If you aren’t social marketing and thinking of new avenues to attract customers, you won’t rank very high.
Produce “content-rich” material. If you have a website that’s basically a digital billboard for your product, people aren’t going to linger there. The pages that users click on and stay on are the ones that achieve a high ranking. Start a blog or continuously add material to your page. Anything to keep eyes constantly on your site.
Be flexible and always ready to learn. Google makes mistakes just like any company, but the way they fix those mistakes might have a negative impact on your website. It’s easy to get frustrated, but it’s not productive. Be ready at the drop of a hat to make the little adjustments needed to keep your company ranking where it should.

Yes, this sounds complicated. And it is! There are professionals who handle this sort of thing so business owners can focus on what’s important: running their business. If you’re vexed by the algorithm but don’t want to go into the arena all by yourself, call The Go! Agency. We know how to produce frontpage content.

Got A Client Who’s Stuck On The Minutiae? How To Break Them Of The Habit Or Break Things Off

By Christopher Tompkins

15Jan

Media Mentions

Clients are the definition of the old “can’t live with them, can’t live without them” idiom. Literally speaking, you cannot operate your business without a base of clients, but anyone in the marketing game has had the misfortune of taking on a client that was more trouble than they were worth.

There are a variety of specific reasons why some clients can be so dreadful to work with, but it seems almost every reason falls under the same umbrella: they ignore the big picture in favor of the minutiae. Instead of focusing on the goals or end results of their marketing campaign, they get fixated on small, usually meaningless changes that won’t impact the success of the project.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com, on January 15, 2021. Read the rest of the article here.

Seven Tips New Marketers Need to Know

By Christopher Tompkins

12Jan

Marketing

Thinking of getting into marketing? Find that you have a passion for the work but aren’t sure how to get started carving out your space in the industry? With digital marketing especially, you need to make a name for yourself; clients wouldn’t be busting down the door to work with someone who entered the field and sunk into the background. But everyone needs some advice to get things started and, after all my years in the marketing scene, I’m not short on wisdom to impart to newcomers.

The following are not tips that you’re going to find elsewhere, not because they’re especially unique, but because they require real effort to pull off. Most articles like this will give you pat advice like “get on social media!” or “make connections!” Yes, those are indeed things you should do, but before you can be proactive about starting your business, you should be internal, and ask yourself the big questions: Is it the right time? Am I good at this? How will I know when I’ve made it? These things don’t feel like work, but your business will flounder if you haven’t laid out a foundation for why and how you’re going to pursue a career in marketing.

There are no cheats or easy ways of doing this job. You want to make it in marketing? You’ll have to put in the work.

Understand the “why”
Before you make a plan or put down any money, ask yourself “why?” Why do you want to enter into this business? Why do you think you have the skills to become successful? You should have answers to these questions. Now, the point of this is not to have you curling up in the fetal position and asking “oh God, why did I ever think I could do this?” The point is to make sure you understand what you want out of this endeavor. Do you have the kind of personality and work structure that will make you successful as a marketer? Will this job make you feel fulfilled, not just financially. If you ask yourself why and struggle to find an answer, well, that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have what it takes, but it might be a sign that this business isn’t for you.

Define what you can do
Know your skill before going into this industry, and have a thing that you do well. There isn’t a lot of room for innovation, but there is room for expertise. If you are really good at creating videos, make the thrust of your business about videos. If you have a command over social media platforms, advertise how good you are at that. Being a Jack of all trades usually means that you can do ten things decently, which is not very impressive. Instead have three things that you do better than anyone else, and build your client base around people who need the services you’re best at providing.

Know what success looks like
Three letters: KPI. Key performance indicators. Have a metric for what success looks like before you set up shop. You need to know your goal before you can reach it. Are high sales numbers important to you, or getting lots of sign-ups for your client’s service? Or maybe you care most about having a diverse range of clients. There’s no wrong answer to what success looks like for you, but you should have an answer.

Think about money
And not just “how am I going to make money?”, though that is also important. Think about how much you’re investing, the value of your time, how much you can charge with your experience level, how much your clients can reasonably pay you. Do an opportunity cost analysis. If you’re going to be spending more to get started than you stand to gain, don’t make the career move right now. Never put yourself in a position where you’re relying on clients to pay the bills.

Stake out the competition
Find out what the other businesses in your industry are doing. If they’ve been around awhile, try to figure out what makes them successful. If you’re cocky enough to walk into the marketing scene and think you’re going to reinvent the wheel right off the bat, you’re going to be in for a rude awakening. Keep the pace with your competition and establish yourself as part of the club first, innovate later. However, just note that keeping an eye on the competition does not mean being predatory or hostile. The ability to network is important.

Find a good “how-to” resource
Do not assume you know all the answers. Find a good resource to bounce questions off of, whether it’s a friend in the industry, a mentor, or even a blog written by a marketing guru. Something that will give you actual, tangible answers to all of your marketing questions. There are a lot of bright minds in the industry, but if I might take a moment to self-promote, The Go! Agency’s Blog is full of comprehensive articles about all aspects of digital marketing.

Manage your time wisely
If you don’t have good time management skills, learn them. No one is going to hold you accountable except yourself, and your clients are going to demand results whether you’ve managed your time wisely or not.

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful; truthfully, these are all things I wish somebody had been nice enough to tell me when I started out. For more sage advice from a veteran of the marketing industry, check out the other entries in this blog.

The Rise of Reddit and the Fall of Facebook: Is Your Company Prepared for the Shifting Social Media Scene?

By Christopher Tompkins

5Jan

Facebook, Reddit, Social Media

The social media landscape is constantly shifting, making it the last frontier where not even the companies we think of as the old guard are guaranteed safety. Facebook, once the titan of the social media industry, has seen a dip in the number of users aged 12 to 35 of close to 20 percent in just two years, meaning that a highly sought after demographic is pretty rapidly slipping away. What this means for you is that you need to get familiar with the new, hip generation of apps and platforms before the ones you’ve become accustomed to going the way of the dinosaur—or, more accurately, the way of MySpace.

Put simply, you aren’t going to want to market on Facebook if your core audience doesn’t use Facebook. In recent blogs, I talked about the dangers of trend-chasing, and how hopping on every latest “thing” can make your client’s brand reek of desperation. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trend-watching, though. As the demographics change and users switch their allegiances, you need to at least have a plan for adapting your marketing strategy for new outlets.

New platforms of note: TikTok and Reddit. TikTok is a massively popular video app that caters to the much sought-after zoomer generation; Reddit is an online comment board that quietly overtook Facebook as the third most visited site in the United States. Neither have been typical venues for digital marketing, but as the user base expands, clients will want to start engaging with those potential customers.

Reddit is popular for a community feature called an “AMA”; “Ask Me Anything”. If your brand is you-centric or based around a particular personality or subculture, having this direct line to your audience will go a long way towards building authenticity. Your brand isn’t just an outlet for selling stuff, it’s personable and modern! Also worth noting is that Redditers are a different breed of social media users; they will show disdain if your brand is too obvious or overly promotional. It’s kind of a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” community—if you want to funnel Reddit traffic to your website, be prepared to offer an incentive. The subreddit r/Deals is the ideal place to offer exclusives for anyone willing to give your business traffic.

For TikTok, you might need to expand outside of the office in order to launch a successful marketing campaign. TikTok is the one avenue where you should ignore the rule about trend-chasing; memes sunrise and sunset fast, so hop on the latest lip-syncing or challenge craze and get some attention while you can. Participating in a viral meme is essential to survival on the platform, and these things go fast, so you need to be on the ball and have one eye on TikTok at all times. Also, like Twitter, there’s a healthy influencer community willing to partner with appealing brands. Using an experienced influencer as a proxy could help cut down on the “how do you do, fellow kids?” vibe of a brand diving headfirst into youth culture.

Ultimately, running a successful campaign on arising platforms is a lot like westward expansion; someone has to push forward and set the pace for other brands to follow. And that someone…well that could be you! At The Go! Agency, we strive to be at the forefront of social media technology, and craft campaigns that can be easily adapted to emerging platforms. Is your business looking for a helping hand to get started in the brave new world of TikTok, Reddit, and other up and coming platforms? Give us a call. We love pushing boundaries.

Social Media Trend Chasing Can Damage Your Brand

By Christopher Tompkins

23Dec

Media Mentions

Recently, Hootsuite released its annual report predicting some of the hottest new social media trends for 2021, including a new focus on the baby boomer generation and a reevaluation for some brands where their social media presence is concerned. In the rapidly expanding digital frontier, it can be frustrating trying to keep up with all of the latest fads. Here’s the good news: You don’t have to. In fact, you probably shouldn’t.

Trend chasing is a dangerous game. It can be very hard to master every emerging trend, and even if you do, your audience will likely be aware of what you’re doing. Struggle and desperation are not good looks for a brand, and ironically, nothing drives an audience away more than when a business is trying too hard to appeal to them.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com, on December 23, 2020. Read the rest of the article here.

13 Ways To Engage Target Audiences With Visual Storytelling

By Christopher Tompkins

18Dec

Media Mentions

by Forbes Agency Council | Expert Panel

All successful advertising and marketing campaigns tell a story. Yet, some storytelling mediums have proven to be far more compelling to consumers than others. Visual storytelling captures both people’s eyes and their imagination, helping to quickly build narratives in the viewer’s mind through easy-to-follow cues.

Of course, haphazardly dropping a random mix of images into an advertising campaign, as striking as they might be, won’t equate to visual storytelling. A great visual advertisement engages viewers by telling a story and making them part of it.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com, on December 18, 2020. Read the rest of the article here.

How To Advertise On Streaming Video Platforms: 14 Essential Tips

By Christopher Tompkins

16Dec

Media Mentions

by Forbes Agency Council | Expert Panel

The pandemic has seen many people camping out in front of their televisions and other streaming devices. More individuals than ever before now spend large amounts of time binge-watching their favorite streaming video content. In an environment so ripe for reaching target audiences, streaming ad spend has increased this year and is still on the rise.

Advertising on streaming services, also known as over-the-top advertising, is distinct from its television counterpart in many ways. Taking the same, standard approaches to creating ads for this space may not be as effective.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com, on December 16, 2020. Read the rest of the article here.

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