Proliferation

Jul 13
0

Where is the Value in Digital Marketing?

By | digital marketing, Utah | No Comments

With traditional advertising techniques taking a blow from modern technological advances, it is important for the media to adapt to evolving marketing approaches — digital marketing companies are doing just that.

Our world is becoming a digital breeding ground, we get our news from online articles, we do our shopping online, we even use technology as our main form of communication. However, where is the value in digital marketing? As a $62 billion-dollar industry, it is important to know where that revenue is coming from so that up and coming agencies can thrive in the modern world. Here is where the value lies when it comes to digital marketing.

 

Jul 12
0

The Downfall of Malls and Rising of Digital Commerce

By | advertising, content marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah, web development | No Comments

Written by Ascari Pena

 

In 2017, various businesses are either rising or crashing. Right now, we are seeing the beginning of the end for malls. Studies have shown that in 2021, 25 percent of malls will be closed. With the emerging rise of e-commerce, Americans are starting to ditch large retailers like Macy’s, JC Penney’s and Sears for digital companies such as Amazon. To understand this downfall, let’s look at the past, present and future of the American consumer.

Digital marketing companies have predicted this downward trend occurring over the past 15 years and are beginning to capitalize on their correct predictions of the fall of the American mall lifestyle. With marketing firms targeting consumers with extremely competitive pricing of products and the inconvenience of driving to a mall and walking, malls will become obsolete. Property management companies must begin to restructure their business model to deliver further value.

Past

To give a bit of a history lesson, let’s step back in time a bit. In 1956, the very first indoor shopping mall called Southdale opened outside Minneapolis. After the exploding popularity of malls, there was a large retail boom in the United States.

In 1960, there were 4,500 malls that made up 14% of retail sales. In 1987, there were 30,000 malls accounting for over 50% of all retail dollars spent. Malls were the emerging destination for commerce, hanging out and community gathering events.

Malls were the place to be and quickly became a staple in the American lifestyle.

Present

Since 2006, no new indoor malls have been built. This is around the time that online commerce began to emerge. Digital marketing companies have taken notice of this and capitalized on the shift of attention from malls to iPhones. Since 2004, the net sales revenue of Amazon has risen from 6.92 billion to nearly 136 billion dollars.

This is now where our eyeballs and dollars have all shifted to. With less hassle and lower prices, the incentive of going to the mall for relaxation or socializing has become a thing of the past.

Future

In the age of embarrassing viral videos of people stomping over each other at Walmart over a discounted TV on Black Friday, the experience of shopping amongst other American consumers is increasingly negative. If malls are not providing a product or event that requires in person attendance, they will fail.

Marketing firms that represent these properties are looking at new avenues of either providing further value to American consumers to re-attract them, or re-purposing these structures to self-storage, doctor’s offices or apartment structures.

 

Sources:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=7196

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266282/annual-net-revenue-of-amazoncom/

 

Jul 11
0

Less is More, Right?

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah, web development | No Comments

Written by Ascari Pena

 

When it comes to advertising or marketing agencies, they come in all different shapes and sizes. Agencies can range anywhere from 10 to 1,000 people, and serve many different functions. As eyeballs continue to shift every single day, companies with large marketing budgets are trying to figure out the best ways to target the right people, spend dollars in the right places and ensure effectiveness in their messaging.

The debate of size in regard to an advertising agency is definitely a conversation to be had. Here are just a few differences to keep in mind when deciding to outsource your content marketing, SEO or video production to an advertising agency.

Contact With the ‘Head Honcho’

If you were to hire an agency that employs 500+ people, what are the odds you will be dealing directly with the CEO? Slim to none. If you are to work at an agency with under 50 people, the odds are much higher that you will work with the shot caller. When managing millions of marketing dollars, there needs to be streamlined communications to ensure tasks are completed effectively. The path of least resistance is the best route to travel.

The Workplace

With many companies that we see today, the ‘growing pains’ can sometimes be too much to handle. With a smaller agency, the vision and mission are able to be maintained with much less effort. Keeping an equal workplace mindset is crucial to the quality of the work produced for its clients. A loss in workplace continuity can cause headaches for everyone.

Attention to Your Work

At a larger agency, work can fall by the wayside very easily; a smaller agency overvalues its clients as each one is extremely vital to the company. Your marketing dollars are the lifeblood of your company, and the last thing needed is for your company to fall lower on the priority list because of your budget.

Agencies are ensuring the success of your marketing dollars on an everyday basis. As these agencies are analyzing the daily shifts in attention, marketing dollars need to be spent as efficiently as possible. When choosing an agency for your business, consider that bigger doesn’t mean better and agencies are not ‘one size fits all.’

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/deeppatel/2017/05/30/gen-z-hates-tv-and-what-that-means-for-traditional-advertising/#4934587a32ed

May 20
0

How to Make Your Video Ads More Successful

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, Utah, web development | No Comments

 

If research and statistics are right, then you’re probably not going to read this entire article.

If people are looking for in-depth insight on any given subject, people now more than ever will turn to videos to get information. Marketing agencies that are worth their salt know that people turn more to videos for content than anywhere else. But how do you make your online video ads stand out in a crowded field of cat videos, how do you make your multimedia presence stand out?

Here are some of our personal tips:

Tip #1 Produce “How to” Videos

In 2015, “how to” video searches grew by 30 percent, which means that people are in a hurry to figure out stuff, and they need someone to walk them through how to do something step by step. “How to” videos are only increasing in popularity, and the more unique your “how to” topic is, the more views you’re likely to get.

So, for example, “How to change a flat tire” won’t get that many hits, being as there are literally thousands of those videos already. But a “how to fix a foosball table” video will get much more of an audience for you, even if that audience is smaller than the “fix a tire” group.

Tip #2 Make Testimonial Videos

In the age of Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, people are more likely to look at reviews for your brand well before they even come close to buying your product. Marketing agencies have figured this out, so for their clients who sell products or services, they’ll make testimonial videos that prove to consumers that what they’re product or service is better than everyone else’s.

Tip #3 Find the “Sweet Spot” for Video Length

Marketing agencies that produce videos for their clients know that the best video ad length (according to Google) is no longer than three minutes. Within 45 seconds, people will know if they’re interested in the video they’re watching. There are some videos that can be longer than 3 minutes on Youtube that still deliver incredible results, but those exceptions are rare, and your video has to be incredibly engaging to pull something like that off.

May 19
0

SEO Horror Stories: What We Can Learn From Them

By | SEO, Uncategorized, Utah | No Comments

 

SEO, as with anything else business related, can go bad quickly. When it does, the results can lead to a maelstrom of havoc the business then has to clean up. From Utah to the Big Apple, any business can learn from SEO horror stories.

Night of the Living Blog

Search engine optimization is still a new enough concept that not everybody who works in business understands how it works. Because of this, a well-meaning public relations person sent out a press release that was meant to be a one-time blog. The press release was reprinted on a massive amount of traffic driving spam blogs and websites, causing mass confusion to customers and management alike, as they tried to clean up the mess.

The lesson here is that if you are partnering with another part of the company to work on SEO strategy, make sure they understand everything you’re doing before they release something meant to be helpful as a plague to all mankind or your little Utah business will be just another victim of the internet.

So, I Married an SEO Manager

Back in the early days of Google, and thus the early days of Search engine optimization, the penalties were harsh for anybody who broke one of Google’s strict rules. Before you could access the world from anywhere, fixing the problem usually meant being present in the office, even if you’re on your honeymoon.

One manager found this out right after getting married, when he realized while relaxing with his new wife that he made a mistake on a website. By the time he got back the company had been heavily penalized and traffic was at a trickle. It took him weeks to work out the problems. Moral of the story: Always have a team with you, so if someone needs to escape Utah for a romantic weekend with the missus, you’ll be covered.

May 07
0

Gender and Color

By | advertising, digital marketing, SEO, Utah | No Comments

Selecting the color of your logo, advertisements or even social media posts can be a big deal. The colors your advertising agency uses often determines part of the audience’s reaction and reception. Knowing which colors to use in order to get the desired result will take your advertising agency to the next level.

From Utah to the Southeast, colors hold different meanings for different groups of people, different locations in the world and different genders. Knowing what colors mean to your target audience, be they male or female, local or national, could be the difference between a wildly successful advertisement and a total flop.

May 06
0

What Social Media Site Is Best for Your Business?

By | advertising, digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah | No Comments

The most successful digital marketing agencies in the country know that no two clients are the same.

 That’s true when it comes to branding, voice, marketing, advertising and also choosing the appropriate social media channels for your client. Channels like Facebook and Twitter are pretty universal to have for all clients, but some companies might thrive greatly by posting videos on their YouTube account or by having boards on a company Pinterest.

 How you find out what social media site is best for you is pretty simple: Find out what your voice and demographic is, and see what site best facilitates your mission.

May 02
0

Three Great Ways to Make Your Content Posting Less Boring

By | content marketing, digital marketing, Utah | No Comments

No matter what you’re selling, content marketing has become a crowded industry. It’s crowded because marketing agencies see the great benefits of getting brands out to new audiences. Unfortunately, that has led to a lot of content marketing that is being pushed out in boring and dull ways.

Luckily, we know a thing or two about making producing, publishing and promoting good content (because we kind of do it every day), so here are some tips to making content promotion a little less boring.

Tip #1: A Picture Is Worth More Than 1,000 words

Time after time, social sites such as Facebook and Twitter have shown that marketing agencies that utilize images with their content will get better engagement among users than content without images. The reason is pretty simple: reading’s boring. Ok, not boring, but an image that utilizes a powerful and well-written headline can make user entranced with your post, and they won’t hesitate on clicking on your content.

Speaking of well-written headlines…

Tip #2: Master the Art of a Headline

Writers tend to not give too much thought to what their headlines should be because they’re focusing on writing great content. But if you want your content to be seen, you better spend a good amount of time coming up with a great headline too.

They’re difficult to come up with, because headlines have to wear multiple hats. They have to be intriguing while not looking like click bait, and they have to make your content seem unique or worth reading. It’s a tricky thing to master (some marketing agencies still don’t know how to make great headlines), but once you do, you’ll see your content shares go up.

Tip #3: Be Unique

When making content, you shouldn’t think about producing something you’ve already seen before. Try and come up with content and ideas that are out of the box. Writing more unique content will in turn give you more unique visitors to your website, and you’ll get audiences of all types flocking to your social media sites to see what’s the next best original piece you’ve written.

Oct 24
0

Advertising for Self-Confidence

By | advertising, Utah | No Comments

If you’ve ever accidentally started a movement by not wearing makeup, you know what it feels like to be Alicia Keys right now. It all started with a simple letter for Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter. Her focus on natural beauty has left every advertising agency from Utah to Pluto scrambling to follow suit.

Alicia Keys and the Movement

Fifteen Grammys in a 20-year career — Keys has always been a great example of empowerment. She is the epitome of equality and #BlackGirlMagic. Through admitting that she’s struggled with self-esteem issues during this wildly successful career, we love her even more (if that’s possible). By being honest about the way she hid her true self, intelligence, thoughts and feelings, she’s been able to reach women of all ages.

In her own words, this movement isn’t “anti-makeup,” rather a “you do you” kind of attitude. She was brave enough to attend the MTV VMAs fresh faced, making it easier for the average woman to brave the grocery store without her face on. I’d go as far as suggesting that confidence is the true movement — she never once seemed out of place, even in pictures with Queen Bey herself.

Dare to Bare

The latest no makeup movement is hardly the first of its kind. Over ten years ago Dove’s advertising agency released the “Campaign for Real Beauty,” promoting the use of real people instead of photoshopped models. Their efforts didn’t stop there, as they released videos displaying “The Evolution” behind retouched ads.

As the pace picks up, we see celebrities going out of their way to expose over-edited photos (you go Zendaya!). American Eagle has gone as far as encouraging women to upload un-retouched photos of them as part of the “The Real You Is Sexy” campaign.

We are at a tipping point for women. Empowerment is all around us, and the advertising agency employees who catch on will go down in history for creating timeless content. May the odds be ever in your favor as you take on this newest endeavor.

Aug 15
0

Avoiding Poor Taste in Advertising

By | advertising, Utah | No Comments

Advertising agencies in Utah and throughout the rest of the United States are always trying to push boundaries. We want to do things that no other agency ever has before. Agencies have to be careful, though, that in their quest to be creative and innovative they don’t go too far and produce advertisements that are in poor taste.