Sponsored by Digital Next:
How do you stay competitive as a newcomer to the digital marketing landscape?
While larger agencies can often flourish based off of reputation alone, startups and entrepreneurs don’t have the same luxury to fall back on if things don’t go according to plan. However, while that may appear to be a bleak outlook on a highly-regarded field, the reality is not nearly as disheartening.
For those looking to enter the digital marketing field for the first time or for those who have started to work autonomously after previous experience as part of a team, direction and versatility are everything. This is especially true when you take into consideration how quickly the industry landscape shifts compared to other fields, meaning many tactics that are currently effective will no longer be relevant in a matter of months.
To help you better adapt to the current digital climate, we’ve put together a brief list of things to consider when building both your business and your brand.
Specialize
First, we should identify the strengths of a specialized digital marketing agency over a generalist one and explain how that can be conveyed with your brand. When building any kind of business, being fairly good at everything will end up netting you fewer sales than being extremely good at just a couple of things. This is because industry leaders in one or two techniques within a certain field are respected and used as the benchmark for excellence in that particular field.
People who know the area and work in the industry know they can refer customers that need specialist skills to you, unlike with generalist work in which you are one in a sea of many. Your brand can reflect this by being simple and easy to understand, broadcasting a lack of complexity to all who see it.
Everything is Sales
The next thing your brand needs to be is saleable.
In any business, everything is related to sales, whether it’s marketing or IT departments or research and development, it’s all related to sales by virtue of reflecting your company’s worth and skill level as a whole. If you’re known to treat your employees well, your brand grows by word of mouth between workers and their friend groups; potentially hundreds of people in your home city alone.
If you are known to treat customers with respect and honor your policies, your customers will continue to come back and refer friends. These aspects become part of your brand and part of what your company is perceived as, all of which leads directly to more sales. Keep in mind that you’re not just selling your services or products, you’re selling every aspect of your company.
Relationships are Key
Finally, your brand can be reflected in the relationships you build within the industry.
Don’t step on the toes of your competitors or your clients. Otherwise, you could make an enemy where a potential ally once stood. In marketing, you never know who will need who at any given point, and if you advertise your company as well-connected and the industry knows you’re well liked, you will get more work. This is the mark of a truly great digital marketing company — the relationships it builds with it’s competition and it’s clients.
The message here is fairly clear. Brands need to reflect their companies’ purposes completely, and the company you build will dictate your brand quality. Hire professionals to do professional work, like graphic design and video editing, to put your brand on the forefront of your company’s presence, and then get to work building positive relationships and being a positive influence on the industry as a whole. Specialize in what you excel at and be proud of those strengths and unafraid to admit your weaknesses.
