ExpandX Marketing & Web named top agency for 2021

It is with great joy and appreciation that we have just been made aware that our company has been named as a top marketing and web agency for 2021 by Clutch and the Manifest. We are beyond grateful for the recognition from such a widely respected and recognized company.

This comes for a second year as in 2019, ExpandX Marketing & Web became the winner of the 2019 Global Leader Awards by Clutch.

Clutch is an established B2B review and rating agency from Washington, DC. It’s a market research firm that publishes credible content relating to the IT, advertising, marketing, production, and financial services industries. Every year, they hold an awards round to commemorate the best service providers from the aforementioned sectors.

While we stay humble and thankful wee would like to take this opportunity to thank out clients, and of course to our outstanding team! 

You can learn more about our services here or read our blog with our most recent articles dedicated to digital business, e-commerce, marketing, web development and other trends of the online businesses.

 
 
ThanX

ExpandX Marketing & Web

By the way, did you DOWNLOAD our

FREE Marketing Strategies Booklet?

Download HERE

It is super important to determine the right mix of activities on organic content, SEO and paid digital ads

Organic marketing activities are essential when a business is building up on the whole set of marketing activities mix. This is a long-term strategy that includes various aspects of content marketing and digital assets creation that will at a later stage turns out to be the fundamental pillars of your marketing.

Depending on the stage of your brand and business development as well as considering the audience you service key messages to there is of course the strategic aspect of running paid digital ads campaigns. How those are executed depends on a lot of factors. Some of the most used platforms are Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram ads, and others.

The most important factors while and if working on activities on those two (organic and paid) activities is to synchronize in fine synergy the whole marketing message, the 4Ps, the business goals, the marketing goals, your digital assets, website, landing pages, audiences, buyer persona, geo-targeting, remarketing, retargientg and other key elements which are as already said part of both marketing activities.

In June 2020, eMarketer reported that 69.6 percent of U.S. respondents used social media to complete their purchases online. So no matter if organic or paid, your marketing efforts can not neglect that communication channels.

Research from Crowdtap also showed that almost half (46 percent) of social media users are now using social networks before or during shopping. Hence based on the social platform/s your business performs well, once you also run an analysis on the organic marketing activities you can enhance those with better performance, and drive more valuable traffic with the right strategy for paid digital ads.

Video content can reach best engagement and ROI levels

People love videos. Videos are now (easily) accessible from kind of device from anywhere in the world. 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content monthly on any of their devices. Data by Statista, 2018. People prefer to search, find and consume information via videos than reading long and sophisticated articles.

So here comes the question of how to utilize it in the best way possible all this for your business? Well, there are many ways and it really depends on the business goals, marketing stage of product ot services development, audiences, type of the video ads or video production, etc.

According to the Wyzowl report for example, videos on the landing pages can increase conversions up to 80%. Google also encourages video content and more likely to show your website on search results, if you have a video embedded on your site according to Moovly stats.

And most importantly, end-consumers (B2C) are constantly on mobile and consume video content. While Youtube reports how video consumption doubles each year, now it is time to present your product/service/brand in appealing video ads and also stay engaged with your audiences via this ever-growing communication channel.

Visual Storytelling

Visual storytelling is super important, super useful, and often neglected in marketing strategies. Visual storytelling in other words is saying a lot through visuals, graphics, images, visual content and even animations infographics.

Marketers often use visual storytelling to keep engagement levels at premium levels and work on the optimization of marketing or sales funnels.

Photographs, visuals, maps, and data… These are tools used in effective visual storytelling. MIT researchers state that the human brain is capable of processing an image in 13 milliseconds.

Visuals (in videos too) grab the attention of the reader, increases readability, and creates a connection right away. So, users become more open to navigate to a different link/page or product detail. The application of visual storytelling can be found in the whole landscape of marketing activities.

Being clear, consistent, and aligned with your brand

While all of these approaches and trends we outlined in our articles are crucial to utilizing effective marketing campaigns and bring you the best out of digital marketing in hard times like the current global pandemic, all of them work most effectively if aligned with your brand identity, corporate culture, value proposition, unique selling points and key marketing messages.

As a business, you should first know the mediums that your audience is present at, the resources they use, understand their expectations and what is important for them.

Then carry out extensive market research and based on that data received you can then build on your marketing strategy and set of marketing activities.

You need to find which social media platform, content strategy, and marketing tools work best for your business. Because each brand/company/product is a niche on its own, and the executives should carefully curate the possible methods and solutions.

ThanX

ExpandX Marketing & Web

By the way, did you DOWNLOAD our

FREE Marketing Strategies Booklet?

Download HERE

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns around the world had a disastrous effect on many businesses of various industries like retail stores, hotels, restaurants, and others. As a result companies, large and small, have intensified their digitalization activities developed new or improved existing e-commerce websites, and sought new means to stay connected with their clients through various digital communication channels.

The pandemic has actually prompted the projects that would have probably been implemented in several years from now. We see more and more of the digital transformation processes that have been on the agenda for years now being urgently on the top lists of priorities for businesses, corporations, and firms. With the pandemic still in action let’s dive into why digital marketing is now everybody’s savior and understand the advantages of it.

Having a website is not only a must but may not be enough

Nowadays having a website is far from enough. It is very important to have an effectively working, content-rich, easy to browse, easy to find, and engaging website that actually serves the best way possible to all the visitors that land there. There are so many micro-details that make the bigger picture look “beautiful” in the eyes of the audience. Would it be tech, design, marketing and sales, UX, UI, and other important factors that are some of the key elements making a website to be a way above average.

And things are just starting once you have your effective and working websites. You need quality traffic to visit your website. To return there for more of what you have to offer. To stay engaged with the content, products, or services presented. And here comes the digital marketing and communication strategy you will implement.

A study showed that 43 percent of customers find it super comforting to hear from companies that they trust in these unpredictable times. This means that you need to reach your audience through a complex mix of digital communication channels that is precisely developed and fits your business buyer persona digital behavior – that could be social medial platforms, video content platforms, blogs, email, live streams, and so on.

The most important factor is that the content delivered matches your brand’s communication strategy, business goals, and audiences’ needs. Otherwise, it is just only digital “noise” and is some cases even “pollution”.

There are of course various ways you can interact with your audience. Those are also defined by the nature of your business. If you are a B2B business for example you should also consider utilizing LinkedIn for your digital marketing activities.

Other B2C products or services that serve an end-consumer may consider utilizing Instagram or even Tiktok? Or building an online shop on Facebook.

Giant brands like Oreo, Pepsi, and Maybelline now use Tiktok challenges and such digital practices go viral also on Instagram. Considering 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business page in a day, a robust digital marketing strategy should create a comprehensive online presence on several platforms. But again, not random ones and not with random content.

An engaging, valuable, easy to understand and creative digital marketing strategy is the key component of winning businesses nowadays. And it refers to their websites, digital assets, online presence, content, and digital image.

Digital recipes: the 4Ps marketing mix

Many company owners and executives often mention the marketing mix or the marketing 4Ps in their meetings, agendas, and interviews. But how is this actually put into practice in the real world?

A lot of firms believe they have a high-quality product or service and so people should buy it. No second thought about it. However, they often don’t put their potential end-user first. And how the end-user, the buyer-persona by definition will engage with and react to the product characteristics (are they presented in the best possible way), to the price tags and the purchasing options, to the offers available?

By outlining all this we mean having solid answers to a set of questions related to your product or service:

• Do you firmly know your USPs?
• Like not some clichés but the real competitive advantages?
• Are they easy to understand?
• Do you know what customers exactly like about your products or services?
• Why are they buying it and do they come for more?
• What are your price tag opportunities and how you can utilize them the best way possible?
• Where does your product or services stand against your competitors?
• Do you express the value proposition through effectively thought the right digital assets, digital platforms, and digital communication?
• What are the levels of brand consistency?
• What is your customer acquisition cost? Do you have an appalling offer to present?
• The list of questions goes on.

Having an excellent understanding of the above is crucial when marketing your products or services online. People have developed zero tolerance the opposite.

In addition, using digital marketing tools and advertising platforms like Google Ads and Facebook/Instagram ads will result in far more optimal KPI measurements and ad-spent budget allocation than conventional TV or radio ads or billboards, for example.

Online networks and social media platforms have long ago become the Place in the 4Ps definition. Good businesses have researched and found the most effective digital places where they need to be present in order to serve best their audiences, engage with them and build loyalty up.

Next week we will elaborate more on the topic and will publish Part 2 of the article. Stay tuned…

ThanX

ExpandX Marketing & Web

By the way, did you DOWNLOAD our

FREE Marketing Strategies Booklet?

Download HERE