Digital agencies are approached by clients with different needs. Some want to order lead generation, for example, while others want to promote a mobile application. At the same time, everyone wants the service to increase the overall profitability of their business.
We are committed to honesty and transparency in our cooperation. That is why, even at the consultation stage, we tell potential clients whether it will be possible to achieve their goals with the services they plan to order. We talk about this in one of our case studies.
Sometimes we have to refuse cooperation because it is impossible to achieve the desired result with a single service; a complex of works is required. Therefore, today we want to tell you more about the strategy of comprehensive business promotion from a digital agency and the advantages of its development and implementation. Of course, when writing this article, we drew on our experience as a remote marketing department 🙂
What is a comprehensive promotion strategy, and what does it consist of?
The name of the approach itself makes it clear that it consists of several components, the successful promotion of which depends on their organic combination.
Comprehensive market research
This is the first step in promoting your business. Market research is essential for making decisions based on facts, not just intuition.
You can conduct them yourself or hire contractors. For example, the Solve Marketing team conducts marketing analyses for clients, which allow them to assess the company’s potential, identify strong market players, and the competitive environment.
Data from domestic and international research groups can also be used. They become the basis for forming hypotheses, which are then tested in practice.
Development of customer avatars
Focus groups and in-depth interviews with target customers are useful in this process. They help to better understand the real needs, motivations, and concerns of the audience.
An avatar is a “verbal portrait” of an ideal customer. An avatar can describe age, gender, place of residence, profession, income level, interests, etc.
Having a detailed avatar (or better yet, several, according to target audience segments) allows you to:
- meet and even exceed customer expectations;
- make them loyal to your product (ideally, when the customer is a brand ambassador).
Working out possible user paths(Customer Journey Map)
This visualisation tool allows you to clearly see how a customer moves towards purchasing your product or service. And then — how they become a regular buyer.
This map should show all touchpoints: offline advertising, website, mailings, social media, etc.
A detailed map helps:
- shorten the customer’s path to purchase;
- eliminate unnecessary or ineffective stages of interaction;
- add elements that increase conversion (e.g., a callback form).
Creating conversion funnels
Conversion is the ratio of the number of users who performed the target action (called, left a request, bought) to the total number of visitors.
The basic model of the conversion funnel may vary depending on the business area: the number of stages may be greater or lesser.
Important: A company can and should have several conversion funnels, depending on its product range, areas of activity, and customer stages in the Customer Journey Map.
Forming a list of communication channels
This is also an important component, as each channel has its own characteristics. Therefore, once you have decided what and where you will be broadcasting, you need to start preparing your content.
This needs to be done in advance. After all, it is impossible to generate a lot of material instantly and agree on its placement, even if you have a large team and significant budgets at your disposal.
For example, case studies require text in the form of figures and comments from participants. And for cool videos, you need speakers, scripts, recording and editing.
Important! Usually, almost all content goes through internal and external approval stages. This also takes time.
After placing advertising materials, you need to monitor their effectiveness in order to understand what to invest in next. Therefore, it would be useful to formulate evaluation criteria in advance.
Understanding the financial model and unit economics
To move forward effectively, you need to focus on clear, understandable and measurable indicators.
Unit economics is a method of calculating a business’s profit from the sale of a single unit. A unit is a unit of goods or services sold by a company. It can be a tangible item, such as boots or door signs, or something intangible, such as a subscription to a service, consultation, etc.
Therefore, when creating a financial promotion model, consider the following indicators.
- ROMI. The portion of marketing investment per customer acquisition that is returned to the company. If the indicator is 100%, marketing is breaking even.
- LTV. The total profit that a customer brings to the company over the entire period of consumption of goods/services. The higher the amount, the better.
- CAC. The amount it costs the company to attract one customer. The lower it is, the better.
Usually, a digital agency team works on the above-described components of comprehensive promotion. However, feedback from the client is needed to ensure a common understanding of the tasks, goals, and means of achieving them.
Advantages and disadvantages of comprehensive promotion from a digital agency
In order for you to make an informed decision about the relevance of this service for your business, we need to tell you about its pros and cons.
Advantages
Let’s start with the good stuff. Comprehensive promotion will give you the following advantages.
Reaching the maximum number of representatives of the target audience
Approximately 77% of consumerswill buy from a brand they follow on social media. At the same time, the 18–24 age group researches brands mainly on Instagram, while those over 54 look for information on Google.
It is also important to note that these content formats attract the largest audience aged 18–44.
For those over 45, the statistics are as follows.
Therefore, it is a comprehensive strategy that will enable you to take into account the nuances and reach different target audience groups through communication channels that are relevant to them.
This strategy aims to find as many platforms as possible where you can connect with your potential customers.
For example, when it comes to developers, the strategy will stipulate that not only online but also offline advertising should be used. This means that billboards, context and/or targeting will be required.
Increased brand awareness
When a person regularly sees a company’s name and symbols on various platforms, they are more likely to remember it and form associations with it. In other words, they will no longer perceive it as unfamiliar or foreign.
When it comes to ordering goods or services, it is highly likely that people will choose a company they know something about. This is because over 80% of buyers saythat it is important for them to trust the brand they are buying from.
Increasing sales and parallel testing of promotion channel effectiveness
A well-designed comprehensive promotion strategy not only increases sales, but also provides a clear understanding of the role of each promotion channel in the overall result, even when several promotion mechanisms are launched simultaneously.
Using analytics tools, digital agency specialists can tell at any given moment where a particular buyer came from.
Over time, it will be possible to abandon promotion methods that do not justify the investment. Instead, budgets can be reallocated in favour of effective channels of attraction.
At the same time, you do not test promotion methods sequentially; the processes occur in parallel. This means that in a relatively short period of time, you will understand what works for your business and is profitable, and what does not.
Disadvantages
If we talk about the disadvantages of integrated promotion, they also exist.
Cost
Of course, the service package is quite expensive. Therefore, not all companies can afford this promotion option.
It is important to understand that businesses pay not only for the work of the digital agency team. Advertising budgets are also required.
For example, context only works if you have money in your advertising account balance. And if you are in a highly competitive niche, you will have to invest a lot. However, a qualified specialist will optimise your campaign so that your money works to its full potential. For example, with experience, you can reduce campaign costs without losing leads, as in this case study. Specialists also know how to promote topics that are strictly moderated by search engines and social networks. We have such an example in the field of reproductive technologies.
You can try to save money and refuse advertising setup services. But, most likely, you will face the fact that you have not been able to make the campaign effective on your own. And the money will be wasted.
Feasibility
In reality, not every business needs a comprehensive set of promotion services. For example, if you have a very specific and small audience, and you know exactly where they are located. In this case, it makes sense to focus on a limited number of promotion methods..
To sum up, we can say that comprehensive business promotion from a digital agency is a service that can take your business to a new level in a short period of time.
Well, if during the research stage the agency team realises that in your case it is better to give preference to targeted promotion methods, they will tell you this openly and with good reasoning.
