Over the years, our full-service marketing agency has seen a lot of good businesses suffer from bad marketing. Their products are top-of-the-line, their services are the best in the biz, and their customers are wildly happy. Problem is, no one knows about them.

How can it be that a company who performs so well in every other respect struggles to get their name out?

Simple. They don’t have the in-house digital marketing abilities they need to stay competitive. Not that we’re blaming them. Most companies are rightfully focused on the core of their business. They may not have the time or staff to help with anything that feels ‘extraneous.’

But a myriad of SEO algorithm updates, social media changes, and digital marketing trends power our modern day marketplace. Successful businesses, small and large, must have a command of the digital landscape or get left in the dust.

Have you been considering making a change to your marketing strategy in the New Year? See if any of these following scenarios sound familiar. Any one of them could be an indication it’s time to hire a full-service agency.

1. Your freelance staff can’t keep up. There’s no shortage of independent contractors available for hire. While using them as a temporary stopgap may make sense for a time, there eventually comes a point when even they can’t take your business to the next level. They may become overwhelmed with the work and unable to educate themselves on important industry updates at the same time. For that, you need a digital agency who’s already rocketed ahead of the curve, anticipating changes and making adjustments before updates negatively impact your brand.
2. You don’t have the budget for a full-time marketing department. Between benefits, payroll taxes, and training or relocation expenses even a one-person department can cost you a fortune. You also have to spend valuable time and energy onboarding and risk disrupting your team’s established dynamic. When you work with an SEO agency, you get all the benefits of a fully-fledged department without any of the expenses or complexities.
3. You’re feeling creatively uninspired. It takes a lot of mental reserves to consistently supply the kind of compelling content that increases your web traffic and conversions. If you’re already leaving the office every day mentally drained, attempting to create a campaign in your beleaguered state could actually hurt your brand’s reputation. An agency is a cornucopia of creativity with naturally clever marketers who all feed off one another’s ideas. It’s an environment that encourages and cultivates creativity in an ever-renewing cycle.
4. Your core business needs some extra attention. Most folks start a business because they’re really good at a particular job. Neglecting this foundation in order to try and create mediocre marketing materials is likely to cause a collapse. Leaving this role in the capable hands of a full-service digital marketing agency ensures you’re able to concentrate on the core of what makes your brand so great.
5. Your branding isn’t consistent. You only have one chance to make a first impression. These days, that first impression is happening online more and more. If a prospective customer is getting conflicting messages when they research your brand, they’re likely to find someone for the job. By contrast, a marketing or advertising agency will make sure you’re represented professionally and consistently across all applicable social media platforms and online channels.
6. Your business is rapidly expanding. Whether your brand has just landed a huge account or you’re poised for a huge expansion, you’ll need to scale your marketing deliverables to keep up. If you’re looking to grow your business but aren’t sure how, try working with a full-service digital agency who can improve your Google ranking with high-powered online advertising campaigns, masterful content marketing, and more!

Does one or more of these ring true from your business? Time to make contact, and expand your brand.

Sometimes less is more. Except when it comes to time. In which case, more is always more. But just like money, time can’t be created. It simply has to be saved. And as a vital ingredient to any truly productive workday, an extra few hours here and there can accumulate into big bucks.

Searching for some tech tools to help you make 2019 your most productive to date? These new or updated time management apps can do just that.

1. Google Calendar. Ok, ok hear us out. No, it’s not new and has even been the staple of many scheduling platforms. However, the almighty Google Calendar has finally released an iPad app complete with iOS notifications. Alongside the widget is a drag and drop feature and a fresh, modern makeover to modernize this longtime favorite. We wouldn’t be surprised to see other third-party calendar applications step up their game to stay competitive.

2. Grammarly. Any successful digital marketing strategy requires consistent and compelling content marketing. From web copy and blog posts to social media profiles and press releases, words work to increase traffic and sell more. That is, provided you use them appropriately. Grammarly lets you spend less time editing your content and more time writing it. Download the app or extension for a built-in editor that will help ensure your spelling, punctuation, and, yes, overall grammar are by the book.

3. Linkio. Link building is integral to any effective SEO strategy. For the last two years, Linkio has been at the forefront of SEO project management – and for good reason. After all, how can you secure more links to your website if you can’t track your progress? Download Linkio to help you plan which sites to contact, give you the status of each at a glance, and even generate reports to tell you how effective your link building campaign is doing. It’s also perfect for multiple users, making it ideal for your entire team.

4. RescueTime. If time is money then RescueTime is worth its weight in gold. The internet is a black hole of distractions – distractions which can cost you big if not corralled. If you suspect you or your team is getting sidetracked, RescueTime can help you monitor and amend your unproductive online habits. Let it run in the background of your laptop or smartphone and it’ll track how long you spend in certain platforms, websites, or applications. Reports are generated at the end of each day to show you how you’ve been spending your time. Can’t seem to quit that mid-day Facebook scroll? The app also lets you block specific sites or apps based on parameters you set for yourself. Talk about self-discipline!

5. InTime. We don’t know about you, but commutes to our Dallas digital marketing agency are brutal in North Texas traffic. The InTime app aims to change all that. Now, you have the ability to set your alarm based on real time traffic flows so you’ll never again be late because of an incident. It’s especially helpful if you travel out of town for work a lot and are unfamiliar with the typical rush hour traffic patterns. Simply set the destination to your next appointment and it’ll calculate when it’s time to leave so that you arrive on time or early.

6. Universal Password Manager. Data breaches impacted some “765 million in the months of April, May and June alone”, according to USA Today. Even credit reporting agencies like Equifax had unprecedented hacks in 2017. All the literature warns to have different passwords for each account, passwords that are complex and varied in numbers, symbols, letters, and capitalization. But how is one to keep track of all the variations? And what application can possibly be safe enough to house such sensitive information? Universal Password Manager. Its encrypted database operates on multiple platforms, safely housing your usernames and passwords. It can even furnish you a specific password to keep you safe while logging in on public or shared devices.

If you’re really prioritizing your productivity this next year, consider hiring a digital marketing agency to handle all your SEO tactics. Make contact to see how we can help your business blow the lid off 2019.

By and large, most folks enjoy feeling special. We want to be catered to, and we like to have unique, one-of-a-kind interactions with others. Many shopping and social media platforms have picked up on this phenomenon and have designed their websites and apps to give their users a “personalized experience.” By analyzing your browsing history and search queries, groups and businesses can often deduce the kinds of things that you like, dislike, are intrigued by, or scroll past without a second thought. And with every bit of data gathered, they get a little better at only showing you things that you want to see. Sounds great, right?

In today’s video, we’ll explain the downside to this constant personalization: when we only see internet articles, social media recommendations, and news reports that cater to our biases, our beliefs tend to calcify. Instead of our worldview being shaped by the constant reception of new information or ways of thinking, we simply exist in an echo chamber that reinforces what we already think is correct. This is known as the “Filter Bubble” phenomenon.

To fight the Filter Bubble, we must make a conscious effort to seek out perspectives that we either don’t understand or don’t agree with. Yes, doing so can be unpleasant or frustrating. But it’s also an important exercise for keeping your mind open to different ideas and opinions!