How do you find the best agency to make your marketing project come to life? Finding the best agency can be daunting with so many choices available.
However, by knowing how to write a marketing RFP, you’ll be able to streamline the process and feel confident in your decision. Learn our top RFP best practices, so you know you’re putting your best work forward and get the best in return.
What is an RFP in Marketing?
Let’s start from the beginning.
An RFP stands for Request for Proposal, and it’s a document that your organization will put together when you’re looking for a service that you can’t provide internally or need additional assistance with.
Specifically, if we’re looking at an RFP for marketing services, it would be a document that highlights specific goals your company wants to achieve, such as increasing sales, improving outreach, or support with a specific marketing channel. Then you’ll have the ability to send this document to any vendor you’re interested in getting more information from, whether it’s an agency or a freelancer.
An RFI (request for information) contains fewer questions than an RFP and is designed to help companies decide whether a particular vendor should be included in the list of vendors they send their RFP to. An RFQ (request for quotation) seeks specific, relevant cost details related to the product/service that is the subject of the RFP.
What are the Benefits of Writing an Effective Marketing RFP?
Creating an effective RFP might take some initial time and effort upfront, but this work will help save you time and money throughout your project.
1. Find the Most Qualified Companies
By being intentional about who you send your RFP to, you’ll create a sense of competitiveness and urgency within that vendor list. The vendors want to be the best option for you, so they’re going to put their best strategy forward.
If your RFP is well-organized and your goals and objectives are clear, you’re going to get high-quality responses in return. So you can feel confident that you’re going to find a vendor that provides the finest service and is best suited for your project.
2. Easily Compare Vendors
A key benefit of sending out an RFP is that you’ll have the same information from all of your vendors. This allows you to have an apples-to-apples comparison. You can see the same services and how the price, expertise of the team, and timelines vary from vendor to vendor.
All your vendors answer the same questions. So, rather than going back and forth with emails or searching for answers on their websites, you’ll have everything right in front of you.
3. Discover New Solutions
When you issue an RFP, you might anticipate a certain strategic approach. However, the responses will likely reveal a diverse range of solutions, not just one. This can uncover more thorough and sustainable methods for tackling the project than you may have initially considered.
4. Save Time for Future Projects
As we mentioned before, writing an effective RFP takes some upfront time and effort. But the research you put in now to find these qualified vendors can be used for future projects. A company might not be the right fit for your current project, but if you like what they submitted, then you can consider them for other projects.
What to Include in Your RFP For Marketing Services
Striking a balance is important when you’re writing an RFP for marketing services. You need to provide vendors with enough specific information about your needs without distracting them with information they can easily find on your website.
In general, here are a few standardized items you should include according to our RFP best practices.
Company & Project Overview: Briefly introduce your organization, its mission, and the specific purpose of the RFP. Clearly state your project goals, objectives, and the problem you want to solve. Define the project’s scope, deliverables, and desired outcomes with clear success metrics.
Timeline & Budget: Provide a project timeline with key dates stated for RFP release, question deadlines, proposal submissions, and anticipated project start/completion. Also include a budget range and specify your preferred pricing structure (for example, hourly, monthly, or quarterly) if you have one.
Proposal Requirements: Clearly outline the proposal format and what it should contain. This includes company profiles, relevant experience, team structure, proposed methodology, and client references.
Evaluation Criteria: Explain how proposals will be evaluated, and briefly describe your selection process.
By including these, you’ll create an RFP that clearly states your needs and what’s expected of an outside vendor. Since different industries have different metrics, research a variety of marketing RFP examples to gain insights about what to include in your RFP document.
Choosing the Right Vendors for Your RFP
After you’ve completed your RFP, the next step is sending it to potential vendors. It can be overwhelming to find the right candidates to make sure you’re getting the most qualified vendor.
Our best recommendation is to do your research beforehand. Create a short list of options that align with your company’s goals, mission, and values. We recommend sending your RFP to 3 to 5 vendors.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you’re researching your vendors.
How far away is the agency? Am I okay with working virtually with them?
Do the services they offer align with my project needs?
Do they have good reviews on Google and social media?
Have they completed similar projects to what I’m asking for?
Do their professional values align with ours?
If you send your RFP to too many vendors, it becomes overwhelming and complicated to make a decision, so you should limit your list to five. It’s to make sure you’re only sending the RFP to companies you believe would be a great fit to work with.
How to Navigate the Marketing RFP Selection Process
Once you’ve written an effective RFP for marketing services and you’ve received a list of vendors, now it’s time for the selection process. There are specific criteria you should be looking for as you’re reviewing the vendors.
The criteria vary based on the purpose and the goals of the RFP. However, a general rule is to look at the vendor’s reputation, pricing, timeline, and communication style.
In some cases, you’re going to be working with this vendor for a significant chunk of time, so although price is important, you should also be looking at the quality of work, testimonials, and their values. You’ll want to learn what others’ experiences working with the company were like.
By getting a full picture of what it would be like to work with the vendor, you can better understand their credibility and authority within the industry. You’ll have a real-world perspective and prediction of the working relationship moving forward.
What’s the Average RFP Selection Timeline?
The exact timeline of your selection process depends on when you’re sending out the RFPs, and your capacity at the time. For example, if you’re sending an RFP out right before the end of the year, your timeline will likely be a little longer due to the holidays.
As a general rule of thumb, we recommend keeping the process, from start to finish, within a five-week timeline. That way, it’s not drawn out, additional questions don’t arise, and you can get your project up and running efficiently.
Here are the most widely used steps of an RFP process:
Week 1: Send out your RFP to 3 to 5 vendors.
Week 2: Review questions from vendors and conduct initial meetings.
Week 3: Vendors send their final proposals to you.
Week 4: Pick your final vendors and call their references.
Week 5: Meet internally and decide on what vendor to choose.
Questions to Ask in the Marketing RFP Process
By week 2, you’ll be answering vendor questions and then scheduling initial meetings with them. Asking the right questions during the selection process is vital since this is your opportunity to learn more about them and their experience. This isn’t just about vetting—this is about finding a collaborative partner.
Below are a few key questions to ask to help you during the interview process.
Who will my contact person be?
Where are you located?
How long have you been in business?
How many clients do you currently have?
How many projects have you completed of a similar nature to mine?
How many employees do you have?
Do you outsource your work, or use consultants for any of your projects?
Some Final Best Practices for Marketing RFPs
Now that we’ve reviewed how to write an effective RFP for marketing services, questions to ask during the selection process, and a recommended timeline, we’ll provide you with some final RFP best practices.
1. Make Sure You’re Ready for the Project.
Before you take the time to send out the RFP and get information from vendors, make sure your organization is ready to take on the project. Ask your leadership and project managers questions to ensure they can handle the workload and that a budget is approved.
2. Be Specific About Your Project’s Wants and Needs.
Clear communication is key throughout the entire RFP process. To avoid any confusion, be clear and specific in your RFP, and anticipate questions your vendors will have so you can include them in your RFP.
3. Make Your RFP Easy to Read and Understand.
Whenever possible, make bulleted lists and include headings so a vendor can easily read through your RFP to find out the most essential information.
Opinions on this question vary, but we recommend using tables and lists wherever possible. Each of your questions should correspond with a specific section to keep things organized. Make sure you leave space for the vendor to reply!
4. Your RFP Shouldn’t Replace a One-on-One Meeting.
An RFP is beneficial to streamline the selection process, but it shouldn’t replace an initial meeting with a potential vendor. The one-on-one meeting is crucial to get a full understanding of that vendor and how you could work together.
5. Evaluate Your RFP Responses With a Scaling System.
Your selection criteria will vary, but no matter what, you should create a scaling system so you can equally evaluate all responses. Define what your most important characteristics are as you start to select your vendors, and then rank each vendor for that characteristic.
We recommend using a scoring system to evaluate RFPs. Score the responses you receive on a scale from 1-5 or 1-10. This helps you make more apples-to-apples comparisons so you get the best value for your money.
6. Don’t Make Cost the Main Focus of Your RFP.
Although cost is a valuable factor as you make the decision, it shouldn’t be the main focus. Think of it as a three-legged stool; without equal factors, your project may become unbalanced. Ideally, you should consider the following three characteristics.
Speed. How long will the project take?
Cost. How much will the project cost?
Quality. Will you be happy with the result?
We follow the good, fast, and cheap method. You’re likely only going to get 2 out of these 3 characteristics. So if you want something fast and cheap, it’s likely not going to be very good.
7. Only Ask for References From Your Top Vendors.
Your vendors are going to be asking clients to be a reference for your RFP. This is a big ask, and it takes time out of a client’s day to have the meeting or phone call. So, as an RFP best practice, we recommend only asking your top vendors for references so your interactions are more valuable.
8. Notify the Vendors Who Didn’t Get the Job.
The vendors work hard to put together a proposal, and that also takes time and effort. As a courtesy, let vendors know when they weren’t chosen so they aren’t left waiting around.
Now that you’ve learned how to write a marketing RFP, connect with our Business Development team to submit one and find the perfect partner for your next project.
Budgeting in any industry can be overwhelming, let alone if you’re putting together a nonprofit marketing budget. It can start to feel like everything is a priority as you sit down to plan. At the same time, it’s important to go into a new fiscal year being mindful of your spend. As you sit down to plan your overall finances for the year, setting up a nonprofit marketing budget is key to achieving the goals and initiatives you’re working towards.
Establishing budgeting goals and marketing objectives doesn’t have to be a daunting task either. When executed properly, they can help you make objective decisions and lay out steps for future success. We’ll cover the importance of creating a strategic nonprofit marketing budget, tips for getting started, and ideas for managing your budget throughout your fiscal year.
Why Is A Nonprofit Marketing Budget Important?
So why exactly is a budget important for your nonprofit, specifically when it comes to your marketing? From a high-level view, it’s key to pre-plan your marketing initiatives and make sure you have the right resources behind them.
If you’re curious what the average marketing budget nonprofits have in place is, research shows the average marketing budget for a nonprofit is 5-15% of your operating budget. However, one surprising study found that almost 20% of nonprofits had no firm budget and simply played it by ear, month to month.
As a nonprofit group, you likely put a lot of energy into impact initiatives like fundraising, donor relations, or event planning. But at the end of the day, marketing is an important piece to all of those activities.
By establishing budgeting goals up front, it’s a lot easier to advocate for the day-to-day support you’ll need before you’re in the midst of marketing work. Plus, when it comes time to review the year with your board, it makes reporting on your marketing strategy’s ROI much easier to track.
6 Best Practices When Creating a Budget for Nonprofits
You should start establishing your nonprofit marketing budget roughly 2 ½ to 3 months ahead of your new fiscal year. The average marketing budget for nonprofit organizations needs to account for cash flow, programs, advertising, and more.
Starting early will give you enough time to set up deadlines for internal and board approvals so you’re ready to get started when the fiscal year begins. Plus, it allows you to engage any outside vendors or marketing agencies that can offer extra outside support.
To start, you’ll need to know the overarching objectives of your organization for the year. Marketing for brand awareness is great, but it’s not the only way you can use marketing to your advantage. Your marketing choices should be flexible enough to offer support in a variety of ways to different impact initiatives.
For example, marketing campaigns to help raise a specific donation amount vs. hosting an event to engage current volunteers look very different. Work with those top nonprofit-wide initiatives and then research how marketing will play a role in achieving them.
2. Determine Your Marketing Goals
Next, shifting our focus to defining nonprofit marketing goals, it’s time to establish specific goals that’ll directly support the broader organizational objectives you’ve identified through your research. These should be clear and measurable, and can include:
Gain new members or donors
Raise awareness of your mission
Broaden your volunteer network
Increased donations or support
Driving qualified website traffic
As an example of how it all fits, consider a nonprofit that wants to find new volunteers. If there’s a sign-up form on the website, a marketing goal could be to drive more qualified website traffic to that landing page/form.
Increasing site traffic with visitors who have similar interests will give the organization greater visibility and help boost those volunteer numbers over time. Plus, as your site traffic grows over time, you’re likely to build your expertise, experience, authority, and trust (EEAT). This means you’ll perform better in search algorithms as well.
Another way to determine your marketing goals is to use the SMART Framework. This is a simple approach to creating achievable goals.
Specific: Be clear about what you want to achieve
Measurable: Set metrics and criteria to track progress and evaluate performance
Actionable: Set goals that are realistic with the available resources
Relevant: Set goals that align with your broader business objectives
Time-bound: Establish clear time frames and deadlines to check progress
Once your goals are established, it’s time to consider the specific marketing actions you can take to reach them.
3. Understand Your Nonprofit Target Audience
Understanding your nonprofit target audience and how they prefer to communicate, as well as where they spend their time online and offline, is an important part of your marketing strategy. Selecting the right marketing channels for nonprofits to effectively connect with your target audience is the first step. This will prevent you from wasting resources on platforms where your audience isn’t present.
For example, knowing that 32% of donors are most likely to give via social media, followed by email at 30% can help you budget more money towards social media than print ads.
To maximize your reach and engagement, you should diversify your marketing channel mix by using a variety of platforms. This lets you connect with a broader spectrum of potential supporters.
Also, tailoring your messaging to each platform is key. Using the right messaging on the right channel makes sure that you’re not only seen but also heard and acted upon by your audience.
4. Pick Your Tactics & Plan Ahead
Keeping with our analogy, if your marketing goal is to drive more traffic your tactics may include investing in a PPC campaign or focusing on a content marketing strategy to help you work towards those goals.
And while you’re planning out your tactics, make sure that you’re including a good mix of both traditional and digital marketing efforts.
Some traditional marketing tactics to consider are:
From there, decide how to allocate your budget, keeping those main goals in mind as well as any spending requirements. For example, there may be minimum spend amounts needed to do advertising via radio or social media.
If your nonprofit marketing budget also needs to cover events, consider setting up buckets per event. You can include budgeting to cover each event’s postage, signage, security, rental fees, printing, design, and more. That way those hidden costs won’t be unaccounted for in your budget.
As an extra safety net, consider also setting up a miscellaneous fund so you can plan for the unexpected and field any last-second requests. This can also come in handy for items with larger costs like photography, videography, or traditional media placements like TV and radio.
Nonprofit marketing typically covers a wide range of mission pillars from event planning, execution, follow-up, and everything in between. The key here is to have your action steps planned ahead so you have enough resources to cover all these demands.
While putting together your nonprofit marketing budget, there may be necessary tactics that require clear communication with the board or fall outside the scope of your team. For example, you might need to redesign your website to improve your branding, but if you don’t have the right dev and design support, that can be a challenge. If this falls outside of your budget, then you’ll need to discuss this with the nonprofit’s top stakeholders.
As you start to outline your marketing budget, communicate what’s needed for your marketing tactics to be successful, and also advocate for the resources your team will need to accomplish them. Establishing expectations at the start will make the months ahead easier to navigate.
6. Evaluate Performance & Measure Your Effectiveness
To get a sense of how well your marketing campaign is performing, it’s important to check your key performance indicators. For each marketing channel and the specific goals associated with them, it’s crucial to track relevant metrics and regularly assess how things are moving.
Tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) can be incredibly helpful. Setting up tracking from the beginning allows you to monitor site visitors, important actions (key events), how engaged users are with the content (engagement rate), and more. This provides valuable insights into what’s working and where adjustments are needed.
Managing Your Costs Throughout the Fiscal Year
Once your nonprofit marketing budget is in place, the next hardest part can be sticking to it and managing it throughout the year. Since the average marketing budget for a nonprofit is a small percentage of your budget, it can be easy to go over or use that for a different project. Here are some of our recommendations that can help, especially if you’re trying to maximize your dollars throughout the fiscal year.
Use Your Volunteer Network
It’s easy to think within the confines of what your team can do, but don’t forget there’s an entire community behind you that believes in your cause! Consider ways that organizations, volunteers, or other partners you have exposure to can help open the doors for growth and help you carry out marketing goals in a cost-effective manner.
Look for Trade or Pro-Bono Relationships
Be vigilant for any opportunities to create a mutually beneficial relationship that also helps you stay on budget. This could include:
Trading venue fees for sponsorship highlights on event materials.
Trading a free, mission-driven in-office lunch and learn for event volunteers.
Trading board membership dues and seat for marketing support.
Don’t Just Think in the Present
It can get difficult if your staff gets bogged down with immediate fundraising needs or focuses on the event happening right now, with no preparation for what lies ahead. This short-sighted focus can hinder any necessary preparation for your next significant impact initiative, which could hinder its potential future success.
Most importantly don’t just stay in the moment with your marketing. Always keep an eye a month or two ahead, even while you’re evaluating the past months, to make any nonprofit marketing budget adjustments and stay on track.
How An Agency Can Make The Most of Your Money
As you begin establishing your goals and marketing budget, remember that you are not alone. If you’re finding that there are certain marketing goals that fall outside what your team’s expertise or you need help creating a well-rounded marketing plan, having an outside perspective can help.
Working with an agency can generate creative ideas for expanding your mission awareness into new markets at a reasonable cost. Streamlining your outsourced marketing support by working with a single agency can lead to long-term cost savings. It can also create a consistent support system for your marketing efforts.
Hiring a marketing agency can help you find the best strategy based on best practices and a more integrated approach. Instead of spending time and dollars on tactics that don’t work, a marketing agency will develop a strategy to generate results.
Outsourcing some of your marketing needs provides flexibility and access to specialized skills without having to pay full-time salaries or benefits, which can be hard to do at a nonprofit due to budget concerns.
Agencies have access to a variety of tools and other resources that could be expensive for individual businesses to acquire on their own. Using tools, agencies can deliver targeted campaigns quickly and efficiently.
Many nonprofits have trouble developing effective marketing strategies that connect them with their audiences and help them achieve their goals. Working with an outside agency can help you find the correct strategy quicker and not waste time with guesswork.
Plus, an experienced agency can help you when allocating funds for marketing channels you aren’t familiar with. They can help you determine the best spend for your money so you can make the best impact.
Looking for more advice on creating a nonprofit marketing budget? Listen to our podcast for insights from experienced nonprofit marketing professionals.
HubSpot offers a comprehensive platform that promises to streamline your workflows, enhance your marketing efforts, and boost overall engagement. But is it the perfect fit for your business?
Join me as we explore both the benefits and drawbacks of HubSpot, from its ease of use and powerful features to its escalating costs and limitations. We’ll delve into its pricing tiers, add-ons, and how it compares to other providers — helping you decide if HubSpot will be your marketing hero or a budget-straining villain.
The Pros Of HubSpot: Why It Could Be Your Marketing Hero
HubSpot has earned its reputation as a leader in the marketing industry. From its all-in-one capabilities to its user-friendly interface, the functionality it provides can significantly improve efficiency and drive growth. Let’s examine the key upsides of HubSpot and why it might just be the resource your organization needs.
It’s An All-In-One Platform
One of HubSpot’s most significant advantages is its versatility. It consolidates a wide range of products, allowing professionals to combine and monitor their:
Marketing tools
Sales tools
Service tools
Content tools
Operations tools
Commerce tools
The ability to manage all these pillars without needing to juggle multiple third-party solutions can be a strong incentive for those who prioritize efficiency.
It Boasts A User-Friendly Interface
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a brand new to marketing, HubSpot’s streamlined design minimizes the learning curve and allows teams and individuals to get up and running quickly.
This ease of use is especially important for small-to-medium businesses that may not have the time and money to invest in the training needed to maintain more complex systems.
It Provides A Wealth Of Educational Resources
HubSpot Academy, their educational library, offers a plethora of courses and certifications on topics ranging from inbound marketing to sales automation.
These resources are also routinely updated, empowering companies to maximize the product’s value without having to rely on external consultants.
It’s Highly Scalable
Various tier levels are available through HubSpot, from free accounts to advanced Enterprise plans — allowing customers to expand their services as they grow.
A free plan provides access to their CRM, email marketing, forms, live chat, ad management, integrations, and reporting. However, there are notable drawbacks, including:
Limited customization (their branding can’t be removed from emails, forms, or live chats)
No marketing automation
No A/B testing
No advanced analytics
No custom sales pipelines
No custom dashboards
No phone or email support
Integration limits
Moving to higher-tier plans unlocks more advanced tools, and when comparing the free vs paid HubSpot options, it becomes clear there are significant benefits to upgrading.
It Offers Automation And Personalization
Automating repetitive tasks and personalizing customer interactions can lead to higher levels of engagement, better user experiences, and increased conversions. These valuable features enable organizations to create precise and targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with individual customers.
Examples of these advanced offerings from HubSpot include:
Workflows
Lead scoring and segmentation
Email personalization
Smart content
Behavioral triggers
Multi-Channel marketing
It Has Robust Integration Capabilities
With over 1,600 integrations as of 2024, companies that use other specialized applications can still benefit from HubSpot’s central CRM. Some of the most popular connections include Gmail, WordPress, Outlook, and Facebook.
Plus, new products and connections are continuously added, ensuring the list stays current.
The Cons Of HubSpot: Why It Might Be Your Marketing Villain
While HubSpot offers a host of complementary services, it also presents its fair share of obstacles, from stacking fees to platform limitations and difficulty exiting the system.
It Can Be Prohibitively Expensive
How much does HubSpot cost per month? Unfortunately, for those attempting to plan a marketing budget, the answer can vary greatly based on your number of contacts and required functionality.
The price of higher-tier plans, particularly at the Professional and Enterprise levels, can be exorbitant for small businesses. For example, the Marketing Hub Professional plan starts at $890 per month, while the Enterprise plan starts at $3,600 per month.
Additionally, there are supplemental costs associated with add-ons, which may make HubSpot more expensive than it initially appears. Some of their most common upgrades include:
API limit increase: $500/month
Ads limit increase: $100/month
Custom SSL: $100/month
Dedicated IP: $300/month
Transactional email: $600/month
It’s A Jack Of All Trades (But Master Of None)
While HubSpot is praised for its all-in-one approach, this versatility means it also doesn’t excel in any single area to the extent that other, more specialized products do.
Here are some HubSpot alternatives to consider, based on your marketing needs:
CRM Functionality: Salesforce
For companies with complex sales processes, a service like Salesforce offers deeper customization, robust reporting, and nuanced sales automation.
Email Marketing: ActiveCampaign
Dedicated email senders like ActiveCampaign provide advanced list segmentation, more automation triggers/actions, and a sophisticated campaign builder.
Content Management: WordPress
Those that require custom web design or multifaceted content strategies would benefit from a more flexible platform like WordPress.
SEO: SEMrush
Online visibility tools like SEMrush provide detailed analytics, competitive analysis, and keyword research capabilities.
The integrated nature of HubSpot can become a double-edged sword if consumers decide to leave and transition to another solution.
Migrating data, adjusting workflows, and retraining staff can be time-consuming and costly, as opposed to the effort required to adopt a new channel-specific technology.
Is HubSpot The Right Fit For You?
Ultimately, the decision to invest in HubSpot will come down to your individual needs, budget, and long-term objectives.
If you’re a small to medium-sized business looking for a comprehensive product with numerous integrations and extensive resources, HubSpot could be a viable choice.
However, if your organization requires advanced customization, has a complex dataset to manage, or operates on a tight budget, you may need to explore more specialized options.
Need more help deciding what marketing platform(s) to pursue?
But, what qualities should you look for? What questions should you ask them? How can you tell if a marketing agency is good?
Explore these top nine qualities that will give purpose to your partnership.
Qualities Of A Good Marketing Agency
1. They Understand Your “Why”
A good internet marketing agency is intentional.
As your partner, they should start with a strategic session to get to know what success looks like to YOU. Understanding your business’ story, mission, vision, goals, and audience shapes everything going forward — from goal tracking and analytics, to reporting and results.
Simply put, if they don’t share your vision, the work won’t be effective.
Look for agencies who prioritize asking questions, perform in-depth audits and analysis, and research your business and competitors before the work even starts.
If you want to achieve internet marketing success, you’re going to have to think quickly on your feet, be flexible in decision-making, and pivot your strategy on a whim.
What works today may not work tomorrow. Look for an agency that treats every situation in marketing as unique. They should be proactive in anticipating changes and flexible in strategy adjustments.
A desire to learn is part of what makes a successful marketer.
Your agency should embody a curious culture to stay on top of trends and news within the industry. Here are some example questions to ask your digital marketing agency to ensure they have a passion for learning in their field:
What sources do you get your news and information from?
Who are the most well-known influential people in your field (SEO, PPC, Content Writers, Designers, etc.) whom you take inspiration from?
What experiments do you currently have running to test marketing success?
How has your agency responded to recent changes in this industry?
What’s something you learned in the last month about internet marketing that has surprised you?
4. They Are Knowledgeable About The Competitive Landscape
Not only should they desire to learn about the industry as a whole, but they should also investigate the competitive landscape. Here are some questions to ask your digital marketing agency about your competitors:
What keywords are my competitors bidding on?
How much are my competitors spending on Google Ads?
Who are my biggest competitors in terms of traffic to the site?
How often are my competitors posting content?
What sections do my competitors feature on their sites (blogs, eCommerce, podcasts, services, products, etc.)?
Are my competitors using the most relevant social media channels?
Are they running both organic and paid social campaigns?
Are my competitors running paid social campaigns, or simply running boosted posts?
5. They Are Innovative & Propose Custom Solutions
Once they’ve analyzed your business, the industry as a whole, and your competitors, it’s time to find the best custom solution for you.
Your agency should provide you with detailed recommendations, backed by their data and research.
6. They Are Detailed In Reporting & Communicate Results Clearly
Attention to detail, transparency in reporting, and being able to communicate results clearly are just a few of the main qualities of a good marketing agency.
It’s not enough to simply do the work — they must analyze it in-depth to identify additional optimizations for marketing success.
At first, your agency might appear critical. But, this is actually a good thing!
Their insight helps you recognize your true potential and have the best marketing possible. They want to make sure you’re representing yourself to your customers in the best light.
Sometimes, the data that is being tested has surprising results. Whether it turned out as you hoped, or provided a different outcome, these insights will help you see which elements of your strategy to keep and which to adjust.
As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog, it’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page and is aligned with the vision and the “why.” After all, they’re your partner.
Look for a full-service marketing agency that offers all of these services in-house. This simplifies the process, giving you one point of contact for all of your marketing needs. It also ensures consistency in your brand, from logo colors and fonts, to the tone of your content and ads.
If an agency collaborates well together, they will collaborate well with you.
8. They Take Responsibility
An essential quality of a good marketing agency is taking accountability — for their work, for results, and for their own marketing strategy.
Do they put out regular content that demonstrates expertise in the industry?
Good internet marketing companies should lead by example, because how they market their own business is an indication of how they will market yours.
9. They Act With Integrity
The final quality of a good marketing agency that we want to highlight is benevolence. The ability to look beyond themselves to the needs of others is so important. Do they act with integrity in their work and beyond?
They should use white-hat strategies, and you should be able to trust the methods they choose. They are honest and transparent with results, even when they don’t turn out as planned.
They use AI tools responsibly and see it as a marketing strength, rather than shying away from it completely. They use AI ethically, as a tool, not as a replacement for hard work.
If you’re looking for a marketing agency that embodies all of these qualities, reach out to the friendly marketers on Team Tower. We are a full-service marketing agency, ready to help your business rise above and achieve marketing success.
ChatGPT can do a lot of things—share recipes, write love letters, and even attempt to diagnose your symptoms. But despite its impressive resume, we know its answers can’t be trusted blindly. With these abilities and limitations in mind, how can you use AI in digital marketing to support your strategy?
Let’s dive in.
What Is AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology that allows computers to mimic human behavior and intelligence. These programs can learn, problem solve, and rationalize. The algorithms that drive AI can range in complexity depending on the task it performs.
Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence where machines use massive datasets and past experiences to improve their accuracy. They can detect patterns and predict future trends with limited human intervention.
Machines can also understand and generate human language thanks to natural language processing (NLP), a model that uses machine learning to analyze text and spoken word. We see NLP in action almost every day with:
You can find tools to support your AI marketing strategy for copywriting, productivity, editing, automation, thumbnails, brand monitoring, and so much more. But just because you can use them, doesn’t mean you always should.
Responsible Use Of AI
Before we dive into how to use AI in digital marketing, we need to outline how to do it responsibly so you don’t put your company at risk. AI technology can be a great resource for teams to speed up content creation, improve their workflow, and automate tasks, but there are also some cons to watch out for.
All AI programs were coded by biased humans, and they continue to learn from the behavior they observe. This means some of their output may be racist, sexist, or culturally insensitive.
Just because it shows up first on Google’s AI Overview, doesn’t mean it should be taken as fact. These inaccurate responses are called AI hallucinations and be a result of faulty assumptions, limited data, or bias. To combat this, AI-generated content should always have human oversight.
Since programs like ChatGPT pull from existing content on the internet, sometimes its output is eerily similar to content that is already published.
The U.S. Copyright Office has said that it will not grant protection to anything that doesn’t have human authorship. However, many AI programs were trained using copyrighted material and may produce derivative works, which would cause issues for your business if you used them.
AI trains and learns using “data lakes” that include countless graphics and text scraped from pages without the consent of the owners. Several lawsuits are in progress claiming that training AI in this way is a copyright infringement.
At the end of the day, one of AI’s biggest drawbacks is that it’s not human, and it never will be. It cannot demonstrate E-E-A-T, and it doesn’t add an authentic human element to its work.
With these cons in mind, here are our tips to ensure the responsible use of AI.
Establish clear goals for how you plan to use AI for your business.
Don’t use AI-generated content without adding a human touch.
Always fact-check the information you get from AI.
Before publishing AI content, check for plagiarism.
Make sure the training used for AI is properly licensed.
Be transparent when using AI-generated content or images in your marketing.
Use AI as a starting point, but not for full content generation.
Keep reading for our suggestions on how to responsibly use AI in various parts of your marketing strategy.
Using AI In Digital Marketing
Looking to develop an AI marketing strategy for your business, but not sure where to start? This technology can benefit every department, and today we’re outlining the best (and most responsible) ways to use AI in digital marketing.
SEO & PPC
Artificial intelligence is a valuable tool to increase your rankings in SERPs. AI can recommend schema markup, perform backlink analysis, write alt text and meta titles, and track performance to understand trends in your data. You can also use AI to assist in keyword research. Programs like ChatGPT can generate short- and long-tail keywords related to your topic.
Whether you’re using Microsoft Ads or Google Ads, AI can level up your PPC game by helping write and edit ad copy, finding high-traffic keywords, and efficiently allocating your budget with smart bidding.
We couldn’t talk about AI without touching on SGE. Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a technology that uses machine learning and NLP to provide dynamic Google search results called “AI Overviews.” It can give quick answers to questions, link to sources, and provide custom responses based on your search history, location, and more.
Since Google’s AI Overviews often take the top spot in SERPs, understanding how they work is essential.
When you think about using AI in digital marketing, your brain often jumps to content creation. But instead of using AI to generate an entire blog post for your website, try using it as a resource in the creative process.
Why? Because your goal is to create unique content that meets peoples’ needs and tells your brand story, and AI cannot connect to users on a human-to-human level. This means they cannot produce content that performs. At least, not without your help.
Sometimes the hardest part is getting the creative juices flowing. Eliminate blank screen syndrome by using AI to brainstorm content ideas, blog outlines, and newsletter topics. For the best output, make sure you provide a detailed prompt. Give ChatGPT (or the AI program of your choice) context to understand what it’s creating and for whom.
ChatGPT helps our team optimize the content we create, but it does not write it for us. It can aid in incorporating keywords, providing grammar suggestions, tweaking headlines, and writing subject lines that get noticed. You can also use it for manual tasks, like formatting data and contact information, to stay organized.
From DALL-E to Adobe Firefly, there are dozens of programs out there that can generate any image or video you want at the click of a button. These are great to use as inspiration for your next campaign, but just like with content and SEO, AI should not be a replacement.
AI can be used for brainstorming ideas and creating mood boards for a project. It can assist with image editing, background removal, and accessibility audits. AI can also automate tasks like resizing, cropping, and color correction to give you more time for creative work.
Our team’s favorite AI tool is Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature. This uses AI to add or remove anything from an image. It is especially helpful to expand the edges of a picture to give you more room in your design.
Everyone’s biggest question when it comes to design is: can you use AI-generated images for public media? Unfortunately, the answer is a little complicated, and the rules are changing every day.
The U.S. Copyright Office has stated that AI-generated images are not protected by copyright. So while they are technically legal to use, there are ethical concerns. AI programs don’t credit the artists they mimic or get consent before using copyrighted material to train. They can end up creating derivative works of the original piece, which would raise legal questions if used.
The last way you can use AI in digital marketing is in analytics. Artificial intelligence can sort through data and discover insights, trends, and relationships to help guide your strategy moving forward. Limited experience in data visualization? No problem! Some AI tools can collect data from a variety of sources and create user-friendly reports and dashboards.
Artificial intelligence is also built into Google Analytics 4 to give you custom insights into your website’s performance. With predictive audiences and metrics, you can leverage AI to forecast user behavior and optimize your campaigns.
No one likes the thought of a robot doing their job, but can it do your job well? Remember, AI is only as good as the person prompting it. It’s a tool to enhance your work, but in our opinion, it cannot replace digital marketing skills completely. As Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute put it, AI-generated content is “leading us into an age of sophisticated mediocrity.”
As digital marketers, we should strive for more than that.
We should strive to deliver high-quality, engaging content to our audience. From the ads we design to the emails we send and everything in between, we should know what our customers want at every stage. Since AI lacks human judgment, it cannot do this at a professional level.
That’s why we will always need marketers to make AI content more relevant, more credible, and more impactful. You have a perspective AI does not. And only you know what good content looks like.
Still not sure why human-first digital marketing is worth it? Explore our case studies to see how our strategies drive results.
One of the phrases most often heard in advertising is “print is dead.” However, that’s not the case. Print ads are a valuable way to catch your audience’s eye by creating eye-catching artwork combined with strong copy.
But in this digital age with everything web-based, can you still use print advertising to your advantage?
To help answer this question, we’ll explain how you can use print advertising KPIs to measure your campaign’s success and gain valuable insights into your audience.
KPIs You Can Use For Your Print Marketing Campaign
First, before you decide what KPIs to track, you need to determine what the goal of your campaign is. Your KPIs provide the measurable data you need to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy. You can’t know what to track if you don’t figure out what outcome you want to achieve. Some different goals you can have are:
Brand Awareness
Lead Generation
Sales
Brand Consideration
Website Traffic
Once you’ve determined your goals, then it’s time to assess which KPIs support them. Below we’ll explore common ones that are useful for measuring print campaigns.
Reach
When you decide to publish your print ad, you want to make sure the publication you’re using has a large enough circulation so you can reach as many people as possible. Another tip is to see where your ad is placed.
Front, back, and inside covers are ideal placements as well as being located on a right-hand page. Or if you’re using brochures or rack cards as your advertising methods, you want to leave brochures in a high-traffic area where people are more likely to find and pick them up.
Frequency
Frequency is the number of times a person is exposed to an ad or how many times the ad is repeated in a specific medium over a period of time. It’s often paired with reach since they are complementary. When you place a print ad, you want to know how many people (reach) are going to see your ad and how many times (frequency) they’ll see it.
Cost Per Result
A print ad is a good investment when it works. Once you know what your reach and frequency are, you can do some basic math to find a rough cost per result. To do this, you take the cost of the campaign divided by the result, whether that is views, leads, or site visits. Your result depends on your campaign goal. This will give you an idea of whether the ad will be profitable or if it will just cost you money in the long run.
Brand Recall
As a business, you want people to remember your brand when prompted. For example, if you own an Italian restaurant, you want someone to remember you when asked “Who has the best meatballs in the area?”.
Engagement
Tracking engagement shows how many people interacted with your ad. By using tactics like QR codes or specific coupon codes, more on that below, you can see how many people were directed to your site from your print ad.
Response & Conversion Rate
Another figure to track along with your engagement rate, is your conversion rate. This shows how many people completed their journey through the funnel and became customers based on your ad. You can track this figure using tactics like special forms for landing pages or specific phone numbers with call tracking on them.
Ways To Track Your Print Advertising
Once you’ve decided on your goal and what KPIs to track, it’s time to select the correct tactic for your campaign. You need to think about what works best for your business. If it’s more call-based, a QR code might not work as well as phone calls.
Special Phone Numbers
Another method to track where your leads are coming from is using a special phone number or vanity phone number in your print marketing. Everyone has heard the J.J. Wentworth commercials telling people to call “877-Cash-Now!” (Bonus points if you just sang that). That’s a vanity phone number—it contains a phrase that’s specific to your business and catches people’s attention.
Now if that doesn’t fit with your business style, you can create occasion-specific phone numbers through services like:
These companies allow you to create several temporary numbers you can use in your advertising. In particular, CallRail has phone call tracking, so you know where your leads are coming from and if your advert was successful.
QR Codes
Quick response (QR) codes are an easy way to access a website without typing a URL. They’ve become popular again in recent years since more public places have gone touch-free.
Customers can scan a QR code in print ads using their phone’s camera to reach a specific landing page. When you create this page you’ll want to add a “noindex” tag, meaning that it won’t appear in search engine results. So the only way you can access the page is by the QR code. This gives you an accurate way to measure the effectiveness of your campaign material.
Another way to attribute traffic from your campaign’s QR code is to direct traffic to a specific page via a URL that has UTM parameters applied to it. The five UTM parameters are source, medium, campaign, term, and content. The first three are required for tracking in Google Analytics and the last two are optional.
Here’s an example of a URL from a campaign Strasburg Rail Road ran in June 2024 for their event “A Great Train Robbery: The Bonnie & Clyde Experience”
You can see the source (where they are running their campaign) is Penn Live, the medium is referral, which indicates what type of channel it is (referral from an ad, paid social, organic social, or cost-per-click ads). Finally, the campaign name is bonnie_clyde_june_2024.
Another benefit of using QR codes in print ads is that they generally do not expire. Once created, they can be used indefinitely unless the linked information is changed or removed.
Custom Landing Page Links
Custom landing pages are another tactic you can use in your print ads. For example, if you’re offering a free quote for work you offer, you can set up a landing page with a contact form.
Then you’ll want to add a “noindex” tag so this special landing page isn’t visible in search engines. You’ll also want to make sure it’s not added to your site navigation. That way no one can see the page unless they have the link you shared in your print ad. Doing this makes it easier to isolate traffic and only track activity from your print ad.
When it comes to creating a URL for this custom landing page, make sure you don’t create something that’s too long. You want to keep it short and easy so it looks good in the ad and is easy for users to input into their browser.
If you use Google Analytics for tracking, make sure to set up the custom landing page with a tag for the ad source (like a magazine name or brochure) so you can track your print campaign easily. This will also allow you to analyze it in GA4 alongside your other traffic sources.
Branded Hastags
A tactic that can increase your brand awareness is hashtags. Creating a branded hashtag can be an effective way to promote your business and drive conversations and can be as simple as using your company name or tagline in the hashtag.
Hashtags can help you categorize your content so it becomes easily searchable. Including them in your ads allows you to join ongoing conversations on social media and allows your ads to be visible in those conversations.
This can lead to greater engagement, boosting your brand’s social media engagement through likes, shares, comments, and new followers.
A great example of a hashtag is Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke. Launched in Australia first, Coke removed the traditional Coke logo, replacing “Coca-Cola” from one side of a bottle with the phrase “Share a Coke with” followed by a person’s name. The goal was to find the personalized bottles and share them with friends. The hashtag was found on billboards and print ads as well.
Specific Coupon Codes
Another method is to create specific codes for ads to entice people to visit your website and become customers. These codes can include the publication or ad name so you can easily track sales that result from them.
An example of this could be if you owned a company and printed an ad in Clipper Magazine you could tell people to use code “CLIPPERMay2024” to get free shipping on your order or for a half price on a specific item. Or if you have a brick-and-mortar business, you can have someone bring in the ad, which acts as a valid in-store-only coupon.
These codes can be customized to whatever objective you have for your campaign and you can run several at the same time. Just make sure you create custom coupons that don’t overlap with similar ones.
Marketing Software
You can set up all the landing pages and coupons but if you don’t have a system in place, you’re spending money without getting your ROI. There are several programs that can help you with this task.
One of the more popular tools is Google Analytics, which helps you build a complete picture of your audience while connecting key insights and traffic results. It also works with other Google products like Google Optimize. Plus, it’s a free tool, which is good from a cost standpoint. Also if you already have Google Analytics, make sure you’ve updated from Universal Analytics to GA4.
Another popular tool is Semrush, which offers website traffic analysis for not only your website but for your competitor’s site as well. This can help you adjust your marketing strategy by seeing what’s worked and what hasn’t worked for the competition.
Hotjar is a similar tool to Google Analytics and Semrush in that it tracks who visits your site. However, Hotjar tries to give you the “why” behind their behavior. It allows you to visualize and map your audience’s actions while looking at recordings of their sessions.
There are other tools on the market so do your research and see which one will work best for your business.
Looking to improve your print advertising KPIs? Our content specialists can create authentic content that resonates with your audience.
If you are creating content that only answers what you think the keyword should be about, you are doing yourself a disservice.
Did you know that every keyword searched on the internet ever has a unique search intent?
This means more than someone looking to buy a product or service. It encompasses all of the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and intentions behind the user searching the exact keyphrase they used to arrive at your site.
It’s time to stop writing for the Search Engine and time to start writing for the user’s keyword intent.
What is Keyword Intent?
Keyword intent describes the relationship between what users are looking for online and the search terms they use to find it.
Similar to search intent, keyword intent illustrates where the user is in their decision-making process and allows us to create content that meets their needs.
Ideally, the website content you create should always influence users to act. It should meet them where they’re at and provide enough value to entice them to trust and return to our site.
However, the type of action we want users to take will vary depending on the type of user, and the keyword intent behind what they are searching for. For example, a person searching for “DIY flower pots” most likely wants to learn how to create their own flower pot, so we should focus on answering that need before pitching them a product.
At this point, you may wonder, “How do I find keyword intent”? It’s quite simple.
Let’s take a closer look at how to find keyword intent.
How to Find Keyword Intent
To find keyword intent, first look at the “subject” or the search terms, then see if there are any “modifier keywords” that describe any actions the user expects to take.
These “modifier keywords” also help us distinguish between high-intent keywords and low-intent keywords, which tells us how “motivated” a user is to take action once they find the result they’re looking for.
For example, someone searching for “plumbers” is most likely in the “consideration” phase and expects to see a list of local plumbers in the area to compare. They may not even need service right now, but they could turn into a lead eventually if we provide the experience they’re looking for.
In contrast, someone searching for “emergency drain cleaning near me” has a higher chance of requesting service, because the service mentioned in the search terms is more specific (“drain cleaning” and not just general plumbing)and the inclusion of “emergency” and “near me” indicates they are probably ready to buy.
By knowing this, we can then provide the user with the best possible experience when they click on our site because we can focus solely on providing content that is crucial for the user to take action or make a decision.
But, just like how not every person is the same, not all keyword intents or search terms are the same.
We typically see keyword intent broken down into 4 main categories.
Keyword Intent Types
There are 4 major keyword intent types:
Informational Keywords
Navigational Keywords
Commercial Keywords
Transactional Keywords
1. Informational Keywords
Informational keywords are perhaps the lowest-intent keywords a person could search to land on your site. But, this doesn’t automatically mean they’re lackluster.
So, it’s just as important to make sure that informational keyword queries are being fully answered, as they could be the reason a user revisits your site and becomes a customer later on down the road.
This means making sure that you are fully answering all parts of the query and providing all necessary visuals, infographics, charts, data, examples, and demonstrations to aid the user in understanding the information.
Examples of informational keywords:
“what is a honeycrisp”
“how to properly change a tire”
The keyphrase “how to fix leaky faucets” is another example of an informational keyword that, if answered well, could bring return visitors to your website.
2. Navigational Keywords
Navigational keywords are search terms where a user is looking for a specific page or place online, usually via direct or branded search.
Since these terms are usually specific, they have a slightly higher intent to purchase or fill out a form fill than informational keywords but still don’t guarantee a conversion or purchase will happen.
A lot of times, the actions that users take on these keywords are also to accomplish something non-transactional. But, when done right, navigational keywords could also spark a future customer transaction down the road.
This could be a login page, resource, PDF, company details page, homepage, product page, product overview, contact page, or any other instance where the user pretty much knows what they are looking for.
Examples of navigational keywords:
“Removery tattoo refund policy”
“Costco macbook pro”
“Home depot shop vac rental”
3. Commercial Keywords
Commercial keywords are quintessential “consideration” keywords.
This means that the customer is actively researching a product or solution search before deciding to start a transaction.
Most of these searches will involve spending money, but a person could also be researching whether Target or Kohl’s has better free member perks, or if a credit card has better benefits than another.
The key here is that the user isn’t ready to convert but is thinking about it. So because of this, commercial keywords are also considered (no pun intended) high-intent keywords.
High-intent keywords are generally seen as the most valuable queries on the internet because they show that a user is close to taking an action.
Examples of commercial keywords:
“Nike air max 90 vs 95”
“Which honda accord is the best”
“Semrush reviews”
4. Transactional Keywords
Lastly, transactional keywords are what users search for when they are ready to buy or take an important action on your site or in your business.
They provide the highest chance of someone converting to your site.
You’ll see these keywords are naturally some of the most competitive and most expensive. (More on PPC to come later).
Examples of transactional keywords:
“Get plumbing near me”
“Buy samsung galaxy s24 ultra”
“Same day oil change near me”
Writing for Each Keyword Intent Type
Learning the definition of each keyword intent type is important, but it means nothing if the content on your site was not written for the user on the other end of that search.
What does this mean? Essentially, marketers usually have two options:
They can try and write for SEO – meaning they spend too much time overoptimizing their content technically in hopes of receiving on-page wins
They can write for the user – touching on all important topical areas, providing unique insights and data, and relating to the reader
Best practices recommend focusing on that second option—writing for the user. This way, you’re able to create something extremely valuable that leads to positive user experiences.
Let’s explore more scenarios and differences between writing for various keyword intent types.
Writing for Informational Keywords
To properly answer informational keywords, it’s important to answer all parts of the search query fully.
That means, after the reader finishes reading the content on your page, not only should they no longer have any major gaps in their understanding of that topic, but they should also feel they can trust you and your content, encouraging them to visit again in the future.
Here are ways you can write for informational keywords:
Get straight to the point – not only do readers like this, but Google likes this as well, usually rewarding the best and most succinct result with a featured snippet spot shown before anyone and anything else. (EDIT: This spot may now be occupied by SGE, or Search Generative Experience results, but the strategy remains the same).
Use Semantic SEO – cover all keyword variations and relevant secondary keywords that would naturally occur in an article about that topic. Explain terms that prove helpful in strengthening the user’s understanding.
Provide data, statistics & sources – the more unique the better, but all data helps drive points home further and put macro/microdata into perspective.
Write sequentially – each paragraph should set up the next one and flow fluidly into the next section. Use heading tags to provide further context in the content.
Remember, the primary goal with informational keywords is to provide the reader with as much useful and applicable information as possible to take action.
Writing for Navigational Keywords
Navigational keywords are a bit different since the user most likely already knows what they are looking for.
Usually, a specific piece of information or detail about your business does the trick, so you don’t necessarily need to “win them over” in your writing.
However, you should still follow some basic guidelines just to keep things simple:
Be clear and concise about what the user is here for – list all necessary details about your product or service regarding the search query. Ideally, one page should be all users need to feel comfortable navigating your website.
Less is more – try to use fewer words when creating complete thoughts. Every word on your page should be objective and representative of your business.
Think like customer service – Navigational keywords tend to overlap with situations customer service agents may face, so treat them the same way you would if you were assisting a customer. In this scenario, making a sale is a bonus.
Writing for Commercial Keywords
Now these are most likely the keywords you’ve been eyeing for a while, outside of transactional keywords of course!
The person searching for these keywords is trying to find a reliable voice of reason to help validate their decisions. So it is best to do that, by using a few trusted methods:
Experience outweighs everything– just like employers, both users and Google are now prioritizing experience about the topic at hand, which is why so many service-based businesses call out how many years they’ve been in business.
Show your authority – You are the author of this page/post and who you are matters, so showcase your authority in your writing through technical jargon, custom hypotheticals, and engagement with the audience to further hook their attention.
Demonstrate expertise – Make bold claims in favor of your solution, but back them up with peer editing, citations, quotes, and custom testimonials
Just like in sales, an unsure customer doesn’t want to be bullied into making a decision. They want to have a conversation with a reliable, trusted, and personable expert that answers their most pressing questions about the path they’re considering.
Writing for Transactional Keywords
We have arrived at our most valuable, monetized search terms: transactional keywords.
To write for transactional keywords, you must simply help the user complete the transaction related to the page they are visiting.
For example, a service-related page might benefit from including a frequently asked questions section that customers ask regularly in your business. There would be no need to deliver 12 paragraphs about the philosophy of our service offering, how we crafted the process, and so on as that is not the goal of the services page.
If the keywords align with the high intent someone had when they searched, search engines will make sure those keywords are present on the page, and make sure it is easy to perform said transaction on that page. Easier is always better.
When writing for transactional keywords, it is best to:
Have a clear call to action on the page – make sure instructions are clear and that all copies help the user understand what to do for them to take valuable action.
What are next steps? – think about mentioning the future and what the customer can expect now that they have taken action on your website.
How can they contact you? – now that the user has taken the action and knows what to expect, make sure you also let them know how they can contact you best and what your policy is regarding customer service and communication. Consider this almost like a “reward” for the user opting in and learning that they will have a better priority and call queue now that they have called number X (present only after conversion) instead of number Y (primary company number). This could be complemented with CallRail.
The biggest takeaway from using transactional keywords should be that your audience is visiting your website to achieve something, like learning, converting, buying, reading, or downloading something.
That is why it is important to make it as easy and smooth as possible for them to do what they came there to do. Optimized copy can help them do that.
Optimizing Your On-Page Experience
The experience that the user has when they land on your site is just as important as understanding the full intention behind the keywords they searched for.
To do this, you need to make it abundantly clear that you are highly experienced in the topic that they searched for, can speak eloquently yet simply about it, and you need to put yourself in the user’s shoes to ask yourself what they might like to see in your on-page content.
Including various real-world examples and touchpoints of your content making a difference also helps build rapport and establish credibility with your audience, such as reviews, testimonials, and customer feedback.
Remember, you’re not creating content for search engines. You’re creating content for human beings that choose their thoughts and actions.
So it is crucial to provide space and accessibility for both.
“Experience” also refers to the user experience or UX, a customer has when they visit your website.
This is where things can get fun because they’re more of the “visuals” or the “facelifts” you can make to propel the new content you just made curated for your custom keyword intent forward.
Here are some tips for making pages and posts more valuable to your audience for informational keywords and navigational keywords.
Informational Keyword Optimizations
Add infographics and other data visualizations. (Like charts, graphs, & studies)
Add external links to reputable sources that help deepen and expand knowledge about the topic.
Add internal links to relevant sources that help expand the reader’s knowledge of the current topic.
Add simulators and interactive charts/tables that help them find the answer, or gain more clarity for themselves.
Add photos and videos that provide helpful information.
Add free downloadable resources the user can take with them or send them to a link with a prompt to bookmark that page and the blog page that sent them there.
Utilize plugins, popups, and chatbots to help users speak directly to your business.
Add case studies and real-life examples that you or someone you know conducted to provide a unique sample size with original content and findings.
Add a table of contents and other tools to the blog post to allow the user to easily navigate your page.
Summarize information after longer sections of text to help keep the user engaged and to make it easier for them to understand the content.
Consider enabling a comment section at the bottom of your page and engaging with your audience. Another way a potential customer could contact you.
Maybe adding a form if it makes sense or prompts the user to take action and send them to a form as necessary.
Navigational Keyword Optimization
Do not overoptimize navigational pages to try and make a sale or conversion, as they usually serve a single purpose to satisfy a single intent.
Add plugins for business details that allow users to download map instructions, save and find addresses, and easily get the information they want.
Keep the content on these pages on topic so the user is not distracted when interacting with your website.
Think about adding unique, relevant value in your content that can’t be found anywhere else online.
A big part of informational and navigational content performance is how impactful your content is on the user.
Is it clear that you took the time to create unique data studies, one-of-a-kind creatives licensed by your brand, and inserted thoughtful touchpoints that you know would benefit the user more than it would you in the end?
It’s what you can say and do that makes the user feel more informed and engaged when maneuvering your site and your marketing funnel.
If you can inform the user enough in a way that connects to another area on your site, such as a commercial or transactional opportunity, then consider that an even better job well done.
Commercial/Transactional
Since the user is in a stage where they have high-intent keywords and are likely to take action, you can get extra creative when optimizing these pages as they can make for a positive user experience if done correctly.
Here are some examples of this:
Commercial Keyword Optimizations
Offer first-time incentives – encourage the user to take action by offering them a reward for it being their first time.
Make any product comparisons interactive – showcase product details and make them clickable so users can hone in on that aspect. Are you comparing against a competitor? Show them both at once.
Show the face of Sales/team members – if you are a service-based company especially, you want to familiarize the users with who they will see, which tremendously boosts their trust and confidence in your business.
Provide a simulation – that can be a “try-on,” before and after, or any way you can allow the user to preview what they are considering spending money on.
Include a form or section for users to opt in – Always make it easier for users to convert, not the other way around.
Transactional Keyword Optimizations
Help the user convert in as few clicks as possible – the form or opt-in that you use should be straightforward to understand and locate on the page.
Provide visuals for next steps – this helps the user clearly understand what to expect now that they have converted.
Provide clickable contact information –might sound simple, but sometimes this gets overlooked. Make sure all email addresses and phone numbers are clickable to get in contact instantly.
Reward conversions with an incentive or upsell – make the conversion more valuable for you and the user by providing discounts, offers, promos, exclusive deals, or anything only accessible at the time of purchase/submission.
Don’t overcomplicate things. Just be intentional.
Competitive Research
Arguably the most important part, it is imperative that we observe our competitors to see what tactics they are using and what an average customer journey looks like for them.
Competitive research allows us to spark creativity and try new methods and ideas to see if our audience responds better. It’s more like improving the wheel, instead of trying to reinvent it. Or worse, throwing darts in the dark.
Here is how we approach competitive research for keyword intent:
Take it page by page – analyze one page at a time, for one keyword, against one competitor. This prevents distractions and allows you to zero in on the differences between what your competitors are doing and what you are not.
Look at reviews – checking forums and customer feedback to see what people like and don’t like is another great way to brainstorm ideas and optimize our business.
Use competitor monitoring tools – an advanced tactic not used by many, sign up for a software service like Visualping.io that alerts you any time competitors make major changes to their website.
Analyze competitor keywords – see what keywords primarily bring traffic to your competitor’s website and include keywords with similar intent that may be missing from your content.
Become a “customer” – walk yourself through your competitor’s funnel and notice if there are any outside steps involved that help lead to more conversions for your competitors.
Taking action in direct response to your competitors’ movements also shows your customers familiar with your competitors that you are actively studying your industry and implementing the steps it takes to improve and retain your business.
Direct callouts at competitors have also been proven to lead to higher conversion. Just make sure it’s legal and you have permission in your industry.
Using Keyword Intent to Optimize PPC
Speaking of direct callouts, with Google PPC you can not typically call out competitors directly (although SaaS companies usually manage to subvert this…).
This makes sense because just like SEO, we are here to give the user what they want.
Google receives no benefit from showing ads that aren’t relevant to the user, aren’t high quality, and aren’t likely to lead to an action if the user engages with them.
In case you didn’t know – neither do you.
So it’s best to focus on making sure your ads are as relevant as possible:
Use exact keywords – exactly matching the words your audience uses establishes complete relevancy for their query and understanding.
Try DKI – “dynamic keyword insertion” swaps keywords in your ad copy when opportunities to match the user’s search terms exactly arise.
Align your images & videos with keyword intent – a video about or showing your product or service proves more effective than a general video about your brand.
Establish relevancy by explaining the next steps – natural sales processes continually inform the user on what to expect by moving forward. It is suggested that you do the same in your sales funnel.
Use keyword intent to guide ad extensions – maybe one ad that mentions product brands you carry or use performs better than one that only mentions product materials, i.e. wood, metal, vinyl, etc. Experiment and see what works!
Segmenting your audiences also helps build further relevancy and credibility with users and Google, because you’re drilling deeper into what messaging, value, and experience attracts a certain type of person.
Ad rank is also significant because higher-quality, more relevant ads often get charged less per click but convert more, meaning better use of your money.
Understanding keyword intent is vital to making relevant content that gives tangible value to your audience.
Every time a search occurs, someone already has an idea of what they’re looking for. Even if they don’t have the answers already, an expectation has most likely been formed.
This is why it’s imperative that you know the difference between keyword intent types, high intent keywords vs low intent keywords, and what each keyword type needs for the user to take action.
If you’re struggling to master keyword intent, Tower Marketing’s SEO management experts are ready to help. Reach out to a team member today to schedule a free SEO management consultation.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but did you know a video is worth 1.8 million? That’s over 3,000 pages of text for just one minute of video. Visual content packs a punch and can elevate your brand by combining the impact of words with striking graphics. For a successful internet marketing strategy, you can’t forget about visual content marketing.
What is Visual Content Marketing?
Visual content marketing is when you use visuals such as videos, images, graphics, and other multimedia pieces in your content mix. Visual content helps explain concepts that would be difficult to understand with just text. Think about how you can provide value and tell your brand’s story through unique visual opportunities.
Why is Visual Content Important?
To grasp the importance of visual content, you need to understand how humans process visual stimuli.
We are visual creatures.
90% of the information sent to our brains is visual, and we process these signals 60,000 times faster than text.
A study at MIT found that it takes only 13 milliseconds for our brains to identify a photo. Images also have a greater emotional impact than words, so they affect people’s behavior and memory.
One thing is clear: there’s power in visuals.
The Benefits of Visual Content
There are many benefits of visual content. However, that doesn’t devalue the importance of writing. Blogs and other text-based content help you rank for keywords and appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). But when combined with visuals, this elevates your marketing strategy in several ways.
Boosts SEO
Google prioritizes websites with engaging visuals. By including these in your content mix, it helps you rank better on SERPs. When optimized for SEO, visuals also increase your visibility in image and video searches.
Increases Engagement
Visual content is extremely shareable on social media. This gives you lots of opportunities to increase brand awareness and reach by driving traffic back to your website.
Keeps People on Your Site
People prefer interactive and visual content. It grabs their attention, increases readability, and helps guide them through your site. Adding visuals improves the user experience and reduces your bounce rate. Videos are especially good at encouraging people to stay on your website longer and explore further.
Triggers a Desired Action
One of the strengths of visuals is that they can impact your audience’s emotions. This gives your content the power to shape your reader’s mood and impact their actions.
Establishes Yourself as an Expert
Use your content as a way to show your expertise and authority on a subject. Whether that’s visual case studies, white papers, ebooks, how-to guides, or more, you can signal your expertise by providing high-quality information to your audience.
7 Types of Visual Content (Pros and Cons)
Visual content comes in all shapes and sizes, but here we’ll talk about some of the most common examples, and their pros and cons.
1. Video
Video makes up the majority of internet traffic, and 91% of users said they want to see more online videos from brands. As short-form video is on the rise, it’s a great option to add to your visual content strategy. You can use videos for your business in many ways. Create a homepage video, product demonstration, client testimonial, animation, and more.
Infographics are a great addition to your content mix. They use data visualization to simplify complex ideas and make information easy to comprehend. Plus, they’re extremely shareable!
If the design isn’t good, they can be overwhelming for a reader
3. Gifs and Memes
Gifs and memes are a fun, casual way to add humor to your marketing content. You can use these to earn your audience’s trust and relate to them. Don’t just use them for the sake of adopting a trend. Always have a strategy behind it.
Root and Vessel meme
Pros:
Good way to stay relevant
Do well on social
Relate to your audience
Can customize them for your brand
Cons:
Not right for every brand
Potential copyright issues if you don’t customize them
Often have a short lifespan
4. Printable Asset
Printable pieces can be anything from posters and flyers to checklists and brochures. As with most types of visual content, design is key to their success. Always keep these assets on-brand, with a clear call to action.
Website downloads are a convenient way for your customers to get information on a subject. As a brand, it allows you to go more in-depth on a topic and continue the conversation offline. Popular types of downloadables include product guides, white papers, and ebooks. These can be free or gated.
More cost-effective than physically printing something
Cons:
Gated content may deter some people
Your audience may not understand the value of the product
Ungated content means you can’t gather lead information
Tips for A Successful Visual Content Strategy
Developing a visual content strategy is key to success. Here are a few tips on how to optimize your visual content efforts to see long-term results.
Optimize for Each Platform
When creating visual content, always keep in mind where the piece is going. Design for the platform where you are going to share it. For example, always reduce image sizes on your website so you don’t impact site speed.
Repurpose Content
To incorporate visual content into your marketing strategy, you don’t have to come up with something brand new. Consider turning a high-performing blog into an infographic to share on social media. Or turn a web page into a short video.
Be Strategic
As with any marketing initiative, you need to develop a strategy. In order to reach the right people on the right platforms, ask yourself: Where is my audience? What information do they want from me? What questions do they have that I can answer? These questions will be the foundation of your visual content strategy.
Use High-Quality Images and Videos
Using low-quality images may actually hurt your brand’s reputation online. For companies that don’t have access to photography, stock images are a good place to start. However, keep in mind that stock images reportedly perform the worst out of all visuals.
Balance Text and Images
Everything works best in moderation. Know when to use text and when to use visual elements to enhance your message. When creating visuals, make them bite-sized and easy to consume so they complement the story you’re telling.
Make Visuals Easy to Share
Create everything with an audience-first mindset. What does your audience want out of your content and what would make them share it? This will help expand your content’s reach. Make things easy to share by adding share buttons on your site or email.
Stay On-Brand
The best way to stay consistent with your branding is by creating a visual content marketing style guide. This is especially important when people begin sharing your content on different platforms. That way, your brand is always front and center.
Include a Clear CTA
Content is only as good as the action your audience takes because of it. Whether you’re creating a video, downloadable ebook, infographic, or beyond, always include a clear call to action.
Need help creating visuals for your business? Take a look at some of our past projects to see visual content in action!
Where’s your cell phone right now? It’s probably within an arm’s reach, definitely close enough to hear the ping of a new text message.
Across the globe, over 6 billion text messages are sent daily. If you work in digital marketing, you can use this to your advantage.
Think about how often you pick up your phone a day. Now think about the visibility your messages could have if you can reach people through text.
If you’re looking for an effective customer retention strategy to keep your audience engaged, text marketing can be a powerful channel to invest in. From best practices to tips on growing your contact list, explore how SMS marketing campaigns can transform your business.
SMS Marketing: The Basics
Short message service, or SMS, marketing is a form of mobile marketing that uses text message campaigns to send information to a consumer’s cell phone. This could include anything from discounts and order confirmations to business updates and customer feedback surveys.
Much like email marketing, SMS messages are managed in a CRM where texts can be sent manually or in bulk. Unlike emails, however, SMS marketing campaigns are simpler, more concise, and more likely to be opened.
Bottom line: it’s one of the most powerful digital marketing tools because it puts businesses in direct contact with customers on a channel that’s proven to capture attention.
Types of Campaigns
SMS marketing campaign messages usually fall into 1 of 2 categories: promotional or transactional. Let’s take a look at how they’re used.
1. Promotional
Anything that pushes the sale of a product or service — discounts, coupon codes, limited-time offers — is categorized as a promotional message. These have a clear marketing intent: user engagement.
Whether it’s to make a purchase, fill out a survey, or opt-in to a loyalty program, promotional messages are sent with conversions in mind.
Some examples of promotional text message campaigns might include:
Coupons
Flash sales
Sweepstakes
New product announcements
Event promotions
Loyalty program invitations
Early access deals
Overall, promotional campaigns help keep your business top of mind and are popular for driving engagement with new and repeat customers.
Promotional SMS Marketing Compliance
Just like email marketing, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) lays out clear opt-in and opt-out requirements for text message campaigns. Sending unsolicited promotional messages without permission is illegal and punishable by some hefty fines.
To stay compliant, businesses must obtain explicit consent from users before any communications are sent.
From a marketing standpoint, sending messages without permission could be detrimental to your brand reputation as well. Text inboxes are perceived as more personal than email inboxes. Sending a text to your customers without an invitation is an invasion of privacy and could cause them to think about your brand differently.
For this reason, they are a valuable customer service tool that can help boost customer satisfaction and trust.
Transactional SMS Marketing Compliance
Unlike promotional SMS text regulations, transactional compliances are a bit more flexible because they’re seen as an expectation. Consent can sometimes be implied because communications provide convenient updates for recipients about their orders.
As a best practice, however, it’s still highly encouraged to obtain expressed consent. It shows your customers that you value their privacy and boundaries, and it protects your business from any possible legal infringements.
Benefits of SMS Marketing Campaigns
Now that you have a better idea of what text campaigns are and how they can be used, let’s take a look at why you should use them.
Boosts engagement rates: SMS open rates are astoundingly high. For perspective, email open rates average just above 20%, while text campaigns average 98%. Not only are the open rates higher, but engagement rates are, too. Click-through-rates of text message campaigns average a whopping 19%!
Delivers information faster: 90% of text messages are read within the first 3 minutes of being received. If you have a time-sensitive message to share, an SMS marketing campaign is highly effective and can guarantee it reaches your audience.
Builds loyalty: Through personalization and respecting communication preferences, text campaigns can make your customers feel valued. The more important they feel, the greater the chances they’ll become a repeat customer.
Supports other channels: On its own, SMS campaign performance is strong. But it can also be used to boost your performance on other digital channels, too. You could run a promotional SMS marketing campaign to get users to subscribe to your email list or to follow your social media accounts.
Easy to create: Character counts and other content constraints make SMS messages easy to produce. They must be short and to the point, which can save time and get time-sensitive messages to your contacts faster.
Accessible for any industry: Whether you work in retail, finance, tourism, or healthcare, text campaigns can support communications in any B2B or B2C industry.
Disadvantages of SMS Marketing Campaigns
Though the list of advantages is long, there are a few drawbacks to also consider.
Permission-based: Explicit consent is required to send text campaigns. If you’re building your contact list from scratch, finding customers to opt-in can be a challenge.
But don’t let this stop you — according to an Attentive Mobile Consumer Report, over 91% of survey respondents expressed interest in receiving SMS marketing campaigns from businesses.
Message limitations: Most CRMs have text limitations in place, which can complicate the delivery of certain messages via SMS. Standard plans require texts to contain 160 characters or less. Anything exceeding that limit will be sent in a string of 2 messages and will cost 2 SMS credits.
Character limits are even more restrictive if your text contains Unicode. Messages with Unicode must be kept to 70 characters or less. (Emojis are considered Unicode and are counted as 2 characters, so craft your messages wisely!)
SMS Marketing Strategies
After you’ve decided to add SMS to your business toolkit, it’s time to perfect your strategy. Below, we’ve outlined some best practices to follow when it comes to building lists and improving engagement.
Building Your Contact List
Building your contact list starts with awareness. Your target audience must know that you have a text message option available. In that same vein, it’s also a best practice to let them know how you intend to use their number.
Any additional information you can provide about the type of messaging and the frequency of messaging could be a determining factor in getting users to join your list. Transparency = trust = conversions.
So how do you get users to join your list? There are plenty of strategies your business can try.
Text-to-join: The most basic, but tried and true method for getting users to join your SMS contact list. It requires users to text a keyword to your SMS short code or 10-digit number to opt-in
Sign-up forms: Get users to sign up using a form. Try embedding forms on your homepage, site footer, or in blog content.
Use your email list: If you already send newsletters to an email list, use that to your advantage by encouraging them to sign up and stay connected via SMS. (Note: Even if they consented to receive email communications, it cannot be assumed they want to receive text campaigns, too. Consent is still required!)
Checkout opt-ins: If you have an eCommerce site, ask users for their phone number during checkout. Add a check box near the number entry for users to check yes or no to consent to receive SMS communications.
Incentives/exclusive discounts: With a little extra incentive, like offering opt-in discounts or running deals for only your SMS contact list, more users are likely to sign up.
Promoting on other channels: Raise awareness for your SMS program by promoting it on social media. For the best results, try running a paid ad on your preferred social media platform. If you don’t have the extra budget, promoting it organically will work just fine.
Best Times to Send
Like your email marketing strategy, the success of text marketing campaigns relies heavily on being sent at the right time. Textedly suggests limiting send times to regular business hours for promotional SMS campaigns. Transactional, on the other hand, can be sent at any time since they’re typically sent by an automation triggered by a user action.
Audience Segmentation
If you’re looking for additional ways to optimize your SMS campaigns, audience segmentation can be crucial. Segmentation is the process of categorizing your target audience into additional smaller subgroups based on interests, behaviors, or other criteria.
To get started, here are some basic ways to categorize your contact lists:
Engaged/unengaged users
First-time/repeat purchases
Location/time zones
You can use these categorizations to help improve your personalization strategy. If you know how they’ve engaged with your SMS marketing campaigns in the past, you can send personalized offers based on what you know they’re most interested in.
Drive Results with an Integrated SMS Marketing Strategy
SMS is proven to be a highly effective tool for driving results, especially when integrated to assist your existing marketing efforts. If you want to boost your brand visibility and meet your users where they are most active, it’s time to tap into SMS marketing.
Explore how your business can benefit from text marketing. Contact our team of specialists to start seeing results.
