Below are some of the more common myths surrounding digital marketing with the corresponding reality:

Digital marketing is best suited for brands that market to consumers.

It’s simply not true. Digital marketing is a great way to reach consumers, but it’s equally effective for business-to-business audiences. One reason that this myth continues may be because business-to-business purchases often have longer sales cycles that don’t culminate in online purchases. That continues to be true, but the majority of business-to-business customers do most of their research and evaluation online before engaging with a company. It’s critical for marketers to be present during that search for products/services and their evaluation.

Finding the right decision-makers on the web is becoming more precise with ever-increasing options for targeting them. Many of our clients target niche buyers that you might think would be hard to reach, but “big data” has made it more possible than ever. We can layer job titles, geography, content relevance and even company IP addresses to zero in on the right people at the right companies. One of the reasons for the recent exponential growth in digital marketing initiatives can be tied to the ability to deliver targeted, personalized messages to audience segments sliced and diced in ever-more granular ways. This programmatic targeting allows advertisers to identify the user and market to them wherever they are on the web versus relying on industry sites to aggregate them for us. It’s often more effective at a lower cost.

I can easily develop and manage a digital marketing program myself. 

Marketers can’t check their email or voice messages without a solicitation for another marketing automation tool that’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Some have merit. A lot of them don’t. We don’t have anything against marketing tools – we use many of them on behalf of clients. We do, however, recognize that they are tools. A good tool in the hands of an experienced mechanic yields good results – a good tool in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how engines work won’t turn out so well.

Marketers in the digital space need a partner that knows the opportunities and pitfalls, one that can strategically think about how to best accomplish objectives, launch new products or respond to competition and market dynamics. Those things are still the most important factors in marketing success (online or offline).

It’s expensive.

If it’s done right, digital marketing should be less expensive than other forms of marketing. Certainly there are some high-impact opportunities that can get pricey, but the ongoing outreach and content delivery to your online audience can be cost-effective, especially compared to traditional marketing like print and broadcast advertising. Not only is it more economical and more effective, but it can be measured and evaluated on a “cost-per” basis. Evaluating the impact of traditional marketing is much harder, if it can be done at all. Programs like retargeting, search engine optimization and social media campaigns have tremendous returns for the investments required.

Digital marketing requires technical expertise.

Digital marketing, like other forms of marketing, requires marketing expertise, not technical expertise. There are definitely new things to learn specific to digital marketing, but they tend to be about new acronyms, metrics, regulations and new offerings. Marketing fundamentals like audience insights, market knowledge, understanding how to reach customers and how to measure effectiveness still differentiates good digital marketing programs from those that are less effective.

Quantity over quality.

The thought that pushing more content out in the digital space will increase exposure and achieve better results is flawed. As is the case in most instances, quality trumps quantity. It’s important to be consistent in generating content, and we’re proponents of a steady flow of good content. Good content should be some combination of useful, informative, entertaining and insightful. Well-executed digitally-based content has the potential to enrich and enliven the level of engagement a consumer may have with a particular brand. Good content should always focus on the value for the customer, not the search engine.

At Mod Op, we’re big believers in digital marketing and the benefits it delivers for our clients.

Misconceptions like the ones above will be debunked, and new ones will emerge as the market continues to evolve. If you need help navigating the digital landscape we’re here to help.

Understand your customers

A Bloomberg report said that “delivering a great customer experience is a top strategic objective” for companies. To do so, you need to understand customers’ perceptions, priorities and motivations. Many business leaders can be a proud and stubborn bunch, thinking they REALLY know their customers. But, let’s be real. Those business leaders have personal bias towards their customers, usually without realizing it. There is nothing more valuable about learning what makes your customers tick than hearing it straight from them through objective market research. Then, you can build a customer experience platform that ties your company’s strengths to your customers’ priorities and concerns.

Think beyond the transaction

No matter the product or solution, purchase decisions are made rationally and emotionally. Create customer experiences that have meaningful substance to help people make informed decisions but do it with a style that generates excitement and advocacy for your brand.

Surround your customers

The traditional sales funnel is long gone, and customers are bouncing around discovering, educating and seeking information long before they initiate any contact. Online and offline, consider all the touch points you have available to create a meaningful interaction with your customer.

What gets measured gets done

This old adage holds true at every level of business. Measuring performance, satisfaction, sales and retention are all ways to create accountability and gain meaningful insight into your customer experiences. Leverage that data to set benchmarks and optimize against them to constantly improve.

With a solid foundation, here are a few of my favorite tools that enhance my customer experience with brands.

Mobile support

My phone is always with me, and I’m not alone in that it’s often the first thing I turn to when I have a question or a problem. Brands that readily arm me with information and support when I need win with me.

Live chat

For me, live chat feels like it’s on its second wind, but I’ve long been a fan of the chat function. It’s quick, easy and puts me in control. I’ll go as far as saying that when done well, a live chat can be just as helpful and personal as an in-store engagement.

Social media support

Social media is where I, and most everyone else, go to share experiences with family, friends and acquaintances. I appreciate when brands are proactive in addressing issues through social or when they leverage the platforms to bring me information and offers that fit my lifestyle.

The human touch

I recognize tools that I find most favorable are digital, but it’s critical to not lose the human element. While I buy more from Amazon than brick and mortar, I still prefer the human element of an in-store experience. Even 25 years later, I get nostalgic every time I walk into a Best Buy, thinking about the times my friends and I rode our bikes to peruse thousands of CDs and play games. Apparently, I’m not alone.

An Accenture study reported that 83 percent of customers prefer human beings to digital channels when addressing service issues and 65 percent agree that in-store experiences provide the best personalized service. Companies that aim to be customer experience leaders must understand their customers’ preferences, be ready to help them wherever they are, and constantly improve while working hard to achieve the right balance of human and digital interactions. That’s exactly where an agency can provide a steadying hand and ensure your marketing is providing the most effective experience.

Intrusive ads

Due to native ad blockers and simple consumer dislike, intrusive digital ads are on their way out. This includes everything from pop-up banners, online ads that take over your device’s entire screen and even ads that interrupt what you’re reading or watching, forcing you to pay attention to the ad instead. Not only do intrusive ads cause more and more consumers to use ad blockers, they also create distrust for advertisers. Instead of intrusive ads, focus your online dollars on promotions that consumers actually want: ones that are targeted, relevant and don’t distract from the content the audience wants to consume. Don’t forget to offer ways for the audience to explore additional information.

Sending emails too frequently or that are not targeted properly

Want to know the fastest way to lose subscribers? Send three emails a day that are completely irrelevant to the audience. If the recipient doesn’t immediately unsubscribe, expect that email to sit forever unopened in a folder that will never be opened either. We as advertisers need to take some time to get to know our online audiences and help deliver exactly what they want, when they want it and how often they want it. By staying targeted and relevant, you’ll keep your messages in front of consumers.

Excruciatingly long video ads

Think you’ve got a great idea for an online video ad? Make sure the first few seconds cover everything you want the consumer to know. If not, the viewer will likely be too frustrated with your brand to pay attention. And if given the option to skip, 90 percent of consumers will skip. Keep it short and keep it relevant.

Sneakily selling consumers’ data to third parties

Few things will anger your target audience more than putting them on some email list or phone list for them to be constantly harassed. There are situations in which a consumer might be genuinely interested in receiving offers from third parties, but just make sure the information is clearly outlined and that users know what they are getting into.

Tricking your target audience into compliance

Consumers are smart, and, even though they have been trained to avoid or ignore online ads, sometimes they still fall prey to a new tricky digital ad format. Sometimes this comes in the form of putting the close button on a welcome ad in the top left corner (as opposed to the right corner, where it usually is) or making the close button light gray text on a white background. This can also be seen on Bumble, the dating app where you swipe right if you like someone and left if you dislike someone. By putting ads in between profiles, it’s a common mistake to accidentally swipe right on an ad, effectively tricking users into accidentally clicking. Annoying your customer and tricking them into clicking the ad accidentally isn’t doing anything for your brand, except artificially inflating your click-through rate and causing your bounce rate to skyrocket.

Instead of only thinking about digital advertising as a numbers game with no downsides, focus on creating and placing ads that resonate with your audience and provide minimal disruption to their online experience. Working with an agency that understands this is a strong first step to save your ads from the virtual graveyard.

But where to start? Months go by, quarters pass and you start to realize that perhaps there’s a bit more involved in getting your audience to buy in to your position as a thought leader.

If this at all sounds familiar, find comfort in knowing you are not alone. The path to thought leadership is not linear, and successful programs for one business are rarely identical to another’s. To help you sort through the fog, below are a few best practices to keep in your back pocket:

1. Continually Create Content

Blogs, webinars, podcasts, etc.

Generating content as part of your thought leadership program may sound like a no brainer, but, beyond being informative, you’ll want to ensure your content stands out from the crowd. Take a stand. Be bold! According to this Forbes article, “Once you take a point of view, express an opinion or share insider or expert-level knowledge, your addition to the conversation isn’t just another link amidst the marketing noise.”

It all starts with developing valuable content. By “valuable,” I mean the kind of content that’s going to encourage your target audience to engage. The type of content that generates the highest engagement depends greatly on your target audience. For example, a more technical audience might be intrigued by webinars, whereas a less technical audience may be interested in blogs. Take advantage of what you already know about your audience, and keep an eye on engagement data to fill any gaps.

2. Leverage What You’ve Got

Your website, social media, paid opportunities, etc.

Once you have content, you’ll need a plan for how to implement it on your site. If you have an active social media program, you should consider posting about new pieces of content. LinkedIn calls out one of the primary benefits of owned media: “Media that you own is content that you control.” You can control when, where and how content goes out, and that is a valuable piece of the thought leadership puzzle!

3. Earn What You Don’t

Contributed articles, interviews, press release pick-ups, etc. 

This is where you’ll see the endorsement of your company’s positioning as a thought leader really start to build momentum. You can push messages out all day, every day, conveying your unique opinions and expertise, but, if the only place your expert voice can be found is through your own channels, the results of your efforts will not likely meet your expectations.

Meltwater defines earned media as “publicity gained from word of mouth, online reviews and blogger, press and influencer relations. It’s a third-party endorsement of your brand.” Seeking third-party opportunities for coverage is imperative to the process; it is the secret sauce to making your audience buy in to your business’ expertise.

All in all, the most impactful strategy is to surround your target audience with varying forms of content through multiple channels. Of course, it also needs to be the right content through the right channels. That’s why partnering with an agency with broad and deep expertise in this area is the right call.

The personalization trend is evolving and has infiltrated the way brands market to their customers and prospects. For the past decade or so, personalization has been making inroads into marketing, particularly from an outbound perspective. Fueled by technology and big data, brands began to understand more about customers, and their preferences and actions, and applied the knowledge to email marketing and advertising to more precisely target and message to individuals and segments of individuals versus the masses.

Now we’re seeing personalization move to inbound experiences that customize a visitor’s website experience. If you spend any time on the sites of big online retailers like Amazon or Zappos, you’re accustomed to seeing web content that suits your preferences. By tracking where you’re navigating and your interest in certain products, they’re able to create a profile to serve you content based on your past actions to create a more relevant site experience.

With that said, we haven’t seen a lot of this customization from business-to-business brands on their sites. As personalization technology and tools become more readily available, business-to-business companies have the opportunity to personalize experiences for their customers and prospects. This is especially intriguing for companies that sell a range of products and services to unique vertical markets. Instead of delivering broad site content across specific markets, these companies can serve content, images, messages and promotions that are specific to the incoming visitor’s vertical market only. By using third-party tools that leverage reverse IP lookup databases, along with other data layers, website visitors for business products and services can begin to experience the same personalization as traditional retail sites.

Personalization by vertical market is only one way to customize content delivery on websites. Businesses can also personalize what visitors are served based on their demographics, location, time, device or behavior along with a slew of other factors. For example, if someone visits a site from a European country, the experience could reflect products/services that may be more applicable to that region or even have language adjustments based on that country. Or returning visitors to a site can be served specific content based on what they viewed in previous visits with more relevant messaging and suggested products. As big data expands, so do the opportunities and possibilities for more personalization.

In theory, site experience personalization sounds great to many of us. In practice, it takes a tremendous amount of commitment to make it a reality. That commitment comes in many forms. Bigger budgets are required to invest in the technology and tools to make it possible. Increased personalization means developing more content that is more specific to particular audiences. It requires additional time to test, measure and optimize site content against conversion points. Marketers need to consider and evaluate all of these in order to make customization successful.

Mass marketing is extinct. We’re already able to directly pinpoint audiences with paid media programs, social programs, direct marketing and other outbound marketing. Now, the opportunity exists to carry that experience through to an inbound website experience. Not just for consumer audiences but for business audiences as well. By delivering a more relevant and valuable website experience, site conversions go up and visitors are more satisfied.

According to Receptional, digital analytics is the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your business and the competition to eventually drive current and future customers toward a desired outcome. Digital analytics is used to better understand your paid online media advertising placements’ overall performance, good or bad. This means that your digital ads can measure how many potential customers viewed information about your product or service, took interest in it and what they did with the information you provided them.

This is particularly important in maintaining and acquiring customers because it gives you insight into their purchase decisions, whether they placed an order, visited another page on your site, added an item to their cart, became interested in another one of your products or took another action. This can all be measured and tracked by digital analytics. The most important things about digital analytics is knowing what to measure and how to use that information to improve your market share.

Understanding what your desired audience is looking for will help focus your initial testing of ads. Through testing, you can use digital analytics to understand whether you achieved certain preset goals and, if not, what you can do to reach audiences more effectively with future campaigns.

Results for digital ads can be measured by types of consumer engagement. For example, you can look at the number of people that visited your site as a result of seeing your ad and the steps they took once they were there. When using ad serving platforms, like Google DoubleClick, we always make sure that we tag all client URLs correctly. The tracking tag allows us to monitor our clients’ prospects to see what actions they take as they click ads and navigate through our clients’ websites. Being able to tell what pages they visit and what products most interest them helps us better understand who they are, what they want, how we need to reach them and what we need to say to them in the future to optimize the campaign’s performance.

Obviously, your digital analytics results will not always tell you good news, but there’s almost always something valuable to glean. Understanding the results can help you create a better-targeted campaign for your ultimate digital advertising success. Part of this comes from having an individual or team who can help you sort through the data to give you the key information you need, something the Digital Campaigns team at Mod Op does for clients every day.

Instead, creators should focus on telling stories – for marketers specifically, the stories of their brands or products – and then how to tell those stories using all the interactive tools at their disposal. Stop and think for a moment about the most compelling experience you’ve had online. I’m willing to bet your experience included a seamless combination of words, images, videos, animations and infographics. As you navigated the page, or moved from page to page, the story unfolded before you and kept you rapt in its message. You weren’t just exposed to it, and you didn’t merely read the words. You were affected by and engaged in the entire experience.

Oftentimes, these experiences are not from companies marketing their products…buuuuuuut…why not? Why should the New York Times be one of the only content creators that’s mastered the digital story? Why can’t marketers tell better stories about themselves and their products using all of the interactive arrows in their quivers?

Of course, brands can, should and, if they want to make an impact with their audiences, must become better digital storytellers. To be frank, other than outdated mindsets or underfunded budgets, there’s nothing keeping marketers from creating stories that captivate their audiences. After all, brands have some of the most creative thinkers, strategists and spokespeople working for them already as agency partners, and they have direct connections to web development talent. They just need to take the leap of faith to do something new, back it up with a financial commitment and challenge their content creators to step up to the plate. While the timid and old-fashioned might say this is risky because it’s unconventional, I’d raise the danger of playing it too safe when people expect more from their media experiences. Can you afford to let your brand feel boring and stale?

If not, better storytelling could be your ticket to Moderntown!

That’s my 10,000-foot view on what content and digital storytelling could mean to brands. I’d love to get into more specifics about how to make it work specifically for YOUR brand. And if you want to learn more about brand storytelling in general, be sure to check out our other blog posts.

Hey, don’t worry. It’s a familiar story to many. And here’s the good news: there are steps you can take to solve the issue. Three of them, to be exact:

1. Understand why your image looks strange online.

All social platforms will resize the artwork you upload—yes, even the files your designer provides at the exact dimensions required. These sites want to help mitigate the amount of space images take up, so they crunch and crunch, which can result in color loss and image compression. Sometimes they’ll even reshape the file you provide. You can keep track of which platform does what with handy tools like this.

2. Keep the concept of teeny tiny artwork in your mind during the actual design process.

Fine, minute details can be lost no matter how accurately you size your file. This can be mitigated by designing logos and art that doesn’t rely on intricate detail.

3. Lean on your designer’s expertise.

If you plan to use the logo on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever—let the designer know. He or she can provide you with the assets necessary for each platform, which will save you the headache of sizing things down yourself. And what’s more, keeping an open dialogue about image usage will help with step two—the designer will know how best to create an image if they know exactly where it’ll end up.

And that’s it. Sure, it’s only three steps—but this process can be daunting nevertheless. That’s why collaborating with an agency and a team of designers is a worthy endeavor. At Mod Op, we have artists that are intimately familiar with the requirements of various publishing platforms and social media, and you can rest assured that any design done by us is done with all these steps in mind—and more.

Good luck out there. Hopefully with your newfound knowledge, and with Mod Op at your side, you won’t need those tragic ballads—unless that’s your jam. Adele is pretty great.

Start Writing 

Seems easy enough, right? It’s actually much harder in practice. Make sure to create new and engaging content on a consistent basis. That means delivering multiple quality blog posts each month without letting fatigue set in. Writing consistently will not only help increase the traffic to your blog or website, but it will also improve your writing skills. In turn, you’ll be able to provide better content and attract even more readers. It’s the snowball effect. The more you create, the more practice you’ll have and the better your posts will be. In short, if it were easy to be an effective blogger, everyone would be.

Stick to a topic 

Pick a topic and stick with it. If you bounce around and write about 30 different things, you won’t find a consistent audience. If you are in the energy industry, write about topics that relate to your audience, such as oil and gas, natural gas and renewable energy. It’s easy to stray from your desired topic and target audience without realizing it. If you stick to similar topics while writing, you’ll reach a familiar audience and establish yourself as a thought leader, keeping readers coming back for more.

Ask why 

While writing, you should continually ask yourself why. Why does this matter? Why would people want to read this? Why am I even writing about this? If you keep asking yourself these questions, your writing will improve, you’ll likely stay on topic and your content will be much more engaging. In other words, you’ll write content your readers enjoy instead of going through the motions just to get a blog article out. A little effort goes a long way.

Make it concise 

Keep your content short and to the point. 

Remember to write consistently without getting off topic and keep your readers in mind. It’s not easy, but if you keep these ideas in mind while writing, you’ll already have a leg up on most other bloggers. Lastly, thanks for reading my blog article about improving your blog (so meta) – now go get writing!

Let’s take a look at three reasons why in-house teams consider an outside agency.

1.      Agencies offer an objective perspective to help find creative solutions to driving business.

One of the reasons you hire new people for your in-house team is for outside perspective. Often what happens, though, is that outside perspective eventually falls victim to groupthink – when the team becomes so similar in their outlook that they lose the ability to be creative in their decision-making. Sure, similarities can help create a strong team culture, but tunnel vision keeps the other critical information from being explored. This is where an agency can provide the most value. I really like how Theo Fanning, an industry peer of mine, says it. He says, “Agencies, by design, are always acting as strangers in strange lands. The crossroads where internal brand experts meet with external agency experts is when the significant marketing magic can happen.”

2.     Clients want to leverage specific sets of skills that agencies have developed over time working with a variety of companies. 

Clients see agencies as the authority on the services they are seeking. Many times, this is because an agency’s services are filling a gap that’s missing from a company’s internal team. In addition, clients also value an agency’s experience in different markets. An agency is often able to apply relevant knowledge and experiences from one industry to another.

3.      Clients appreciate access to premium talent only when they need it. 

Most companies don’t need a large in-house team full of creatives, PR practitioners, social media managers, digital marketers, etc. They would, however, benefit from all of these marketing services. Working with an agency gives you access to these experts when you need them without hiring those experts yourself. And chances are building an in-house team will cost you more than it will save your company.

I’m certainly biased when it comes to the agency vs in-house discussion, but if you feel like you need an objective opinion from a team of experts who can save you money, partnering with an agency may be a good fit for you.