The way that digital agencies are doing business is shaped by certain key trends. It is important to understand what these trends are and how they impact the delivery of digital content. Knowing these trends can also help agencies plan how to align their services correctly.
More For The Same
It comes as no surprise that with budgets continuing to be squeezed, people are looking for the same prices, but want to get more assets. Agencies can find it challenging to deliver more and still make a profit on the same fees for projects. One of the ways that more can be offered for the same budget is to create multiple assets from a single piece of content.
A client video which has a case study can be used and various versions could be created. There could be short clips, sound bites and other content which can be used across a number of channels. Agencies will need to work with their clients to find ways to do more with the assets that are completed to provide better value for money.
People Focused
Global and SME businesses have all seen a shift toward focusing on people first and this has been driving their communication. This is something that is more important than ever and there are a lot of initiatives out there to help engagement with employees. For agencies, they will need to help their clients determine where content has to be personalised to improve engagement.
They will also need to be creative in their management of different assets. There is generally scope to great content that offers a broad appeal and use specific content that is personalised for the target audience. This allows agencies to work within tight budgets and provide the multiple pieces of engaging content that their clients need. You’ll tend to find that there are agencies local to you, for example this SEO agency in Hampshire called Leapfrog Internet Marketing.
In-House Teams
External agencies should not see in-house teams as a threat, but rather an opportunity. In-house teams are not new and agencies will have to look at how they will be able to complement the services offered by these in-house teams. A good starting point will be constant communication and the bringing of fresh ideas or changes to ideas.
It is recommended that you focus on partnering with these in-house teams long-term. This will make you an extension of the team. It is also important to understand that certain things can be handled in-house in a more cost-effective manner and in-house teams should be used to invest the budget more strategically.
Get Over It
There is always going to be someone who can do everything for a fraction of the costs. As an agency, you are able to deliver more value than one person operations and demonstrating why something cannot be done cheaply is important. It can often be tricky to sell this to a video-savvy client, the advantage of an agency is that it offers an outside view and fresh ideas.
What About Brexit?
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to Brexit, but trying to predict what the short or long-term effects are for your business will be very hard. Now is probably the best time to make sure that you can demonstrate a good ROI and fight for your budget by proving the value of marketing and comms campaigns. Digital activities have a lot of metrics that measure their performance. If you have not already done so, you need to identify the metric that matters the most to your business and start measuring everything.
The Biggest Opportunity
Social media content is still considered the biggest opportunity. LinkedIn is becoming more video content driven and the need for strong editorial content has been increasing. Platforms are also becoming smarter in terms of video delivery and agencies will need to find new and better ways to stand out.
Video content is a marketing trend that is highlighted year after year. It is not something that is going away and will continue to grow. This is why it should form part of all SMEs and corporations’ marketing and comms strategies.