Here’s What to Expect from Marketing in 2021

With the economic meltdown in 2020 due to the pandemic, the past year saw marketing agencies’ crash to rock bottom. However, marketing agencies are still pretty optimistic that 2021 would be a great year for business. With this optimism it becomes crucial to know about your marketing agency and its whereabouts.

In the early spring of 2020, digital marketing agencies reported 66% of overall revenue decrease. CallRail’s call data report showed trends on the similar notes of call volume in the advertising and marketing industry, falling below 29% to that of pre-Covid levels.

Despite the initial setback in 2020, people soon became open to the digital world. They moved forward with new opportunities, experimented with digital formats, and trading brand loyalties for stock and performance marketing were the highlights of the pandemic. 

Ad spending on the digital advertising industry is expected to hit US$ 398,762 million in 2021, according to Statista, and the largest segment of the market is Search Advertising. With a projected market volume of US$ 171,641 million in 2021, the revenue generated by digital ads in India was valued at about Rs 199 billion in FY2020.

Digital Actions That are Expected Out of Marketing Agencies in 2021

• Video advertisements
• Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
• UX/UI strategy
• Remote selling
• Mobile indexing 
• YouTube marketing

While some of the trends are certain to be more popular in 2021, some new changes may be along the way. To embrace them, here are some actions that can help us:

• Benefiting from different digital marketing tools to conduct a balanced team discussion
• Improvement in in-house capability with the rise of the need for new services
• Creating online learning opportunities with the help of webinars and virtual events
• Creating new campaigns via digital transformation

Did you experience something similar? Get the expert help with Growth Natives. Visit the official website now!

Moving on to the next big question,

Are these agencies all that they tell you?

By this time, you probably would be searching to hire a marketing agency to help your business grow, or in most cases, you already have one. Whatever it may be, you need to run a little background check of how much of the words that come out of your marketing agency’s mouth is the truth. 

Now, if you believe everything that your agency tells you, then the next few minutes of you reading this blog is going to be an eye-opening revelation. 

The lies which your marketing agency tells you are so many that you might be overwhelmed at some point. Today we paint out a clear picture to see above the line differentiating the lie from the truth.

First lie: Your branding and advertising efforts do not always need to be similar.

Let us stop you right there. The above statement will not hold the truth no matter how many times it may be said. Imagine Nike branding under the phrase ‘Just Do It’ and then carrying out an ad campaign that shows products which aren’t up to the mark.

Or imagine FirstCry dropping everything about the baby products and taking a high-end route towards street fashion because that is the type of ad campaign that will help you with the attention. 

Two words. Absolutely Crazy.

If you ever feel that your marketing agency is running campaigns that do not align with your brand’s goals. Stop them right there, without a second thought. If somehow they have lost your brand’s motive, ask them to pause the campaigns and explain to them the vision, the mission, the importance of what your brand truly stands for. 

And do not hesitate to do so. It is you who is paying them. You might as well have everything perfect. 

Second lie: Your existing data has nothing to do with your targeting.

This is the next line which is in store for you. You need to steer clear from these conversations. The data stored tells you everything you need to know about the brand- Data on the performance of your products, the percentage of sales you make, and who your clients are. Please tell us that this data would not act as an upper hand in devising all your marketing strategies?

Every bit of data is important. Be it from your social media, advertising channels, previous marketing campaign, SMS campaigns, or even offline marketing.

All of it is relevant. For example, it tells you:

• What your brand sells the most (best selling and trending products)
• How interesting clients find your brand(visitor data)
• Who the customers are (among those visitors who is actually buying the products)
• How much the customer really wants to spend. (average order value)
• How many of them abandon their cart (missed opportunities)

Now imagine letting go of these data and statistics. This would mean losing all the insights and information that could help your brand thrive. Always ask your marketing agency how they will integrate the stored data into the strategies.

Third lie: The number of sales is all you need.

If this is what your agency replies to you for every time you ask them for a report, tell them to take a step back at that moment. The number of sales made is not the only growth metrics you need. Certain metrics like your campaigns’ reach, the average conversion rate on your campaigns, your average spend, the ROI, and most importantly, the ROAs and CLTVs.

Because if you spend thousands of dollars and get just a bare minimum in return, that is not growing in any way possible. In this, you are losing more than you are earning. You have to ask your e-commerce marketing agency to create a detailed report about the campaigns and all the data. And if they fail to do so, you should move on to someone who can.

And hey! We might be a great help over here. Here are some of our analytical tools that will help you with the correct metrics.

Fourth lie: maybe you should spend more on advertising:

Bummer! This line is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. This is something that most of the agencies and professionals will tell you. “maybe you are not spending enough” or “maybe if you could just provide us with a little more budget, the results would be different.” 

Know, this is your cue not to fall into their trap. It is not even true that you can get thousands of dollars worth of sales by spending only as much as a dollar, but if every time your marketing agency turns to this answer when your marketing campaigns do not work. You know something is wrong. 

This is when you turn around and ask them to explain how the budget is divided and what it is being spent on. If they are doing everything right, they would have a well-explained metrics system to explain the budget. If not, get out of there.

Fifth lie: More the merrier.

Oh no. No. No. This is not the case here. Many business owners are often astray and are searching to find the perfect answer to how many marketing campaigns they really need to set up to drive more sales. 

The concept of more, the better runs through their veins, and they really can’t see anything past that. However, quality is necessary over quantity. For example, you can have 100 ads lined up, but what is the use if not even one allures the shoppers into buying your products. 

Some of the marketing agencies even may tell you that after implementing their marketing techniques, the traffic has increased on your website; your ad campaigns are getting more response, but being an e-commerce retailer, that information is as good as nothing to you. And if the agency can drive good quality traffic, it should directly replicate your sales. Question them at every point and know if they are lying to you or not.

Refreshing your ad campaigns becomes important because let’s face it, you do not want to bore your customers to death by showing them the same thing over and over again. 

These are just a few lies; the list is never-ending.

 The most common of them besides the above mentioned include “you do not need to worry about customer relations,” “you cannot personalize your marketing and advertising efforts,” “your advertising results have nothing to do with your UX.” 

Sixth lie: Go with your gut feeling

Oh no… this is something that you would hear a lot from your marketing agency. They would surely tell you “Listen to your Gut” or “go with the flow”, “it will all be all right”. Here is when you should draw the line of going forward with something you believe in or trusting the calculations and analytical reports.

Often marketing agencies will try to mislead you but you should be adamant about moving forward with detailed stats. Data Analytics helps businesses understand the current market scenario and change a process, trigger a new one or completely take a new route for success. And that is possible only if you ask for the tiniest of data details. 

What should you do to get past the lies your marketing agency is telling you? 

The first thing, without a doubt, is to pack up your bags and leave. Because you know the truth, so do we. The number of online stores and e-commerce platforms is growing twice as fast as the light of the day. This allows the consumer to choose from at least ten other brands if it is not yours. 

The fight for customer attention is real out there, and it requires you to be present everywhere they are. But this does not mean that you go out on a limb and start spending way beyond what you should. 

Neither should your marketing agency.

The only thing that you need is a systematic approach to create an effective marketing strategy. And the words for it are data and data alone. 

Troubled if you have the right data or your marketing agency is sharing the correct metrics? Well, do not be! Contact Growth Natives for consultation, and we will show you how things are meant to be done.

P.S.: We do not lie 😉