One of the best ways to ensure you have a consistent marketing strategy is to engage in integrated marketing.

But what is integrated marketing? It’s the process of unifying various advertising mediums in order to seamlessly deliver a cohesive message. This means that whether you visit the organization’s website, browse its social media accounts, or receive its emails, you’ll see similar content that demonstrates the brand’s core values or messaging.

So what does this look like in practice, and what popular channels can be used to accomplish an integrated marketing campaign?

The Effectiveness of Integrated Marketing Campaigns

Integrated marketing campaigns are highly effective for several different reasons. Since you’re using multiple channels to communicate with your customer base, you’ll reach a larger audience than you would with a single channel. Most of your audience will also likely see your messaging on various platforms, which keeps your company top-of-mind for customers who may need your products or services in the future.

Furthermore, an integrated marketing strategy can save you money since you can reuse much of the advertising content you create on different platforms. Minor modifications can keep content fresh and ensure it’s suitable for a particular channel.

Top 10 Integrated Marketing Channels

There are several integrated marketing channels to choose from. Here are ten of the most common that companies rely on.

1. Email Marketing
2. Social Media
3. Search Engine Optimization
4. PPC Advertising
5. Content Marketing
6. Direct Mail Marketing
7. Traditional Marketing
8. Event Marketing
9. Public Relations
10. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a time-tested integrated marketing tool that continues to be one of the most effective for driving conversions and building brand awareness. It lets you communicate directly with people who have signed up for your marketing list.

With the right tools, you can tailor your emails to match each customer’s interests and preferences, making your messages more relevant and impactful.

2. Social Media (Organic and Paid)

Social media platforms are powerful tools for displaying ads and content to your audience, including your followers and others who match your target. You can use your social media accounts organically to engage with followers or invest in paid ads to expand your reach. Organic content helps build trust with your current customer base, while paid social media ads are ideal for attracting new followers, increasing conversions, and boosting brand awareness.

A successful integrated marketing strategy includes both organic and paid social media efforts. Organic content can help nurture customer relationships, while paid ads drive wider visibility and more conversions.

Here’s how you can get the most out of social media marketing:

• Organic Content: Builds trust and keeps your current audience engaged.
• Paid Ads: Helps grow your reach, increase brand recognition, and boost conversions.
• Targeted Campaigns: Ensure you’re reaching the right audience through precise targeting.
• Content Variety: Use a mix of visuals, posts, stories, and videos to keep your audience interested.

By using both organic and paid strategies, you can connect with customers at different stages in their buying journey and keep your marketing efforts consistent across multiple channels.

3. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about making sure your website shows up when people search for what you offer. It’s like putting your business on the map, but online. By using the right keywords and optimizing your site’s structure, you increase your chances of being seen by potential customers. It’s not an overnight thing, but over time, good SEO builds trust and helps your site rank higher in search results, which means more visibility and traffic.

Plus, it’s a long-term strategy – once you’re ranking, it’s easier to stay there.

4. PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising involves placing ads where your audience is likely to see them, such as on search engines. While many advertising options require paying for mere placement, PPC only bills you when a customer clicks on your ads. Though its costs can escalate quickly, PPC advertising benefits companies seeking quick sales or other conversions.

5. Content Marketing

Content marketing is all about creating useful, relevant content for your target customers. It’s a way to show that you understand their needs and can offer real solutions. Whether it’s blogs, videos, or infographics, content helps build your credibility in your industry.

In a B2B integrated marketing strategy, content can position your business as an authority, helping you stand out from competitors. By consistently sharing valuable content, you can attract more organic traffic and keep customers engaged across multiple channels – like your website, social media, and email.

Ultimately, content marketing is about building trust and loyalty, leading to more sales and stronger relationships with your audience. It’s a powerful tool that supports your overall marketing efforts and helps you connect with customers in a meaningful way.

6. Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail marketing is ideal for companies with customers in a limited geographic area. Using this channel, you can mail advertisements directly to clients who fit your target audience and are most likely to need your products and services.

For instance, a local restaurant may use direct mail to advertise its opening day to people within a five-mile radius.

7. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing encompasses a variety of advertising techniques, like commercials, print collateral, and billboards. While traditional marketing is losing ground to the popularity and potential of digital strategies, many brands still incorporate it into their integrated marketing plans.

8. Event Marketing

In event marketing, a company showcases its products and services at a tradeshow or another similar event. Event marketing often combines information and learning with product demonstrations.

In this format, it’s common for a company representative to speak at the main event, then later demonstrate the organization’s products on the trade show floor.

9. Public Relations

Public relations includes press releases and public company meetings, like shareholder events. Press releases are ideal when the company introduces a new product or has a significant change they want their clientele to know about. Ideally, news organizations, websites, or journals will pick up these press releases and reprint them, increasing your brand visibility and potentially growing your client base.

10. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing has always been the most powerful form of marketing because it gives individuals a chance to spread the word to their acquaintances and give an honest recommendation, usually without the interference of the brand. It’s, therefore, crucial for companies seeking to expand their audience and enhance revenue.

Influencer marketing is a form of word-of-mouth advertising, but it’s less powerful than genuine, organic word-of-mouth. For example, organizations can pay for a partnership with an Instagram or TikTok influencer, using the influencer to promote their products or services to their audience.

It’s difficult, however, to control word-of-mouth marketing enough for integrated marketing strategies. Brands must rely on more involved (and therefore less effective) approaches, such as influencer marketing, to deliver a cohesive message.

Where to Begin with Your Integrated Marketing Campaign: Best Practices

If you’re interested in building an integrated marketing plan, here’s how to get started:

• Decide on a universal message you can promote to your target audience
• Determine the most suitable integrated marketing channels for your brand
• Try your strategy out on a few channels before adopting it widely
• Be prepared to tweak your messaging if necessary
• Retain consistent messaging across channels
• Continuously measure your results
• Introduce more integrated marketing channels over time

It’s not an easy task, but there’s another solution that can deliver fast, effective results: working with a talented marketing agency.

Grow Your Business with MARION Integrated Marketing

Looking to grow your business? MARION has your back with integrated marketing strategies that work. If you need to boost your online presence, increase customer loyalty, or support your in-house team, we’ve got the tools and expertise to help. Let’s chat about how we can make your marketing efforts more effective and drive better results. Reach out today!

Contact us today to learn more about our integrated marketing services.

Corporate brand identity is a key factor in the success of any business. A well-developed corporate identity can help differentiate your business from competitors, create trust and loyalty among customers, and increase brand recognition.

What Is Corporate Identity?

At the root of your corporate identity is your logo, your symbol to the world of what your company stands for. When your customers see your branding, they are reminded of all their experiences with your company; what they have seen, read, heard, and felt about your company.

It is critical, then, that your brand elements reflect the nature and spirit of your company in a positive way from the moment your logo leaves the drawing board and enters the marketplace. As your brand grows, your logo reflects your identity.

Corporate Identity vs. Brand Identity

Corporate identity and brand identity are two terms that are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings.

• Corporate identity is the way a company presents itself to the outside world. It includes things like logos, color schemes, fonts, and more.
• Brand identity is how a company wants to be perceived by its customers. It consists of elements such as mission statements, taglines, core values, and other aspects that help differentiate it from its competitors.

Both corporate identity and brand identity are important for any business to succeed in the long run. They help create a unique image for the company in the minds of consumers and also ensure that all communication with customers is consistent across all channels.

How Do I Improve My Corporate Identity?

While building corporate identity in a healthy way, always include your logo and the other aspects of your organization’s design – colors, tagline, graphical elements – in all your communications and in all media. Your marketing communications messages and value proposition must be consistent in all media. These consistent visual and verbal representations of your company in print collateral, on the Internet, video, and multimedia will nourish your brand and nurture your corporate identity.

Marketing Plan

Following marketing research, the experts at MARION can help you determine your customers’ needs and, with an integrated marketing campaign, attract and retain more and more satisfied customers to grow your business.

Website Design

Your website reflects your corporate brand identity online. Persuasive content, graphics, and navigation all work in harmony to make your site a standout success. Don’t hold back while investing in your corporate custom website design in Houston because it’s often your brand’s first chance to position itself in a potential customer’s mind.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization gets your site ranking highly on search engines and your corporate identity found on the web. Spending time and even money on SEO services is a way to make sure that your brand is showcased to the most relevant audience when they need your expertise the most.

Digital Marketing

Internet marketing boosts your web presence. Spread your brand across search engines, raise your brand visibility, and increase traffic to your site through online website marketing and a sound digital strategy.

Brand Building

MARION offers services in support of your brand management practices and developing a strong brand-building methodology. We can teach and guide or provide turnkey brand-building services depending on your unique needs and business goals.

Logo Design

Logo design is at the root of building your corporate identity, image, and brand. Your customers associate the qualities of your company with your logo. Investing in Houston logo design services can amplify your brand in a highly positive way.

Video Production

Enhance your brand, record events, facilitate training, instruct for safety, and promote your products and services with corporate video productions.

3D Animation

3D animations add dimension and life to your corporate identity. A great tool to impress your customers by creating animated images of a proposed reality.

Printed Brochures

Your corporate capabilities brochure expresses your corporate brand identity in print. Improve your brand development strategy with great graphics and persuasive, to-the-point text within your company brochure or catalog design.

3D Graphic Design

3D graphic designs and illustrations add dimension to your corporate identity. A great tool to impress your customers by creating images of a proposed reality.

Public Relations

Media relations, community relations, public affairs, crisis communications, issue management, and public speaking all impact your corporate identity.

Develop Your Corporate Identity with MARION Integrated Marketing

MARION Integrated Marketing provides a comprehensive suite of services to help you develop your corporate brand identity. From logo design to website development, MARION will work with you to create an image that conveys the values and objectives of your company. With our expertise in marketing strategy and creative design, we can help you develop a unique corporate identity that stands out from the crowd!

Contact MARION today to speak with one of our experts about how our marketing agency in Houston can help build your brand and grow your bottom line.

Simply put, the purpose of marketing is to create awareness of a product, service, or event. Creative marketing is one of the most interesting and desirable aspects of marketing, as it can be used to convey a message through creativity. It brings customers to the company’s product and helps them keep their attention. It’s a proven way to boost conversion rates!

What is Creative Marketing?

Creative marketing is not just about coming up with catchy slogans or designing an attractive logo for a company. Instead, it involves using tools such as music, sound effects, symbols, and images to make consumers interested in buying a product.

Why Creative Marketing Matters Today

Creative advertising is an essential part of the modern marketing industry. It’s more than just an additional ingredient—it’s at the core of everything businesses do today. Creative marketing is crucial to the success of any company because it’s all about changing perceptions and connecting with potential customers on a new level.

Creativity has always been considered an essential resource in marketing, but it has taken on greater significance in recent years. With the rise of social media, consumers are bombarded with messages about products and services every day. To stand out, marketers must be innovative and creative in their marketing campaigns to gain attention and interest from potential buyers.

Check out these creative, successful social media campaigns.

The Challenge of Creativity in Marketing

Creativity is the cornerstone of marketing. It is one of the most critical aspects of an organization’s marketing efforts. A creative mind is what separates a good marketer from a great marketer. In addition, a creative mind can help build up ideas that are not only effective but also refreshing. 

As the digital environment continues to change, marketers are faced with increasing challenges regarding creativity. Marketing in an online environment is much different than traditional marketing, which poses some unique obstacles for marketers looking to be creative in their work.

The emergence of AI writers has made marketers’ jobs more streamlined and efficient as they can focus on what they are best at — creativity and emotions — rather than wasting time on technical skill sets and research.

How to Foster Creativity in Your Marketing Efforts

Did you know that 75% of individuals believe they are not living up to their creative potential? Becoming more creative can be challenging, as developing your artistic skills takes time and effort. It won’t happen overnight! However, the following tips will help you tap into your right brain and increase your creativity in marketing:

• Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a great way to develop new ideas for your product. You can do it alone or in a group, but ensure all participants are active and engaged.
• Ask yourself: When was the last time you went out of your comfort zone? Trying new things will give you fresh ideas and perspectives that you never imagined before.
• Bring the team together: Put together a creative task force of people with different backgrounds and skill sets. They will be able to provide different views and experiences that can be used for breakthrough marketing ideas.

What Creative Marketers Do Differently Than Traditional Marketers

Creative marketing is about individual creativity and the uniqueness of your product. Creative marketers rely on their wits, intuition, and skills to get where others can’t.

Traditional marketing is about tactics, techniques, and best practices. Traditional marketers use strategic methods to get your attention in crowded markets, but these techniques aren’t as effective as they once were. To truly get in front of people these days, you need to be creative.

Elevate Your Brand with a Creative Marketing Agency

To recap, creative marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on creativity and emotions. It is an effective tool used by businesses to generate new ideas and fresh perspectives while still engaging with customers. Creative marketing will never replace traditional forms of marketing. However, it can complement them in a way that brings out the best in both.

Simply ‘being creative’ isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Luckily, our digital marketing agency is here to help! The team at MARION has been serving Texas businesses for over 40 years. We’ve taken a creative approach to developing custom marketing plans for various industries. Check out MARION’s design portfolio to see what our creative designers can do.

Contact us today to learn how we can help your business grow by incorporating a creative strategy into your marketing project.

A marketing agency is a business that helps organizations increase the sales of their products and services. Futhermore, there are two ways to categorize marketing agencies: in-house and external. The former deals with the company’s marketing efforts internally, while the latter works with the company’s marketing externally.

Additionally, there are three main types of digital advertising agencies: performance-based, traditional, and integrated. Performance-based agencies provide services like search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising; traditional agencies offer services like print or broadcast media; integrated agencies provide both performance-based and traditional marketing services. So, which one is best for your business? Keep reading to find out.

Why Hire a Local SEO Agency in Your Area?

If you’re looking for internet marketing services in your area, these are a few of the biggest reasons why you might want to hire a local SEO agency, regardless of your industry. 

• SEO Optimization: Agencies would be able to understand the nuances of your industry and help with local optimization.
• Keyword Research: Agency experts know what kind of keywords and key phrases to target and how to rank well on search engines so that your business will be seen by more people who are looking for products or services like yours.
• Local Knowledge: Digital marketing agencies near you will know what searches and trends people in your area are searching for. You also can’t beat face-to-face interactions.

How to Find the Best Local SEO Agency for Your Business in Houston

A local SEO marketing agency will have in-depth knowledge of your industry, be close to you geographically, and have the dedication to work with you long-term. The right agency experts will help you build a digital content strategy that dominates your industry.

So, what are the best practices for finding a marketing agency that can help your business grow? Of course, it’s important to find an agency that understands your industry, has strong local connections in Houston, and has the patience to work with you for years to come. But how do you know which one is right for you?

How Much Should You Budget for an Online Marketing Campaign?

Marketing costs can seem daunting. But it is essential to budget correctly so you can be successful at marketing your business online.

The first step to determining your marketing budget is to look at your company’s revenue and growth goals. If you are expanding, there should be an equal investment in growth and marketing if you want the business to grow exponentially.

After assessing growth goals, you need to take into account the cost of customer acquisition. Customers are expensive — it costs about five times more than what it takes to retain a customer through marketing campaigns or by providing excellent service.

Finding the Best Marketing Agency in South Texas

If you are looking for a top marketing agency in South Texas, look no further. You have come to the right place! You will find all kinds of information about marketing agencies here—from tips for getting started with marketing services in Houston to online marketing strategies with the biggest impact on ROI, top questions to ask a branding agency, and more.

In conclusion, the best way to choose a marketing agency that’s perfect for your business is by following these simple steps. First, ask them about what they do for clients with similar businesses to yours or who have an equivalent budget size. Then ask them about their experience working with your particular market or industry. Finally, see if they offer free consultations so you can meet them in person and see if it’s a match!

Ready to hire and work with the best internet marketing agency in Houston? MARION has been helping Texas businesses advertise big since 1981. We work with our clients to manage their entire online presence, from social media and web design to email marketing and reputation management.

Contact our team today and schedule a free consultation to learn more about our services.

MARION Integrated Marketing is proud to announce that we have been featured as one of the Best Houston Web Designers by Expertise.com.

The list “scored Houston Web Designers on more than 25 variables across five categories, and analyzed the results to give you a hand-picked list of the best.”

About Expertise.com

Expertise.com provides valuable services to further enhance your social media campaigns. According to the company, “Expertise.com finds and reviews the top service professionals in over 200 industries across the U.S. Each month, we research more than 60,000 businesses to help customers find the best-qualified professional for their needs. Our research process is always evolving to keep up with industry changes, so we’re confident that when we say a provider is one of the best, it is.”

About MARION

MARION Integrated Marketing has offices in both Austin, TX, and Houston, TX. In addition to web design services, we provide SEO, graphic design, PPC, social media, trade show support and much more. If you’re ready to take your marketing game to the next level, reach out to us today.

MARION Integrated Marketing is proud to announce that we have been featured as one of the Top Facebook Marketing Agencies in Houston by SocialAppsHQ.

The list features “companies are not only the best in the field, but they’re also reliable and affordable.”

About SocialAppsHQ

SocialAppsHQ provides valuable services to further enhance your social media campaigns. According to the company, “SocialAppsHQ is your All-in-One Social Marketing Platform that allows business owners to grow their brand. We have enabled thousands on business in running their social media marketing campaigns.”

About MARION

MARION Integrated Marketing has offices in both Austin, TX, and Houston, TX. In addition to social media marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and more), we provide SEO, web design, graphic design, PPC, trade show support and much more. If you’re ready to take your marketing game to the next level, reach out to us today.

Web design is a process of designing and formatting websites and web pages. Web designers use a variety of tools to create the desired look, feel and usability of the site. From a digital marketer’s perspective, solid web design can effectively benefit SEO, boost conversions, strengthen PPC campaigns, outshine competitors, and so much more!

But what happens if you’re not a designer? If you’re wondering what you need to know before you begin the web design process, this guide will provide some insight.

Introduction: The Basics of Web Design

Web design is not only about making sites attractive and readable; it also needs to make sure that they are user-friendly. An effective business website design should be such that the visitor doesn’t need any additional guidance or instructions to navigate through its content. Bad web design can truly make or break a website!

A great way for beginners to learn basic web design is by following simple tutorials on the internet. There is an abundance of online resources that provide step-by-step instructions on how to build specific components of a website like menus, headers, navigation bars etc.

Step 1: Planning

Planning is one of the most important phases of the web design process. The planning phase includes some basic tasks such as:

• Defining your company’s goals and objectives

• Studying and researching competition and what content is trending

• Defining target audience

• Collecting data about target audience’s interests, demographic, and behavior

• Creating a content plan to deliver on the company’s goals and objectives; this also includes an outline on how to keep that plan updated.

This stage is crucial for any business seeking success with their website. This will help you figure out what design decisions you need to make in order to meet your goals.

Step 2: Wireframing

The wireframe is a crucial part of the web design process. A wireframe is a diagram that represents the structural layout of a website or application. It covers the site’s content, hierarchy, interactive elements, and navigational flow. Wireframes can be created with pen and paper before they are transferred to more sophisticated design tools like Photoshop or Illustrator. 

The goal of this process is to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page before any work begins on visual design, coding, or development processes. This way everyone knows what to expect from each other and can plan accordingly.

Step 3(a): Designing the Layout

Web design is the process of creating a design solution for a website. This includes gathering and analyzing information about the desired content and the intended audience, and then creating a representation of these on screen.

There are some basic elements you need to consider when designing your web layout:

• What is your goal?

• What are you trying to communicate?

• Who is your target audience?

• How much space do you have?

• How many pages do you want on your site?

There are also different layouts that can be used such as: grid, mobile, one column, two column, etc. Be sure to research your layout options before deciding on one. 

Step 3(b): Designing Typography

Typography is the work of selecting typefaces, point size, line length, letter spacing, and adjusting other elements of type to create a particular mood or tone. Additionally, it includes features that are more decorative in nature, such as choosing colors for text and backgrounds.

A person skilled in typography design is actually referred to as a typographer.

With so many factors to take into consideration when designing typography for your website, it can be hard to know which fonts are best for your project. Typographers have studied the factors that affect legibility and readability on screen or paper so they know what matters most when designing fonts. One factor is x-height which is the height of lowercase letters relative to capital letters in proportion to their widths. This is just one example, but there are many factors a web designer should consider with typography. That’s why having an experienced designer is so important to web developement!

Conclusion & What’s Next?

Let’s conclude by saying that the future of web design is going to be a bright one. We predict that these next years are going to bring a lot of changes and new technologies for us to explore. To maximize your website performance and get the most out of web design, it’s helpful to partner with the right web design agency. Contact us online today to schedule a free marketing consultation! 

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming for those who aren’t accustomed to it. The number of tools, strategies and changes by Google is virtually limitless. If you’re new to SEO, where do you start? Here are five SEO tools we think are among the best for monitoring your website’s performance and making improvements.

Why Measure SEO Performance?

There’s an adage out there that says, “you can’t improve what you don’t measure.” While cliché at this point, it rings true. If you’re just improving your website without a benchmark or goal, you’ll only experience success if you’re lucky. For the rest of us unlucky ones, we can actively improve our website’s performance based on specific metrics like organic traffic, search engine rankings and conversion rates.

You see, most of what’s visible to your prospects and website visitors is content. And, according to HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2021, “the majority of companies (67%) use organic traffic to measure their content success.” Why? Because organic traffic (as opposed to paid or direct traffic) reflects how valuable your content is to your prospects.

So, how do you get your valuable content in front of the right eyes? These days, a good SEO tool is really a requirement. Fortunately, we have some recommendations.

The Best SEO Tools for Performance Monitoring

Any “best” list is going to be subjective, but the truly best tools will show up again and again on recommendation lists or articles. That being said, here are the tools that we’ve seen over the years that have had a demonstrable impact on improving SEO performance for websites.

1. SEMrush

Are there other better all-in-one marketing tools out there? Maybe. But few software alternatives come close to SEMrush when it comes to SEO. After all, search engine optimization is SEMrush’s bread and butter. It’s the company’s specialty. (Just look at the company name. “SEM” refers to “search engine marketing!”) If you’re going to try an SEO tool, we recommend starting with SEMrush.

• Pros: Robust, deep and packed with features. Extremely helpful customer service team.
• Cons: Fairly expensive and a bit of a learning curve to use.
• Best SEO Features: Keyword research, position tracking, organic research, traffic analytics, backlinks, keyword gaps, competitor comparisons, social media management, content marketing suggestions, local SEO and much more.

2. Moz

Moz lost a bit of its luster and appeal when Rand Fishkin exited the company, but it remains a solid SEO option. One of the best parts about Moz is that many features are free! You just need to sign up for an account and there are limits to queries you can submit. But if you have a single business or don’t check in on SEO metrics very often, this might be a good starter tool for you.

• Pros: Moz also excels at backlink data and has a proprietary Domain Authority score that is a standard in the industry.
• Cons: You must upgrade to a premium/paid account to use all features.
• Best SEO Features: Domain analysis, keyword explorer, link explorer.

3. HubSpot

I admittedly have a soft spot for HubSpot, as I’ve obtained dozens of certifications from the company and have used their tools for many years. When it comes to user experience and customer service, HubSpot can’t be beat. While it’s true that HubSpot isn’t an SEO-exclusive tool, it does have many SEO-friendly features that will help you improve your website’s performance. If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool with plenty of SEO features, HubSpot is a can’t-miss option.

• Pros: Easy to learn, with top-notch UX/UI. Friendly, helpful customer service team.
• Cons: Expensive (though you get what you pay for). SEO data isn’t as rich or accurate as SEMrush or Google Analytics (based on the traffic sources the tool references), but you still get valuable insights for improvement.
• Best SEO Features: Content optimization recommendations, topic clustering, robust reporting and valuable SEO-related tools like blogging, landing pages and marketing automation.

4. Screaming Frog

If you have technical aptitude and some SEO experience, Screaming Frog is a tool that will allow you to dive deeper than others on this list. Screaming Frog basically crawls your site in a way similar to search engine robots, helping you identify crucial issues like improper tags, meta information that’s too short or long, missing alt text on images and more.

• Pros: Rich, deep data, which is easily exportable/sharable.
• Cons: You’re limited to 500 pages on the free plan. May be too much for new SEOs.
• Best SEO Features: Site crawling, integrations with other SEO tools, advanced metrics.

5. Google Analytics

Last, but probably first in the list of tools you should consider is Google Analytics. There really is no replacement for the data you’ll see straight from the source with GA. Customizing reports and diving deep into advanced metrics is attainable with Google Analytics, though you definitely need to know what you’re doing.

• Pros: Most accurate data for organic traffic from Google; highly customizable. Integrates with most SEO tools.
• Cons: Very steep learning curve; not ideal for new SEOs. Permissions/security can be annoying.
• Best SEO Features: Visitor behavior tracking, identifying top pages/content, annotations for big changes, customizable tracking and reports.

Bonus: LinkWhisper

We’re huge fans of this final SEO tool, which is ideal for monitoring links in particular. You can easily build reports, identify broken links, set up auto-linking settings for blog posts (limiting them to one per post) and more. If you’re looking to automate the internal and external linking part of SEO, LinkWhisper is worth checking out. (It works with most WordPress-hosted websites.)

Should You Partner with an SEO Agency?

With all these amazing search engine optimization tools available, why would you need to partner with a marketing agency for your SEO? Well, if you notice from some of the cons above, many tools require search engine optimization knowledge to get the most out of them that you can. (This is why several companies like HubSpot and Google offer certifications.)

Additionally, some of the more expensive tools may be out of reach for your company and its budget. An agency, however, may already be on an agency plan and you’ll be able to enjoy the amazing benefits of the tools without the premium price tag. Other benefits include easy integrations, more precise reporting and flexibility.

If you’re interested in learning more about these tools or how we can help with your SEO efforts, contact us today.

• Every business has leads. It doesn’t matter what type of industry you’re in, whether you sell online or at a physical location, or whether your sales cycle is four months or a year… you have potential customers out there. What you do with those leads is another story, however.

You can identify improper usage of leads by asking yourself a few questions.

• Are you treating all your leads the same?
• Do you have a defined, documented strategy for scoring prospects?
• Does your sales team get frustrated with the leads that marketing provides?
• Are you spending too much time manually evaluating leads?

If so, you need a lead scoring strategy. Before we get into developing a strategy however, it’s helpful to know what lead scoring is in the first place. This video from HubSpot has you covered:

The Importance of Proper Lead Scoring Strategy Development

Yes, lead scoring sounds great… in theory. But many businesses struggle to actually implement it. That’s because it requires coordination from leadership, sales and marketing to pull off. You can’t just have one of them handle it because they have different mindsets and skills.

These three departments do each have a valuable part to play in a lead scoring strategy development session, however. Here’s what each brings to the table:

• Executive/leadership: provides a high-level view of company goals, what types of leads the company would like to go after and the realistic goals marketing and sales should have.
• Marketing: provides the messaging and automated tactics that would be involved in nurturing leads to higher scores; provides qualified leads to sales.
• Sales: provides the values for certain demographics and actions that best indicate a lead or prospect is a good fit with the company. Converts well-qualified leads into customers.

Example Lead Scoring Categories

The beauty of lead scoring is that each company’s strategy can be different. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. As with any area of marketing, it’s helpful to see what has worked for other companies, what is considered best practice and what will actually work for you and your company. That being said, here are some good lead scoring categories and sub-categories that other businesses have used successfully:

• Demographics:
  • Age
  • Income
  • Location
  • Children
• Company/industry:
  • B2B or B2C
  • Company Size
  • Company Type
  • Industry
• Online actions:
  • Website page visits
  • Resource downloads
  • Blog post views
  • Form submissions
• Engagement:
  • Emails opened/clicked
  • Social media posts liked/shared
  • Reviews

What A Good Lead Scoring Strategy Process Looks Like

The two most important elements in a lead scoring strategy are fit and interest. You have control over the former; you likely know what clients are easy to work with and what clients are not. You also know what types of clients fit with the solutions you provide. For interest, however, that is up to the lead.

Your lead scoring strategy helps with both fit and interest, as the criteria you set up help determine the leads who are the best fit, while scores for other actions and engagement can signal a prospect is interested and ready to talk to sales.

There are a few steps required to accomplishing this and here’s an example of what a good lead scoring strategy development process looks like:

1. Determine the most important fit characteristics of your ideal lead.
   • Example: you may offer a high-end product and aren’t interested in people who make less than $100,000 per year.
2. Determine the most important interest characteristics of your ideal lead.
   • Example: you may only want to follow up on leads who fill out a contact form.
3. Choose lead score thresholds.
   • Example: you can qualify any lead with a score of 70 or more as an MQL.
4. Document responsibilities.
   • Example: marketing handles all communication with customer until they reach a score of 70, then sales takes over.
5. Set goals.
   • Example: marketing has a goal of providing 5 MQLs per month; sales has a goal of closing 1-2 customers per month.
6. Reevaluate your strategy.
   • Example: take a look at your processes and criteria every few months.

Contact vs. Company Scoring

One last thing to bring up for your lead scoring strategy is the difference between contact and company lead scoring. This could very well change your whole approach to lead scoring. Here are the differences between the two:

• Contact scoring: lead scores for individual contacts. Scores are adjusted on an individual level, not at a company level.
• Company scoring: the cumulative lead score for all contacts at a company. Scores are adjusted on a company level based on individual scores.

This is ideal for businesses targeting certain companies instead of individuals. For example, perhaps you think your product or service is a great fit for a particular local business, but you don’t have influence or contact information for any of the roles with decision-making responsibilities. You can start measuring the fit and interest of the other employees of the company and determine whether there is potential or not. Finally, company scoring can help with prioritizing your list of leads.

Partnering with An Agency for Your Lead Scoring Strategy

Implementing a lead scoring strategy requires a marketing team with the knowledge and experience required to develop the lead scoring strategy, as well as a way to calculate scores and empower the sales team for success. Calculating scores is where many companies get tripped up, as it requires powerful software or lots of data entry and evaluation by employees. Overall, lead scoring can be overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Partnering with a marketing agency, however, is another option. Whether you need a lead-scoring strategy developed as part of an ongoing retainer or you’re interested in a one-off lead-scoring strategy consultation, an agency can give you the resources and talent needed to pull of an exceptional lead scoring for your business.

MARION can be that agency. If you’re interested in learning more about lead scoring or any other area of digital marketing, contact us today.

Return on investment in digital marketing is an incredibly valuable business metric that should not be ignored. Several types of integrated marketing channels are available, from social media and email lists to paid ads and in-depth search engine optimization. In order to achieve consistent growth, companies must leverage these channels and follow the proper steps to maintain optimal return on investment.

But which marketing method has the highest impact on overall ROI? Let’s discuss.

What is Digital Marketing ROI?

In the world of digital marketing, Return on Investment (ROI) is known as the measure of profit or loss generated on your campaign efforts. A positive ROI essentially means that a campaign is making more money than what was spent—and vice versa for a negative ROI.

As a rule of thumb, digital marketers should aim for an average ROI of 5:1 — that’s $5 gained for every $1 spent on a marketing campaign.

And if this doesn’t satisfy you, set the bar a little higher! Exceptional marketing ROI is considered 10:1 or higher. It will likely require more resources and knowledge to achieve this goal, but it is possible, nonetheless. On the other hand, ROI below 2:1 is non-profitable and is indicative that your marketing strategy needs some work.

Why Measure ROI in Marketing?

Measuring ROI is critical in digital marketing to determine the success of your campaigns. Otherwise, you would be marketing “blind” and potentially wasting your budget. Obviously, ROI will vary depending on the campaign type and other contributing factors. But by analyzing the results, you will be able to confidently take actionable steps toward improvement. The more familiar you are with marketing ROI, the better your campaigns will perform. In this article, we will discuss which online marketing campaigns have the highest ROI so that you can plan your marketing strategy accordingly.

How To Calculate ROI in Marketing

Calculating ROI values in digital marketing is simple. A basic ROI formula would look something like this:

Top 4 Digital Marketing Strategies for Success

Now that we’ve explained what digital marketing ROI is and how to calculate it, let’s explore a few different campaign strategies that are known for their positive ROI. We’ll explain the pros and cons of each to ultimately decide which strategy offers the best revenue return.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Email Marketing
3. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
4. Pay-per-Click (PPC)

1. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most successful and widely used digital marketing strategies for growth. When properly executed, SEO marketing can deliver impressive results at a very low cost.

SEO marketing has an average ROI of 22:1 — that’s 2,200 percent!

Effective SEO can give businesses huge opportunities for driving traffic to their website. Plus, the results are long-term. Your site has the potential to continually grow in rankings over the years, delivering positive ROI with little to no effort on your end. For these reasons and more, SEO remains one of the top online marketing strategies for ROI.

2. Email Marketing

Email marketing is reported as one of the highest ROI digital marketing strategies. It’s a well-known method that requires some initial investment but has high success when it comes to exposing your brand to customers.

Email marketing has an average ROI of 42:1 — that’s 4,200 percent!

So, in theory, for every $1 spent on email marketing, you’ll make $42 in return. It’s no wonder why this method is so popular amongst digital marketers. Creating contact lists and sending out emails is relatively cost- and time-effective when compared to other campaign methods. Also, campaign effeteness will only increase as you expand your audience and grow your email list. In addition, email marketing can be used in conjunction with other online marketing strategies for maximum effectiveness.

The primary drawback of email marketing is the fact that it requires having access to a substantial database of customer emails. Tips for building a sizable contact list include using subscription incentives, sign-up lists, and giving customers the ability to create on-site accounts. Follow these steps, and in time, you can expect results and substantial business growth.

If you are going to run an email campaign, you should consider measuring these metrics when calculating your digital marketing ROI:

• Open rate
• Conversions
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Unsubscribe rate
• Bounce rate
• Leads acquired

3. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is another effective marketing channel that doesn’t require a huge budget or amount of time to succeed. Depending on the extent of your campaign, you can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.

Social media marketing offers several valuable benefits that affect ROI, including:

• Helps customers discover new products
• Sparks positive interactions with consumers
• Provides customer service and engages with followers
• Increases brand traffic and obtains new customers
• Contributes to overall marketing strategy

Measuring social media ROI is a bit more complex than measuring the results you’ll get from other types of digital marketing tactics. In social media marketing, you can determine campaign effectiveness by measuring specific metrics. Below we listed the top metrics marketers use to measure the ROI of social media campaigns.

• Engagement rates
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Leads acquired
• New followers

4. PPC Marketing

When done right, PPC services will generate a positive ROI in digital marketing.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is much simpler to calculate than the overall ROI for PPC campaigns. The formula is essentially the same as the ROI formula we mentioned previously; it just replaces “marketing” with “PPC.”

This value, however, does not factor in all costs—just the cost of the paid ads. If you want a more precise estimate of your PPC campaign’s profitability, you’ll want to factor in some additional costs, such as:

• technology & equipment
• credit card processing fees
• fulfillment
• employee salaries

Unlike SEO marketing, PPC advertising is not long-term; once you turn the ads off, the campaign is over. The only lasting value is the sales from the ads while they were still active.

Which Digital Marketing Strategy Has the Best ROI?

In conclusion, SEO and email marketing have the best reputation when it comes to ROI. However, keep in mind that PPC and social media marketing are also known to achieve positive ROI.

Now, it’s up to you to maximize the ROI of your online marketing campaign. Will you choose email marketing, PPC, SEO, SMM, or perhaps a combination? Be sure to consider your company, budget, and individual marketing style before making this decision.

Improve Your Marketing ROI With MARION Today

If your company is looking to optimize your digital marketing ROI, MARION is happy to help! We are a marketing agency in Texas with decades of experience delivering strategic search engine optimization, PPC services, and various marketing campaigns.

Contact our team of experts today and find out how we can help you get started with your online marketing strategy.