marketing technology

5 Ways Technology is Changing Marketing Consulting

  • On : July 23, 2021

Advances in technology affect every part of our lives, so it’s without question that it has significantly changed the world of marketing too. Marketing consultants have to adapt their strategies to keep up with a very technology-driven society.

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Why Marketing Consultants Don’t Know It All

Why Marketing Consultants Don’t Know It All

  • On : January 22, 2021

There is this notion that marketing consultants should know it all. They are after all qualified in marketing and are employed to steer a company or brand, but here are some reasons why they may not exactly know everything. And why technology helps fill the gap.

They have other clients.

Your marketing consultant is just that: a consultant. As such, they are likely to have more than one client. This means that, while they are more than able to devote the necessary resources to you, they also have other commitments on their plate which will require their attention. They won’t be spending all the hours of each working day with you or on your business. They may be well versed in your business and its services; however, they likely won’t know as much about the business as you do. They may be highly experienced marketers, but that doesn’t mean they will know everything about your business unless you take the time to fill them in. Don’t assume your marketing consultant knows all of this; instead, help them by filling in the gaps so, in turn, they can help you more efficiently.

 

They are not prophets.

Though experienced marketing consultants are well versed in providing their clients with adequate assessments of potential risks in marketing campaigns as a result of threats and weaknesses, ultimately, they cannot predict the future. This means that even the best marketing campaign is susceptible to failure for any number of reasons – but this does not necessarily mean your marketing consultant is at fault. Take, for instance, the myriad of well thought out campaigns that never came to fruition in light of COVID-19. Well planned marketing campaigns are certainly less risky than a game of roulette in that they are informed by previous strategies and market trends that provide the perfect foundation for educated hypotheses and projections. However, it is important to keep in mind that there is always room for human error.

 

They lack follow-through.

The professional landscape is highly saturated with individuals declaring their marketing expertise. This may well be true in the majority of cases, however, there are certainly a number of frauds masquerading as seasoned marketing aficionados. Sure, your marketing consultant can come up with an exciting plan for your business, but can they just as eloquently execute this plan? As Scott Belsky, author of Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, points out, “an idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements”. As such, your marketing consultant, though creative, may lack the necessary discipline that could lead to the downfall of your campaign.

 

Their work is expensive.

Your marketing consultant can provide you with a comprehensive plan of execution when it comes to your marketing campaigns. Its implementation will likely be strategically scheduled out over the desired duration of the campaign, and detail specific tasks for communications. This plan will revolve around sending out emails and calling existing clients as well as prospects, writing content for blogs, coming up with concepts and shooting video content, devising engaging social media posts, and more. It is significantly more cost-efficient, especially for small businesses, to implement these marketing strategies themselves and simply rely on marketing consultants to provide them with extensive planning, as opposed to turning to consultants to both divise and execute plans. Businesses can end up spending a great deal of money asking their marketing consultants to execute the ‘grunt’ work of a campaign, and small businesses should prioritize minimizing costs wherever possible. When it comes to smart marketing, every dollar counts.

 

They don’t embrace change.

Though the future of AI is daunting to some, an understanding of strategy technologies that founded, in reality, can provide marketing consultants with an invaluable tool to improve their efficiency and accuracy. Many consultants remain apprehensive about AI, largely due to the proliferation of a false narrative that this form of technology is going to steal human jobs. AI won’t take jobs so much as it will change how they operate for the better. Those who are late to the party risk missing out on all the advantages working collaboratively with technology has to offer and end up putting themselves at a significant disadvantage.

 

How can marketing strategy technologies fill in these gaps?

Unlike individual marketing consultants, strategy technologies do not have multiple clients. In fact, they are built to work quickly on multiple tasks at once. This means that you are always their top priority. Furthermore, your marketing consultant isn’t a prophet, and neither are marketing strategy technologies, although they do provide more accurate projections of the future. This is due to the multitude of calculations they can complete with precision where a human is more likely to become exhausted by such tedious and menial calculations. With automated calculations, there is even less room for ambiguity, which means your estimations for the future are founded in hard facts.

While humans are capable of lying about their level of expertise, a machine is incapable of fabricating the truth. With marketing strategy technologies, what you see is what you get. In other words, you know exactly what return you are getting and there are no surprises. It is, in a lot of ways, a far more valuable and secure investment for a business without a pre-existing relationship with a trusted consultant. Whereas consultant rates are quite high, especially when relied upon for ‘grunt’ work, strategy technologies are comparatively inexpensive when taking into consideration the range of specific and automated tasks that can be undertaken in a short period of time.

 

In contrast to the ultimately less predictable nature of humans, technology seldom lacks follow-through. Don’t be mistaken, though, into thinking that AI can execute everything exactly as, or better than, humans do. AI is of particular use when it comes to small, repetitive tasks such as calculations or sending out emails, which would take a marketing consultant much longer to complete. However, human marketing consultants are irreplaceable in how they add value to projects through imagination, innovation and informed understanding of the customer psyche. Humans are natural storytellers, and our ability to craft unique marketing campaigns depends on our innate inclination to creativity. This is something that technology inherently lacks. Perhaps we will be there one day, but we are certainly not there yet.

Why Your Marketing Consultant Doesn’t Know It All

Why Your Marketing Consultant Doesn’t Know It All

  • On : December 18, 2020

Source: Marketing Eye Australia

There is this notion that marketing consultants should know it all. They are after all qualified in marketing and are employed to steer a company or brand with their knowledge and expertise. Sitting in my office in South Yarra, Melbourne, I am reminded at just how much experience is in the room, but while we are all skilled at what we do, we learn every single day something new. Our industry is evolving, growing, changing, adapting and being disrupted through technology and innovation.
When hiring a marketing consultant it is important to ask some basic questions:

  • What are your qualifications in marketing? How many years have you been working in marketing?
  • What areas of marketing do you specialize in?
  • Have you been successful in marketing? What does success look like to you?
  • What technologies do you use when developing a marketing campaign?
  • What industry-based experience do you have?
  • Do you develop a marketing strategy before going into marketing tactics? If so, what is included in the marketing strategy?
  • What key performance indicators should a company look out for?
  • What measurement tools do you use?

These are fairly standard questions that need to be asked of any marketing consultant you hire. Once you have passed the phase of asking basic questions, you should explore how the marketing consultant that you are about to engage with is going to work with you.

  • What is the process they use?
  • How do they determine whether they too want to work with you?
  • What does a successful client relationship look like?
  • How does a client get the most out of them?

They should in turn ask you some questions:

  • What does a successful marketing campaign look like?
  • What is your story? What is the brand story?
  • What makes your business different from your competitors?
  • Do you have a marketing strategy?
  • Who is your customer? How is this qualified?
  • Who are your competitors?
  • What are your budget and timeframe?

From there, you have the foundation for a relationship that can be nurtured and grown over time. Marketing consultants usually have certain personality types and sometimes doing a free personality profiling will help determine whether your relationship will be a good one.

Marketing consultants need to have the mentality that they don’t know it all but want to keep on learning. Having conversations about what websites do they get inspiration from, what podcasts do they listen to and what was the last book they read, can help you ascertain just how up-to-date they are with marketing and how keen they are to learn more.

Marketers only have a limited amount of time each day and mostly they are working ‘in marketing’ not ‘on marketing’. Good marketers do both.

The Importance Of Keywords To Your Digital Marketing

The Importance Of Keywords To Your Digital Marketing Strategy

  • On : December 9, 2020

When people look for products or services online, the first thing they do is a keyword search.  The key to the success of a digital marketing strategy is by utilizing keywords and understanding your niche in the market.

Keywords act as a catalyst between the user and the business. They connect the problem of the user to the right solution offered by the business. Leveraging this concept allows marketers to get better results with search engine optimization. For example: when running a Christmas tree campaign, keywords that users may search for include ‘Christmas tree near me’, ‘Christmas tree sellers’, ‘Cheap Christmas trees’.

In a time where everyone is trying to be different and be the first one to catch the customer’s eye, keywords help in driving successful lead generation.

The Art Of Setting Keywords

Customers are very specific in the way they search, which means you need to be the same when deciding on keywords to include. These keywords are very common terms that we speak or use.

Keywords can be classified as short Tail and long-tail keywords. More than 50% of search queries feature long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific in nature and give out details of the products or the services that businesses offer whereas short-tail can be an overview of the products or services.

Example:

Long Tail Keyword: Best Vegan pizza dough recipe

Short Tail – Pizza Recipe

9 out of 10 customers use a search engine to look for information. Keywords help link customers to relevant websites that can best solve their problems. These types of keywords typically don’t have a lot of searches but the user is having a specific problem that he/she needs to solve. The idea behind this is to target as many relevant long-tail keywords as you can.

The effectiveness of keywords in digital marketing has helped businesses to sell their products and services online. When people search for keywords they usually don’t go beyond the first page to look for solutions. So, your site’s content must use those keywords. If you are unsure on how to optimize your keywords strategy, marketing consultants can help.

How can you optimize keywords?

Having the right keywords won’t finish the job. Keywords are a very important process in matching your website content to what your target audiences are looking for. While you will still attract traffic to your website with incorrect keywords, this may affect your bounce rate in the long-term.

Keyword strategy is a job in itself. Marketers should use keywords that a large number of people search online for but have a relatively low number of competitors.

To begin, research for keywords and prepare an excel sheet to best organize your strategy.

Keyword research can be done with the use of certain tools that lets you recognize the best keywords based on their volume and difficulty. Ranking through correct keywords can improve your website traffic and overall performance and that’s why marketers spend so much time getting keywords right.

What are my options for free keyword applications?

  1. Google AdWords
  2. SEMRush
  3. Moz
  4. Ahrefs

You can sign up for a free subscription for a short period of time however it’s more efficient to consult experts to leverage your keyword strategy.

Why focusing on your audience in keyword strategy is important?

Keyword research is entirely based on understanding your customer and then trying to match the content with keywords.

By focusing on your target audience and keywords insights you can increase the success rate of the campaign. Once you find the right keywords based on your target audience, you can use search volume to prioritize certain keywords which will give a strategic advantage over competitors.

Why understanding your competitors in keyword strategy is important?

The best way to leverage your keywords is to always keep an eye on your competitors as it allows you to gain a different perspective in a similar industry.

By prioritizing this strategy, it allows you to bid high rankings on the keywords that your competitors do not use. This can set up a keyword competition which can result in high performance on the search engine.

By now, we have understood that a keyword is a word that usually describes the page or the content. It allows the user to know what the page is about. Now imagine the keywords match the search result but the content doesn’t provide clarity. In that case, Google will penalize the business as the content is just using keywords to gain traffic but it doesn’t help the user.

Search engine robots are very smart and look at the quality of the content on the page which also includes the words used. If a webpage doesn’t have proper keywords, search engines won’t treat it as a reliable source. Also, if the webpages are just about the keywords and do not have good content then it will still be considered an unreliable source. Not using appropriate keywords can mislead people and can turn into a negative brand image.

Finally, keywords matter because:

It provides the marketer with clues on who those people are and what they are looking for to meet their needs.

consulting firm

How To Choose The Best Consulting Firm For Your Technology Company

  • On : December 2, 2020

There are currently so many marketing consulting firms large and small available to choose from that it can become a confusing process trying to find the right fit for your company.

Here we will discuss some ways you can work out which marketing consulting firm is best for your technology company, and give you some tools to help thin out the herd.

Decide what type of services your business needs and the results you are after

It’ll be a harder process for your business in choosing a viable consulting firm if you do not have clearly set goals, needs and estimated results to check off when assessing different firms.

Once you know what you need from your marketing activities, your business can focus on finding consulting firms that are up to date with the latest technological advances, trends and services so that they can fulfill your needs efficiently, and at a higher level than competitors.

Take Robotic Marketer for example. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology allows us to stay ahead of the curb, and transform information on your company, your business goals and marketing plan into an actionable marketing strategy at a much faster rate than our competitors.

Start by looking locally

Whether you are a well-established company, or a budding entrepreneur, you should always begin your search close to home.

When you are working with technology, there are so many new and complex threats in the form of cyber-attacks and network failures that may need immediate attention if your business is to continue operating.

By hiring locally, this threat can be minimized, as the closer the firm is to your business, the quicker on-site issues can be resolved and your company can remain productive.

Robotic Marketer’s advanced machine learning and big data processing capabilities allow us to identify technological issues much quicker than other marketing consulting firms, meaning we can resolve problems and get your business back on track to achieving your marketing strategy.

What’s the profile of the firm?

As we have said, there are so many different marketing consulting firms available to choose from both locally and abroad, each with different specialties and focuses on alternate industries.

That is why it is imperative that you select a consulting company that can fulfill your specific needs, and whether they are genuinely capable of meeting your objectives within the time frame you require.

Robotic Marketer is specifically designed to create affordable, high-quality marketing strategies for technology-based organizations. At a fraction of the price, you will receive a ‘Big-4’ quality strategy – value for money with top-tier marketing services.

What markets do they operate in?

As you are looking for a marketing consulting firm that can best serve and satisfy a technology company, it is of utmost importance that they have the right knowledge and experience for your business.

Before picking a firm, look at some of their past projects within the technology industry, how recent they were, did their other clients have similar needs to your own, did they return with future projects and most importantly, were they happy with the consulting firm’s performance?

Without the proper industry experience, and effective results to gauge, there is no guarantee that the consulting firm will be the right fit for your business, and be able to fulfill your needs completely and effectively.

Make sure that the firm understands what you need

Depending on the needs of your business, it is important that the marketing consulting firm you choose has a wide range of staff with a mix of disciplines and focus areas so that they can fulfill all of your technology needs as they arise.

Of course, if you are only just starting up your business, this is less of an issue, but the larger your company, the wider the range of technological services you will require, so it is necessary that you look into whether the consulting firm can fulfill all the needs of your business, not just a few.

Robotic Marketer is dedicated to ensuring all clients receive the best service possible, and we are always here to help clients with any issues they may encounter so that we can get back to achieving your marketing strategy in the most efficient way possible.

Why You Are Likely To Succeed With A Marketing Strategy

Why You Are Likely To Succeed With A Marketing Strategy

  • On : November 27, 2020

As business owners move forward into 2021, many are considering the changes that need to be made to their marketing strategy for success in the New Year following the countless challenges of 2020.

As the core channel through which businesses communicate their value with potential customers and retain clients in the long-term, marketing should always be a key focus for businesses seeking to expand their operations.

Investing carefully in marketing to grow your business in the digital space is vital to maintain a competitive edge in the face of ever-changing digital marketing services and media platforms.

To facilitate this, a marketing strategy is critical to making sure that your marketing activities are as impactful as possible, acting as a guidebook to allow you to focus on the most powerful actions that you can take as a business.

As specialists in creating tailored, effective marketing strategies for small and medium businesses, here are some key reasons you are more likely to achieve success with a marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy allows you to cover your bases

Marketing strategies outline research-based methods of improving your digital presence and growing your reach. A tailored strategy explicitly outlines actions that will improve customer experience and make your business stand out from the competition.

Whether this be posting regularly on social media channels, having a well-designed website, or creating quality content for your audience, a strategy allows you to cover your bases and ensure that there are no gaps in your marketing efforts.

This means that marketing activities can be focused on tasks that will deliver the highest impact possible and also bring you up to speed with competitors.

A marketing strategy helps you achieve your business goals

A marketing strategy should not be a cookie-cutter approach, but rather a specific approach for your organization me i.e. it is closely aligned with your business goals.

Regardless of the nature of your business and your objectives, a smart marketing strategy will outline key steps to take to achieve them.

Whether you are looking to gain more long-term clients, expand internationally or launch a new product, a marketing strategy will help you to plan and execute marketing activities that will help you achieve your business goals.

A marketing strategy takes the guesswork out of marketing

As a business owner, you want everything that you do to actively contribute to your business whilst avoiding marketing activities that cost more than the benefit they deliver.

A tailored, research-based marketing strategy enables your business to only engage in impactful marketing activities.

By discussing with a marketing consultant and your internal marketing team in developing your strategy, you are being decisive about the activities that will and will not benefit your business, providing clarity in the actions you will take, allowing you to plan and budget more effectively for future periods. For this reason, a strategy takes the guesswork out of your marketing activities.

By clearly outlining what exactly you need to do, you can focus on maximizing the ROI on marketing, ensuring that your marketing activities are cost-effective and aligned with your objectives.

A well-defined strategy allows for better collaboration

When you have a clearly defined marketing strategy, it makes it easy for all members of your organization to familiarise themselves with your key branding, messaging, and image. This enhances the presence of your organization, since having consistent branding is crucial in a digital setting, but also has the added impact of making it easy for multiple team members to collaborate or share tasks with each other.

A strategy establishes a rule book for anyone working on marketing activities and ensures that all marketing efforts are consistent and of high quality. This means that team members do not need to reinvent the wheel when they work on marketing-related activities, but rather have a clear guide to make sure that their work is impactful and in line with the strategy and the goals of the organization.

It helps you with future strategies

Your marketing strategy should not be the same every year. Having a clear marketing strategy allows you to see what worked and what didn’t, allowing future strategies to be adapted around these observations.

If something hasn’t worked in a specific year, you can remove that from your strategy and if you have discovered a new, creative way to engage your target market, you have the freedom to implement this in future strategies.

All of your future marketing strategies will become iterations of past strategies, leveraging the experience and knowledge of your successes. This means that each strategy is more likely to have a significant impact on your business. Therefore, a marketing strategy can be viewed as a valuable asset in the long-term growth of your business.

By putting thought into your strategy now, and revising it in future periods, you can add valuable knowledge and insight into all future strategies, improving the impact of marketing activities and the strength of your brand in the long run.

With so many benefits to your business, a clear marketing strategy is a necessary ingredient to success. With a well-defined strategy, you are likely to gain clarity in the actions you need to take to have a maximum impact on your business and drive engagement and reach.

When planning your business strategy and goals in the new year, ensure that you focus on reviewing your past marketing strategies or implementing a clearer strategy if this is something that has not been done in past.

Investing time into your marketing strategy can lead to immense short- and long-term benefits, allowing you to help your business thrive.

How Robotic Marketer can help

If you need help developing or refining your marketing strategy, the experts at Robotic Marketer are here to help. Contact us today and allow us to help you create an impactful marketing strategy for 2021 that is centered around your unique needs and business goals.

good marketing consultant

10 Characteristics of a Good Marketing Consultant

  • On : October 14, 2020

Marketing is a competitive game that requires carefully planned and well-executed tactics in order to be successful. Misinformed decisions often result in wasted time, resources and energy something businesses cannot afford in the current climate. A marketing consultant has the ability to look at your business and identify where the problems lie, realize where the opportunities exist, and how to create marketing that your ideal customer will respond to.

Choosing the right consultant for your business can be challenging, so take the time to consider what really makes a good marketing consultant.

To help you and your business make the right decision here are 10 characteristics of a good marketing consultant.

1. Devotion to listening and attentiveness

Consulting is so much more than the simple process of a business acquiring advice from a consultant. A good consultant will take the time to learn everything they can about their clients, listening attentively and remaining patient as they listen to any issues, requirements and goals.

Only after listening to their client will any successful marketing consultant recommend effective changes to a business’s operations. A marketing consultant that pays attention to their client not only understands their point of view but also develops relationships based on trust

2. A willingness to learn and grow

A good marketing consultant will offer expertise in a wide variety of marketing specializations. The best consultants are continually expanding their capabilities within new areas of ​digital marketing​, ​social media and ​public relations to deliver clients more effective marketing strategies. They understand the rapidly changing environment, and never miss the necessity to evolve or risk becoming professionally obsolete.

3. Understands value

A good marketing consultant recognizes the value of great content and understands how to leverage content marketing to grow your business. Generating relevant content for your target audience is indeed a reliable, cost-effective, and successful tactic to grow your traffic and boost conversions. For a successful content marketing strategy, you need to know who your audience is.

Good consultants are able to clearly define your target audience; helping you create more personalized content that is relevant.

4. Trustworthy

One of the biggest priorities of any marketing consultant working with a new client is establishing trust. Trust is built when someone knows they are getting what they expect, every time.

Establishing trust with your clients can be difficult as most clients are result-driven and need to see the end result before recognizing any positive outcomes. So, it’s important marketing consultants prove their contributions are worth more than their cost of hire.

A good marketing consultant will have a network of connections that promote their professional activities and achievements. Businesses’ should take the time to analyze consultants’ previous client tributes, website testimonials and LinkedIn endorsements to greater understand what they can offer.

5. A creative out of the box thinker

Good marketing consultants have the creative skills to come up with innovative campaigns and tactics that attract audiences in a new way. They work with staff to understand the business first, and then develop a marketing strategy that gains attention.

It’s hard to be creative when you’re doing the same thing every day which is why an independent marketing consultant can generate new ideas businesses may not have previously thought of. A good marketing consultant will work to weave businesses’ brand stories in a way that appeals to the market and gives an advantage over competitors in the same industry.

6. Adaptable to ever-changing circumstances

A good marketing consultant should be able to integrate new information and draw conclusions from it, switching from the detail to the big picture. Being able to respond to change with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn new ways to achieve targets is a key competency. Learning to ​embrace technology and ​live with ambiguity and uncertainty is the necessity of any marketing consultant.

7. Well presented

A good marketing consultant will present themselves with respect and dignity, demonstrating a hard-working mentality to their client.

A well-presented consultant leaves a good impression on others, which is appreciated by all. They look presentable every day, which helps demonstrate a marked difference in their confidence.

Furthermore, a well-presented marketing consultant will look at a challenge with excitement rather than apprehension, offering clients realistic timelines for completion of work, even when that timeline is contrary to what the client wants to hear.

8. Always willing to go the extra mile

Often businesses produce content without a clear picture of who they intend to target. A good marketing consultant takes the time to research your respective market and construct valuable content based on demographics and ​market trends​. They track gaps in the market in order to create opportunities for your product or service to meet the specific needs of those gaps.

9. Goal Oriented

A ​Key Performance Indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a business is achieving key business objectives. A good marketing consultant understands and applies the appropriate KPIs for your business allowing them to measure the performance of key marketing strategies and adjust them if necessary.

10. Strong Work Ethic

Part of a good work ethic is commitment and dedication to the job. A good marketing consultant knows how to focus on the task at hand with no distractions and usually work until they achieve the client’s goal successfully. Adopting a meticulous approach to their work ethic, they are reliable, professional, flexible and above all places an emphasis on quality.

There are plenty of marketing consultants on the market claiming they have the practice, means, and strategy to improve your business’ current marketing plan. But with so many consultants available, it can be overwhelming and daunting to separate the good from the bad.

If you’re considering working with a marketing consultant, they should possess a majority, if not all ten of the characteristics above. Fundamentally, a good marketing consultant has respect for your business, your time, and your point of view.

SEO, Just Another Useless Buzzword?

SEO, Just Another Useless Buzzword?

  • On : November 5, 2019

For many, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just another buzzword tossed in a sea of jargon promoted by marketers. However, SEO is much more than just a phrase. How can SEO become part of your game plan and marketing strategy for 2020?

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