Outsourcing your digital marketing needs to a professional agency can benefit your business. By partnering with a digital marketing agency, you can access a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and resources to help you achieve your marketing goals and grow your business. In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing needs.
Access to expertise and knowledge
One of the primary benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing needs is access to expertise and knowledge. A digital marketing agency has the knowledge and expertise to develop and execute a comprehensive digital marketing strategy tailored to your business needs. They can help you determine your target audience, select the channels to reach them and optimize your campaigns to generate the best possible results.
For small businesses, it can take time to keep up with the latest marketing trends and technologies. A digital marketing agency can provide you with access to the latest tools and technologies and insights into best practices for digital marketing. In addition, by partnering with an agency, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are effective and that you are reaching your target audience in the most efficient way possible.
Cost savings
Managing your digital marketing can take work. You can save time and money by outsourcing your digital marketing needs to a professional team. A digital marketing agency can help you avoid costly mistakes and maximize your return on investment, ensuring that your marketing efforts are as efficient and effective as possible.
By outsourcing your digital marketing needs, you can save time and resources you could spend on other aspects of your business. Some of these tasks include focusing on product development, customer service, and other areas critical to your business’s success.
Focus on core business functions.
Outsourcing your digital marketing needs can help you focus on your core business functions. By allowing a professional team to handle your digital marketing, you can focus on what you do best – running your business. In turn, you’ll be able to achieve better results and receive a higher return on investment from your marketing efforts.
By outsourcing your digital marketing needs, you can free up time and resources that you can spend on other aspects of your business. Doing so can help you achieve your business goals and grow your business more effectively.
Scalability
Digital marketing agencies can provide you with the flexibility and scalability you need to grow your business. They can adjust your marketing strategies based on your business needs and goals, ensuring you achieve the best possible results. As your business grows, a digital marketing agency can provide you with the resources and expertise you need to continue scaling your marketing efforts.
By working with a digital marketing agency, you can also benefit from their ability to adapt to changing market conditions. They can help you pivot your marketing strategies to respond to changes in your industry or the broader market. Outsource to help you stay ahead of the competition and achieve long-term success.
Ongoing support and analysis
A digital marketing agency can provide ongoing support and analysis to ensure your campaigns deliver the best results. They can monitor your campaigns, analyze your data, and adjust as needed to improve your marketing efforts continually. This ongoing support can help you stay ahead of the competition and achieve your business goals.
You can also benefit from their experience in optimizing campaigns by working with a digital marketing agency. They can help you identify underperforming areas of your campaigns and make recommendations for improvement. Ultimately, you’ll gain the experience to help you achieve better results and a higher return on investment from your marketing efforts.
In conclusion, outsourcing your digital marketing needs to a professional agency can benefit your business. By accessing expertise and knowledge, achieving cost savings, focusing on core business functions,
achieving scalability, and receiving ongoing support and analysis, you can ensure that your marketing efforts align with your business goals and are tailored to your target audience. As a result, you’ll achieve better results and a higher return on investment from your marketing efforts, allowing you to grow your business and stay ahead of the competition.
In a recent episode of A Little Marketing, we chatted with Sacha Brant, owner of Brand Scrubbers, about branding for businesses. Sacha spoke with us about what’s involved with branding and how to get started. Every business needs a brand. Your brand is the memorable impression you leave on customers and lets customers know what to expect from your company.
Sometimes it takes trial and error to establish a brand that works for your business. And that’s okay. Branding can be a learning curve.
Here’s what Sacha had to say:
Defining Branding with Sacha Brant
Sacha Brant from Brand Scrubbers talks branding as our guest on A Little Marketing.
Sacha tells us that branding is about what you, as a business owner, like and what your customer likes. So, when she’s first working with a client, she asks them questions about their business and customer to learn as much as possible about what the brand should look like: “We gotta know about the customer. Who are they? Where are they? What are they looking for? What are they selling, and why are they selling it?”
The next thing Sacha does is ask the business owner, “What do you like?” So whether it’s specific colours, fonts, designs, and other factors. “Then we take the two groups and marry them together.”
Sacha says the reason that she takes the business owner’s interests into account when branding is because “You have to get excited about your brand. You have to be passionate about your brand. If you’re not, it will not go where you want it to go.”
So essentially, branding is the marriage between what the business represents and how the business owner wants its brand to look.
Factors that Go into Branding
One of the first factors of branding is colour. “A lot of what colouring is, is an emotional response,” says Sacha. So for Sacha, colour is an integral part of branding, influencing how the business owner and customers feel about the brand.
Other factors include your business’s logo, message, tone, language, voice and name. Figuring out what direction you want to take all of these factors goes back to those original questions – such as who is your brand? What are you selling?
Sacha also mentions that branding is about a “vibe.” Sacha says, “People purchase things because of how it makes them feel…so when your branding plays upon that emotional impact piece, it’s opening the door for people a little faster because you’re making that connection just by the things that they’re seeing…this creates that feeling.”
Your branding should create a particular feeling or vibe.
“The more you can work [feeling] into your message, branding, look, and how you do everything, the better you’ll end up,” says Sacha.
Rebranding
When starting a new business, you have to establish a brand. But even established businesses sometimes need to rebrand. Whether your brand isn’t performing how you want it to or your business has changed since initially branding, sometimes rebranding is necessary.
Regarding rebranding, here’s Sacha’s suggestion, “Even if you’re doing a complete overhaul, we recommend keeping some of those original pieces because we don’t want to cause a complete system shock to your customers.”
Sacha suggests returning to those original questions and answers about your business during the rebranding process and asking, “Is all of this still relevant? If not, what is it now? That will then shape what you change the brand into.”
Dive Deeper into Branding for Your Business
We’ve only scratched the surface. We’d be here for days if we wrote down all of the valuable information about Branding that Sacha shared on our podcast. So be sure to check out the full episode here. And don’t forget to subscribe!
Shop Local Next Month. And The Month After That Too.
As so many of you know, October is Small Business Month. It’s a month designed to bring awareness and attention to hardworking business people and entrepreneurs who make our economy go. It’s also a great month to shop local.
The focus is generally on local businesses at our agency – the retailers, restaurants, clinics, and companies where you regularly do business. Essentially, the people you know and support in your neighbourhood.
Over the last year and a half, some have thrived, but many have struggled to find their footing. As a result, perhaps some of your favourite local businesses may even have closed shop. When they do, you miss them and maybe even wish you did more to support them.
The good news is that you can. Shop local starting today.
We strongly believe in shopping local and supporting the business owners who are closest in proximity to you. Perhaps they’re people who live right next door to you!
Think about these questions:
Who owns your favourite restaurant? The place where you can pick up a quick and easy dinner on the way home from work.
Who runs the dry cleaners you use?
Do you have a local mechanic who you trust with your car?
Where do you shop for your mom when it’s her birthday? Is there a boutique clothing store she likes?
What about your dentist? It just might be someone who lives a few blocks over.
Of course, not all of these examples may apply to you, but you get the idea. Supporting these hardworking business people feels good.
Think about the feeling you get when you go into any one of these establishments. Do you get a warm hello? Does someone onsite ask you about your family? Do you get greeted with a silly story or funny joke? Has the person become someone meaningful to you?
It Just Feels Good To Shop Local
You may answer yes to some of the above questions, no to others. But think about the feeling you have when you leave, when the business owner or staff makes you feel like family.
Well, sometimes your family needs help. With competition from Amazon and other big-box retailers who have taken their product catalogues online, local businesses need your support more than ever. So shop local and support those in your neighbourhood who need it most.
Doing Our Part, Too
These aren’t just empty words from us. When the pandemic started, we wanted to do our part too. We’ve done so by launching our Owner Stories series – interviews with entrepreneurs that we post on our website and share on social media to drive awareness for our participants. The series supports our clients, sure, but not only them. It’s open to virtually anyone looking for a positive story about their business to share. Participation doesn’t come with any obligation. We’re happy to help build positive buzz for the small business community. And encourage others to shop local too.
We also offer free consultations, as we’re happy to hop on a video conference and offer advice to small business owners. Again, with no obligation.
Supporting local businesses does good. It helps your local economy, supports your neighbours and neighbourhood, and brings focus to people who work their tails off for their families and futures. And if you owned a shop or a corner store, wouldn’t it feel great if your neighbours thought to shop local to support you?
Local Business Owner? Be featured on our website to drive awareness of your business.
If you’ve been following us for a while, or if we’ve recently connected on social media, you may have noticed that we regularly feature local business owners from across North America on our website and social media. And there are two reasons for that!
First, because we love getting to know our community and chatting with other local business owners. Second because we strive to be a resource for local businesses everywhere, by sharing information, trading success stories, and making business connections.
We’re always looking to expand our network and feature new entrepreneurs and businesses on our website. The following is a list of opportunities we have available for you. Just reach out if you’d like to learn more or be featured!
Note: these features are absolutely free, we don’t accept payment to appear on our website.
You do not have to be a client to be featured in our Owner Stories Series – or anywhere else on our website, for that matter! If you’d like to participate, Mark would love to chat with you.
Guest Blogs
We have an active blog page that we update quite regularly that’s full of great marketing tips and advice for local business owners. Some of our personal favourites include:
We are always looking for experts who would like to share their knowledge here. If you have advice you’d like to share to help other business owners, we’d love to hear from you.
Case Studies
We have a number of case studies that highlight the successes of real local business owners with Directory Marketing, Google My Business, Paid Search, Remarketing, E-Commerce, and/or Review Marketing.
Industries we currently have featured include Car Dealerships, Eateries, Jewellers, Opticians, and Independent Retailers. If you’ve had success with local marketing tactics, whether you’re in one of these industries or another, we’d love to feature you! Send us a message, and let’s chat about your story.
Of course, not only will we feature your business on our website, but across our social media channels as well, driving increased awareness of your business and services along the way.
Remember, being featured also gives you something to share on your social channels, allowing you to point to content about your business with pride.
Years ago, when we launched 10-20 Marketing, we were asked what 10-20 means. So why did we choose 10-20 Marketing as the name of our agency?
10-20 is CB radio speak for “location.” As in, “What’s your 10-20?” (At the time, we answered it in a blog post.) Our primary service then, and still now, is local listings management, a strategy to help location-based businesses build awareness and drive leads via directory marketing – and foot traffic to a specific location.
It’s a service that’s proven and works. And it’s all focused on your business location. Everything fit together well.
Pivoting along with our clients
Then the pandemic hit. Retailers were locked down. Suddenly, for those who weren’t among the essential service providers, their specific retail location was no longer the most relevant source of income. As a result, many of our clients pivoted to create an income stream via the web.
At the time, we felt a great responsibility to help our clients weather the storm. We also felt a great responsibility to support local businesses in general. So we pivoted as well.
We launched our “Owner Stories” series, which put the spotlight on business owners and allowed them to point to themselves with pride. We brought in experts who could help our clients build awareness online. And, rather than only specializing in driving foot traffic, we looked at different ways to drive qualified web traffic to their e-commerce and general websites. Getting leads and closing them online became our top priority because survival was our clients’ top priority.
Google Ads and paid social media were one way. Managing our clients’ presence on social media was another. Ensuring they became set up to measure the success of our campaigns was vital too. We walked our clients through these processes, took the load off their shoulders and kept our promise to provide low-cost solutions. It was not time to take advantage of business owners who were worried about survival.
So why is our name a little bit like Ted Lasso?
So here we are almost two years later. And some people may think that our name is still all about location, location, location even though today we promise to drive traffic to your website too. So why does our name, 10-20 Marketing, remain so meaningful to us?
Because, in the same way our clients showed an ability to change, we accepted that the meaning behind our name has too. At first, 10|20 Marketing was about a physical location. And it still is, but it’s also about more.
It’s more about a mindset.
Rebecca: Oh, do you believe in ghosts, Ted? Ted: I do. But more importantly, I believe they need to believe in themselves.
It’s about where our clients are on their journey to success. It’s about what’s in their heads and what’s in their hearts. Whether that’s a physical location. A website. Social Media. It’s also about the buyer and where they are on their journey.
10-20 Marketing is about believing in your success. About helping you get there, no matter where you are.
Last week we had the chance to catch up with the Mayor of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Alex Bottausci. This article is the result of that conversation.
How Alex Bottausci And The City of Dollard Are Supporting Local Businesses
It’s been a little over a year since the pandemic began, and local businesses across the country have been battling lockdowns, new and changing regulations, and uncertainty for most of the past 13 or 14 months. While minimizing the spread of COVID-19 has been a priority, it has without a doubt been a difficult year for businesses, especially independent small businesses. While business owners and entrepreneurs have been pivoting, so have the towns and cities in which they operate. In Dollard-des-Ormeaux, located on the West Island of Montreal, Mayor Alex Bottausci shared some insights into what shifts have been made, how the city is helping businesses, and what the post-pandemic landscape of Dollard-des-Ormeaux could look like.
When The Pandemic First Reached Quebec
A year ago, Mayor Bottausci explained, the messaging from officials to businesses and individuals was largely education-based:
“At the start, no one knew what was going on. How can a business owner suddenly be expected to deal with COVID-19?”
A lot of time went into first learning about the virus and then transmitting the latest information to business owners. And not only transmitting the information but helping businesses understand and implement health protocols; for example, setting up aisles for appropriate traffic flow.
“A lot of information about the virus was sent to business owners in very formal, official French-language documents, whereas many are Anglophones [or French is their second language]. We helped the best we could with understanding, helping find masks, etc.,” said Alex Bottausci.
The past year has been a long learning curve, but after the initial wave of unknowns the pandemic brought with it, small businesses and communities have now entered a “new reality.”
“Keeping your distance, wearing masks – these things are ingrained now.”
Shifting From Education to Tangible Help
Things shifted from education about the virus to how the city could best help small businesses. The Montreal, Provincial, and Federal governments were able to come together and provide grants for business owners. Mayor Bottausci gave credit to his fellow government counterparts for their collaborative efforts on many fronts. The collaboration includes information about all available funding programs across government levels was shared with local businesses to provide as much relief as possible.
Dollard-des-Ormeaux adopted a Shop Local, Buy Local slogan, and Mayor Bottausci was keen to put the city’s money where its mouth was. For example, last year’s virtual Christmas event featured gifts from local vendors, and the focus going forward is to continue to keep it as local as possible. For Alex Bottausci it’s not just about “keep it in Quebec or the city of Montreal,” but right down to his riding of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux whenever possible.
Infrastructure projects also became a big focus as many restaurants and cafes began opening patios and expanding outdoor dining. Laws were relaxed to allow permits to be granted much more quickly, and car dealerships were permitted to fly flags advertising their businesses.
“Drastic times call for drastic measures,” said Mayor Bottausci. It was important to him and his office to pull out all the stops and allow businesses to take action that would help them survive the pandemic.
The city of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux recently launched a new website. While there are still updates coming, it’s a work in progress Mayor Bottausci is proud of.
“There is a strong business community in Dollard-Des-Ormeaux,” he said. “One of my dreams as Mayor is to really build up that community. We wanted to make sure there was a space on the site where business owners can go to find the information they need quickly and easily – information on things like permits.”
Fostering A Team Environment At City Hall Also A Priority
Mayor Bottausci also took a moment to focus on the hard work his team has been doing.
“It is easy to focus on the negative when talking about the pandemic, but the City rose to the challenge,” he said. “We’re stronger not only as individuals but as a team. We continue to give services to the community and have become more nimble in how we do that.”
“Moving forward, we have to ask ourselves: were all of these stops really necessary? I think there will be a shift back in some ways, but not totally.”
What does the city of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux look like in the future? Developers are already changing their plans by moving away from large office buildings to creating small eco-systems, with local businesses on the first floor and residential quarters above, the Mayor said.
“It creates an ecosystem where you come home from work and pick up what you need from within your own building. You can’t go from zero to 100, but you can go a little bit at a time.”
For Mayor Alex Bottausci, that shift is what it’s all about: Creating environments conducive to businesses thriving – now, and post-pandemic, too.
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, 10|20 Marketing has been supporting small businesses by sharing stories of business owners to shine some light on their effects and keep them in the news. If you own a business in DDO or anywhere for that matter, we’d be happy to share your story too. Just let us know you’re interested and we’ll be happy to work on your story too.
