Digital Marketing in 2018 – Growth Hacking Our Way Forward

Hi! Ryan Schulz, founder of Gold Promotion, here with a long-overdue blog post and company update. Since starting the digital agency in 2014, the business has gone through quite an evolution. During this time, we have explored multiple models from affiliate marketing to client services to lead generation, and have increased our sophistication both from a tactical level and from a business perspective. We have had the pleasure of working with a variety of clients, both B2B and B2C, on projects of varying complexity; from simple website redesign and redevelopment projects to larger projects that include a full-scale overhaul of the company’s online presence including sales funnels and customer acquisition strategies. By and large these campaigns have been wildly successful, as we have always offered a very high-quality service that is extremely client-focused.

As an agency, we pride ourselves in producing performance-based strategies that are extremely well-researched and data backed, as well as compelling and creative. We understand the increasing frustration from business owners around the level of service in the digital marketing industry, and we believe that building an agency that is compensated based upon measurable KPI’s and performance metrics is the only way forward. With so many fly-by-night operators in the digital marketing space, it is imperative that the agency either have a strong body of work backed by case studies, or alternatively that they offer a compensation agreement that is built around agreed-upon goals such as increases in search position, website traffic, conversions, revenue, or margin. Since we often have skin in the game, you will find that we are much more effective than your traditional digital marketing agency.

Moreover, we have found that specialization is becoming increasingly important. As a marketer, it is very difficult to understand the complexity and nuances of each industry at a level that allows you to articulate the value of a business and do a truly effective job at marketing the business and selling their products or services. Even at a local level this is true, where you have Professional Services businesses that are highly technical professions like health, legal, finance, IT, engineering, architecture and more. As novices flood the industry armed with nothing more than a $500 SEO course, it is more important than ever to vet the person or company that you are doing business with and ensure that they are well aligned with your goals and well-educated on your industry.

Not a day goes by where we do not receive an onslaught of poorly written automated emails offering us mediocre digital marketing services. With so much noise in the marketplace, it is no wonder that customers are frustrated. Us operators and agency owners are also frustrated, as snake oil salesman leave their mark on the industry and make establishing a trusted relationship even more difficult. It is for that reason that Gold Promotion has diversified into multiple areas of digital outside of client services.

After detailed analysis and careful consideration, it is clear that Gold Promotion’s media, affiliate, and lead generation properties will grow the value of the business much more quickly if we choose to limit our client portfolio, as these assets provide a better multiple on sale as compared to most digital agencies. We have also come to realize that the difficulties in maintaining the level of quality and consistency that we are known for make it difficult to scale the typical client-services focused agency model effectively, and as such, we are no longer interested in competing for volume clients.

Gold Promotion is a boutique digital marketing agency that is built on performance. Given our specific set of skills, it is not in our interest to spread ourselves too thin with client work when we could be investing in company-owned assets in the media, information, and lead generation space. We have become increasingly selective in who we do business with and try to handpick clients that they share our beliefs on accountability and understand the power of using digital for direct response marketing, but also because they are well funded. We understand that we are not the firm for everybody, nor do we want to be.

As 2018 unfolds, we will reveal some of the other projects that we have been working on. We will continue to productize our services and refine our go to market strategy. In addition, we have developed several pieces of marketing software and related-infrastructure which we are considering bringing to market. Be sure to check back and add this site to your favorite RSS reader because this year, we will be updating this blog with more value-packed content based around the tools and strategies that we are using to build launch and grow businesses online every day. We may even release more free tools like the instant SEO auditor.

The hope is to help educate the entrepreneur and small business owners as we continue along our journey and maybe attract a few high-value clients in the process.

Wishing you all the best this holiday season and looking forward to an exciting and prosperous 2018!

 

-Ryan Schulz

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Categories: Agency News.

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