In 2020, digital marketing agencies faced many challenges in their business as do most of the industries. However, they came up with solutions that made the digital transformation possible.
When 2020 is about to end, it is obvious that digitization became a lot more crucial this year which creates lots of new opportunities for digital agencies and marketers.
With the advantage of working from home, locations don’t matter that much and digital tools help us to partner with third parties anywhere in the world. Being global made us all connected to each other even when we are only able to communicate through online platforms.
In this article, we have shared the improvement of the digital world and how digital trends and strategies have changed.
WFH – What Has Changed in the Agency Environment?
Also, in our daily lives when we were used to creating face-to-face dialogues, we began to communicate through video call tools. Those helped us generate our weekly or daily workloads, see our loved ones, and even create ad campaigns.
Furthermore, the tools developed by both big tech companies and new startups helped us more than ever.
Also, remote working has had a great place in the lives of digital agencies.
The Good Marketer
The Good Marketer announces incredible expansion and successes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company says that they doubled their human resources, successfully recruiting and taking on new talent during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Luminary
To celebrate their 21st year, the agency Luminary has traded canapés for a campaign to support its charity clients.
How Did Digital Agencies Respond to Coronavirus?
The digital agency world is used to having meetings with clients, organizing events, and celebrating the results of awards. While the whole team stays at home, they also generate the client meetings virtually and take attention to the sustainability of the virtual meetings.
For sure, they have continued to deliver amazing results with the campaigns they created for their clients. While doing that, they have also won some awards that increased their reputation. In addition, they have come across the cameras and started doing online webinars that also helped digital marketers to stay up to date and develop themselves.
Besides, agency culture is also important and you have to be there to understand the difference of being a part of a digital marketing agency. It feels young and fresh to be in a creative environment like this. Therefore, the agency people continued their in-house events like 10th-year celebrations or new members welcoming events through online events.
2020 also was the year for self-development, an opportunity to improve industry knowledge, learn new skills, and increase digital awareness. Digital agencies also wanted to create an environment where they can share information and come together with marketers. With this, they aimed to increase awareness of digital transformation, and the ability to use digital trends as an advantage.
Here are some digital agencies that create a learning environment:
Major Tom
Major Tom is doing webinars focusing on Facebook, Amazon strategy and more subjects that help us foresee the future of digital marketing trends.
Croud
Croud is also having webinars with a concept of “Croud Academy Live”. From WeChat marketing to creative link building, they help us understand the cornerstones of digital marketing trends.
Impression
Impression is hosting a live webinar helping you to understand how conversion-rate-optimisation (CRO) can drive revenue for your business.
Ecommerce Campaigns and Ideas From Digital Marketing Agencies in 2020
“The golden times of eCommerce” is one of the terms that define how 2020 has been for both the brands and digital agencies. From fashion brands to restaurants, eCommerce service became such an obligation.
Especially the industries that struggled the most during the coronavirus outbreak became the ones that needed the most to show off on eCommerce environments. Either on eCommerce platforms or on their own eCommerce websites, it was necessary to make their customers be able to shop online.
Here are some of the inspiring eCommerce ideas from digital marketing agencies:
Major Tom
Major Tom is on the board of eCommerce Marketplace as a digital marketing agency. After realizing that adopting some of the changes will make for stronger businesses, they launched an eCommerce site: TinCan.
Major Tom’s marketplace features a complimentary list of professional services. Their site allows customers and prospects to transact quickly and engage with Major Tom on bite-sized marketing services.
They aimed to improve their foundation for growth during and after the pandemic. What’s more, this will also allow for the growth of the companies listed as well as a trusted platform to engage in an eCommerce world with organizations that are not otherwise set up this way.
Propeller
Third-party eCommerce platforms like Shopify became a way to increase online visibility and a chance to sell online. Propeller launched a brand new website for one of their customers, Fullgreen. The website was built on Shopify bringing their range of nutritious, 100% plant-based products D2C.
The agency’s two decades of invaluable experience with hospitality and eCommerce to many of their clients in the food and beverage segment was a factor in their success with creating the perfect eCommerce strategy.
Innovative Projects of Digital Marketing Agencies Affected by COVID-19
The days we are witnessing are sometimes the worst and it is hard to survive for most of us. However, we should accept the fact that these challenging times like this teach us a lot and make us discover new solutions. This way, we can learn how to to get away with the negative results and embrace the positive side.
So, the winners during the COVID-19 outbreak have become the ones that help us breathe with their innovative works. Let’s explore the impressive digital solutions:
RNO1
RNO1 is another digital agency that made it possible to sound differently in the digital world. They built a future-proof digital marketing subscription called Ryde for the modern brand and team. Their aim is to dive deeper than ever before into cross-channel digital marketing strategies of brands and businesses. The 60+ day marketing cycles created by RNO1 can be the key to success in 2020 and beyond.
From paid advertising to the visual style they offer a range of services that might help brands carry their businesses to the next level of digital marketing.
Also, having technology partners such as; Facebook, Google, and Shopify, Ryde aims to drive revenue/sales, get user signups, boost brand awareness (social), elevate your visual style, and more.
Major Tom
When restrictions began because of the coronavirus pandemic, food and beverage became one of the most affected industries. As a result, digital solutions helped businesses survive and develop their online presences to meet their audience. Based on this thought, digital agency Major Tom came up with a solution. The two companies, Major Tom and Flipdish, started partnering to help restaurants get set up to accept online orders instead of third-party delivery services.
Knowing the importance of delivery services, many restaurants opened one. So, having their own online ordering system can be a saviour when the global economy is suffering because of the pandemic.
WEBITMD
When consumers spend time at home and look for information online, chatbots are here to create online interaction with customers in a fast way possible. Also, chatbots can answer many customer questions on behalf of companies and can be an assistant streamlining the sales process.
Growth marketing & sales agency WEBITMD draws attention to the value of chatbot marketing. They mention that online shopping, researching is a trend now and is likely to stay after COVID-19 ends as well.
Crowd
Sometimes, Zoom talks might be boring and we feel like we need to connect our colleagues just for fun. Digital agency Crowd noticed this need and started working on an innovative new project with their partners at StoryFutures and Royal Holloway, University of London.
The game called The ZoomHeadz involves Sway To PlayTM, which is a new technology developed by Crowd and lets participants of video calls compete in a virtual racing game. This sounds to be a trend in 2021 as the virus is not estimated to go away in the following months.
Even fun backgrounds while using video call tools are great to have and make us happy. Do you think that there are multiple games like this? Let’s imagine video calls that take hours and are still enjoyable.
ADAO
Midlands-based digital agency ADAO made a paid-for tool Sweetnr, available on a complimentary basis for the duration of business closures during COVID-19.
As it became necessary for businesses to inform their clients about their status during COVID-19, ADAO wanted to help the ones that struggle. Sweetnr is fully customisable in terms of its design and text that can be added. Briefly, it helps businesses to add their status during COVID-19 to their homepage. Plus, the callouts are customisable and to be styled. They offer a free trial and paid options that help businesses inform their customers in the best and clearest way possible.
Resources and Guides Created by Digital Agencies in 2020 – Foreseeing the Digital Trends in 2021
2020 has become a year to be remembered with the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and digital transformation that comes along with it. So, what are the new services of digital agencies that can also help digital acceleration? What will be waiting for us in 2021 for the digital world?
Digital marketing agencies shared their experiences and the results of their research with us. Seeing all will make you understand the outcomes of being digital.
Here are the suggestions to be remembered and digital trends to be applied for those who are looking for a big development in the upcoming year:
Westwin
COVID-19 outbreak has been dominating our lives for so long and we are discovering new ways in many areas such as customer behaviour. The leading tech-driven cross-border company, Westwin, help us to better understand the effects of COVID-19 on customer behaviour. They have conducted new and extensive research on global search traffic data and consumers from the US, UK, Australia, Japan and Russia.
From their insight, you can understand what the opportunities are that the change of consumers adjusting to life at home. It also shows that new chances offered particularly for online services such as office, online education and eCommerce applications.
Croud
Croud’s specialist in-housing division, Serpico by Croud, recently led a report conducted by global research house Censuswide. The results revealed the effects of the pandemic on businesses’ plans to in-house digital marketing capabilities. These will show the interests of digital marketing decision-makers in 2020.
Every year, digital marketers try to create the best campaigns during the holiday season. Croud also highlights some of the key areas to focus on implementing within your Black Friday marketing strategy. The details show key takeaways for successfully navigating changing consumer behaviours and maximizing revenue during this unique sales period.
Promising Services of Digital Marketing Agencies in 2020 and 2021
CRO – Conversation Rate Optimization
Conversation rate optimization (CRO) is defined as the systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors that take an action which is desired to. This could be filling out a form, becoming customers, and other actions that help you complete your goals.
While some are not aware of the effects of CRO yet, some digital agencies seem to focus on this service.
Nottingham-based digital marketing agency Impression has launched their new services specialising in conversion rate optimisation (CRO). What’s more, they appointed five new members of staff to the business. This highlights the importance of CRO with the increased service demand from the agency’s existing clients. Also, it sounds that it will be a digital trend for agencies in the upcoming years.
UX Strategy
It is essential to make the user experience the priority while developing any strategy.
As a digital agency, understanding the needs of your audience even before them is crucial. SHERPA is one of the creative agencies that come up with a new, innovative consulting service; UX strategy call.
The agency launched UX Strategy Call, a new productized service aiming to create better UX strategies. This new consulting service includes a one-hour video call when project owners come in touch with SHERPA’s experts to examine their projects or ideas from a different perspective. What’s more, they have the chance to get recommendations and acquire many insights from the agency’s specialists.
It’s inspiring to see their creative action and a future-thinking project that thinks the priorities of their clients.
Video Ads
Especially among mobile users, video ads do well. The reason is that the number of people watching videos on mobile devices increases day by day. And this is why video ads let you pass more information in a more effective way.
Before deciding on your marketing budget for 2021, you should better consider video ads as a digital trend too.
Remote Selling
When remote working has become a matter of fact, many industries have started to think about the future of selling. Is it also possible to maintain selling processes remotely?
WEBITMD explains tips for finding success with remote selling and helps you to understand the importance of online meetings with potential clients.
Mobile-Indexing
As the new year is here to come, Google’s mobile-first indexing update will also get ready in March 2021. Google’s mobile-first indexing update is scheduled for March 2021 which will remove all desktop-only sites from Google’s index entirely. As Thrive Internet Marketing Agency mentioned in their article, you can foresee the needs before and implement the best practices before 2021.
YouTube Marketing
For 19 years, Wikipedia has been offering us many resources to reach the information we are looking for. It helps us with our work, school, and daily lives. And for 15 years, Youtube has come into our lives with videos for fun and learning resources.
As videos become more and more reachable, Youtube’s popularity has gone bigger. There are children that started Youtube as a hobby and now they make money from it as a career. Also, tutorials, live webinars, online courses, all of them became reachable thanks to Youtube.
So, especially the Z and Alpha generation who are born and raised with Youtube, are used to get educated through Youtube videos. Maybe it also helps them to get online courses as an obligation because of the pandemic. Elespacio enlightens us with their research with the famous Z and Alpha generations and their education habits that might be a bit interesting for some.
Digital Actions That Is Expected in 2021
Some of the trends are certain to be more popular in 2021. Plus, some will be new and we will be excited to add them to our list during 2021.
Here are some actions that we can do to embrace digital trends expected in 2021:
- Benefiting from digital marketing tools to carry out a healthy team conversation
- Improving in-house capabilities with the rise of the need for new services
- Developing online learning opportunities with webinars and virtual events
- Creating innovative campaigns through digital transformation
In this blog post, we have shared the focus points of digital marketing agencies in 2020 and their expectations from 2021. We hope that you can improve your capabilities for the new digital marketing trends in 2021.
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