Most agencies really have a hard time finding the right set of keywords they should use for their SEO and PPC campaigns. Needless to say that PPC keywords won't necessarily work for the organic SEO ranking of your client's website.

This article will discuss different types of keywords that you should be familiar with as a marketing agency for maximum impact and to achieve astounding results for your clients.

Why Are Keywords Important?

Google is evolving and has been testing different algorithms to provide the best search results for its users. So, choosing the right cluster of keywords for your content marketing and SEO has become more important than ever.

There are many types of keywords prevalent to rank your website on top. From short queries to lengthy sentence-long search phrases, you can use a mix of different keywords to be an SEO superstar.

So, carefully choose your target keywords because they determine your page's visibility on search engines.

We can divide these keywords into the following categories.

• SEO Keywords By Length
• Short Tail Keywords
• Long Tail Keywords
• Mid-Tail Keywords
• SEO Keywords By Buyer Intent
• Informational Keywords
• Navigational Keywords
• Commercial Keywords
• Transactional Keywords
• Targeting Keywords For Specific Industry
• Market Segment Keywords
• Customer-Defining Keywords
• Product & Brand-Based Keywords
• Geo-Targeted Keywords

SEO Keywords By Length

As is evident from the name, these keywords vary by their length. Length is the primary consideration for this subset of keywords. It reflects the customer's intent regarding the information they are looking for.

What's more, you can also get to know the specific stage of a prospect in their buyer's journey through these keywords. These keywords are of the following tree types.

1. Short-Tail Keywords

People who used most of the search terms in the early stages of the Internet were short-tail keywords. These keywords are still highly popular and have a high search volume. From weather and news updates to celebrity searches, basic information and educational searches fall into this category.

We also refer to them as focus keywords. These are the top keywords, which you can further expand based on the need and search intent of the user.

Since these types of keywords contain broader and highly popular search terms, they have high competition. Single-word keywords are not necessarily precise and don't exactly reflect what a user is looking for.

Image Source: Sherpa Marketing

For example, "restaurants near me" has a much higher search volume than "restaurants" and "restaurant" because it is unclear what the users are looking for when they use the latter two keywords.

To make the search meaningful, we need to narrow the search using ancillary words.

Image Source: AHREFs

Here is the search demand curve based on the length of the keywords. So, technically, very short-tail keywords don't necessarily have a high demand except for informational keywords such as Amazon, Apple, iPhone, & Barack Obama.

Image Source: AHREFs

2. Long-Tail Keywords

These keywords comprise more than two or three words and are peculiar and highly useful for marketers as they are highly specific regarding search intent. Some examples of long-tail keywords are as follows.

• Best free digital marketing tools
• Can meditation make your smarter
• Free games download for PC

Despite their low search volume, these keywords have a high potential to boost your page's search engine rankings and visibility. Since these are highly intent-based search terms, their conversion rates are pretty high. They attract your target audience more precisely than any other type of keywords.

Image Source: Sherpa Marketing

3. Mid-Tail Keywords

The subset that falls between the short and long-tail keywords is referred to as mid-tail keywords. They have moderate search volumes.

In the previous example, you can see a long tail keyword ā Free games download for PC. "Free Games" is a medium-length keyword here.

SEO Keywords by Buyer Intent

Buyer intent is a powerful signal for search engines to filter searches for users. It is further divided into four categories.

4. Informational Keywords

People use informational keywords to learn about an object, fact, product, or service. Most of these search terms begin with interrogative words such as 'how,' 'what,' and 'where,' etc.

5. Navigational Keywords

People use navigational keywords to get more information about a product and brand. In that case, people are generally aware of the product and store but need additional information.

6. Commercial Keywords

This is typically related to the consideration stage of the buyer's journey. These searches are mostly about price or product comparisons with similar market items.

7. Transactional Keywords

These keywords are related to the final stage in the buyer's journey, which is the decision stage.

People use transactional keywords when they have already searched online and compared different features and prices. They are happy and satisfied with the product and are ready to make a purchase.

SEO Keywords For Specific Industries

These search terms are industry specific and can vary from one industry to another.

8. Market Segment Keywords

This set of keywords is generic and belongs to a specific industry or its verticals. You can use the keywords that best represent your products and can be understood by your target audience.

For example, a clothing brand can use 'suits' as a keyword.

9. Customer-Defining Keywords

These are customer-specific keywords. Businesses use them to target customers with common traits or demographic or psychographic features such as gender, age, etc.

For example, in the previous example, you can use 'suits for men', 'apparel for teens,' etc. You can easily notice that these keywords come with a context.

10. Product & Brand-Based Keywords

When keywords come with brand names in them, conversion rates become higher. These keywords are generally used to target brand-loyal customers.

Image Source: PPCexpo

11. Geo-Targeted Keywords

Marketers use location-specific keywords to attract traffic for local businesses. A HubSpot survey reveals that 46% of Google searches are about local businesses and information.

Search queries like 'where can I buy liquor in Texas' fall into this category.

Final Words

You can grasp a basic understanding of the different types of keywords used in content marketing and SEO here. It would help you in keyword selection to achieve high rankings for your web page on Search Engine Research Pages (SERPs.) Local keywords hold immense power.

As a marketer, you should know how to use keywords to attract traffic and high rankings. Ideally, it would help if you used a mix of short-tail, mid-tail, and long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are highly conversion oriented and help you quickly rank on SERPs compared to short-tail and mid-tail keywords.

Similarly, intent-based keywords, industry-specific keywords, and keywords with demographic and psychographic context are highly useful in inbound and content marketing and help you gain high rankings and attract loads of traffic in much less time.

Growth hacking is a concept that's rapidly gaining traction among business owners and marketers.

Inspired by the inefficiencies of traditional practices, creative entrepreneurs are seeking out ways to scale quickly and intelligently. Thought leaders are creating and implementing new growth tactics that can help new agencies reach their sales goals faster.

However, not everyone is in love with the idea of “hacking.”

In this article, we'll clear up any misconceptions you may have about growth hacking. We'll show you some examples of hacks in action, and teach you some proven strategies that can help you reach your agency goals this coming year.

What Is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking is the practice of utilizing carefully selected, cost-effective marketing techniques to achieve scalability and growth quickly.

Businesses and marketers have set expectations of what needs to be done to maintain the status quo. You need to publish content to your site, optimize for SEO, run paid campaigns, and get on social media.

However, every online business is practicing the same exact tried-and-true techniques to boost its discoverability and sales. As a result, the digital marketing landscape is aggressively competitive and it can take longer than desired to achieve growth. No matter how you cut it, maintaining a successful brand requires patience and determination.

Forward-thinking business leaders aren't satisfied with current progress. They're now leveraging resources to uncover new ways that might lead to more rapid growth. However, they need to do so without neglecting daily responsibilities or placing a financial burden on the agency.

This effectively describes a growth hacker's mindset.

Image Source: FourWeekMBA

A growth hacker is interested in testing new methods of digital marketing. They're aiming to disrupt the normal flow and reach new customers quickly while using minimal expenses and resources. Safe and effective growth stems from selling more while spending as little as possible to do so.

Growth Hacker vs Growth Marketer

If you research the growth hackerspace, you're going to come across the term growth marketer.

Both are effectively the same idea.

The reason for the name difference is the inherent stigma that comes with the term “hacker.” “Hacking” is a loaded term that leads people to think of:

• Taking shortcuts
• Cheating the system
• Taking advantage of others
• Stealing success without providing value

Thus, growth hacking becomes a misnomer for many. Instead, they opt for the term growth marketer to veer away from negative connotations and emphasize the importance of their work.

The truth is that there is no way to cheat the system. Marketers have certainly tried, which is why there are a variety of black hat techniques like link selling, cloaking, or PBNs. Eventually, Google catches on and blacklists the genuine “hackers” to maintain fair, competitive results.

Calling yourself a growth hacker versus a growth marketer amounts to preference. Neither are abusing any systems. Instead, they're exceptionally skilled and knowledgeable marketers and salespeople that aren't afraid to risks and experiment with standard marketing practices. They demonstrate a deep understanding of the product and the audience in order to expedite results.

Image Source: Grow with Ward

Growth Hacking Benefits

Since most traditional marketing techniques require patience before you see their results, growth hacking tactics help you scale intelligently sooner.

Growth hacking techniques like paid advertising on social media channels like TikTok help you improve your cash flow. You can use this additional revenue to further boost your business.

The greatest benefit of implementing such tactics is that they help you overcome initial business costs and the investment required to implement traditional marketing methods.

Discovering and implementing new cost-effective solutions before others provides you an edge over your competition.

Growth Hacking Examples

To demonstrate the viability of growth hacking, let's take a look at some examples from brands you may know.

Growth Hacking Example 1 - Constant Contact's Free Trial

Constant Contact is one of the most popular email marketing automation platforms available. They help other brands like yours boost their engagement and sales by enabling you to deliver smart email marketing campaigns.

Their growth hack is to let your agency in on the action at zero cost.

The free trial is fairly standard practice. Most companies offer seven to thirty days depending on the nature of the service. Constant Contact saw room to beat those offers and provides two full months of nearly-complete access.

This is a substantial amount of time to allow prospects to get integrated. They're not investing any expense, so there's zero risk as they experiment with the various features. By the end of the trial period, they are likely to invest a lot of effort into the platform to get the most out of the offer.

Getting people familiar with your service is essential for growth. But, allowing those users to fall in love with the product is one of the best ways to build a larger community. But, what do you do after the offer ends?

Constant Contact allows users to keep their progress for the low cost of $10. Not only is this relatively affordable for almost anyone, but it's also a no-brainer investment for an agency. It's easier to keep working within the platform you've been using to upend your business and move it elsewhere after two months.

Bear in mind that this company can do this because of its existing scale and revenue. The decision isn't as simple as giving it away for free. Their accountants ran a cost-benefit analysis of providing such a benefit and presumably predicted furthered growth and sales as a result.

When curating your free trial, think about what you want to provide versus what you can afford. Smart scaling must minimize expenses while reaching as many new consumers as possible.

Growth Hacking Example 2 - MeUndies Ongoing Referral Program

If you follow channels online or listen to podcasts, you've heard of MeUndies.

This trendy underwear and clothing brand became a household name thanks to its catchy name, product quality, and reach. Much of that brand awareness comes from influencer marketing, which we'll get to later in this article.

For this growth hacking example, we're focusing on retention. MeUndies retains customers by offering them a strong referral program.

Existing customers get their own referral code. They share this with others to bring attention to the brand and to bring them more sales. The reward for doing this is a $20 credit every time a person makes a purchase of $12 or more.

That credit is effectively the cost of pair of underwear or a couple of pairs of socks. The savings incentive is huge when asking your audience to spread the word.

However, MeUndies knows its capabilities with this program. The stipulation of requiring a minimum spend ensures that the program remains profitable and worthwhile. They may be giving you a strong discount, but they're hacking their way to more customers and sales with each new referral.

Growth Hacking Example 3 - Google Drive's Free Storage

Google is a household name. Countless users under their umbrella make use of their office products by making them free to use. Among these is Google Drive, an online storage space to compete with the likes of DropBox or OneDrive.

Google makes use of a common hacking strategy by giving away its product for free - with limitations. It costs nothing for users to create a Google account and gain access to 15 GB of free storage space.

For comparison, the two aforementioned competitors offer 2 GB and 5 GB respectively. Google's size and recognition grant it the ability to provide a much stronger incentive to become a part of its ecosystem. You're then able to easily store and share files from other Google office programs like Sheets, Docs, and Slides.

While 15 GB for free is generous, Google makes it easy for businesses to get their entire team on board by offering a plan for just $12. They recognize how powerful their offer is and carefully planned this upgrade point knowing that this hacking strategy will work.

Growth Hacking Strategies

Growing an agency quickly is possible, but you need to know how to make it happen.

There are several key components of digital marketing that agencies must make careful use of to improve key performance indicators. Keep your current growth strategies in mind when checking out these seven crucial growth hacking tactics.

1. Reinvent Your Content Strategy

Content is the cornerstone of every message you send to your audience online.

Content touches upon all of the following areas, making them inextricably connected:

• Organic Search (SEO)
• Website copy
• Blogs
• PPC Campaigns
• Email Marketing
• Video Marketing

This is why it's baffling to see so many brands put little effort or care into their content creation or delivery strategies. Thousands of brands are vying for your attention online daily, and you only have a few seconds to capture their attention. Your agency is no different in this struggle.

There are tactics you can implement to get more mileage out of your content. Try introducing these to your content team and start measuring your results.

A. Repurpose High-Converting Content

When you make more than you spend on creating something, it's considered a great investment.

High-converting content should be treated no differently.

We focus particularly on your content that is already creating sales as it's an established success. Instead of snuffing out that flame, consider the ways you can repurpose that content for other channels.

For example, your agency creates a video for a paid ad campaign that generated great returns. The video is filled with valuable, actionable information that the general audience can benefit from.

Now that you've gotten the mileage out of your paid campaign, repurpose that video for other social channels. You can upload it to YouTube. You can edit our specific segments to create Instagram Reels or TikToks. We know that the content is valuable, so we just need to optimize it for an audience on a different platform.

This gets a better return on your content efforts both by way of conversions and consumer feedback. You can use those insights to guide future content creation and craft the right material for each marketing channel.

B. Go to Your Community

This seems obvious, right?

If you're a company selling homeowner's insurance, then why would you try to market to renters? They're not interested in what you have to say, and you're wasting resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

The same principle applies to marketing online. Your agency needs to understand its target audience so that you can find out where to reach them.

A great way to do this is by building out your buyer persona. Understand important details like the ideal age range, location, occupation, income level, and any other detail that's of relevance. Then, check out the existing to determine where those demographics spend their time most online.

C. Make It Into Roundups

The Roundup article is an amazing tool for helping brands build their backlink profile.

An important part of your organic search strategy is to earn links and recommendations from other established brands. Ideally, you're looking to forge connections with others in your industry that share similar values, ideas, and expertise. When a site with SEO value links back to your site, it can help boost rankings and help more users discover your agency.

Achieving this takes work. You'll need to work on building your brand recognition, preferably by creating some valuable and thought-leading content. Once more of the community begins to get familiar with your name, they'll be more willing to collaborate with you on projects. It's a business transaction just like any other.

D. Experiment With Alternate Content Styles

Content marketing is never static. What works well today will likely change by this time next year. For this reason, you shouldn't keep repeating the same formula and expect your results to improve for scalability.

What we're not suggesting is for you to go completely off-brand. Your future content still should adhere to your company voice, values, and ideas. Instead, start split-testing different variations of content to see what resonates more with your audience.

Also, be vigilant with current trends. Studies show that more than 90% of teenagers and adults consume videos regularly online. As we see more platforms place a greater focus on video formats (Facebook Stories, Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts), we can identify how audiences prefer to consume content.

What type of content you create and how to deliver it will vary depending on your core audience. By taking the time to research and gain an understanding of the consumer, you'll naturally learn what type of content to create and where you should upload it.

E. Create Intent-Based Content

The days of boosting your discoverability online with keyword stuffing are long gone.

The content that earns the highest rankings and the most traffic is content created with clear intention. Google's algorithm now understands how well your content answers the demands and needs of its users.

You need to pay close attention to the intention behind the keywords you choose. Different words or phrases come loaded with assumed or additional meanings that we call semantics. When you understand the semantics of a keyword, you're better equipped to create content that converts.

For example, when someone searches “smartphone comparison,” we can understand two things:

• The person is looking for a clear breakdown of similarities and differences between brands and their product.
• Because they’re looking for the best product, they’re likely closer to making a purchase on their buyer’s journey.

We give those users exactly what they need. By understanding the intention, you now know to create a killer comparison page that highlights what makes your brand superior to any competition. You're not trying to make the hard sell. You're allowing your audience to review the facts and make smart decisions for themselves. When the facts are on your side, you come out the clear winner.

Keep intention in mind anytime you choose a topic or keyword to tackle. Respect your audience's needs and the results will follow.

2. Try Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has changed the game for marketers and growth hackers in recent years. It's highly effective regardless of what business goals a brand has set. Here are some of the reasons you should try influencer marketing.

A. An Exploding Marketing Channel

Influencer marketing has exploded in the past five to seven years, especially in the past decade. Hundreds of thousands of marketing campaigns have been successfully executed with the help of influencers since 2018. Influencer marketing has become an integral part of the marketing mix for most brands, and they are benefiting from it in different ways.

B. Helps Build Trust and ROI

Influencer marketing builds a high level of trust, which is why brands are investing more in influencer marketing. It's also influenced by the increasing ROI from influencer marketing spend. The 2015 Tomoson study reported that marketers generated an ROI of $6.50 from every dollar spent on influencers. It was ridiculously high compared to other marketing channels, and you'll be pleased to learn that it's increasing yearly.

The influencer market grew from $9.7 billion in 2020 to $13.8 billion in 2021. It's projected to soar to a whopping $16.4 billion in 2022.

C. Helps in Increasing Brand Exposure

Influencer marketing is a proven method to boost brand awareness, a crucial factor in pipeline building and consistently increasing sales and revenue in the long run.

Pro Tip: Collaborate with well-known influencers on social media to reach a wider audience. Look for influencers having over 50,000+ followers, as they are the most impactful.

3. Implement Rewarding Retention Tactics

Returning customers can easily convert, and the best way to bring them back is to introduce rewards, offers, and discounts. You should also use personalization. Customers want to be treated like individuals, and you can do it by personalizing recommendations.

You must create a program to reward your loyal customers. According to research, an average person enjoys roughly 15 loyalty programs. Here are some of the loyalty programs you can try, but you should do your homework before implementing any of these loyalty programs.

• Tiered Loyalty Program
• Spend Programs
• Points Loyalty Program
• Fee-Based Loyalty Program
• Cash Back Loyalty Program
• Punch Program

Try sending newsletters with exclusive content offers. You can also introduce member-only discounts and bonus features to reward loyal customers.

4. Test and Optimize Your Paid Ad Campaigns

Refrain from sticking to safe formulas when running paid ad campaigns. It would help if you tried A/B testing etc. You can also test different ad creatives with split-testing and allow these insights to guide you when designing ad creatives and crafting marketing messages.

It shouldn't be a one-time activity. People want something new and exciting every time. So, you should consistently fine-tune your efforts.

Last but not least, make it easy to convert. If it's a form that your prospects need to fill out, make it instantly available and keep it short. Don't make them fill out lengthy forms spread over multiple pages. People may soon bounce off with such annoying stuff.

5.Create Brand Partnerships

As a growth hacker, you should try innovative tactics. Find other companies with audiences that can mutually benefit each other. Attend live events to meet industry figures and well-known personalities. Networking brings amazing rewards for startups.

Use personality as a strength. People become aware of your brand and products when you network with other brands and register your presence in your neighborhood by participating in industry events and community service programs.

Image Source: ResoluteB2B

6. Get Direct Feedback

According to Entrepreneur magazine, great marketing starts with understanding and empathizing with your customer. Asking for direct feedback helps you improve your services and brings you closer to your customers. For most customers, asking for feedback means a lot. You can use it to inform your biggest messaging decisions and data enrichment. You can also use customer feedback to surprise and delight your customers.

Customers feel empowered and become loyal to the brand that asks for feedback. Content marketers use it to create attention-getting, lead-generating content.

You can also use it as a mechanism to match your customers' expectations and work on addressing the complaint. Besides that, customer feedback also helps in pricing and packaging decisions.

7. Give Something Away for Free

People love free stuff. You can offer the following as a free gift as an agency.

A. InstaReports:InstaReports is a DashClicks app that generates instant performance reports for different campaigns. As an agency, you can offer it to your clients as a gift. It comes with DashClicks' white-label platform.

B. InstaSites:InstaSites is a DashClicks app that helps you develop high-quality content-ready websites. The tool makes creating bulk websites a breeze. It solves a big issue your customers face, so they will love this gift.

C. Storage Space: Storage space is another gift that businesses need and love. Enterprises have limited storage, and any such offering will be more than welcome.

D. Limited Account Access: Limited account access allows customers to try your product or platform. When they experience its benefits and get used to it, they ask for more and usually convert.

E. Free Samples: It’s a very old tactic product marketers practice. Providing free samples is the best way to make your prospects try your product without buying it. Once they experience it and find it good, they shop for it at the market.

Conclusion

Growth is an increasing challenge for agencies. Creative marketing campaigns are not conducted regularly; hence, these are highly unpredictable as the audiences are unfamiliar with them.

Amid such stiff competition, growth hacking strategies become the only solution. You can't resolve all of your customer's pain points, so you shouldn't wait to implement strategies that yield higher returns than traditional marketing practices.

Time is gold; you can directly translate it into money by strategically spending it on campaigns and agency growth. But, as an agency owner, you'll be familiar with situations where undesired activities chew up all your time and leave you shocked to see your productivity at the EOD.

In this article, you'll learn to identify and eliminate all those wasteful activities that eat up your valuable & productive hours and hamper your growth and profitability.

Identifying Your Agency's Biggest Time Wasters

Agency owners often have to juggle managing their clients and the agency. It results in splitting their attention into multiple things, such as strategy making, client servicing, and day-to-day handling operations.

It can lead to them not being able to fully focus on either of these tasks. To resolve this, businesses should invest in dedicated teams to take care of the day-to-day tasks, focus on strategy, and interact with clients.

Some of the time wasters are as follows -

• Unexpected revisions on a project
• Content/idea rejection by the clients
• Delay in approvals
• Lack of clear goals
• Repetition of tasks
• Lack of proper tools
• Lack of proper processes
• Lack of automation
• Absence of time blocking
• Unnecessary meetings

You can control and eliminate many of these factors using automation and agency management tools such as the DashClicks. However, there are a few factors you have little or no control over, such as eccentric clients and delays in approvals from their end.

Unexpected rejections and revisions take up a lot of time and resources for the agency and are among the significant reasons for missed deadlines with other clients.

Not having a clear goal or strategy can lead to agencies spending more time on things that don't really matter in the long term.

Not setting boundaries when it comes to working hours is another common issue among agencies. It leads to burnout among employees and frustration among clients who expect timely responses from their agencies.

The 10 Wasters That Are Costing You Time and Money in Your Agency

Here are ten common time wasters that might cost your agency valuable time and money.

1. Working on the Wrong Tasks and Repetition of Tasks

Poor planning and delegation might lead to your team members working on the wrong tasks. So, tasks are repeated by different team members many times over. To work around this issue, you should use robust task management software. Using a project or task management system has the following advantages.

• Keep tasks in one place
• Save time and stay on schedule by delegating and tracking tasks
• Prioritize your work
• Improve collaboration
• Track team progress
• Put project work at your fingertips
• Set due dates and never miss deadlines

Pro Tip: DashClicks' dashboard and project management app enables you to manage and streamline tasks like never before. The platform also allows you to track your tasks and monitor project progress.

2. Tracking the Wrong Metrics

Sometimes your team members might be tracking the wrong metrics, leading to inaccurate results and a waste of time. It would help if you used data analytics and metrics tracking to prevent this thing from happening.

Data Analytics is extremely useful in digital marketing as it allows you to leverage the power of customer data to curate a better product & marketing strategy.

Digital analytics allows you to pinpoint the information that marketers would otherwise miss. It allows you to process massive packets of information sourced from multiple channels to quickly spot the patterns. It enables an agency to get actionable insights.

Data analytics will also help you improve your focus on customer experience and leverage social media marketing.

Image Source: TechTarget

3. Having No Systems in Place to Manage Projects

Do you have too many projects and insufficient time or resources to complete them? This is a common problem faced by many agencies. So what can you do to manage the situation?

A few things can help digital marketing agencies avoid this problem in the future. Learn how to prioritize projects and focus on tasks that will have the biggest impact. Give yourselves room for error and include more slack time in your project schedule for potential delays.

Set up systems to stay on track with your deadlines, like setting up reminders and alerts for critical tasks or even hiring someone to help you stay on top of your projects.

Pro Tip: DashClicks' project management app enables you to manage your projects by effectively setting up reminders and alerts and delegating tasks to team members. The white-label project management software also allows you to track your campaign's progress.

4. Working With Poor or Unreliable Resources

Working with poor or unreliable resources is always challenging, but there are a few ways to make the process easier. For example, if you're working with someone difficult to get a hold of, it's best to set clear expectations and deadlines. If you're working with someone unreliable, it's best to have them sign an agreement outlining what they will be responsible for and your expectations of them.

Pro Tip: If you are tired of working with virtual assistant services or freelancers, use DashClicks' white label fulfillment services and stay committed to your deadlines. This way, you can keep your clients happy and satisfied.

5. Improperly Managing Client Expectations and Requirements

Lack of communication is the biggest evil responsible for improper client expectations and requirements management.

Here are some tips to better manage client expectations and requirements -

• Set expectations from the outset
• Invest in good communication software
• Be transparent about processes
• Clearly define goals
• Create official records of the smallest deals
• Keep the client in the loop throughout the process
• Rely on the right tool to keep track of all the stages of a project
• Learn how to say no with dignity when necessary

Pro Tip: You can use DashClicks' Contacts App, a CRM tool for enhanced client communication. It allows you to inform your clients by sending them via SMS and emails about the latest project updates.

6. Lack of Proper Tools

Today's business environment is about using the latest tools, software, and platforms. It minimizes your team's workload and enables them to deliver results in a fraction of the time with a high degree of accuracy. Without these tools, you can hardly manage multiple campaigns and perform day-to-day operations such as conducting analytics and sending performance reports to your clients.

Pro Tip: DashClicks' white label platform offers numerous automation tools to make life easy for agency owners. These tools include a sales CRM tool like the Contacts app, instant report generation tools such as InstaReports, bulk website building tools such as InstaSites, and lead management software such as the Inbound app. Apart from that, you will also get project management software to manage your projects and apps like forms to manage your online forms.

Without such automation tools, your agency will heavily rely on time-consuming and tedious manual processes. For example, manual report generation alone can consume dozens of productive hours. On the flip side, you can generate reports in a few seconds with InstaReports.

7. Unnecessary Meetings

Tesla chief Elon Musk sees meetings as a timewaster. He once said in an email, "excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time."

He has clearly instructed his employees not to conduct frequent meetings unless it is highly urgent. So, big meetings are a big no-no in his companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, OpenAI, and Zip2.

8. Not Practicing Time-Blocking

Time-blocking, also known as time chunking, is a time management technique that is used by famous enterprises, business leaders, and innovators such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates to great success. It enables you to make the most of any amount of time.

The time-blocking technique involves working on one task at a time broadly. It allows you to acquire the flow state by entering deep focus. It's linked with massive productivity and enables you to complete tasks faster and easier.

Here are the steps to use time-blocking for maximum productivity -

Step 1: Identify the tasks that you need to accomplish

Step 2: Estimate the time required to complete each task

Step 3: Decide how much flexible time you can afford as per your schedule

Step 4: Review your plan

Step 5: Implement time-blocking using your favorite calendar app

9. Lack of Proper Processes

Business process management is directly linked with cost benefits and a high level of productivity. Well-defined and accurate processes allow you to communicate and apply consistent standards and practices within the business.

Proper business processes help you in many ways, some of which are as follows -

• Gather information to resolve issues and quickly reduce downtime
• Know what each team member needs to do
• Easily onboard new employees
• Comply with norms, standard practices, and certifications
• Improve product quality
• Ensure that everyone is on the same page
• Reduce risk & improve security
• Analyze and enhance tasks in a dynamic manner

10. Lack of Clear Goals

Do you know why projects fail miserably despite using the best processes and tools? The major reasons are the lack of direction and vague goals. It is, therefore, important to sit down with your client and discuss the objective. Sometimes, all a client wants is maximizing inbound leads, whereas an agency might be wasting time and precious resources on brand building through social media.

Setting and prioritizing your goals, therefore, becomes extremely crucial. Take time to communicate these goals to your team members so everybody is on the same page. Understanding the client's goals helps the team members accomplish projects.

Image Source: Hypercontext

Here are some of the disadvantages of having no goals -

• Your team lacks focus
• You live by the flow rather than control it
• You have confusing priorities
• Distractions might hit you

Final Words

Time is the most precious asset; unfortunately, we all have limited time at our disposal. As an agency, you only work a limited number of hours a week, and you are supposed to meet your business goals and increase the number of clients within that period. So, you can't afford any type of time wasters.

Go through the above tips to steer clear of time wasters and save your agency time with automated reporting tools, project management software, and utilizing white label fulfillment services.

Agencies have increasing workloads, which leads to tremendous pressure on the employees as well as management.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that most agencies want to remain lean and thin because of uncertain market demand patterns and intermittent periods of weak demand when employees do nothing but sit idle and tap their toes.

To build a strong project pipeline, agencies constantly practice aggressive marketing tactics. However, they end up securing more work than they can handle. They agree to work on new projects without realizing that they are already over-committed.

But keeping the workflow consistent is easier said than done, as inconsistency in work breeds many unprecedented problems and negative developments.

According to a recent American psychological association study, almost 50% of respondents disclosed that an unbalanced workload was the main cause of stress in the corporate world.

Seven of ten respondents who felt stressful conditions at work revealed that they intended to change jobs within a year.

It should ring alarm bells for the agency owners as they can potentially lose their best employees if they don't find a solution to prioritize workload management. As an agency, you should ensure that projects are completed successfully and on time without causing stress to your employees, which may lead to dissatisfaction and demotivation.

What Is Workload Management?

Workload management can efficiently prevent stressful situations and lower productivity rates in organizations caused by the inefficient and variable distribution and management of work across different individuals.

Workload management is a process that maximizes employee performance. It diminishes chaos so that your employees stay contented and satisfied at the end of each workday without feeling overwhelmed with inconsistent work pressure.

The best part of workload management is that your employees can achieve high productivity without compromising the quality of work.

Image Source: Splunk

Handling Workload Management in the Agency Environment

Workload management is a considerably new practice rare in the agency business. Earlier, managers assigned work based on one's skills, capabilities, and billable time, so things needed to be more flexible and easier to improve.

Currently, agencies practice dynamic and effective workload management, involving frequent meetings and training sessions. This way, you can equally delegate tasks without sending loads of work to a handful of employees and keeping the rest idle even if they are not skilled or experienced.

Here are some of the objectives of workload management:

• Utilize resources efficiently
• Make optimized and realistic project schedules
• Have realistic workload expectations
• Keep projects on track
• Prevent cost escalation
• Making the best use of the available resources

Tips to Manage Your Team's Workload

Here are some tips you can use to manage your team's workload -

1. Assess Your Team's Workload and Capacity

You often have a normal workload, but the scattered work, different project briefs, improper allocation of resources, and inadequate planning make it quite confusing.

It makes the assessment of the overall workload quite difficult.

To work around this, we can take the following measures.

• Grab the full list of the projects and processes you are supposed to manage
• Determine the scope of work and time taken to accomplish multiple deliverables
• Split bigger projects into smaller tasks and processes
• Prioritize the tasks based on urgency
• Assess your team’s bandwidth
• Assess the workload on each team member
• Use tools and templates to accomplish different tasks on time

Pro Tip: If the work is outside your team's bandwidth, hire white-label services. DashClicks offers quality white label fulfillment services to thousands of agencies worldwide and helps them thrive in this tough marketplace.

2. Allocate Resources and Breakdown Individual Workload

When you clearly understand who is responsible for what and how to accomplish the entire project in time, assigning work will become pretty straightforward. While allocating resources, keep in mind an individual's skills, availability, and capacity.

Here are a few tips for balancing your team members' workloads during resource allocation -

• Give preference to top-priority tasks first
• Implement time management practices
• Assign the job according to the expertise and experience of an individual
• Keep all channels of communication open and conversation flowing seamlessly. Implementing an employee communications app can be an effective way to achieve this, enhancing team collaboration and keeping everyone connected in real time.
• Keep everybody in your team in the loop as tasks are completed

Image Source: Asana

Pro Tip: You can use tools like Trello, Kanban board, or project management tools like Asana.

3. Monitor Schedules and Project Progress

The 3rd phase is the most crucial. In this phase, you need to track the employee performance and be ready to change things if necessary.

Pro Tip: Conduct meetings if required. If major meetings are difficult to conduct because of a lack of time, you can conduct brief meetings to resolve smaller issues and bottlenecks. Japanese are perfect at this art so you can learn from their popular management practice Kaizen.

Agency Tip: You can use DashClicks Projects App, a project management app created especially for agencies to manage your agency's workload. Our white-label project management app provides the easiest and most powerful way to manage your projects, teams, customers, and processes. Use our white-label platform to run your entire business. Save time, hit your goals faster, and create a transformational experience by leveraging the DashClicks ecosystem.

Managers should make sure that the high productivity targets are achieved without burnout. If you feel that an individual is facing difficulties accomplishing certain tasks, you can reassign those to someone else.

Keep asking for status reports when the tasks are in progress and ask the individuals if they face any difficulty performing them.

4. Have Realistic Deadlines

Unrealistic deadlines are a prime reason why a heavy workload of unfinished tasks piles up. The best strategy to resolve this issue is to split huge tasks into smaller ones, assess the skills required to complete them, and assign them to the right individuals.

Pro Tip: You can also try task batching which is a productivity strategy involving grouping similar jobs together to complete them in a single batch.

Image Source: MintLife Blog

One major advantage of using this technique is that you can accomplish a lot of tasks in little time without wasting time multitasking on non-similar tasks. It allows you to focus on similar tasks and perform them in rapid succession.

Must Read: 8 Proven Ways to Overcome the Daily Grind for Agencies

Final Words

Implementing team workload management could be a game changer for your agency, allowing you to accomplish your tasks quickly without causing burnout and employee dissatisfaction. Planning is the best part you must focus on, followed by the tools and processes.

Never underestimate the importance of training and mentoring. If you think that some of your team members need training, be quick to conduct small sessions. Cut most manual processes and try automation. You will be amazed at the productivity levels you can achieve with these measures.

Agency owners rejoice every time they win a new client. But, along with this victory comes huge responsibilities and loads of activities to perform.

To scale your agency, you should have time-saving processes in place that you can bank upon. Marketing report templates are a wonderful method to streamline your processes and day-to-day agency tasks.

These reports not only provide in-depth analysis and insights into the campaigns but also keep your clients happy and satisfied.

Why Are Marketing Report Templates So Crucial?

With increasing business, reporting demands also increase. There isn't much anyone can do about that.

If you go the old-school way, using manual spreadsheets or screenshots, it's impossible to serve all of your clients, especially when you're trying to scale.

The amount of time required to generate reports is simply mind-boggling and hiring a full-time employee to churn out reports is illogical.

A marketing template is a must for your agency because it helps you cut wasteful practices and makes your processes highly optimized and goal-oriented.

Image Source: Databox

Here are some of the benefits a marketing report template offers.

1. Consistency and Standardization

Standardized reports look professional and cast a good impression of your agency. After all, you can't really send SEO reports where traffic analysis is on the first page one month and on the fourth the next.

Clarity and consistency are the keys when it comes to generating marketing reports. It helps in client retention.

Respect your client's time, and don't make them hunt through a pile of disarrayed information to find the most desired metrics. Help them improve their campaigns, increase revenue, and boost customer satisfaction through clear and concise reports.

Templates are the best way to present data in a visually appealing format. It can be customized and used by any individual or stakeholder. You can easily identify historical trends and build trust using marketing report templates.

2. Save Time

The biggest advantage of using marketing templates is that they save plenty of time for you. Digital marketing comprises SEO, PPC, Social Media, and email marketing campaigns, and tracking all the key metrics is time-consuming but pivotal to your success.  Marketing templates and a dashboard can help you track your campaigns egregiously while saving you tons of time. Reports can vary based on campaign goals, and you can tweak your templates to generate such reports. Prebuilt templates can be re-used when you want to scale.  Agency Tip: You can use the DashClicks InstaReports App, a marketing reporting software to generate professional-grade digital marketing reports. It is an automation tool that can fetch analytics data from numerous third-party platforms and Google Analytics. You can create reports in seconds using this app.

3. Scale With More Certainty

During onboarding and afterward, you have a long list of tasks on your to-do list. The automation tools and prebuilt marketing templates help you scale with maximum certainty. InstaReports, a client reporting tool, is an effortless way to print reports in a few seconds.

Furthermore, these reports are error-free compared to manual reports. You need to generate five times more reports when you grow from a mid-sized agency to a large agency. You can't do this unless you have a template-based system and a robust automation tool to help you.

In short, marketing report templates help you better visualize data and generate meaningful numbers.

Marketing Report Templates Your Agency Must Know

Before you decide how to generate the marketing report to scale,Ā let's discuss the most popular report templates you should be aware of. Consolidate your digital marketing reports with these templates to make your clients understand the campaigns better.

1. General Marketing Report Template

When you're using multi-marketing channels and want to present a consolidated report to explain the impact of your efforts on your client, a general marketing report template is the best solution. It provides analytical snapshots of your campaigns - all in one place.

A general marketing report becomes crucial when you need to generate integrated campaigns and a dozen reports, which can be frustrating for you and your client.

Condensed data helps the decision-makers compare the performance of different channels and campaigns and make the most optimal marketing strategy.

A general marketing report contains the following:

 
• Your client’s business goals and how to achieve them using different strategies
• Goal tracking
• Paid vs. organic leads
• The most relevant metrics and KPIs
• Conversion rate and revenue generated
• Campaign snapshots from various campaigns such as email marketing, PPC, and social media
• Useful insights
• Recommendations based on the insights, including the campaigns that can boost results but aren’t being used currently
• Services you can upsell using the above insights

Agency Tip: Reports can be arduous and overwhelming for the clients. So, always include a report summary. It should consist of the key takeaways for quick understanding.

2. Digital Marketing Report Template

A digital marketing report looks like a general marketing report, but it mainly focuses on online marketing channels. It includes granular details from your SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, Quora marketing, video advertising, influencer marketing, and so forth.

A digital marketing report contains the following:

• Goal tracking

• Social media Analytics
• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Analytics
• Twitter Analytics
• LinkedIn Ads

• SEO metrics
• Website Traffic
• Page views
• Traffic metrics by channel and device
• Bounce rate

• Social media Metrics
• Engagement metrics
• Follower growth
• Conversions

• PPC metrics
• Click-through and conversion rates
• Cost per lead or cost per conversion of paid channels (Google Ads, Bing Ads, etc.)
• Revenue by channel

Agency Tip: Agency owners should know the difference between KPIs and metrics. To prevent yourself from using vanity metrics, always analyze your client's goals and the metrics that can best measure your performance against these goals.

3. SEO Marketing Report Template

To evaluate your organic search strategy, you should use the SEO marketing report template. It contains all the vital details of your client's website's performance on search engines.

In an SEO marketing report, you can include the following:

 
• Engineered and acquired backlinks
• Organic traffic metrics gathered from Google Analytics
• Organic conversions metrics such as CTR (clickthrough rates) on blog posts
• Keyword rankings
• Page load speed
• Traffic metrics by channel and device
• Engagement metrics (e.g., bounce rate, time on site, pages per visit)

4. PPC Marketing Report Template

You would like to know the ROI for every dollar you spend on paid ads. It makes tracking your PPC performance essential. A PPC marketing template, therefore, should include the following:

 
• Conversion rate
• Cost per click (CPC)
• Cost per lead or cost per conversion of paid ads
• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Quality score
• Impression share

5. Web Analytics Report Template

If you run multiple web 2.0 campaigns for your client, then a marketing analytics software is the way to go. It may include website development, SEO and paid Google campaigns and content marketing, etc.

Like the templates discussed above, web analytics templates also include the most relevant metrics to track performance against your client's strategic goals. Compare traffic sources and paid vs. organic performance and see the full picture in one place.

6. Social Media Report Template

Social media is the best way to create awareness, nurture your leads and convert them in the B2C and B2B space. Social media marketing goes beyond posting videos and pictures. It involves finding what resonates with your audience the most. So, tracking your social media campaigns across different platforms through relevant metrics becomes essential in today's business environment.

You can include the following metrics in a social media report template.

 
• Reach and impressions
• Amplification rate
• Audience growth rate
• Clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Engagement rate
• Video views
• Virality rate
• Conversion rate
• Website traffic from social channels

7. Email Marketing Report Template

Email marketing is quite effective and it's important to track your email marketing campaigns effectively. Using an email marketing report template will tell you where you need to improve and make your campaign even more engaging and conversion oriented.

You can include the following metrics in your email marketing report template.

 
• Open rate
• Conversion Rate
• Click-through rate and top-clicked links
• Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
• Subscribe and unsubscribe rates (including any spam reports)
• Open rates by region (especially if your client’s mailing list has a high number of subscribers in different geographical areas)
• Delivery rate
• Bounce rate
• List Growth Rate
• Overall ROI
• Session duration

8. Local SEO Report Template

Local businesses, such as restaurants, toy shops, spas, cafes, boutiques, salons, pet shops, bakeries, and dentists, can benefit heavily from local marketing. A local marketing report template contains the key local insights to boost your business's search visibility. It also helps you attract more leads to increase footfall.

You can include the following metrics in your local marketing report template.

 
• Google Business Profile (GMB) insights, i.e., number of searches, calls made, clicks, reviews, and map views
• Google local ranking
• Customer acquisition costs
• Web chat conversion rates
• Traffic & lead sources
• Best performing location
• Sessions by geographic location
• Keyword rankings for local SEO-related terms

Final Words

The ultimate objective of generating reports is to keep the clients happy and informed about the direction and progress of your marketing efforts. Since client retention is central to your agency's growth, you can't afford to generate lousy reports. Apart from the quality, the frequency of the reports is also crucial to your success. Automation is the only answer to creating multiple reports in a fraction of the time it takes to generate them manually. Using the best marketing report templates will give you an edge over your competition and boost your branding.

With robust automation tools like DashClicks' InstaReports app, generating professional template-based reports is a walk in the park. Use our white-labeled reports to showcase your performance, efficiency, and professionalism. All it takes to generate a professional report is a single click.

We all know this for a fact ā competitor analysis is a big part of digital marketing.

You need it in order to understand your target market and make better marketing decisions.

Today, a lot of companies gain competitive insights with the help of organic or paid traffic analysis. But one area that more and more companies need to pay attention to in order to gain such insights is “social media.”

Social media can unveil so much about your rivals’ strategies and that too for free! Just think about it – When you analyze your competitor’s social media business accounts, you get to know what best practices you should put in place for content creation. You can also see what your audience likes to engage with. You can even learn more about the “voice and tone” your audience enjoys the most.

Now, we know you are here because you are looking for ways to be more competitive and successful, so it’s time we discuss how to gain competitive insights on social media (that too free of cost!). Let’s begin.

Why is Social Media Competitive Analysis Important?

Before we move on to our main subject, let's discuss how monitoring your competitors' social performance helps your business.

Social media competitive analysis is the process in which you evaluate your rivals on social media platforms in order to develop strategies and search opportunities for growth. When you carry out such an evaluation, you get to recognize the weaknesses and strengths of your competitors. This, in turn, helps you create a solid social strategy of your own.

Another benefit of carrying out a competitor analysis on social media is that you get deeper insights into who your target audience is. You gain vital information about them, such as:

• The social media platforms they hang out on.
• The kind of content they are searching for.
• How they consume content.
• The best time to engage with them on social media.
• What their pain points are.

Image Source: Planoly

How Do You Get Free Competitive Insights On Social Media?

All said and done, it's now time we discuss how to gain free competitive insights on social media. Let's begin.

1. Check Your Rivals' Most Engaging Content

Chances are, you may have tested your own social content many times. And you may have also found the process resource intensive as well as time-taking.

The thing is, the time you lose in testing your own content can translate into missed opportunities and a lot of hits and misses. Instead, here's what we recommend you do ā check your competitors' best performing content to get an idea of the best practices you need to follow at your end. And, you can use a tool for it to speed up the entire process.

We suggest that you use Semrush's Social Media Tracker to identify the most engaging content of your competitors. The free tool tracks a massive database of social media business accounts. It can easily offer data-driven insights on your competition on social media.

Take a look at the steps you can follow to use the tool to check your competitors' best performing content:

A. Suppose you have chosen Facebook to check the kinds of posts that perform well on it for a competitor of yours. Enter your competitor’s domain in the Social Media Tracker and then choose the “Facebook” tab.

B. You will be presented with the posts that have got the most engagement during the time period you entered. Analyze the posts to know what you need to do in order to create content that your audience will like. Checking out your competitors' most engaging content will also give you creative inspiration for compelling post ideas.

2. Know the Best Performing Hashtags of Your Competition

Hashtags form an extremely important part of social media strategy. As they help people find your social media accounts, you need to select them carefully.

After searching for relevant and trending hashtags, you should also take a look at the hashtags your competitors are using. Ofcourse, branded hashtags won't be of any use to you, but you can look at the industry-specific hashtags that are performing well for them.

You can use Semrush’s Social Media Tracker to know the best performing hashtags of your competitors as well. Open the tool, follow the steps we discussed in the first point, and then select the “Hashtags” tab. You will get the list of the best performing hashtags for your competitor on Facebook (change the social platform to see hashtags for other platforms as well).

Along with the list of the hashtags, you will also get to know how they have been used. Pretty cool, isn't it?

3. Look at Your Competition's Paid Campaigns

We agree that it's important to review the organic social strategies of your competitors. But, it's equally crucial to analyze their paid campaigns.

Why do this?

To check the promotions and copy they have put in place to try to hook their target audience. You even get inspiration for your own campaigns.

To see all your competitors' active ads for free, use Meta Ads Library. Type in the name of your competitor in the search bar and you will be presented with their live ads. When you do this, you can easily check the products, keywords, and promotions that your competitors are focused on at the moment.

Tip: If you are looking for a 100% white-labeled Analytics platform for marketing agencies, then you can use DashClicks' Analytics app. The app helps you monitor and report on all your marketing campaigns in a single place. The best-in-class marketing analytics platform also allows for integrations such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, CallRail, and Google Analytics.

4. Check Your Competitors' Posting Schedules

One surefire way in which you can boost engagement on your posts is to post at the correct time. Yes, we are talking about the time period your audience is most active in.

To know the ideal days to post or the best times in a day to post, you can check the posting schedules of your competition by visiting their profiles.

5. Check Your Competitors' Long-Term Strategy

To stay competitive in the long run, you need to understand the long-term goals of your competitors. And for this, you need to see on which platform they are trying to develop a visible presence. You also need to see the different channels they are targeting for growth.

Checking your competitors' long-term strategy simply gives you an idea about where you need to focus more resources for further improvement. So, ensure you take steps for the same.

DashClicks' White Label Social Media Services

Are you a digital marketing agency that's currently struggling with social media for your clients? If yes, then you can think about hiring DashClicks' white label social media services. The social media marketing experts at DashClicks know how to gain traction online. They are well-versed with the art of getting more shares and likes and hold experience in interacting with audiences on LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Conclusion

From analyzing your competitor's most engaging social media content to checking their paid social strategies, you can easily gain extremely useful insights into the social media activities of your rivals (free of cost!).

Now that you are well aware of how to gain competitive insights on social media, you can begin to carry out your own competitor analysis. When you do this, you will gain in-depth knowledge about your audience and create a winning social media marketing strategy in the end. Good luck!