The world of digital marketing is constantly changing and our clients’ needs are also constantly evolving. To remain competitive and build upon our performance we had to address our approach. Chily, our experienced Co-Managing Director, reveals how our proposition has changed and why we’ve made these structural changes. We also have the inside scoop from some Passionistas on what these changes mean at ground-level at Passion HQ. Read on to hear all about it and get in touch if your marketing strategy could do with a full-service approach.
We’ve Come So Far
Chily, Co-Managing Director – New Business and Marketing:
Once upon a time there was a company called Passion Digital that was split into distinct specialist teams… ok so this story may not be the next Snow White, but the effect of the transformation of our proposition on clients and Passionistas is just as magical.
When Passion was first starting out, we were split into specialisms. We worked with a lot of small clients that needed very particular services – like a newly designed website, or help with PPC, SEO or social media marketing campaigns. To deal with this type of client, we didn’t need much more than a few smart specialists that were good at what they did. And we did that well.
However, as we’ve grown, so have the kind of clients that we’ve been winning – and their needs. More and more clients started coming to us, saying: “These are our objectives, how should we do this?”, as opposed to: “These are our objectives and this is what we need you to do.”
At this point, we realised that having a few specialists in each of the channels would no longer do. We needed teams that understood these briefs and could put together solutions for complex marketing problems that require more than one channel to solve them. This is how our Insight & Strategy department was born. This team sits above our specialist teams and is responsible for devising full performance marketing campaigns, from research to result. They coordinate all specialist teams to deliver against the same objective. With one of our core values being ‘collaborative’, this was the logical next step.
Something similar happened with our SEO, content and organic social teams. Fewer of our clients were asking for JUST a technical SEO audit, some keyword research or a link building campaign (some still do and we very gladly deliver!). But more clients wanted to increase their online brand visibility, with ambitious organic growth targets that simply cannot be achieved through just one specialism. All areas of organic marketing are needed to really accommodate organic growth. You need Digital PR to increase awareness of your brand and backlinks, a technically strong website that’s fast as lightning with great UX, strong content that engages your audience and makes you rank and a strong distribution strategy to make sure your content is seen by the right people. It’s all needed and that’s why we needed to offer it as one, single service.
And the same thing happened with all of our paid media channels. It was becoming apparent from the new business enquiries we received through our website – and from our current clients – that a combined approach to paid media was needed, with performance targets being shared across all paid marketing channels (paid search/shopping/social/display etc).
Over the last year, we have seen the benefits of having a combined paid media strategy reflected on our clients: brands can be quicker and more flexible to adapt from a budget or strategy point of view when you have more than one channel to play with, your message is consistent and aligns across platforms and channels, the reporting is integrated and you can make better, faster decisions when everything sits under the same roof.
Collaboration is one of our values here at Passion, and that is because together we are smarter, stronger and better! This change in proposition has resulted in a few changes across the agency which keeps two main things in mind: better client service for the brands we work with and more learning and upskilling possibilities for our Passionistas.
What’s in it For Me?!
Leora, Paid Social Executive:
Not only does being in a larger team allow us to share workload as we gain new clients of varying scopes and industries, but we can also learn from each other. Learning from other industry experts is essential to being a successful team as we are exposed to a broader digital marketing landscape and methods.
For me, it’s been great working in a wider marketing team. Not only can we share knowledge and industry updates, but it’s also easy to pick up tips and tricks from each person. There are so many ways of approaching projects, that sometimes you might pick up an idea or two and adapt that to your style.
Alex, Head of Paid Social:
I’ve worked in display and paid social roles on clients that use multiple paid media channels in the past, so I’ve been exposed to the wider digital marketing landscape. Since joining Passion, my focus has been solely on paid social.
It’s very easy to be single-mindedly focussed on our specific channel but exposure to other forms of paid media helps contextualise the broader brand objectives and campaign/comms strategy. I’ve found this helps clarify the role of the channel I’m owning as well as how it can interact with, borrow from, or enhance the other parts of the media mix.
What Is the Impact for Clients?
Helen, Paid Account Manager
It provides opportunities for the team to comprehensively speak about multimedia channels to our clients and provide a seamless service to those who are using cross channel strategies. Reporting and strategy recommendations can be made with a holistic approach to help reach client goals in a more efficient way.
I work on both channels (PPC and paid social) for The Lost Explorer Mezcal which means that I can have more flexibility over budgets and spends. I can assess performance of both channels and move budgets between them to make sure we can optimise performance.
At Passion, we are passionate about performance and these changes to our proposition do just that: perform for clients and for Passionistas. Get in touch if you think that your brand could benefit from our multichannel approach – our Paid Media team is always happy to help.