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Secrets of marketing agency success

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Secrets of marketing agency success

Secrets of marketing agency success

CallRail just released its 2022 Outlook for Digital Marketing Agencies. The good news: “2021 was a good year for agencies, and 2022 is looking even brighter,” said Mary Pat Donnellon, chief revenue officer at CallRail. 

The report highlights the areas of success agencies saw last year and reveals what challenges they expect to face in 2022 and beyond. With client acquisition a key concern, agencies are utilizing — or plan to utilize in the near future — the latest marketing trends, like conversational marketing and artificial intelligence, to bring in new clients and keep their momentum going.” 

The study surveyed over 500 individuals employed full-time at U.S.-based marketing agencies to also determine how client expectations are projected to change in 2022 and which marketing trends agencies are currently implementing to bolster client acquisition. 

Key findings from the research include: 

2021 saw extensive growth for marketing agencies 

Marketing agencies made big gains in 2021. Respondents said their agencies experienced an average of 54% revenue growth in 2021, with 95% saying their agency met its 2021 revenue goals. 

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Much of this success was due to accelerated client growth: 83% of respondents said their agency surpassed its 2021 goals for client growth. With more clients under their belts than ever before, agencies are feeling optimistic about what 2022 has in store for them. 

2022 will see even more growth – and new challenges

A whopping 99% of respondents said they expect their agency to grow in revenue in 2022, and CallRail’s data shows agencies project to experience an average of 68% revenue growth this year. 

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Revenue won’t be the only thing getting a boost, however: 85% of respondents said they expect their agency to grow in size in 2022, with hiring new employees emerging as a top priority to keep up with the influx of new clients. 

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But this growth doesn’t come without its challenges. Respondents expect hiring and client retention to be more difficult in 2022 than in 2021, but the biggest emergent challenge will be client acquisition. 82% of respondents said this will be more challenging in 2022 than in 2021. 

Why is client acquisition keeping agencies up at night, and what can they do to rise to the challenge? 

CallRail’s data reveals that client expectations when choosing an agency are changing. Over the next five years, 98% of respondents believe clients will want to see agencies offer more comprehensive services; 85% said clients will want to see more diverse clientele, and 82% said clients will want to see more specialization. 

To keep up with these new expectations, agencies must evolve with the times. Agencies have been quick to adopt the latest marketing trends and those who haven’t yet plan to do so in the future. Conversational marketing, artificial intelligence (AI), and zero-click searches have emerged as the latest and greatest ways for agencies to bring in new clients. 

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The research found that 62% of responding agencies have already implemented conversational marketing. 44% of agencies have already implemented AI, and 39% have implemented zero-click searches. Of those who haven’t yet, 20% plan to utilize conversational marketing, 21% plan to introduce AI, and 30% plan to implement zero-click searches in the next year. 

Choosing not to take advantage of these trends appears to be a detriment to marketing agencies: those that did not meet their 2021 revenue goals were 27% less likely than average to have already implemented AI. Agencies that wish to succeed in 2022 and beyond must adapt and use every tool at their disposal to acquire new clients. 

Client relationships are changing too

Massive growth across the board will also change how agencies handle their client relationships. Right now, reporting is the name of the game. 86% of respondents said reporting is an essential part of client services, with agencies spending an average of 56 hours per week on reporting. 

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CallRail’s data suggests reporting may be key to client growth, as those who didn’t meet their 2021 client growth goals were 15% less likely than average to say reporting is an essential part of their client services. 

But agencies that met and surpassed their client growth goals will have to adapt in order to accommodate their new client load. 95% of respondents said they believe how their agency handles client relationships will change in the next five years as they continue to grow. Of those, 89% said less time will be spent on reporting. 

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“The marketplace is constantly changing, and so too are client expectations when choosing a marketing agency,” said Donnellon. 

CallRail’s research shows that taking advantage of the latest marketing trends and rethinking how they approach client relationships will set agencies up for success in 2022 and the years to come.” 

To learn more about how CallRail’s platform can help marketing agencies and the clients they serve optimize their marketing spend, click here and try it free.


About The Author

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CallRail is a leading marketing platform that helps businesses like yours accelerate growth. It gives you tools to market smarter, drive more quality leads, centralize communications, and turn leads into customers. Call Tracking, Form Tracking, and Conversation Intelligence reveal insights across touchpoints along each customer’s journey. Lead Center helps you connect with customers on their terms, with a unified inbox and integrated communication tools, including softphone, text, and chat. Top-ranked on G2, over 175,000 businesses worldwide trust CallRail’s straightforward, powerful marketing platform to accelerate and sustain growth. For more information, visit www.callrail.com.


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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