What’s in a name? Few things are more important that what you call your digital marketing agency. Your agency’s name will set the tone for your objectives and company culture, as well as prospects expectations. Here at DMTG, we like to guide you to success, and the first step of that success is picking out your agency name. Here’s 3 tips we have for selecting your new agencies name!

Brainstorm! I feel like this is an obvious one but grab a pad, sit down and list out nouns and adjectives you like, what you think of when you think of your agency (I always think of cats for mine), animate and inanimate objects, animals, locations, anything that comes to mind really. You can use your name, your initials, or even numbers, just be aware of the picture you are building for potential clients.

• Don’t pick a name similar to another company existing in your space. You don’t want brand confusion and you want to stand out. Differentiate yourself from the crowd.
• Think about the impact you want the name you pick to have. “Jessup, Jones, Jared Marketing” doesn’t pack as much punch as “Shamu Street” does. The name soup sounds a bit stuffy, more fit for a law office rather than a marketing agency.
• Be creative!You’re a marketing agency and people want creativity in their marketing. Get crazy!
  Length: You need to remember that you’re going to put this name on business cards, a website and eventually ads. Don’t pick a name so long that even you can’t remember it.

Is it Available? Now that you’ve picked out that name “Strange Mountains Marketing” you’ve got to check and see if it’s available for you to begin to build your online presence. A site like instantdomainsearch.com allows you to look and see if the domain is available that you wish to acquire. You’ll then want to take a peak on the social platforms and see if those handles are available

• It’s not the end of the world if you can’t get the exact handle on social media. You can reach out to the current user of the name and see if they are willing to sell and release the name. You can create another name and try again, or you can get creative with your spelling.

Still having trouble? You can always use a name generator like AdAge’s. Or peruse Adweek’s list of the 40 Strangest Agency Names to see if anything resonates with you and jumpstarts the brain. Leave us a comment with the strangest agency name you’ve found!

Maybe you’ve begun to notice the saturation of hashtags in every corner of the internet. We find them on websites, at the bottom of every post on Instagram and Twitter, even memes and other parts of our culture. The question remains however, what is a hashtag and how do they help your marketing efforts?.

Let’s begin with the basics, what the hell is a hashtag? A hashtag is nothing more than the pound sign (#) placed in front of a word or phrase. Used on social media platforms these hashtags turn into searchable terms, pulling all other medias using the tag. You will want to remember that you can’t use punctuations in your hashtags. So no, spaces, exclamation points, commas, or periods. Feel free to use capitalization, though hashtags are not case sensitive so #SaveTheWhales will bring the same results as #savethewhales. Hashtags are a great way to find relevant or similar content or depending on the platform, a way to engage in discussion (Hey, Twitter).

Platform use of hashtags varies and while the use of hashtags is certainly more relevant on platforms where visual and audio content is shared we’ll do quick breakdown of them.

-> Twitter: King of the hashtags, or the place where hashtag use is generally considered to have started. Twitter hashtags are used to mark what the conversation is about, i.e. My love of Jeff Goldblum. You can click on the hashtag #jeffgoldblum to pull every tweet made with the hashtag. You can also search by hashtag and Twitter creates a list of hashtags for you based on your interests. So what are you waiting for? Jump in on a conversation!

-> Instagram: The land of visually based content! Hashtag use on Instagram greatly increases the engagement of a post. Hashtags here are used in bulk, or at least groups of 30 per post. Hashtags are clickable and allow you to find similar content, new users to follow and can help boost your own following.
Facebook: Facebook was a late adopter of hashtag use and the use of tags there is still pretty hit or miss. Some brands and users use them, while others leave them to other platforms. Clicking a hashtag on Facebook brings you a list of content with the same tag, but encompasses all users on Facebook.

There are other platforms that use hashtags (Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn) and the functionality of pulling like content is very similar. One thing remains the same, using hashtags can help increase your visibility on these social platforms. It’s time to talk some best practices for using hashtags in your marketing. Following these won’t make you Queen or King of the hashtag, but they will certainly help you on your way.

Make a list. If you are using the same hashtags over each post you make of your product making a list of applicable hashtags will make posting a breeze. You won’t have to remember the hashtag you used last time, and you won’t have to type them all out again!

Be Direct. Trying to grab Jeff Goldblum’s attention on Instagram? Be sure to tag his name in your post, #jeffgoldblum. Take the subject of your post and pop a hashtag on it. You’ll be surprised how many people click through hashtags to see what they come across.

Be Creative. The greatness of the hashtag is that you can literally take any word or phrase and turn it into a hashtag. If you are marketing your travel agency look up the #travel tag and see what else comes up. #jetsetter, #worldtraveler, all can be considered relevant and will help to bring in traffic.

Branded. Everytime you push a post be sure to include your company hashtag. Don’t have one? Now is the time to create one. Use the company name and be sure to tag each post with it. Eventually you’ll have a bunch of posts to peruse, and that means others will as well!

Don’t Go Overboard. Many platforms have limits to the number of characters or hashtags you can use in a post. Make sure you are only using relevant hashtags to the content you are posting. Not sure it it’s relevant? Ask yourself if your audience would click on the tag to find your product, if the answer is no, cut it.

This is by no means a comprehensive breakdown of the world of the hashtag, just some of the basics. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.

If you’ve already read our blog “Digital Marketing Agencies: To Niche or Not to Niche” you’ve made the decision to focus your digital marketing agency on a particular section of your local market. Congratulations! You are already taking a step on the road to success! Read on to find out the 5 benefits of niche marketing!

The 5 Benefits of Niche Marketing

Less Competition! Did you think you’d find less competition? Well guess what? There is! Not every company decides to niche down. Some prefer to have access to a broad audience, or they do not realize the benefits in scaling down. Either way you’ve found yourself in a market where there isn’t as much competition for the businesses you’ll target. Get out there and get your piece of the pie!

Less Initial Capital: Having decided to target a select group of individuals or businesses, you’ll spend less on your initial marketing blitz. You don’t need to create content for multiple platforms to apply to many different consumers in the audience, you just need to build the materials that will interest the one audience you’ve chosen.

Less Work: You are ahead of the game because you already know your audience. You’ve chosen to niche down your market and as such, you’ve taken out much of the guesswork. Agencies that don’t niche have a broad audience. An audience with a lot of different needs that they will have to get a handle on. Time and money will go into understanding that broadly audience.

Brand Loyalty: Niche marketers know the market so thoroughly that they meet and anticipate their audience’s needs. This helps them to build brand ambassadors who spread their stories of this ‘great company’ to all of their associates. They also become repeat customers. Continue building your army, by making each customer experience a success!

Thought Leadership: It is much easier to become an expert on a singular topic than it is to become an expert on many. Just like building brand loyalty, having invested the time in learning one particular section of the market allows you to become the expert.

Finished here? Be sure to check out the benefits of becoming your own digital marketing agency here, with the help of DMTG. Do you have any benefits of niche marketing we didn’t cover? Leave us a comment.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” and while that may apply to the dating world, when it comes to targeting an audience for your business that can be daunting. A niche market is, by definition, a section of a market on which there is a particular targeted focus.

Focusing on a smaller subsection of the market can make it easier to stand out in a crowd (like wearing that day glo shirt) and can help you build faster, stronger brand recognition.

To niche or not to niche? Ask yourself if:

You have a particular background or passion that you are an expert in. Do you have a background in IT? You could begin to target IT companies that need marketing. Not everyone sets out meaning to target a certain audience, sometimes it happens organically.

You’ve ascertained that the industry you wish to begin targeting is large enough to sustain your company for years to come. You may have a love of roller derby and wish to begin targeting your local roller rinks, but not every town has a roller rink and many are struggling to remain open.

Suggestions for industries to look for are boundless. Search the local businesses in your area and see which type of business comes up the most. Manufacturing? Healthcare? These are the industries to target (combined with those you have knowledge of and interest in).

You’re prepared to compete. Not every niche market is appealing to the big box companies offering the sames services as you. Eventually, though, there may come a time when you have to compete with the GoDaddy or ConstantContact’s of the world. Are you ready for that? Can you showcase the value in your services and build a relationship with the client?

Stay tuned for the next blog in our niche series! As always feel free to reach out to us with any questions.