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Best Fashion & Retail Marketing Agencies in the UK with Great Case Studies – Digital Marketing
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Fashion & retail marketing agencies can help you meet your needs in creating a winning strategy. They will make new potential customers notice your brand at scale. Therefore, you should know the best fashion & retail marketing agencies in the UK with great case studies. These agencies are providing the greatest services.

As you know, the fashion industry is in a world of competition between brands. In this world, you need to have all the necessary tools to ensure the survival and development of your brand. With the best fashion & retail marketing agencies, you can become a reliable and successful brand. And they can create effective strategies that increase loyalty, attract and retain your customers.

Fashion & retail marketing agencies

All of the agencies we will offer you have the potential to make you stand out from the competition using proven techniques and data-based strategies. Firstly, thanks to the greatest approaches, they can accelerate your sales. Their teams will increase your turnover with the best fashion & retail marketing agents.

Working with agencies serving in your industry also greatly contributes to providing transparency and trust in your interactions with customers. You can save time and money by incorporating the useful tactics these agencies will provide. And you can also contribute much more from all these services.

Here, we have listed the best fashion & retail agencies in the UK with great case studies:
- Digital Media Team
- CEEK Marketing
- Outible
- Pixated
- Croud
- KOTA
- Digital Uncut
- Impression
- Digital Cake
- Distinction
Digital Media Team is a digital media agency specializing in paid advertising for companies. They are experts in
- generating exposure,
- driving revenue, and
- growing e-commerce brands, with several years of experience in the digital industry, both in-house and on the agency side.
As the only Premium Facebook Business Partner outside of the capital, they offer outstanding services without the London price tag. Their partnership with Facebook ranks in the top 5% of digital marketing agencies worldwide.

They have a wide range of services such as email marketing, paid social, design, PPC & Google ads, Shopify websites, amazon marketing services, and more. From your website through to your paid social, their range of digital marketing services maps out every step of your brand’s journey. They will surely match you with the services that meet your business goals, helping you grow and scale your brand to new heights.

CEEK Marketing is a digital marketing and social media consulting agency based in London. Their unique marketing methodologies ensure your business is seen by target customers online and via social media.

Their team of marketing experts has a great passion for digital marketing. They make great partnerships with you to get stronger on social media using other marketing channels such as
- search engine optimization,
- influencer marketing, and
- paid to target campaigns.
With its expertise in unique approaches, amplifying brand awareness, increasing revenue, leveraging technology, CEEK Marketing offers you many excellent services such as content creation, web development, search engine marketing, paid targeting, inbound marketing, video production, digital PR, and more.

Outible is a professional digital agency based in Liverpool, UK. Its team of passionate experts works together to develop and support enterprise-level software. There is no doubt that their works are cleaner, valuable, maintainable and future-proof, and also less intrusive.

They have all of the jobs required for a complete software development process. Their development staff has a diverse range of capabilities and is knowledgeable in a variety of programming languages and development tools.

Focusing solely on your business needs, they discuss solutions freely, always provide transparent, and honest timetables, and follow up on a frequent basis. Moreover, they stay positive and realistic to deliver outstanding services like
- website development,
- app development,
- SaaS solutions,
- search engine optimization,
- project management,
- UX design,
- content creation,
- enterprise-level support, and more to all of their clients.
Pixated is one of the best fashion & retail marketing agencies in the UK. It is a performance marketing and web design agency. Likewise, the team has a proven track record for scaling up some of the most exciting brands.

Above all, its talented and experienced team of experts is specialized in crafting high-converting campaigns geared towards generating the best ROI for ambitious brands around the world. They have all the experience and industry-leading knowledge required to transform your online performance into a brand to be proud of.

Pixated will surely delight you with the excellent results coming from its consistent strategies. Their efforts will be characterizing your impressive online presence and significant services. For instance, they may help you with
- web design,
- app marketing,
- web development,
- email marketing,
- PPC marketing,
- digital strategy,
- UX design, etc.
Croud is a global digital agency founded in 2011 that connects data, technology, and creativity to drive business performance. It has a wide range of partnerships with some of the world’s leading brands such as Avon, UGG, Vans, International Workplace Group, and more. Its in-house experts based in the UK, USA, and Australia are recognized by many industries for their skills and innovations.

When you work with Croud’s multinational team, you will benefit from the expertise and experience of some of the brightest digital strategists, planners, and practitioners. Using a unique model that enables a more in-depth understanding of your business, its team will deliver truly transformative results.

In addition, experienced in many industries including fashion and retail marketing, Croud gives several services:
- digital experience and performance,
- data solutions,
- global growth,
- in-housing solutions,
- digital strategy,
- content marketing, and more.
KOTA is an international award-winning creative web design and branding agency based in London. Firstly, it is a progressive and insightful design agency. The team is technically and creatively skilled to translate your brand into its best digital self. Moreover, its creative team’s design and development approach create impactful, engaging brands and immersive digital experiences. That’s how they bring you a return on creativity.

KOTA’s international team of designers, developers, and strategists specialize in many services such as
- branding,
- web development,
- digital marketing,
- web design,
- WordPress,
- e-Commerce, and more.
The agency will focus on bringing your brand to the digital world in the most effective way. Finally, KOTA will give you impressive results with their background of experience in numerous industries including fashion and retail marketing.

Digital Uncut is a digital agency that enables startups to fast forward their growth by delivering expert and innovative services. It provides the strategy and expert execution that your brand needs for growth.

Because of its greatest techniques, it will get transformation to your entire digital marketing strategy. Its talented professionals help your fashion brand to stand out with all the effective types of campaigns.

Digital Uncut offers you many services such as
- SEO,
- content creation,
- PPC,
- web development,
- digital graphic design,
- digital PR,
- data analysis,
- consultancy, and more.
Impression is one of the best fashion and retail marketing agencies in the UK. The agency is a multi-award-winning, international performance agency. The team has been a strategic partner to the world’s most exciting and ambitious brands, making growth potential a reality.

After all, this trusted agency can be a great partner for your brand’s growth with its high-calibre strategic specialists. They are passionate about doing the best work they can and pushing new technology to its limits.

Impression delivers best-in-class digital campaigns and services. The team has been recognized in the form of awards at both a national and global level with
- SEO,
- PPC,
- digital PR,
- content marketing,
- analytics,
- CRO, and more.
Digital Cake is a full-service agency based in London that has a speciality in providing strategy, Shopify builds, boost in social media activity, SEO strategy digital marketing to start-up and fast-growing digital business. Therefore, they bring their experience and expertise to a new generation of online entrepreneurs.

Its expert team knows exactly how to deliver the results that you need. Moreover, their method is going step by step by defining ideas, building and executing, measuring, optimizing, and reaching the best results.

Digital Cake has a great number of services such as
- website development,
- digital strategy,
- marketing,
- Shopify development,
- SEO, and more with its work history full of experiences from many industries.
Distinction is a digital agency approaching digital product development from the outside-in. And, they also use active strategies that launch to market quickly and stay ahead of the competition. Its creative team can deliver results using its tried and tested strategies.

Distinction professionals use the technologies and strategies for several purposes: to know your customer, explore new sales channels, adopt data, automate every task, and know your goal. Consequently, all are very helpful in growing your brand’s recognition.

This award-winning digital agency offers you a wide range of services such as
- content marketing,
- SEO,
- e-commerce,
- PPC marketing,
- UX design,
- software development,
- inbound marketing,
- digital strategy, and more.
Conclusion

In conclusion, we have listed the best fashion & retail marketing agencies in the UK with great case studies above for you. In short, these agencies create the best digital infrastructure to help your brand succeed in the competitive fashion world. Working with one of them, you can stand out from the competition using their proven techniques and strategies based on data. When you trust and start a partnership with them, you will get the greatest results.
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August 2, 2021
EDF analysis finds American fleets are embracing electric trucks – Clean Energy
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By Jason Mathers and Ellen Bell

Truck fleets across the country are enthusiastically embracing the emergence of electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks. This is the main finding of a new EDF analysis of public announcements and known deployments of leading fleets. EDF found nearly 500 existing electric deployments and pledges to deploy nearly 300 times more vehicles as additional models become available.

The analysis, which will be updated periodically to reflect new announcements and pledges, is available via a sortable Google Sheet.

Some notable deployments include:

EDF analysis finds American fleets are embracing electric trucks Click To Tweet

Many fleets are demonstrating their strong interest in zero-emission transportation with large procurement commitments. These include:

Companies are also signaling their future direction through corporate sustainability strategies and commitments. As part of its analysis, EDF examined the fleet commitments of companies with the largest fleets and found that 17 have committed to transition all or significant parts of their fleet to electric vehicles. An additional 14 companies have set targets to cut emissions at least 50% by 2035.

Key examples include:
- Walmart is targeting zero global operational emissions by 2040. This includes electrifying its vehicles (including long-haul trucks) by 2040.
- FedEx has pledged a 100% electric pick-up and delivery fleet and carbon-neutral operations by 2040.
- PepsiCo plans to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions across its direct operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 75% and its indirect value chain (Scope 3) by 40% by 2030. In addition, the company has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040.
Interest in electric trucks has become a mainstream focus within the trucking industry. Leading fleets recognize that zero-emission vehicles, particularly electric vehicles, are increasingly able to perform the jobs needed and are likely to offer lower total costs within a few years. These companies and their direct customers — major brands that depend on trucks to get goods to market — should understand, that electric trucks can also help reduce the pollution from warehouses and other large freight facilities.

Now is the time to build on this excitement with firm targets for transitioning to electric trucks and bold policies that help fleets accelerate deployments today while making clear that the future of industry must be zero-emission.
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August 2, 2021
Best Email Marketing Services for Affiliate Marketers – AffiliateMarketing

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“Is email marketing dead?” has been asked around the internet often enough that various articles have popped up from Forbes.com to CampaignMonitor.com to tell everyone that, no, email marketing isn’t dead.

Affiliate marketers know the real deal. Email marketing is still generating income for marketers as this Statista survey proves. It remains a powerful marketing tool that both marketers and businesses use to promote directly to their customer base.

While businesses can have their pick of which email marketing service to go with, affiliate marketers will have to be a tad picky. Not all email marketing services allow affiliate marketing on their grounds; some ban it outright.

Instead of looking at the email marketing services that do not allow affiliate marketing, let’s look at the ones that do. Below are the most recommended email marketing services for affiliate marketers.

The Best Email Marketing Service

The “best email marketing service” award goes to whichever one you decide is the best for YOU.

At the end of every list is the inevitable Yes or No.

In this particular list, we looked at email marketing services for affiliate marketers. There is not a lot to choose from, but still the question that remains is: Which one do you opt in to?

Key factors that you should look at are:

Pricing

You’d want the best value for your money, of course. There are email marketing services that offer their service for free up to a certain number of emails or subscribers. If you are just starting to build your list, then this is a great start. The free plans tend to be limited so you don’t really get to try out the best features, but again, if you are new and just starting to build your list, then the free plans may be the best.

Be sure not to limit yourself to free plans. Continue to check out what the email marketing service has to offer on its paid plans. Shop around before your list grows any further.

Features

Once you do have a sizable subscriber list, jumping from one email marketing service to another can present a problem. You’d want an email marketing service that allows you to import subscriber lists and newsletters, and not all email marketing services offer that.

Other key features to look for are:

Marketing Automation.

What do you send to subscribers who opted out of your list? How about subscribers who are yet to make a purchase? Do you immediately send out a hard sell mail to a subscriber who just signed up, or a nice, little welcome email?

Marketing automation helps you send out appropriate emails to specific segments of your subscriber list.

This is a staple for most email marketing services, but the level of automation and the triggers you can use vary from one to another.

Analytics and Reporting.

You’d find this feature on all email marketing services, but it is not the same across the board. Some offer simple, easy-to-read reports while others provide a more in-depth look at how your email marketing campaign is doing.

At the very least, your email marketing service should be able to give you information on the open rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate.

Interface/Dashboard.

Affiliate marketers have plenty enough to do without yet another dashboard to learn to navigate. With all of the features these email marketing services offer, it’s equally important that they are in an interface that is easy to navigate and access.

Support

At some point or other, particularly if you are moving from one email marketing service to another, you will run into issues. A responsive support staff is therefore essential.

Thankfully, there are plenty of reviews out there apart from this one to give you feedback on these email marketing services. Be sure to check them out, too.

We are not going to give you which one we think is “the best” because we do not subscribe to the thinking that there is a one and only service that will cater to everyone. At the end of the day, it’s your investment and therefore, your choice which one is best for you.

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August 2, 2021
Everything You Need to Know – Business
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Behind every purchase a consumer makes, there is a decision-making journey.

This is a process that everyone goes through from discovering their problem or need to their final decision to buy. As a person progresses through their buying journey, they’ll have different questions and concerns.

BOFU (bottom-of-funnel) content comes at the very end of the decision-making journey, or the last step before buying. In content marketing, nailing the BOFU phase is absolutely essential for getting an ROI on your content. If this step isn’t right, your prospects won’t convert into customers, and all the work that came before would be for nothing.

We’ll take you through the types of BOFU content, how to use them, and why they’re effective.

What is BOFU content?

To understand BOFU content, it’s worth taking a step back to understand the decision-making funnel. The decision-making funnel is used to describe the step-by-step process consumers go through before most purchases. You’ll find variations of this model, but here’s the simplified version:
- The user becomes aware of their problem or desire
- They conduct research and find out which solutions are available to them
- Decision: they do any final research, then make their purchase
BOFU content, as it sounds, targets the end of the decision making process. People at this stage in their journey know about their problem and some of the solutions, and are preparing to make their final decision.

That means you can (and should) be more aggressive with your copy and calls-to-action (CTAs). With this type of content, these kind of CTAs are all appropriate:
- Get a free trial
- Request a demo
- Get a quote
- Call us now
- Buy now
- Add to basket
They may not, however, be appropriate further up the funnel. It’s important to match your language and CTAs to the correct intent and stage of the funnel.

If someone is searching for “what is Bitcoin?”, they probably don’t want to buy Bitcoin. Not yet anyway. A better next step might be to read about the price history, or “Is Bitcoin a good investment?” to help push this reader further down the funnel.

This is a simple concept, but an important one to grasp. If you try to use more aggressive calls-to-action (CTAs) such as ‘book a demo’ or ‘add to basket’ in content that is not BOFU, then your conversion strategy simply won’t work. It’s important to match the right CTA to the right type of content.

How does BOFU content differ from MOFU and TOFU content?

Naturally, since we have ‘BOFU’ content, we also have ‘MOFU’ and ‘TOFU’. Middle of funnel, and top of funnel, respectively. Here’s an explanation of what each of those are, how they differ, and some quick examples to illustrate.

Top-of-funnel (TOFU) content

At the top of the funnel, you have the biggest and broadest audience. These are people who are mostly simply looking for information, and may not yet be aware of a specific problem they need to solve. They are the furthest away from a purchase, which also means you have a lot of nurturing work to do before this audience converts.

Here are some examples of TOFU content:

TOFU content is informational. It is the first step in making a reader aware of your brand, and aware of a problem you could solve for them where possible too.

Middle-of-funnel (MOFU) content

In the middle of the funnel, people are now aware of their problem. This is known as the evaluation stage, where the person is weighing up the different solutions to solve this problem.

With MOFU content, it’s worth remembering that it doesn’t have to be YOU who nurtures the person to this stage. There’s already plenty of people out there who’ve got to this stage, and are ready to start researching solutions.

You now just have to make sure that you produce the right content, and get it in the right places so that your target market finds you in this stage.

Here are some examples of MOFU content:

Types of BOFU content

At the bottom of the funnel, we have prospective customers who know their problem, and know some of their potential solutions. At this stage, people are figuring out the details, and finalizing their decision. Here are five types of content you can produce to convert BOFU prospects into customers.

1. Product comparisons

Comparing product A to product B is a commonly used tactic to weigh up the pros and cons of each product, and identify the use cases where one is superior to the other.

Why this works

Someone reading comparison content is past their initial research stage. They know of at least these two solutions to their problem, and now they want to know the finer details of each. It’s a great opportunity to jump in and highlight key selling points.

Example: GetResponse vs. Constant Contact

This example is written by GetResponse. They’re aware that anyone buying GetResponse may also be considering Constant Contact, so they’ve put in the time to write up a comparison.

It starts by drawing a comparison of the features, before moving onto pricing. It also gives GetResponse a chance to highlight other selling points that may affect the decision-making process, such as 24/7 support.

A secondary benefit of producing this content is that it equips the sales team to deal with any questions about this comparison, and give resources for prospects to read.

Example: Trello vs. Meistertask vs. Toggl Plan

This article that compares Trello vs. Meistertask is written by Toggl Plan, a competitor of both tools.

It is a creative tactic that allows you to leverage the brand awareness of your competitors with SEO and content. Toggl Plan has satisfied the search intent by pitting Trello against Meistertask, but simultaneously thrown their own hat in the ring as a third alternative.

If you’re a newcomer to the market, try doing some keyword research. Look for people who are comparing some of your better known competitors, and see if there’s an opportunity to utilize that in your content marketing.

2. A case study

Case studies are used to show what kind of results other people have had with your solution. Often, they’ll focus on a specific problem that you solve, and take you through the journey to the results.

Why this works

A case study proves that your solution works. That customer chose you ahead of all their other options. What was the result? It lets you incorporate testimonials and show off the outcomes that other customers have achieved.

A reader may find themselves in a similar situation to the person or company in your case study. Explaining step-by-step what happened in a real-world scenario makes it easy for the prospect to understand what can happen if they buy.

Example: Attest’s Gymshark Case Study

In this first example, Attest are able to boast about how their solution has enabled Gymshark to navigate a difficult market. Gyms closing was a new challenge, and Attest could equip brands in this space with market intelligence to figure out what to do next.

The case study walks through the journey, starting with the problems and questions Gymshark had, then following with the results. It details how Gymshark made some key discoveries, such as data proving that people were anxious about returning to the gym amidst the pandemic.

Example 2: Shopify’s Heinz Case Study

Shopify’s Heinz case study neatly lays out the challenge, solution, and results from using their e-commerce platform. It includes multiple testimonials from a key stakeholder at Heinz.

Three key details are also highlighted above the fold:
- Previous platform
- Food and beverage
- Use case
These help a reader understand quickly how relevant the case study is. The closer to their situation, the more effective it will be, which makes having case studies across a number of different industries and use cases effective.

3. An ‘alternatives’ listicle

Sometimes a person is aware of one solution to their problem, but it just isn’t quite right. This is usually a market leader with lots of brand awareness. In that case, it’s common to search for product alternatives to see if there’s anything else out there that is a better fit.

Why this works

Someone searching for an alternative is ready to buy. They already know their problem, and just need to find the right solution. It might be that the solution they already know about is too expensive. Maybe it lacks a certain feature, or isn’t great for their specific use case. This is an opportunity for you as a content marketer to step in and offer the perfect alternative.

Example 1: Benchmade Bugout Alternatives

This affiliate article starts by identifying the reasons why someone might look for an alternative to this brand (Benchmade). The primary reason is that it’s an expensive brand. However, it’s also small, and very light – so perhaps someone would look for something bigger or sturdier, too.

For each potential drawback, the article recommends a product that fits better. This is easily replicable across many physical products, SaaS products, and brands. Like with product comparison keywords, you can do keyword research to look for similar opportunities in your niche. See if you can leverage the brand awareness of market leaders in your space.

Example: ClickUp Alternatives

This example is a little different in that ClickUp is the author of this post.

If people are searching for alternatives to your product, you have an opportunity to address their concerns. Publishing and ranking content like this makes it harder for your competitors to do so, and it allows you a chance to change the reader’s mind.

In this article, ClickUp lists out alternatives to their product, but also identifies the drawbacks of each and how ClickUp solves them. For example, Asana is one of the prospective alternatives. ClickUp are sure to highlight the limited privacy permissions which they can offer a better solution for.

4. A free trial or demo landing page

A free trial or demo is the perfect way to get prospects over the line. The very last step in the decision-making funnel.

Why this works

People this far down the funnel already believe you can offer them the solution they’re looking for. They’re nearly ready to pull the trigger and pay, but need to see it in action first to confirm. At this point, you don’t need to beat around the bush. CTAs can be straight to the point. People are ready to try your solution.

Example: LinkedIn Sales Navigator Free Trial

LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator trial page is a great example to look at, that includes many landing page best practices.

Take note of:
- A clear CTA above the fold
- A product video
- Social proof used (high profile customer logos)
- FAQs to address potential concerns
The page is short and to the point. You can also see that there’s no top bar navigation. LinkedIn has reduced the number of ways someone can get distracted and leave the page without starting a trial.

Example: Perkbox’s Request a Demo

For a self-serve product, a free trial works well. For a sales-led product, however, we usually see free demonstrations being offered. There are some similarities to the LinkedIn page: a clear CTA above the fold, and lots of social proof (client logos, testimonials, reviews).

For a demo request form like this, it’s important to consider which fields to include. Typically, more fields will result in fewer form submissions, but potentially a higher quality of lead. Fewer fields will likely result in more leads, but they could be less qualified.

In this case, Perkbox choose to add in fields for company size and level of seniority, since these are important factors in the sales process.

5. Free courses and educational materials

Lastly, another type of BOFU content is educational materials. This can come in several forms, but video courses are particularly popular and effective.

Why this works

By creating free educational content, you’ll be able to show someone how they can achieve their goals by using your product. Prospects can see your product in action, understand the value it provides, and see whether or not it’s what they need.

It allows you to give value up front, and showcase your expertise on the topic. It’s also an opportunity to grab email addresses and work on nurturing leads.

Example: Ahrefs Academy

This free course by Ahrefs is designed for absolute beginners in SEO. It teaches the fundamentals of things like keyword research and on-page SEO, showing how Ahrefs can help you with those things along the way. Getting a trial of Ahrefs is a logical next step after this course, to start applying the learnings.

Example: Email Marketing Basics by Sendinblue

Similarly to the Ahrefs example, this course by Sendinblue introduces users to the basics of email marketing. And naturally, to Sendinblue’s email marketing product. It’s a low-friction way to start delivering value and educating users on how to achieve their marketing goals with the product.

Both Ahrefs and Sendinblue’s courses are ungated, meaning there’s no email address required to access them. You’ll find others examples such as HubSpot Academy which do require a sign up. In that case, the creator has the opportunity to send further emails and nurture leads.

How long do prospects stay in the BOFU stage before a buying decision?

Typically, once a prospect reaches the BOFU stage, they are close to buying. However, the precise timelines for that final decision can vary a lot. Some purchases are simply a bigger decision than others.

Keep in mind these key factors which could affect the timeline:
- B2B vs. B2C
- Number of stakeholders involved
- Price point
- Business model (sales-led vs. self-service)
- Industry
Think about how long it would take you to decide on which car to buy. Then compare that to how long it would take you to decide which brand of chips to buy.

The price and the business model will also impact this a lot. For example, a sales-led B2B product may have a long sales cycle. With multiple demos, multiple decision-makers involved, and budgets to allocate, this can take months whereas a lower cost B2C product could take as few as a couple of hours.

Conclusion

BOFU content is the key to ROI on your content marketing. The whole purpose of everything that comes before (TOFU and MOFU marketing) is to get prospects to this point, and convert them into customers.

Think about the questions, thoughts, and potential objections a prospect might have by this point in their buyer’s journey. Create content that aims to satisfy those concerns. Think about producing:
- Product comparisons
- Case studies
- ‘Alternatives’ listicles
- Free trial and/or demo landing pages
- Free courses and educational content
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August 2, 2021
Keyword Gap Analysis & Consumer Buying Behavior – SEO
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Businesses exist because of customers.

Regardless of what industry you are in or what products or services you sell, your customers are the most important part of your business. Because without customers, there is simply no business for your company to exist.

As a result, your marketing must factor in what influences consumer behavior.

Marketing is so much more than creating a catchy phrase or jingle. You need to figure out how to meet your customers’ needs, what their values are, and speak to them in ways that they would want to engage to build a successful marketing campaign.

But what exactly is consumer behavior and why is it important to marketers?

What is Consumer Behavior?

Source: Zillion Designs

Consumer behavior definition in marketing is the study of how people make purchasing decisions and understanding the reasons that affect their purchase, such as social or psychological factors.

It is a study that uses data insights from surveys and reports to find the “why” behind each buying decision. Often, this means looking into different facets of consumer behavior and answering questions like:
- What are the consumer perceptions about a certain brand, product, or service?
- What motivates a consumer to select one product over another and why?
- What factors in a consumer’s everyday environment affect buying decisions and why?
Of course, there are many more. But using the answers to these questions can help businesses make better decisions and effective marketing strategies by aligning their techniques with their desired target audiences.

As we have seen time and time again, successful brands and companies align their marketing strategies to factors affecting consumer behavior as to the foundation.

They’re not generating products and marketing plans based on their ideas alone, but instead, look into how consumers behave and take that information to match up their product design and marketing strategy to what consumers want and need.

Every consumer has a different thought process and motivation for buying a product. Despite being customers of the same product, their difference in lifestyle or income can have influences on behavior and their approach to purchasing.

As marketers understand the varying factors, they can adopt customer differentiation to tailor their strategies according to different consumer groups. With this, businesses can expand the width of their services to be able to effectively serve a wider group of consumers.

Source: Revuze

Besides, customers have come to expect personalization from companies. According to a report by Instapage, 74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized or catered to them.

This makes learning consumer behavior more necessary than before, as companies need to understand how to appeal to these consumers.

An extra point is, studying consumer behavior can also be helpful to quickly identify consumer opportunities. By studying what customers are looking for or emerging trends, your company can be the first to identify gaps that are not met.

For example, a recent change in consumer behavior is driven by COVID-19 that warrants the increasing need for health supplements that boost immunity.

Nutritional companies that monitored the change in eating patterns of consumers would be able to quickly react to this trend and produce immunity and respiratory health-boosting supplements to fill in the void in the marketplace.

Now that you understand the importance of your consumer behavior in marketing, this next section will show you how to put it to use in a 4-step process.

How to Integrate Consumer Behavior with Marketing?

1. Understand Your Consumers

First and foremost, it’s critical to understand your consumers. And where better to understand the factors that influence buying behavior of your target audiences than directly from your customers themselves.

Encourage your customers to drop a review or sign up with review platforms like G2 or Trustpilot to help solicit feedback.

Then, take the time to read your reviews, get feedback from customer support and search up your own products or website online to see what people are saying about your brand.

You can even do a quick Google search to see what people are saying about you. Just simply search your ”brand name + reviews”.

When going through your reviews, make sure you read them neutrally and try understanding where your consumers are coming from.

Here, you should be able to identify important insights like what is your customer’s favorite feature, why do customers prefer you from other brands, and more.

Most importantly, take the opportunity to create a buyer persona. This should help you have a better idea of who you are speaking to when creating your marketing campaigns.

For example, BiQ’s buyer persona may be male, small business entrepreneurs in their 30s who are operating a digital marketing business.

Take a look at how Keyword Gap Analysis drives success in Digital Marketing.

2. Know your Competitors

As good as you are with your customers, you must know your competitors even better. And in digital marketing, you can have direct and indirect competitors.

To quickly explain, direct competitors are businesses that compete with you directly by selling similar products or services. Meanwhile, indirect competitors are businesses that might be selling a different product or service but are potential substitute options. For example, think McDonald’s and Subway.

No matter the competitor, you are competing for the same resources — target audience.

By learning about who your competitors are and what they are offering can help you to make your products, services, and marketing stand out. It will also let you communicate with your target audience and set your prices competitively to navigate challenges in your market.

So how do you do this? It’s easy. Simply paste your domain URL in competitive analysis sites like Alexa or SEMrush to identify similar competition.

Next, dig up information on your competitors. Find out who they are and similarly, go through their reviews, customer feedback on them, and look for gaps you can take advantage of.

Look at this review for example, while many praise SEMrush SEO features and solutions, it can still be hard to navigate and overwhelming for beginners.

Understanding this gap, we have created BiQ SEO Suite which places emphasis on ease of use and friendly interface that has brought us our customers today!

3. Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Minimize the Gap Between Yourself and Your Competitors

At last, you can’t talk about digital marketing without keywords.

Now that you have your customers and competitors down, it’s time to do a complete keyword analysis for your domain and your competitors.

This is known as keyword gap analysis and it offers a side-by-side comparison between your keyword profile and your competitors’.

You can use tools like BiQ Rank Intelligence and simply enter the domains to start your keyword audit and discovery. The report will show you all the ranking keywords for each site and you can analyze them according to their rankings and traffic to compare them.

When going through the list, you want to look for overlapping and common keywords missing from your site. To make this easy, group your keywords into two categories:

a. Keywords you rank for, but they don’t

This category consists of your keyword strengths and represents search terms that you might be ranking higher over your competitors.

Make sure you track these keywords using BiQ’s Rank Tracking to keep track of your site traffic. Your ranking should correspond to your site traffic and will be a good indicator of the increase or drop based on your ranking.

This will let you keep an eye on the competitors who are trying to steal your keywords while tracking algorithm changes and other anomalies.

More importantly, these keywords should also inform you which are the relevant keywords you should be targeting. As you are already ranking high for these keywords, Google sees you as the authority for the topic and you might want to get an extra boost when you optimize or create content for related keyword groups.

b. Keywords your competitors are ranking for, but you don’t

This list consists of your keyword opportunities. Your competitors most likely have done the SEO and identify the valuable keywords that your audiences are searching for.

So make sure to identify decent volume, valuable keywords missing from your list and add them to your keyword strategy. You can target them by analyzing Google’s search results and finding gaps that will allow you to create better content.

On the other hand, if there are keywords you have already created content for but have still yet to rank high, analyze your ranking competitors’ keywords and identify if there are any missing keywords you should be optimizing into your existing content to make it more relevant.

For both scenarios, we recommend using BiQ’s Content Intelligence that will make the writing and optimizing process much easier. It offers WordGraph analysis which will automatically compare your content to the Top 10 rankings and provide suggestions to improve.

At the same time, take the chance to understand the keyword strategy your competitors have and decipher their tactics to get high traffic.

Overall, you should get insights and identify the differences between each domain’s ranking keywords. Look into your data and see what kind of keywords are each domain ranking for?

For example, is your domain ranking better for long-tail or short-tail keywords? What about your competitors’? How many keywords does your competitor include in their content? and more.

The key is to identify patterns and find search terms that you may have missed.

Often, many marketers target high volume keywords but you also want to pay attention to low search, high intent keywords as well.

Just imagine if you are an ecommerce store selling trainers, there are obvious phrases like brands and models of shoes that all your competitors will be targeting, but what about the specific long-tail keywords?

For example, extra-small shoe sizes, specific styles of shoes like cricket cleats. These phrases may not have a high volume of traffic, but by nature, they have high intent and are more likely to convert compared to keywords like Nike shoes.

You want to make sure you discover these hidden keywords during your gap analysis.

4. Understand The Types of Consumer Behavior In Your Industry

Source: ZillionDesigns

Now before you begin creating content for these keywords, there are 4 types of consumer behaviors you should know to better build your marketing funnel:
- Routine Shopping – Regular purchases done by consumers, this behavior is associated with low product pricing and shows low involvement without the need for much research. An example would be grocery shopping at the supermarket or buying snacks.
- Limited Decision Making – Buying products occasionally. Consumers in this category are purchasing something that costs more but is not expensive and will require a moderate amount of time for research, often through recommendations as they make the purchase. For example, buying clothes or looking for a good Mexican food place.
- Extensive Decision Making – Products in this category are usually unfamiliar to customers, expensive, and not frequently bought. This may take a longer time for research and consumers will be looking at multiple factors such as checking product ratings, asking friends and professionals for more information, comparing options before making the final decision.
- Impulse Buying – Impulse buyers often show the tendency of a customer making purchasing decisions at the spur of the moment, without planning in advance. These purchase decisions are often triggered by emotions or feelings.
Knowing this, your digital marketing interactions should be founded based on these 4 types of buying behavior.

Let’s say you are targeting impulse buyers, your sales page copywriting then should focus on triggering your customer’s emotions and place emphasis on limited-time offers.

5. Use the Discovered Hidden Keywords

Finally, one last important lesson is that even if you have your keywords, you need to learn how to use your keywords with the right type of content to convert your audience into qualified leads.

While most SEOs often resort to written content, you should also use different content types like infographics, videos, and other forms of content that match the user’s search intent.

According to a report by Wyzowl, 96% of people prefer watching an explainer video to learn more about a product or service and 84% of people say they made the decision to purchase a product or service after watching a brand’s video.

Source: We Are Marketing

Despite this, in 2021, we still only see 14% of businesses using videos in their marketing mix.

What’s most important here is to always meet the search intent of the target keyword and align it with what your consumers are looking for. And most importantly, use these hidden keywords in your marketing to invoke a specific consumer behavior you want to target.

Read how to drive more organic traffic to your site on our recent blog.

Key Takeaway: Use Keyword Gap Analysis to Target Buyer Keywords and Shape Consumer Behavior

As the business world evolves, so do consumer habits and tastes. What stays the same is that consumer behavior is still the most vital component to crafting a great marketing campaign.

Digital marketing is about basing decisions on actual data. Understanding your consumer behaviors can deliver insights that will help you make better digital marketing decisions that drive action.

By integrating competitive keyword analysis and consumer behavior, your business can get an unprecedented advantage over your competitors in terms of product visibility and conversion.

So what are you waiting for? Start implementing keyword gap analysis into your marketing strategy today with RankingGap!

You can learn more about our keyword gap analysis strategies in our main blog here.

Updated: 2 August 2021

When life is bitter, drink black coffee indoor and grab yourself some self-help books while listening to cafe lofi. Win Wei is just another being that enjoys life and the wonders of digital marketing. Oh, I do love myself some swimming, too.
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August 2, 2021
PwnedPiper flaws in PTS systems affect 80% of major US hospitals – Cyber Security
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Cybersecurity researchers disclosed multiple flaws, dubbed PwnedPiper, that left a widely-used pneumatic tube system (PTS) vulnerable to attacks.

Researchers from cybersecurity Armis disclosed a set of nine vulnerabilities collectively tracked as PwnedPiper that could be exploited to carry out multiple attacks against a widely-used pneumatic tube system (PTS).

The Swisslog PTS system are used in the hospitals to automate logistics and the transport of materials throughout the building via a network of pneumatic tubes.

The flaw affects the Translogic PTS system manufactured by Swisslog Healthcare, which is installed in about 80% of all major hospitals in North America and thousands of hospitals worldwide.

An attacker could exploit the PwnedPiper vulnerabilities to completely take over the Translogic Nexus Control Panel, which powers current models of Translogic PTS stations.

The flaws could be exploited by attackers to conduct a broad range of malicious activities, such as carrying out a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack to change or deploying ransomware

“These vulnerabilities can enable an unauthenticated attacker to take over Translogic PTS stations and essentially gain complete control over the PTS network of a target hospital,” reads the post published by Armis. “This type of control could enable sophisticated and worrisome ransomware attacks, as well as allow attackers to leak sensitive hospital information.”

The flaws include privilege escalation, memory corruption, remote-code execution, and denial-of-service issues. An attacker could also push an insecure firmware upgrade to fully compromise the devices.

These are the nine vulnerabilities discovered by the researchers:
- CVE-2021-37161 – Underflow in udpRXThread
- CVE-2021-37162 – Overflow in sccProcessMsg
- CVE-2021-37163 – Two hardcoded passwords accessible through the Telnet server
- CVE-2021-37164 – Off-by-three stack overflow in tcpTxThread
- CVE-2021-37165 – Overflow in hmiProcessMsg
- CVE-2021-37166 – GUI socket Denial Of Service
- CVE-2021-37167 – User script run by root can be used for PE
- CVE-2021-37160 – Unauthenticated, unencrypted, unsigned firmware upgrade
Swisslog has released Nexus Control Panel version 7.2.5.7 that addresses most of the above vulnerabilities. The CVE-2021-37160 has yet to be addressed.

“This research sheds light on systems that are hidden in plain sight but are nevertheless a crucial building block to modern-day healthcare. Understanding that patient care depends not only on medical devices, but also on the operational infrastructure of a hospital is an important milestone to securing healthcare environments.” concludes the report.

Swisslog has also published security advisories for these vulnerabilities.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, PTS Systems)

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August 2, 2021
Reach, Frequency, Advertising And Brands – Advertise
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Brand building is the aim of marketing. A big component of marketing is communications, the purpose of which is to attract customers to our brand and to persuade them to support it. Historically, that has been accomplished primarily through advertising media–print, then radio and TV, and now digital. And while smart, goal oriented creative has been the star; working diligently behind the scenes is smart, goal-oriented media strategy and planning.

Media is a science; part sociology, part statistical analysis, part economics, part behavioral science, and some might say, part intuition. In spite of the advancements in technology, measurements and analysis, a constantly shifting media landscape and media consumption trends, media strategy seems to always come down to the use of two things: Reach and frequency.

Reach is the depth or penetration of your targeted consumer (B2C) or customer purchaser or decision-maker (B2B) base, quantified in numbers and/or percentages via a media vehicle and over a set campaign period. Effective reach delivers the maximum number of targeted individuals for exposure to the brand message. Efficient reach does so economically, often expressed in a cost per thousand (CPM), CPL (cost per lead) and CPS (cost per sale).

Frequency is the number of exposures to the brand message obtained for the target via a media vehicle(s) over a set campaign period. Reach delivers the audience while frequency repeatedly exposes the audience to the brand message, offer, promotion, etc. How many exposures is enough (or too much) is often the question, since there is obvious budgetary waste for buying too many ads with diminishing effectiveness.

Repetition Is The Glue

A side note here about the scientific behavioral underpinning to frequency. Author and memory expert Carmen Simon points out the benefit to brands as “binding content to the source”: “Ensure that you’re presenting frequently enough to help someone’s brain bind the content and the source.” In other words, repetition is the glue that binds your message to your brand … and not to someone else’s.

In his article “Advertising Frequency Theory: Circa 1885,” Derrick Daye provides the 20 steps or exposures an ad must take to garner purchase intent as seen through the eyes of an 1800’s marketer. One-hundred and thirty-five years later it seems much of the observation holds true.

How Often?

A little online search will reveal that “frequency” in 2020 is still a very hot topic. Consider these examples that attempt to provide advertisers guidance:
- As we advised here on Branding Strategy Insider, in “Reach Versus Frequency In Advertising”: “Many will say that it is more efficient to focus on reach (versus frequency) because there are diminishing returns with each new ad exposure. … However, if your funds are limited and your audience is highly targeted, you would do better to focus on a reach schedule of 3+, seeking out media with significant audience overlap. For brand building purposes … focus on advertising frequency targeted at … opinion leaders and “hard core” users.”
- Jeff Neff reported in AdAge, “What’s the frequency? Advertisers deal with conflicting data”:
  
  Facebook research indicated one to two exposures per week over 10 weeks as an ideal average for packaged-goods
  
  For TV, an emotional connection is created after one or two viewings, a “reasoned, cognitive response” after 3 to 10 times, and a deeper emotional connection after 10 viewings
  
  Many subscribe to the “Rule of 7” in order to fully resonate with the target audience
- The “Frequency of Three” for radio spots for effective recall has been touted
- News America.com states in its piece “How Do We Determine the Optimum Mix of Reach vs. Frequency,” 5–9 exposures “are deemed to be the optimal level for driving brand awareness” and 10+ exposures “are deemed the most optimal level for driving purchase intent.”
- The advertising ratings service Nielsen found in a 2017 study that digital ads needed between 5 to 9 exposures to improve branding and increase consumer acceptance.
And there are no doubt many more frequency guidelines. Careful performance tracking by any number of measurements will reveal, over time, what works for your brand. It’s never clear-cut because there are so many influences (both those can control and those you can’t) that will have a bearing on performance.

Frequency Insights

It seems there is no simple answer to the question “how many times do we run this ad?” Every situation is different. There are, however a few insights we can draw from the research:

Media Usage Habits Have Logical Frequency Implications

According to Jeff Rosenblum’s article “From Friction to Empathy: A New Brand Building Model” up to 89% of TV ads are ignored, not necessarily because of DVRs, but because people fiddle with their smart phones during the commercial breaks. Greater frequency for TV to combat commercial avoidance would be indicated.

Cross-Platform Measurement Should Be Used To Manage Frequency

Jeff quotes P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard’s observation that with so much message duplication between digital and TV, cross-platform measurement could “drive out a lot of waste.” It should also be noted that P&G has recently instituted “Frequency Capping” to purposely limit the number of times their ads are exposed online and increase their long-term effectiveness.

Wear-Out Of Ads Is A Real Outcome Of Frequency

Frequency tracks a typical bell-curve of effectiveness: first ineffective reach, then effective, then ineffective. If you’ve ever been part of a DR (direct response) campaign, you’ve seen the results first-hand. At some point frequency will suck the lead-generating life out of a TV spot and will need to be rested, replaced or refreshed with a new offer or approach to regain its potency.

The Case For Reach-Only

Reach can be used with little or no frequency for well- established brands with little competition and delivering a simple message. By employing reach only, marketers are striving for maximum impact from memorable creative, delivered at just the right time and in just the right venue. It can then be leveraged by some other means through publicity, PR, direct mail, etc.

For example, the gut-wrenchingly powerful “Daisy” ad created by DDB and Tony Schwartz for Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign aired only once (on The NBC Monday Night Movie) and has been considered by historians as making the difference between he and Barry Goldwater, a candidate Johnson contended could not be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Equally noteworthy 20 years later is Chiat Day’s “1984” spot that launched the Apple Macintosh personal computer and ran only once during Super Bowl XVIII. Both the “Daisy” and “1984” spots were powerfully creative, compelling and socially and culturally disruptive. Both spots also had tremendous reach, but of course, no frequency was factored in.

However, not all reach-only strategies guarantee a successful outcome. In 2015, Starbucks asked customers to #RaceTogether by using a supplement in partnership with USA Today to stimulate a conversation about race relations. No other media was used and no frequency was employed. Unfortunately for Starbucks and CEO Howard Schultz, all it succeeded in doing was to stimulate a lot of criticism for the poorly conceived and misguided brand initiative. The campaign died almost instantly.

Regardless, the success of one-time, high-impact ads have spawned a purposeful one-time reach strategy that combines a “proclamation” or “statement” message to communicate policy changes, mergers, brand launches, positions and product introductions. For example, full-page ads in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal (as well as other major market newspapers) may run all at once on the same day. Media selections are based on their journalistic reputation and reach within their respective markets. This one-time placement strategy is designed to create “shock and awe” with follow up news coverage, PR and direct mail campaigns to follow. B2B advertisers may also use a similar strategy to launch a new product line or technological advancement by a limited or one-time reach placement that dominates its industry by the dominance of its circulation.

Impact On Brand Strategy

As marketers we know that brands must be supported in order to remain relevant and growing. But we also know that we face a number of challenges, such as the sheer number of messages competing for our customer’s attention. We must provide consistent and repeated reminders of the value of our brand on an emotional level so that when our customer is in the market, we’ll be top of mind. Otherwise, we risk indifference at best, or replacement by a competitor at worst. Strong and compelling creative advertising that differentiates is essential, but an effective media strategy with a strong understanding of reach and frequency is a must.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Strategic Brand Storytelling Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers
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August 2, 2021
Beginner’s Guide to Use Instagram Direct Messages for Business – Media
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The following is a guest post by Andre Oentoro. Andre is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order). You can follow Andre on Twitter: @breadnbeyond or connect to him on LinkedIn.

Instagram DM (Direct Message) is arguably one of the most underrated marketing channels that you are probably not using correctly right now.

Content like social media videos, infographics, and slides are a great way to expand your business’ organic reach. However, engaging your customers directly through their inbox offers excellent potential for conversion and growth.

As many as eight out of ten people use Instagram to look up products and services, it’s only fitting that you meet your potential customers halfway by sliding to their DMs.

But before we talk deeper about leveraging Instagram Direct Messages for your business and marketing purposes, let’s refresh our memories on how DMs work.

Understanding Instagram Direct Messaging (DM)

Instagram Direct Messages allow users to chat directly with other users, which works similarly with Facebook Messengers. Facebook has released a unified inbox feature that enables you to manage Facebook messages and Instagram DMs from one place.

Using Instagram DMs is an excellent and personal way to increase your brand’s awareness, build relationships with potential customers, promote your products, and eventually close sales – all within one platform.

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a small business, DMs can be a powerful tool to grow your business without building an online store or a website. Even if you run the marketing side of a massive corporation, you can still use DMs to personify your brand and add a personal touch to your marketing campaigns.

What’s more intriguing is that unlike content marketing, which is often subject to Instagram algorithm changes, DMs are not affected by external factors except you (sender) and your customers (receiver).

On top of that, the average engagement rate for a business account’s posts is a teeny 0.96% – which is not an ideal way to grow. Instagram DMs is a straightforward form of marketing that, if used correctly, can generate both conversion and customer loyalty at the same time.

Why You Should Use Instagram Direct Messages for Your Business

Instagram has a massive number of monthly active users, but that’s not the most appealing aspect of the Facebook-owned platform. It’s how addicted people are to using Instagram in their daily lives.

Ask yourself this: How many times have you sent a message to your friend on Instagram, even though you have their number?

The answer is probably between sometimes and every single time – but not never. Its users’ attachment is another factor that makes Instagram a great marketing platform.

On that note, there are also marketing-oriented reasons why you should use Instagram Direct Messages for your business.

1. Helps you connect with your customers

While the DMs are great features to connect with customers, what makes them so irresistible is their connection to the platform. You can share posts, stories, reels, GIFs, videos, and voice notes with your customers or leads, strengthening the relationship.

The various ways to communicate with others provide a whole new playing field that you could leverage to paint your business with the right image.

Even if you’re still using business-level formality to chat with your followers, the fact remains that you’re both talking on social media instead of the company’s email or call center.

2. Provides personal and engaged customer support

Not only does Instagram DM work well to boost your conversion, but it also offers up-close and personal space for customer support.

According to a survey by Sprout Social, 31% of consumers prefer to leave feedback about a product on a business social media.

Instagram has also launched a quick reply feature which allows business accounts to create several frequently used messages that you can send with just one tap. You can create new quick reply messages or set up an existing message as a quick reply option.

While the quick reply feature is an effective way to increase your account’s response time, it’s not entirely personal. After the initial reply, you can continue talking to your customers using various reactions, GIFs, images, or even videos to liven up the chat room.

3. Boosts your stories marketing engagement

If you’re using stories to share your content, Instagram DMs will provide you with double the benefit. Every reply to your stories goes straight into your DMs.

That means by setting up stories that your followers can reply to or react to, and you will open up a new way to start a conversation with them.

4. Exposes new and high-quality leads

Instagram DMs also allow you to reach out to other users who aren’t following your account. You can use various search filters such as locations, hashtags, and stickers to create a set of criteria to find high-quality leads.

By sifting through the results, you can score high-quality potential leads, which you can approach through Instagram DMs. If you can find them through the search feature, you can send them a DM.

It would be best if you kept in mind that DMs you send to private Instagram accounts will end up in the “message request” tab, which can be reported and marked as spam. In other words, the account reaches out with caution.

5. Your customers are spending their time on Instagram

In 2020, the average user spent at least 30 minutes a day on Instagram. This number increases from 26 minutes per day in 2019 – which tells us about the increasing retention time among Instagram users.

The more they spend their time on Instagram, the more likely they are to look up your business or product within the app. Whether they want to inquire about your service, buy a product, or complain about their previous purchase, a fast response time and digital presence are never a bad image for a business.

How to Use Instagram Direct Messages to Grow Your Business

Now that you’re convinced about using Instagram Direct Messages to grow your business let’s talk about how you can start doing it.

1. Start by setting up an objective

Any good marketing campaign always starts with a clearly defined objective. There are four types of marketing campaign objectives that you can execute through Instagram DMs.
- Promote new products: This campaign objective is pretty straightforward. You need to craft an enticing message about your new products and send it out to your followers. While this is certainly an achievable objective, the ideal recipient of promotion DMs should be your existing followers whom you have engaged in the past.
- Grow digital presence: Growing digital presence through Instagram DMs is simple. You can start by sharing your latest posts and updates about your business with your followers. But you should be mindful of the frequency since sending too many DMs might result in annoying your followers instead.
- Build brand authority: Sharing insightful content through your Instagram posts and stories is a great way to build authority. You can increase the impact by reaching out to those who comment or react to your posts and stories with a follow-up question through their DMs. Personal reach out will boost your authority and build a solid relationship that could increase your conversion altogether.
- Generate leads: Generating potential leads through Instagram DMs is a tricky task, but it’s achievable. You can start by compiling a list of followers who have interacted with your account, whether it’s through comments or DMs. Once you have a list of potential leads, you can start sending out product-related messages to see if they’re at all interested in a free trial.
- Reach new customers: You can also reach new customers by looking up posts related to your product or within the industry you’re in. If the accounts that uploaded those posts match your customer persona, you can start reaching out and invite them to follow you – don’t cold-DM them to buy your product.
- Build brand awareness: Instagram DMs also make a great tool to establish solid brand awareness. You can achieve this goal by regularly sending out updates or relevant posts related to your products or the industry.
Once you’ve set an objective for your campaign, you can start narrowing down which type of content to share and what kind of messages to send.

2. Set up Frequently Asked Questions with Instagram Direct Messages

Before you start sending out Instagram DMs and setting quick replies, you can create a set of FAQs to answer the inquiries about your business’ basic information like open hours, contact info, address, websites, etc.

You can follow these steps to set up FAQs for your Instagram DM:
- Head over to the Settings from your Instagram app, then tap Business/Creator, depending on your account type.
- Tap Frequently Asked Questions. If you haven’t set it up, it should have Off status next to it.
- Start by adding basic questions which will appear as suggestions at the beginning of the conversation. This is how FAQs will look like to your followers.
- If they tap the message, the response that you’ve set will be sent automatically.
3. Create a set of quick replies

Quick response time is one of the crucial factors that your existing or potential customers consider to measure the quality of your business.

As many as 47% of consumers prefer a brand that can answer customer service inquiries quickly over the ones that provide non-responsive customer services.

You can set a new quick reply message for Instagram DMs by following these steps:
- Open the Settings menu from your Instagram app.
- Head over to the Business option, and tap Quick Replies.
- Tap the plus sign on the top-right corner to create a quick-reply new message.
- Write your message, and assign a shortcut to use it. In the example below, we used the shortcut ‘services’ to answer inquiries about our services.
If you’ve written an extensive reply to an inquiry before, you can also set a previously sent message in your DMs as a quick reply message.
- Head over to the conversation, which has the message you’d like to use as a quick reply.
- Tap and hold the message, and you should see the option to save it as a Quick Reply.
- Instagram will automatically add that message to the quick reply column, and you’ll be able to edit and assign a shortcut to it.
Now the question is, how do you use one of the messages?

The Quick Reply feature is only available in Instagram DMs, and you can’t use it to reply to comments on your posts or reels.

You can use a quick reply message to respond to a DM. Start by opening a conversation that you’d like to reply to. If the question is related to one of your quick reply messages, you can type the shortcut that you’ve previously assigned to it.

Tap the triple-dot icon next to the Send button, and it will automatically change to the quick reply message.

4. Start a conversation from post and stories engagement

While you can certainly reach out to potential customers and offer them your products with zero context, that does not create the best image for your business. Instead, you can start a conversation by creating interactive stories.

Using polls and questions in your Instagram stories is a great way to start an interaction with your followers. Everyone who participated in the polls will show up under the story’s insight, which you can follow up by sending them DMs related to the content.

It’s an engaging and organic way to start a meaningful conversation instead of a business-oriented interaction. These polls can also serve as a market research tool and a beginning of customer-oriented content.

5. Provide value first

Once the conversation begins, it’s only natural to provide some valuable insights about the topic that sparked the interaction. Keep the conversation going naturally for as long as you can.

Organic conversation between a business and a potential customer is challenging to start through other channels. But since the initial engagement on Instagram starts from relevant stories, the topic’s already been set, and your job is to find a spot where your product can be the ‘hero’ to solve their problem.

6. Make your pitch with a special discount

Once the DMs chain has reached a point where you can throw your product into the conversation, don’t be shy about it.

Since the conversation starts organically, your product plug will not be as tacky as blatant and no-context promotion. The worst that they can say is no, right?

To make your offer even more enticing, throw in a special discount for people who signed up or purchased your product through Instagram DMs.

7. Rinse and repeat

Conversion is a numbers game, and you should be prepared to get 100 rejections for each closed sale made through your DMs.

There’s a high chance that most people won’t even reply to your DMs, but don’t let that discourage you.

If you’re trying to approach the CEO of your local shopping mall, they might not even read your DMs. But a tenant in that mall might be interested in your offer.

If you keep doing that for months or even years, you’ll pile up a bunch of experience that attracts bigger clients into taking a look at your portfolio. Before you know it, you’ll have multiple large-scale businesses as your recurring clients.

Ready to Start Using Instagram Direct Messages for Your Business?

While Instagram DMs are not as automated in lead generation, it offers a more direct and hands-on approach to growing your business.

Plus, not many people label Instagram DMs as a ‘marketing platform’ – so it can become a special place where you can impress your customers in a place where they didn’t expect.

Closing your first DM sale might be difficult, but it will teach you a lot in the process. Start making lists of what method works and what doesn’t – and double down on the effective ones.

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August 2, 2021
Best Fashion & Retail Marketing Agencies in the UK with Great Case Studies – Digital Marketing
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Fashion & retail marketing agencies can help you meet your needs in creating a winning strategy. They will make new potential customers notice your brand at scale. Therefore, you should know the best fashion & retail marketing agencies in the UK with great case studies. These agencies are providing the greatest services.

As you know, the fashion industry is in a world of competition between brands. In this world, you need to have all the necessary tools to ensure the survival and development of your brand. With the best fashion & retail marketing agencies, you can become a reliable and successful brand. And they can create effective strategies that increase loyalty, attract and retain your customers.

Fashion & retail marketing agencies

All of the agencies we will offer you have the potential to make you stand out from the competition using proven techniques and data-based strategies. Firstly, thanks to the greatest approaches, they can accelerate your sales. Their teams will increase your turnover with the best fashion & retail marketing agents.

Working with agencies serving in your industry also greatly contributes to providing transparency and trust in your interactions with customers. You can save time and money by incorporating the useful tactics these agencies will provide. And you can also contribute much more from all these services.

Here, we have listed the best fashion & retail agencies in the UK with great case studies:
- Digital Media Team
- CEEK Marketing
- Outible
- Pixated
- Croud
- KOTA
- Digital Uncut
- Impression
- Digital Cake
- Distinction
Digital Media Team is a digital media agency specializing in paid advertising for companies. They are experts in
- generating exposure,
- driving revenue, and
- growing e-commerce brands, with several years of experience in the digital industry, both in-house and on the agency side.
As the only Premium Facebook Business Partner outside of the capital, they offer outstanding services without the London price tag. Their partnership with Facebook ranks in the top 5% of digital marketing agencies worldwide.

They have a wide range of services such as email marketing, paid social, design, PPC & Google ads, Shopify websites, amazon marketing services, and more. From your website through to your paid social, their range of digital marketing services maps out every step of your brand’s journey. They will surely match you with the services that meet your business goals, helping you grow and scale your brand to new heights.

CEEK Marketing is a digital marketing and social media consulting agency based in London. Their unique marketing methodologies ensure your business is seen by target customers online and via social media.

Their team of marketing experts has a great passion for digital marketing. They make great partnerships with you to get stronger on social media using other marketing channels such as
- search engine optimization,
- influencer marketing, and
- paid to target campaigns.
With its expertise in unique approaches, amplifying brand awareness, increasing revenue, leveraging technology, CEEK Marketing offers you many excellent services such as content creation, web development, search engine marketing, paid targeting, inbound marketing, video production, digital PR, and more.

Outible is a professional digital agency based in Liverpool, UK. Its team of passionate experts works together to develop and support enterprise-level software. There is no doubt that their works are cleaner, valuable, maintainable and future-proof, and also less intrusive.

They have all of the jobs required for a complete software development process. Their development staff has a diverse range of capabilities and is knowledgeable in a variety of programming languages and development tools.

Focusing solely on your business needs, they discuss solutions freely, always provide transparent, and honest timetables, and follow up on a frequent basis. Moreover, they stay positive and realistic to deliver outstanding services like
- website development,
- app development,
- SaaS solutions,
- search engine optimization,
- project management,
- UX design,
- content creation,
- enterprise-level support, and more to all of their clients.
Pixated is one of the best fashion & retail marketing agencies in the UK. It is a performance marketing and web design agency. Likewise, the team has a proven track record for scaling up some of the most exciting brands.

Above all, its talented and experienced team of experts is specialized in crafting high-converting campaigns geared towards generating the best ROI for ambitious brands around the world. They have all the experience and industry-leading knowledge required to transform your online performance into a brand to be proud of.

Pixated will surely delight you with the excellent results coming from its consistent strategies. Their efforts will be characterizing your impressive online presence and significant services. For instance, they may help you with
- web design,
- app marketing,
- web development,
- email marketing,
- PPC marketing,
- digital strategy,
- UX design, etc.
Croud is a global digital agency founded in 2011 that connects data, technology, and creativity to drive business performance. It has a wide range of partnerships with some of the world’s leading brands such as Avon, UGG, Vans, International Workplace Group, and more. Its in-house experts based in the UK, USA, and Australia are recognized by many industries for their skills and innovations.

When you work with Croud’s multinational team, you will benefit from the expertise and experience of some of the brightest digital strategists, planners, and practitioners. Using a unique model that enables a more in-depth understanding of your business, its team will deliver truly transformative results.

In addition, experienced in many industries including fashion and retail marketing, Croud gives several services:
- digital experience and performance,
- data solutions,
- global growth,
- in-housing solutions,
- digital strategy,
- content marketing, and more.
KOTA is an international award-winning creative web design and branding agency based in London. Firstly, it is a progressive and insightful design agency. The team is technically and creatively skilled to translate your brand into its best digital self. Moreover, its creative team’s design and development approach create impactful, engaging brands and immersive digital experiences. That’s how they bring you a return on creativity.

KOTA’s international team of designers, developers, and strategists specialize in many services such as
- branding,
- web development,
- digital marketing,
- web design,
- WordPress,
- e-Commerce, and more.
The agency will focus on bringing your brand to the digital world in the most effective way. Finally, KOTA will give you impressive results with their background of experience in numerous industries including fashion and retail marketing.

Digital Uncut is a digital agency that enables startups to fast forward their growth by delivering expert and innovative services. It provides the strategy and expert execution that your brand needs for growth.

Because of its greatest techniques, it will get transformation to your entire digital marketing strategy. Its talented professionals help your fashion brand to stand out with all the effective types of campaigns.

Digital Uncut offers you many services such as
- SEO,
- content creation,
- PPC,
- web development,
- digital graphic design,
- digital PR,
- data analysis,
- consultancy, and more.
Impression is one of the best fashion and retail marketing agencies in the UK. The agency is a multi-award-winning, international performance agency. The team has been a strategic partner to the world’s most exciting and ambitious brands, making growth potential a reality.

After all, this trusted agency can be a great partner for your brand’s growth with its high-calibre strategic specialists. They are passionate about doing the best work they can and pushing new technology to its limits.

Impression delivers best-in-class digital campaigns and services. The team has been recognized in the form of awards at both a national and global level with
- SEO,
- PPC,
- digital PR,
- content marketing,
- analytics,
- CRO, and more.
Digital Cake is a full-service agency based in London that has a speciality in providing strategy, Shopify builds, boost in social media activity, SEO strategy digital marketing to start-up and fast-growing digital business. Therefore, they bring their experience and expertise to a new generation of online entrepreneurs.

Its expert team knows exactly how to deliver the results that you need. Moreover, their method is going step by step by defining ideas, building and executing, measuring, optimizing, and reaching the best results.

Digital Cake has a great number of services such as
- website development,
- digital strategy,
- marketing,
- Shopify development,
- SEO, and more with its work history full of experiences from many industries.
Distinction is a digital agency approaching digital product development from the outside-in. And, they also use active strategies that launch to market quickly and stay ahead of the competition. Its creative team can deliver results using its tried and tested strategies.

Distinction professionals use the technologies and strategies for several purposes: to know your customer, explore new sales channels, adopt data, automate every task, and know your goal. Consequently, all are very helpful in growing your brand’s recognition.

This award-winning digital agency offers you a wide range of services such as
- content marketing,
- SEO,
- e-commerce,
- PPC marketing,
- UX design,
- software development,
- inbound marketing,
- digital strategy, and more.
Conclusion

In conclusion, we have listed the best fashion & retail marketing agencies in the UK with great case studies above for you. In short, these agencies create the best digital infrastructure to help your brand succeed in the competitive fashion world. Working with one of them, you can stand out from the competition using their proven techniques and strategies based on data. When you trust and start a partnership with them, you will get the greatest results.
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August 2, 2021
With oil and gas pollution rules restored, what’s next for EPA on methane? – Clean Energy

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Last month, President Biden signed into law S.J. Res. 14, a Congressional Review Act resolution restoring methane pollution standards for the oil and gas sector by repealing Trump-era rollbacks. With bipartisan backing, Congress passed the measure and rejected the Trump administration’s dangerous weakening of methane protections and its unlawful attempt to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from setting stronger standards in the future.

With these protections restored, this fall EPA will propose additional standards for both new and existing sources of methane emissions.

Immediately re-enacting protections at new wells and compressor stations

Upon signing of the CRA resolution, the 2016 methane standards went back into effect as if the Trump rollback never occurred. The standards apply to oil and gas wells, processing plants and other facilities across the country that were built or modified after 2015.

With oil and gas pollution rules restored, what’s next for EPA on methane? Click To Tweet

EPA recently released guidance to aid oil and gas operators in ensuring that are complying with these safeguards. Those subject to the standards must take steps to curb emissions, including conducting monitoring and repair of equipment leaks at all new wells (including low-production sites) and compressor stations. These requirements underscore the importance and feasibility of reducing emission sources across the industry.

By soundly rejecting the rollback, Congress cleared the way for EPA to propose and adopt protective new standards without having to untangle the last administration’s deeply flawed legal interpretations. Passage of the CRA resolution and the accompanying House Energy and Commerce Committee Report reaffirms EPA’s longstanding authority and obligation to reduce methane from both new and existing sources in the oil and gas sector.

“…upon reinstatement of the 2016 Oil and Gas Rule, the Committee strongly encourages the EPA to take swift action to reverse the damage caused by the 2020 Rescission Rule, strengthen its regulations for new sources, and fulfill its statutory obligation to issue existing source guidelines under section 111(d)” -House Energy & Commerce Committee Report

Strengthening rules to protect communities, tackle climate change

In his day-one executive order, President Biden directed EPA to propose new methane rules for older, unregulated oil and gas facilities by this fall. EPA has been working toward this deadline, even as Congress debated the resolution to restore the 2016 methane rules.

Recently, EPA hosted public listening sessions to gather input on oil and gas standards where EDF experts — alongside hundreds of other impacted residents, environmental justice advocates and companies — testified in favor of strong new standards based on the best available and most recent scientific and technological developments.

To achieve methane reductions consistent with the Biden administration’s climate goals and efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, EPA’s next generation standards must be protective and innovative.

New peer-reviewed science underscores the crucial role methane reductions must play in heading off global temperature increase, and the oil and gas sector — responsible for 35% of human-caused methane emissions — is also the sector with the greatest reduction potential. In addition, oil and gas production is a major contributor to smog and hazardous air pollution that seriously burdens the health of nearby communities. Robust rules to curb emissions from oil and gas sources are both a climate imperative and necessary to protect the health and well-being of frontline communities.

EPA standards that require frequent monitoring and repair of leaks, reduce or eliminate the wasteful practice of flaring, ensure the use of low- and zero-emitting technologies, and apply broadly to all sources of harmful pollution, can reduce the sector’s methane emissions by 45-65% by 2025. Many of these solutions are low-cost to operators who may even profit by selling the captured gas.

EPA is continuing to gather information as it develops next generation standards for oil and gas sources, holding a workshop on methane detection technologies later this month. By September, the agency will formally propose regulations for both new and existing sources. After taking public comment, EPA has announced it will revise and finalize the regulations by October of 2022.

For new sources, the revised rules will take effect shortly after finalization. For existing sources, EPA must publish guidelines that help to enable states to develop compliance plans for these older sources. Once states submit their plans for existing sources, EPA will approve plans that meet all of the Clean Air Act requirements. If a state chooses not to submit a plan (or if its submitted plan does not meet all of these requirements) EPA will move forward with federal standards that ensure clean air protections are in place.

As major oil and gas producing states such as Colorado, New Mexico and Pennsylvania have shown, strong emission protections can be implemented in a way that safeguards our economy, climate and the health of our communities. Collectively, these states’ actions raise the bar for federal methane leadership and point to the need for protective rules from the Biden administration and EPA to safeguard communities and help to address the climate crisis.

EDF Legal Fellow Edwin LaMair contributed to this post.

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August 2, 2021