MAD DIGITAL AGENCY

It takes great leadership to build great teams. Leaders are the ones who are not  afraid to course correct, make the difficult decisions and establish standards of performance that are constantly  being met – and improving at all times. No matter what type of environment it is, team building requires a keen understanding of people, their strengths and what gets them excited to work with others. Team building requires the management of egos and their constant demands for attention and recognition – not always warranted.  It is both an art and a science and the leader who can consistently build high performance teams is worth their weight in gold. Let’s see how you as a leader can successfully build teams that will last for a long time: 1.       Be Aware of How You Work As the leader of the team, you must be extremely aware of your leadership style and techniques. Are they as effective as you think?  How well ar...

The ground rules for branding are not stagnant, they keep on evolving. Things like content marketing, social media, second screening, youngsters, demographic shifts etc challenge a brand to think differently. In today’s time and age, creating brand loyalty and trust has become more challenging than ever. It does not matter if you are a new business owner, entrepreneur or a fortune 500 company, there are some chief branding strategies that should never be overlooked. Look for new ideas for Customer engagement Instead of following the crowd, come up with your own creative ways of brand engagement. Whatever strategy you use is relative to the maturity of your brand. The audience of today likes surprises. Do not take your audience for granted, and avoid being too predictable. Establish a brand identity that is relatable Often, in the effort of renewing things, brands end up complicating things which directly affect your consumers. Remember, a brand identity is powerful...

With the massive use of the mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other mediums, it has now become essential for a business, whether large or small, to have a responsive (mobile friendly) website. It’s the kind of website that can be easily browsed by your clients, regardless of the type of device they are using. Here, we have outlined top reasons for a business to consider when it comes to having a responsive website in 2017: Rising use of mobile The usage of mobile devices is rising so chances are more and more customers and prospects will view your website from their mobile devices. If they have a poor experience in interacting with your website, they are more likely to switch to your competitor’s website. Mobile shopping trends It’s way easier to shop online than to hop in your car and then drive to purchase something. 80% of the consumers regularly use their smartphones to shop online. If your products and services are not easy to view on a smartphone, ...

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of rules followed by a website for optimizing it for the search engines like Google, Yahoo Bing and hence improve its search engine ranking. If you are a new business, and you want people to know that you exist, you will need SEO. It’s so powerful and that’s why different online businesses are working on it. Driving traffic to a website is made possible through SEO. Here are some reasons why all online businesses should consider it: SEO is not a cost, it’s an investment It is the kind of investment that brings a high return. Getting a top rank on the first page of Google is a great achievement. You will get the most clicks from here, which ultimately means more leads. It increases your sales SEO will bring traffic to your website. A website is like a perfect employee which is available 24/7, never takes a sick leave or comes to work late. By bringing the right kind of audience, SEO eventually helps increase the sales of your bu...

MAD DIGITAL Too many small businesses are still failing to utilize the power of Facebook, even though it is a free tool. Creating a page for your business is similar to taking a great selfie. With well-placed social media posts, you can drive free traffic to your website. It also encourages customer engagement! Even if you don’t have a huge marketing budget, a Facebook page can still fit in. Here are some golden rules about having a Facebook page that a small business must cash on: 1. Your Facebook page is a like window of your shop. It should be clean, yet professional looking. 2. The posts that you create on the page must have a massive visual impact. You will have very limited time to grab the attention of people as they scroll down your page. 3. The posts on your Facebook page must be relevant to your brand. You may think a particular picture can create massive customer engagement but it may damage your brand badly. So, be careful. 4. The best way of getting th...

Negotiation is a very delicate act. You have to straddle the space between handling your client finding a solution which works for them by protecting the common interest of your company. By the time you reach the negotiation phase of the sales process, you and your client have a common goal i.e. get your services into their hands. That does not mean you are at the mercy of your client. There are ways you can win a negotiation. For that, you are supposed to establish and maintain a strong position throughout the conversation. To make the negotiation successful, you have to be careful what you say. There are some problematic words and phrases which you must avoid to increase the chances of making the outcome successful: This Call Should be quick Never show your client that you are in a hurry or you have X-minutes on the agenda. I have the Final Say Never show your opposing negotiator that you are the final decision-maker. You must first review the deal in front of you and t...

Every business works and progresses on one basic principle; to make the client happy and satisfied. Client! When you pronounce this word, it feels like a very pleasant and smooth word. However, the word is nothing as compared to the reality of what a client really is; the biggest test of any service provider. Being a marketing agency, we know the nightmares brought into our lives by the clients. They sometimes demand things that are physically impossible. They might ask you to bring a real life unicorn into their advertisement which should be displayed on sky globally. This analogy might be a little exaggerated but it does relate to the demands that clients often make. So, what do you do when you are hired by such a client?  Here are a few tips. Firstly, you never say no to a client. Even if what they want is extremely difficult to produce, you should not decline the demand straightaway. Rather, you should try to educate the client by giving them alternatives which are as...

Dos and Don’ts on this Eid The auspicious event of Eid ul Fitr is approaching and you must be happy. It is, after all, something to be happy about. It is not just a normal event but a special opportunity for you to mend the relations that you ruined in the past. Here is a list of things you must do and mustn’t do to capitalize this chance. 1.       Do Not take it as a Sleeping opportunity: We know that the lazy person in you will be anticipating this Eid day as just another holiday where you can bolster your relation with your bed. DON’T DO IT. Your bed and pillows will still be there on next Sunday but Eid will take a year to come again. Meet your friends and family, give them your time and celebrate with them. 2.       Do Not Eat too much: We know that you were fasting the whole month, or probably not, but do not make it an excuse to punish your stomach. Remember that you had some pretty delicious iftars. Celebrate by ea...

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ―   Rob Siltanen Contrary to the popular idea, madness isn’t really a negative word. It is probably the most powerful of all emotions. Madness is a feeling that takes all the fears away and prepares you to fight the toughest of battles. It serves as the most clear and unadulterated view towards your objective and empowers you to achieve it. Represented by the word ‘Junoon’ in Urdu language, it is the power of Madness about which Allama Iqbal wrote: Kise Khabar Ke Junoon Mein Kamal Aur Bhi H...

The Boss A boss can be no ordinary if the company wishes to become extraordinary. There are certain traits that an ideal boss must possess. If an organization is lucky to have a boss with these particular traits, it is more likely to step on the elevator of success. Half of the employees that quit their jobs quit because of their boss; this means that a boss can be humble enough to make the employees love their job or scary enough to make them run away. Here are a number of things that a boss must possess: A good boss must be a positive thinker, one who looks at every situation as a learning opportunity rather than cursing the employees for a downfall. He must be honest to the employees. He must know when to leave the matter to the employee rather than putting their feet in every task. He must be a good communicator. He must inspire the employees to be as passionate as he is. He must keep the team focused and let them lead a balanced life i.e. he must not overburden the employ...

For the last couple of weeks, we talked about the various departments of a marketing agency. For a moment, forget about them. It is not to belittle their significance, but the person that we are going to talk about right now can be called the single most important person on whom the significance of any department rests. Do you know who that person is? Well, it is the Boss; the guiding light for a company. Like a general in a war, a Prime Minister in a country, a coach in sports, there is a boss in a business. We all seek someone in our lives that could show us the way and in a corporate world, boss is exactly that person. Boss is the pulse of the agency or even the face of it. A boss manages the agency to make every one work accordingly and coherently. A boss sets the goals of an agency to envision the landmarks that the agency must reach. A boss balances the profits and expenditures to keep the company’s vaults happy. There is a lot more in the list of tasks that boss does bu...

What is it that you need to run a business? A good boss? A good office? A good team? All these things are important nonetheless but you are going a bit too far. Because the first thing you need is money. You need funds and a proper way to manage them. When you run a business, one of the most important things is to look over the flow of money for it is the basement of every business. You need to keep a careful eye on its inlets, the place where it’s kept and of course, its outlets. The future of you and your company depends on the revenue you generate. You need to have the required shrewdness to invest at the right place. ACCOUNTANTS This essential task is to be taken after by the Accounts Department. An Accounts manager with a team of people who are good with numbers is supposed to do this job for you. While you make the top decisions, they are the ones who advise you whether it would be financially feasible or not. Accountants are very rich apparently, not specifically in rea...

Programming and Softwares Despite the bombastic overflow of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat with its weird filters, web has not lost its place. It is the oldest of all the modern portals yet it is the most significant one. For all the operational activities of your business, website is the real digital home. It is here that you can sell your products, share information about your brand with extensive details, use buttons to enable the visitors a direct access to your product, and add systematic and digitally integrated details about your brand. In short, website is the best digital shop for your business. Other than website, there is a rising, and almost overwhelming trend of mobile apps that enable people to but your service instantly. But to create these technical warehouses , you need programmers ; the most silent of all the workers of a marketing agency. They sit in a corner of the office with earphones plugged into their ears, eyes pierced into the com...

Designer's Worth ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’ is a famous line in a poem of the romantic English poet, John Keats. To think more on it, one tends to realize the truthfulness that it holds. We all yearn for beauty, be it in our better halves or nature or any random thing that we encounter in our daily lives. While this thing appears alienated from the corporate ideas of marketing, it is not. In fact, it is directly relevant to it. Your brand has to appear beautiful to register itself in the minds of people. This is where a designer jumps in, another significant asset of a marketing agency. Designers are the masters of the subject of beauty. Designers are magicians who can turn ordinary or even substandard looking things into aesthetically attractive and eye-catching objects. They know the tools, the devices that edit your product’s image and make it look unique. The aptly form and use backgrounds, patterns, colors, design structures or textures to elevate the outlook...

MAD DIGITAL The power of word is undeniable. The written word has historically held more weightage and nobility than the spoken word. Probably because most of the times, the spoken word gets corrupted in an attempt to be politically correct. It is the written word that has been lauded more to preserve thoughts, emotions and ideas that showed new paths to humanity. But what has it got to do with the corporate world of advertising? One must think and the relevance would seem minimal. But it is not. The relation is as close as spouses’. It is a tagline that works effectively to register a brand in people’s minds. A catchy and influential word or a sentence can prove to be more effective to popularize a product than anything else. Language is a tricky thing. It must be handled creatively to knit an attractive phrase. Therefore, the content writers must be creative and original in their work. They must possess a pleasant sense of humor, not too pleasant though. Humor, if aptly use...

So we talked about the importance of a team last week. Let’s dig deeper and analyze the various departments of a marketing agency. Let’s start with client managers; a bridge between the clients and your agency. Client Managers Client managers should be made of rocks because of the robustness that their job demands. They deal with, negotiate, convince, gather, and keep the clients. Clients can be good. But they can also be a real pain at times. They are to be handled with the highest level of equanimity. They will behave as a boss with you. They’ll contend that they hired you and paid you so do what they want. If you fail to do that for whatever reasons, they might even yell at you and unfortunately, you cannot yell back at them. But if you really want to do it, create a dummy of the client and yell at it in private. Client managers act as a receiver as well as a mouthpiece for your agency. They learn what the client wants, transfer the information to the other departments,...

Let us assume that Marketing is a war. Why assume though? It is a war. With businesses popping up every day and everywhere, you need to fight your contemporaries to make your name stand out. But since you are busy in developing your product, you’ll eventually hire mercenaries to do so which in this case would be a marketing agency. The marketing agency would then land its battalion on the field to defend your barricades. Don’t be intimidated by this frightening imagery of war. To tone it down for you, we are talking about the importance of a team i.e. battalion in a marketing agency to carry out the operations effectively. The team needs to be complete, there is no room for a compromise folks. You cannot have an infantry fighting without a support from the cavalry. Don’t even trouble landing in the field if that is the case for defeat is inevitable. Mad Digital has adorned itself with all the warriors needed. The designers, content-writers, client handlers, web developers, s...

MARKETING GROWTH The market is growing like Jack’s beanstalk. Entrepreneurship is at the acme of business. Every day we see a new idea landing its feet in the market and attracting attention from everywhere. The world has become ever so commercial and everything is seen from a businessman’s sight. Where does marketing come? Well, the right question to ask would be that where does the market not come. Marketing is not a luxury or a special need, it is a dire need for every business. You cannot excel without it. If you don’t believe it. Try running your business without marketing it. Wait, please don’t try it. People wouldn’t care to come to your business until you convince them that it’s worth it. If you don’t, your rivals will and then you will be regretting that you did not cash your product when you had the time. And a comeback in this market is as hard as you can imagine folks. So don’t run your business miserly. Keep some portion of your investments for marketing and especia...

"7th April" World Health Day April 7 marks the World Health Day , a reminder to the principle that life is above everything else in the world. Something that the humankind still appears hesitant to admit. The assertion on the importance of health has become a bit clichéd now. You might have written an essay on it in primary school or your mother would have gently slapped you while you were eating sand in your backyard when you were three years old. But the beast is still out as most of us are getting sick every day for health is not and has never been a priority. We compromise it for things that are not worth it. An attractive eatable or unclean water, a pile of laundry or a cigarette with the tea; these things appear more important to us than health. Well, here’s a heads up; nothing is more important than your life folks. If you don’t believe it, ask the dead ones. Mad Digital advises you not to be mad. Sounds ironic? Well, you are probably taking our name t...

MAD DIGITAL When it comes to marketing, you cannot just take your product and present it as it is. The modern market is evolving every day and so are the methods and trends associated with it. It is therefore, essential for you to prepare well before you actually bring your brand to the people. Research is very important. You need to recognize your competitors in the market. They might be offering all the products as you or some of them. You need to see how they are communicating with the people. What kind of market campaigns they are designing to make their product more appealing. You also need to recognize your target audience and develop your campaign that can engage them effectively. Find out how your competitors are making their brand stand out. Because this is what you will be needing to do. You cannot follow their methods. You must look different and this knowledge will assist you how to be different. Try to critique their methods as it will help you know the m...

Digital Media Buying The global market has transcended the marketing boundaries. It is no more the day when a brand’s presentation on a newspaper was enough to buy it customers. The mediums have grown and the most recent and popular medium is the digital platform. The audience of a digital platform is increasing every day. Facebook, twitter, Instagram and other such social media platforms have become the most occupied residences of people. This new paradigm has brought with it a list of new trends as well. Today, social media is being used for a lot of things and promoting one’s business is one of them. But when you come to buy a digital marketing, you need to learn a few basic things. One of the most important point is to carve out an adequate digital media budget. Digital marketing is not cheap. There are a variety of services offered by marketing agencies. The more you pay, the more you get. But if you are a new business, you need to start with minimum required serv...