It’s no secret that we love coffee at Decimal. It’s the petrol in the tanks of our creative team and the wind in the sails of our account managers and digital team. One may call our obsession unhealthy, but drinking coffee at work is, in fact, good for you. Multiple studies have shown that coffee may assist in protecting against Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver diseases. So what are you waiting for? Put on the kettle and settle into these five reasons to drink coffee at work.

General Alertness

We all know that caffeine is a stimulant. Anybody who’s pulled an all-nighter before work will be aware of the fact that coffee keeps you going when your energy levels are plummeting. Ever wondered how caffeine works? As your body goes about its day, a neurochemical called adenosine builds up in your body. As more adenosine passes through your neuroreceptors, your brain starts signaling that it needs sleep. Caffeine is a sneaky imposter that your brain mistakes for adenosine, which in turn allows more uptake of dopamine. So, when you have your coffee you’re basically fooling your brain into not being tired.

Increased Productivity

Drinking coffee can make you more productive, but it’s not only because caffeine is a stimulant. The coffee break is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. But you may be asking how a break makes you more productive. The act of taking a coffee break with a colleague or two allows an opportunity to socialise and talk about personal and work-related topics, which in turn promotes camaraderie and therefore more effective workers.

Alleviates Sleep Deprivation Related Stress

Merely smelling coffee can reduce your stress levels if you haven’t been able to get a good night’s sleep. A study conducted at the Seoul National University found that rats who were exposed to the aroma of coffee showed changes in brain proteins tied to stress from getting too little sleep. Just get up and smell the coffee for a less stressful day.

Protection for Your Liver

Drinking alcohol is very bad for your body, especially your liver. But many of us decide to ignore that fact and have a glass anyway. A 2006 study showed that those who drink at least one cup of coffee a day are 20% less likely to develop liver cirrhosis – a nasty disease caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

Not a drinker? You may still want that cuppa. Coffee can also help prevent non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, but you have to drink 4 or more cups a day to enjoy the benefit.

Coffee Keeps You Slim

Multiple studies have proven that caffeine increases metabolic activity, and many weight loss supplements use it as a main ingredient. While the power of coffee alone probably isn’t enough to get you to your goal weight, it is useful for helping your body burn fat at a higher rate while you’re sitting at your desk.

With the recent H&M blunder, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that sometimes marketing goes horribly wrong despite having the best intentions at heart. Now, we’re not here to defend H&M’s choices, but we are here to tell you that mistakes happen. Sometimes these mistakes go under the radar, but every now and then Twitter finds a new problematic campaign to rip apart online. Here are three of the biggest marketing clangers from 2017.

1 – McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce – October 2017

This one will be familiar to Rick and Morty fans. Thanks to a joke made about a limited edition dipping sauce offered by McDonald’s in the late 1990s as a tie in to the movie Mulan, fans of Rick and Morty made it their mission to get their hands on the 20 year old treat. Never ones to miss a marketing opportunity, McDonald’s jumped on the hype-wagon. They sent the creators of Rick and Morty their own supply of the sauce, and when fans questioned why they couldn’t have it too, McDonald’s decided to make the sauce available to the public (in the USA) for a limited time. When it came time to start the Szechuan Sauce promotion, demand seriously outstripped supply and thousands of Rick and Morty fans were left disappointed (and had a lot to say about it online).
Moral of the story: if you’re going to stoke the flames of hype, make sure you have the goods to back it up.

2 – Dove’s Unintentional Racism – October 2017

Beauty product giant Dove found themselves in hot water over an ad that depicted women from a number of races. The problem was that the ad focused on how Dove products make women more beautiful, and that they showed this with women transitioning from black to white. Outrage broke on Twitter with calls to boycott the company that had unknowingly associated beauty with whiteness.
Moral of the story: race is a touchy subject and marketers should be very careful not to associate a specific trait with a specific race. Dove’s apology, admitting that they’d “missed the mark in representing women of colour thoughtfully” was well received, but they have a long way to go in regaining the trust of women of colour.

3 – OUTsurance Father’s Day – June 2017

Brands celebrating days of importance of social media has become the norm. Father’s Day brought us OUTsurance’s biggest social media mishap to date. The company posted a video featuring multiple fathers interacting with their children. The problem: not a single one of the fathers was black. Of course, social media was ablaze with people bringing attention to the fact that OUTsurance was basically saying that black men aren’t good fathers. The company blamed the mishap on a junior employee, but the fact at the end of the day is that the post would likely have been approved by a supervisor.

Moral of the story: once again, race is a touchy subject. If you’re going to be showing a range of people in your ad, make sure that all races are represented. And don’t blame it on a junior employee when everything goes wrong.

H&M isn’t the first company to make a huge marketing mistake. They’re not even the first to miss something potentially racist. Having diverse creative and brand management teams could go a long way to prevent work that could be considered offensive from reaching the public.

If you believed the hype from all the “top marketing trends for 2018” articles that have peppered industry related blogs over the past few months, you’re probably looking for ways to incorporate influencer marketing into your 2018 strategies. But it’s not as simple as grabbing a rising social media star and hitching your cart to them.

1 – Know Your Audience

This is an essential component of any marketing strategy, so it goes without saying. Or does it? The blessing of digital marketing is that you can reach a huge audience, the curse of digital marketing is that you can reach a huge audience. The key is to identify the specific niche community that you want to target and then find the influencer who matches that audience.

2 – Know the Goal

Why are you implementing influencer marketing? Are you just doing it because it’s the current trend? Again, having a goal in mind should go without saying.

Are you looking for new followers? Are you hoping to reach a wider audience? Do you want more views and engagement on your posts? Or are you looking for sales?

Pick one goal and center your campaign on it.

3 – Find an Influencer Who Fits

Now that you have the building blocks for your campaign – audience and goal – it’s finally time to get to the exciting bit: choosing your influencer.

Finding an influencer who fits can be a tricky task. You’re looking for somebody who not only has a large following, but somebody who’s following fits your target audience. You need to ensure that the person you choose does hold sway over their audience and that their followers will value their insights. Lastly, and most importantly, you need to make sure that your influencer fits your brand. It wouldn’t make much sense for a tween fashion influencer to suddenly start talking about men’s grooming products, would it?

4 – Let Your Influencer Do What They Do

You wouldn’t go to a restaurant and tell the chef how to cook your dish; so you wouldn’t hire and influencer and then not let them post their own content. You picked an influencer because you liked what they do.

Now, it is necessary to weaponize your influencer with essential items needed to communicate about your brand, and you may want to include some pre-written posts, but you should really be leaving it up to your influencer to create posts (within brand guidelines, of course) for the most part. Remember, an influencer will have their own personal style and manner of communication that resonates with their audience.

5 – What’s in a Name Anyways?

Especially in South Africa, there’s the temptation to go with the biggest name available. However, this can be less effective for the simple reason that they are celebrities, not influencers. Though stars in SA may have large followings, their reach of influence may be very low. Getting the right influencer is more about finding trendsetters and thought leaders rather than finding celebrities with thousands of followers.

Once your campaign is running don’t forget to track your results and measure your effectiveness.

2017 has been quite a year. Politically, it’s arguably been the most tumultuous year this century. Socially, we’ve never been as simultaneously united yet divided by our opinions. Economically… let’s rather not go there. But with all this going on, we’ve still managed to live our lives, be healthy, and come up with kick-ass creative ideas. Here’s Decimal Agency’s year in review.

January – March
The year started with a bang. We were on the hunt for new team members, new accounts, and a new space to call home.

We found the new team members – two new community managers, a copywriter, and an account manager. And we landed one of our most important accounts to date: international doughnut brand Krispy Kreme. As for a new home, you’ll have to read on to find out more.

April – June
By the time summer was setting sail for the northern hemisphere, we landed our biggest retainer yet with international shipping and logistics giant Röhlig-Grindrod. In other accounts news, we also secured the account for Lee Cooper jeans and their grand launch in South Africa, which had us all saying 'Ello gov'na!

Our creative highlight for the month of May was definitely the Cocoon 60 launch booklet, created for Antalis. We used various printing techniques such as die cuts and sport varnish to bring the booklet to life.

July – September
Winter was the season of campaigns and though the days were short we burned the midnight oil with new work for Bosch.

For Bosch we created the #CleanLikeaBosch campaign to promote their new dishwasher, which has an impressively low water consumption of 6.5 litres per wash, across almost every media channel available.

October – December
The year ended on a high note. Not only did we move into our brand new, and much bigger, office space, we also landed some new accounts.

One of our most exciting new accounts to date is Toughees – the most iconic South African school shoe. Our team accomplished a huge feat recording a brand new television commercial for them, even though the weather wasn’t playing ball the day of the shoot.

Amid the move and shooting the TVC, we also landed our most stylish account: Tommy Hilfiger.

The Future
2017 has been a year of wins for Decimal Agency. We can’t wait to see what new heights we attain in 2018.

Advertising today is a far-cry from the 50s when misogyny ran as rampant in real life as it does in an episode of Mad Men. Today, brands need to be increasingly socially aware in order to not offend audiences, while still creating effective ads that sell product. But how is this achieved?

Point Of View Advertising

Point of view advertising is the answer. Ads with a point of view convey a brand’s feelings and attitudes towards a subject and show how their values correlate to that of their audience. Ads that convey a brand’s values relatably are proving to be more effective. Your point of view is the difference between people talking about your brand and forgetting it.

64% of consumers with an existing brand relationship say that they shared values with the brand, which was the reason they engaged with the brand. At the same time, 87% of Millennials say they appreciate it when companies make it clear what values they stand for, and 81 percent say companies that invest in their communities deserve loyalty. This could be due to the fact that Millennials highly value being true to themselves and expect others to have the same quality. Another important trait of Millennials is that they have the ability to see through hype and expect honesty and integrity in communication.

Shareability

Point of view ads are perfect for the digital sphere due to the fact that people are very willing to share who they are and what they care about.

Creating an emotional response with your audience is the most important box that any ad should tick. The fact is, we buy things based on how they make us feel, or how others will perceive us once we’ve bought that thing. They are an extension of our identities; we buy and share in order to show the rest of the world who we are and what we care about.

How Point Of View Advertising is Achieved

Well the first step is to define your point of view. If you already have a set of company values drawn up, you can use those. If you don’t have defined values, it’s time to start writing.

Make sure that your company values are relevant and true for you. You will need to back them up and live them every day in your business. For example, if gender equality is one of your values, merely adding some pink to your ad isn’t enough. It would be more effective to produce an ad that shows how your product supports empowerment of women.

Having a point of view and expressing it places you in a vulnerable position. Not everybody will like it, some will say you went to far, others will say you feel short, and it may start some heated debate. Have the courage to spark a public debate, great brands polarise people and the more talk about your ad, the more exposure for your brand.

A Word Of Warning From Pepsi

By now most of us are familiar with the Pepsi ad featuring Kendall Jenner. The ad featured young people of several ethnicities involved in a protest. This was likely to show Pepsi’s support of the current youth protest movement in America under the Trump administration, as well as send a message about racial equality. These are great values for a brand to have, and would have got them a fair amount of support if everything weren’t ruined by the appearance of a privileged member of the Kardashian clan. As the inexorable march of youth meets a line of police, Kendall Jenner breaks forward and offers one of the officers a Pepsi, which he accepts, followed by much cheering and hugging in the crowd. Though Pepsi was attempting to send a message of unity, peace, and understanding but were criticised for appearing to belittle social justice causes.

The warning here is to stay true to your values when creating a point of view advertisement. If you’re just jumping on a hot topic, your audience will read the insincerity.

People don’t arrive at a site, navigate to the right page and complete a goal. Usually they come back a few times before completing that goal.

Google Analytics is an extremely powerful tool that every site owner should be using. We use Analytics on all out websites because it gives meaningful insights such as how many people are viewing your site, how long they stay on pages, where the traffic is coming from and where users are exiting your site. This information can give us perspective on what’s performing well and what needs attention.

It’s quite easy to get basic information from Analytics such as page views, session time, and traffic source, but the software does so much more than just give fast figures. Used properly, Google Analytics is the only tool you need to streamline your website and online marketing efforts.

1 - Browser Report
Quite frankly, you’d be surprised at how many people out there are using outdated technology. It’s all well and good to build a beautiful website with parralax display and video content, but what if users can’t access this content because they’re still running Internet Explorer version 8.

To find out what technology your visitors are utilising, go to Audience, select Technology from the submenu, and click on Broswer & OS. This will show you what browser people are using to view your site. Ensure that your site is compatible with all the browsers listed so that all uses can view your site correctly.

2 - Mobile Performance
Mobile is the future of the internet, according to Google. The search engine has even started ranking mobile friendly sites higher than those that don’t perform well on mobile.

To get more insights on what devices people are using to access your site go to Audience and select Mobile.
Mobile Overview will give you information regarding conversion rates on mobile vs web, and Devices will tell you what handsets visitors use to access your site.

If you notice that your conversion rate on mobile is much lower than on desktop it may be time to take a look how your site responds to various mobile screen sizes and optimise.

3 - Annotations
Annotations are there to help you with good housekeeping within Analytics. Any time you change something on your website you should add an annotation so that you can link that change with a rise or fall in your Analytics reporting graph.

To add annotations, go to your Analytics reporting graph and click the dropdown arrow immediately below the graph. Here you will see previous annotations, click Create New Annotation to add new ones. Annotations can be set as public or private so they can either be viewed by anybody with access to that Analytics profile, or only by you.

Analytics can be a daunting tool to use if you don’t know the basics, but once you have an understanding of how to use it the information that you can glean is hugely important to optimising your site for better conversions.

What a time to be alive. Every day we look around and see ever-improving technology that would have been thought only possible in science fiction a mere few decades ago. The promises of virtual reality and artificial intelligence are finally coming to fruition, and who knows what’s next; actual walking, talking robots or flying cars perhaps. Okay, I’ll reign in my inner sci-fi nerd now.

The latest advance in AI technology are smart chatbots that can help out customers  with simple questions and tasks, thus possibly alleviating the need for large customer care centres in the near future.

Back in April 2016, Facebook released an open version if its Messenger app and invited developers to artificial intelligence chatbots that would interact with Facebook users. In these early days of chatbots, it was predicted that we would no longer need to make phone calls or write emails to companies in order to get essential information. We haven’t quite got there yet, but there are more and more chatbots appearing, ready to (at least attempt to) help consumers who need answers fast. Though the advancement of this new technology will no doubt be fraught with errors (and the inevitable memes that come with them), they do have the potential to be very useful.

Quick Communication

Looking for important info about a company’s offering? Usually you would need to scour their site and social pages in order to find the answer yourself, or if you can’t find the answer you would need to submit a support ticket and wait the 24-48 hours for them to get back to you, even worse - you may have to make a lengthy call to a customer service centre. Chatbots can easily disseminate simple information immediately, creating a quicker, positive experience with your brand.

They Will Only Get Better Over Time

As with all other technology-based innovations, as the technology improves, so the experience becomes better and costs are reduced. The more opportunities a bot has to chat with real people the more it will learn how about the nuances of language and give useful advice.

E-Commerce With Ease

Chatbots can help consumers make orders online. If you have a rough idea of what you want to buy, instead of browsing through pages and pages of products, you can ask a chatbot to show you all the products that match your criteria (such as colour, style and brand) as well as suggest related items. Retailer H&M’s chatbot helps you choose outfits by suggesting complementary garments and accessories, which adds to a better retail customer experience.

Poncho: A Popular Chatbot

One of the most popular chatbots today is Poncho, the weather cat. He’s available to chat on Facebook messenger at facebook.com/hiponcho/ and provides weather data including current conditions, 5 day forecasts, and specialised forecasts for runners. Though you can get weather details with one tap on your phone, Poncho adds a personal touch with his character and fun GIFs.

Chatbots are still in their infancy, but we’re looking forward to finding out what the future holds with this advance in AI technology. As we use chatbots more, they will learn more and be better equipped to give correct and relevant answers to our needs.

As marketers we spend a lot of time presenting our creative ideas in meetings. A great presentation can clinch that big new client, but a bad one can send them running a mile. Structuring your creative ideas into a presentation can be a daunting task, but using a few simple tricks you can create robust presentations that get the client excited about what you have to offer.

Use Less Words

It’s a presentation, so you need to present! It may seem like a basic tip, but so many people get this wrong. There’s more to a presentation than just your slideshow; you also need to speak and convey your ideas in a persuasive manner.

Presentations often get bogged down by large amounts of text, and when the speaker is simply regurgitating the content on the screen behind them, the audience tends to lose interest. If you’re going to say exactly what’s on the screen, you may as well hand out a typed document to your audience. Rather, place key phrases on the presentation slides and show your knowledge by presenting the ideas around them. Let the information breathe and let your audience listen to you.

Be Graphic

This one goes hand-in-hand with the point above and goes to show that effective presentations have fewer words on them. Use images, graphs, charts, maps, and video to get your point across. Your ability to explain the meaning behind these visual aids will give your audience the sense that you are an authority on the subject.

Avoid Templates

While PowerPoint templates may have helped you out when you needed to complete that project at the last minute in high school, using an obvious template in a professional setting will actually make you look like a high school student.

Templates are boring, they’ve been seen a thousand times before, and they just aren’t inspiring. Give your presentations a professional flare by adding custom design. If you’re not a designer, then outsource the work - just make it different. Try out alternative presentation software too: PowerPoint is not the be-all and end-all.

Make Every Slide An Event

Every single one of your slides should have a big impact. There should be no throwaway slides, no slides you intend on skipping over quickly, and nothing boring in your presentation. Treat each slide like an ad. Consider:
Is the headline eye-catching?
Does it have impact?
Does it make the audience want to find out more?

Speak With Your Body Language

While your slides are important, your body language when you present is vital. Even if you use all the tips above to make your presentation exciting, simply standing in front of the screen and talking will still be boring. You’re a presenter, not a tree; so don’t grow roots and stay in place. Use the space around you to move, gesture with your hands and use facial expressions to animate your speech. This ensures that the audience’s eyes are always drawn back to you and therefore they will listen to what you have to say.

Could it be considered unethical?

Even with the proliferation of online marketing, billboard advertising is still one of the most commonly used ways to advertise to the public masses. Though digital advertising is great because it allows marketers to segment their audiences and serve up content specific to those individual audiences, billboard advertising remains an effective way to ensure that a massive audience will see your brand message.

That being said, there is definitely a right way and a wrong way to make billboard ads. A good billboard will be easy to understand, memorable, and encapsulates your brand with one punchy message. And you need to make sure it’s noticeable to drivers passing by at speed.

1 - Colours need to contrast
While white text on a yellow background may look great on print, it doesn’t really look great at speed when you’re zipping by the billboard on the highway.

You need to ensure that the text and the background contrast so that your message doesn’t get lost in the noise. This goes especially for billboards with text on top of a background image. For example, white text on a floral background will be entirely illegible at a glance.

Rather opt for a high contrast colour scheme so that your message will stand out.

2 - Font needs to be readable
While that fancy script font may perfectly encapsulate your brand, it’s probably not the best to use on a billboard.

Stick to plain, simple and bold fonts for your billboards. A cursive script can be difficult to read at a glance, and if your ad can’t be read at a glance it’s a wasted ad.

3 - Please proofread
Spelling errors can totally be avoided. Proofreading may seem like a tedious process, but it definitely pays off in the end. One proofreader is never enough. Get at least three people to check all copy before it goes to print.

You will look unprofessional if you forget to correct your text. The internet is full of posts about hilariously misspelled billboards; don’t become a laughing stock.

4 - Make your message clear and on-brand
Is your billboard too high level? A clever message is essential to creating an effective billboard, but it also needs to be easy to understand. People will remember a clever message, but if they don’t understand it immediately, there’s not much of a point.

Also take care that your message is aligned with your brand. In order to ensure this, you can create a short list of brand values and then compare all your copy against those values.

5 - Bad images
Billboards come in a range of sizes and shapes, so it’s imperative that your designer is aware of the dimensions and orientation of the billboard so that the images fit.


Try to avoid busy images with loads of detail - just like your text, the image should be simple, to the point, and stir up an emotional response. Because getting an emotional response from an image is so important, it’s best to take your own photos or create your own illustrations - that way your billboard will be unique and memorable.

Sprout Social is a company that monitors trends on social media. Every quarter they release a report called the Sprout Social Index that includes analytical information on how we use social media. For the first quarter of 2017 their report focused on how the different generations use various social media platforms.

Gathering information on how people of different age groups use social media can give marketers insight on how to communicate to these audiences to meet their specific expectations. Sprout Social interviewed 1,000 Millennials (ages 18-34), Gen Xers (ages 34-54) and Baby Boomers (ages 55+).

Facebook Comes Out On Top

Ever since it was founded in 2004, Facebook has been the juggernaut of social media platforms - the one we keep going back to when Twitter becomes an information overload or when our Instagram feeds get boring. They’ve achieved this by continually improving user experience on the site and diversifying their offering by buying up other companies.
Facebook came out on top in this survey, obviously. It was identified as the favourite social media platform by Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Baby Boomers - proving that every generation is the Facebook Generation. But this isn’t surprising - everybody is on Facebook, from your younger cousin, to your older sibling, your parents, and even your gran.

Let’s Compare

What is interesting is that a lower percentage of Millennials listed Facebook as their go-to social media network of choice, while Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers’ preference for Facebook was much more pronounced. Rather, Millennials spread their social preference between Facebook (33%), Instagram (22.2%) and Snapchat (15.8%).

Sprout even included a subset for younger Millennials aged 18-24 who have a stronger preference for Instagram with 25% of respondents naming it their favourite. Baby Boomers don’t seem to like spending time on Snapchat or Instagram, but this is hardly surprising. The content posted on these platforms is image based and disposable, and judging by the fact that Google+ is the second most popular with this generation, Baby Boomers want lengthier content that they can sink their teeth into. That being said, only 14% of Boomers interact with the content that brands post on social media, making them largely silent observers.

Getting Those Follows

We can get better insights when we start analysing user engagement on these platforms. Sprout’s survey found that both Millennials and Gen-Xers are twice as likely to follow a brand on social media than Baby Boomers are. Sprout also found that more than half of the respondents (58.9% of Millennials, 50.4% of Gen-Xers, and 55% of Baby Boomers) will follow a brand on social media before buying from them. Managing your social presence gets tricky when it comes to serving content that your followers will be interested in.

While Millennials are more interested in the entertainment value of brand posts, Gen-Xers are more interested in promotions and competitions. Doing a bit of research into your followers will give you more insight on the type of content that you should be posting.

What Makes Them Unfollow

With each generation showing interest in different content, it only makes sense that they would unfollow for different reasons. Surprisingly (because you would have expected this statistic to apply to “Social Justice Warrior” generation Millennials,) Gen-Xers are the most likely generation to unfollow a brand because it posted something offensive or that was in opposition to their personal beliefs. For Millennials, they unfollow brands for two main reasons: bad experience (21% of respondents) or because they found the posts annoying (22%). 29% of Baby Boomers listed spam as the main reason to unfollow.

Read the rest of the survey

There’s far more information available on the Sprout report than I can condense into a blog post. If you’d like to get more information, read the full first quarter report here. It contains more information about buying habits and industry interests.

Ad impressions, banner ads, conversion rates, bounce rates… all of these technical terms can be enough to scare anyone away and stop them from taking a chance and exploring the many benefits that digital marketing has to offer their brand. Luckily, you have Decimal on your side to help simplify these terms and make the process of transitioning into this new world as smooth as possible.


AD IMPRESSION: This is a specific metric which details the number of times that a digital ad has been served / displayed (not necessarily seen or clicked on).


AD CLICK: This refers to the process where, upon seeing an ad, a user clicks on it and is redirected to the company’s chosen landing page.


LANDING PAGE: A particular web-page chosen as the destination for a particular ad.


CLICK-THROUGH-RATE (CTR): This is calculated by comparing the number of ad impressions with the number of times that users who were served an ad actually clicked on it. The higher your click-through-rate, the more effective your ad.


BOUNCE RATE: The bounce rate refers to the number of visitors to your website who visited only one page on the website, did not interact with it, and then left the site. It gives a good indication as to whether or not the design / content of your website is making the right impression and leading to visitors taking action or engaging in some way.


CONVERSION: A customer makes a conversion when he / she actually does what the call-to-action suggests.


CALL-TO-ACTION: A call-to-action seeks to convince a website visitor to do something in particular - make a purchase, sign up to receive a newsletter, vote in a poll, enter a competition etc.


REACH: The number of people who are exposed to your ads, brand and message.


FREQUENCY: The number of times a specific ad is served to the same person.


FREQUENCY CAPPING: The ability to limit the number of times a specific ad is served to the same person within a certain space of time.


ABOVE-THE-FOLD: This refers to all of the content that a visitor will see before he / she has to scroll down. Needless to say, the most important pieces of information should always appear above-the-fold to increase the chances of the visitor taking note of them.


REMARKETING: An effective tactic of serving ads to people who have previously visited your website and who have shown an interest in a particular product / service.


For more information about embracing the digital realm, be sure to get in touch with Decimal Agency.

Google Analytics is a helpful tool for all digital marketers, providing interesting insight and accurate figures in relation to all of one’s online efforts and campaigns. Here are five benefits that you can expect to enjoy when utilising this handy service.

It’s Free

The best thing about Google Analytics is the fact that it is completely free to use, providing you with helpful, advanced insight into your online efforts.

User-friendly Layout

The Google Analytics interface is split into four different sections for your convenience, namely:

Audience
Acquisition
Behaviour
Conversions

This makes it easy for you to find and track the information that you need the most.

Simple Customisation


Customising Google Analytics is incredibly easy. You have the ability to customise your reports, notifications, dashboard, tracking techniques, short-cuts and more.

Handy Add-ons

While Google Analytics is rather impressive all on its own, you also have the opportunity to make use of additional add-ons. These add-ons include, but are not limited to, Tag Assistant, Confidence Checker and Annotations Manager.

Enhanced Insight

Not only can you keep track of who is visiting your website and when, but you can also keep an eye on the particular pages and links which are drawing the most attention and making the greatest impact on your visitors. This knowledge will make it simple to detect what’s working and what’s not… thus assisting you in making important decisions regarding your future digital marketing efforts.

For more information on how Google Analytics can benefit your brand, be sure to contact the team at Decimal Agency.

The world of marketing is fast-paced, demanding and very rarely clear-cut. It requires an endless stream of creativity and the courage to put new, experimental approaches into practice. Here are some inspirational quotes to keep you and your team motivated to continue doing what you do best.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

“Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.” – Seth Godin


“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Great Execution is the Ultimate Differentiator." - Margaret Molloy

“If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.” – Jay Baer

“Your culture is your brand.” - Tony Hsieh

"Inspiration is difficult to measure, but the results driven by that inspiration are powerful." - Scott Harrison

“Social media is about the people. Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide for you.” – Matt Goulart


“Engage rather than sell ... work as a co-creator, not a marketer.” - Tom H.C. Anderson

“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” - Andrew Davis

“Content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing.” – Rebecca Lieb

“You can never go wrong by investing in communities and the human beings within them.” - Pam Moore

"The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing." Tom Fishburne

"Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points." – Jonah Sachs


“Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

"Marketing's job is never done. It's about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day." – Beth Comstock

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." - Steve Jobs

“Strong customer relationships drive sales, sustainability, and growth.” - Tom Cates

“Find your spirit, and no challenge will keep you from achieving your goals.” - Christopher Penn

"Give them quality. That's the best kind of advertising." - Milton Hershey

The main aim of print advertising is to grab the reader’s attention the moment that he / she lays eyes on your ad, or risk everyone simply paging past your efforts. Here are some tips to help ensure that your ad makes an immediate impression and that the readers are able to connect with, and relate to, your artwork and brand message.

Design Elements


Originality: Ensure that the artwork you use is original, eye-catching and, most importantly, relevant to your brand and the particular message that you wish to communicate.

Negative Space: A cluttered ad is never going to make an impact. Readers will feel overwhelmed when they see it and will be more likely to skip past it entirely. Embrace the power of negative space, and use it to your advantage to draw attention to the other aspects of the ad that matter most.

Clear Font: Ensure that your font, for both your headline and text body, is easy to read at first glance, thus getting your brand message across immediately.

Text Elements 


Headline: A witty, impactful headline is the heart of your print advertisement, as it is what will compel people to read more and engage further.

Short, Concise Copy: While you might think that a copy-heavy ad which includes all ‘relevant’ details is the best way to go, it really isn’t. On the contrary, the less text that appears, the better.

Clear Call to Action: Make sure that your ad’s call to action is big and bold, inspiring the reader to act.

If you would like more information on perfecting the art of the print ad, do not hesitate to get in touch with the team at Decimal Agency.

Quality content is the key to success within the digital realm - and what better way in which to provide your clients, and potential clients, with high quality content than by starting a company blog? Here are some tips that are sure to assist you in making a success of this new venture, and in fully embracing the hype that is content marketing.

Post Consistently 


The aim is to keep your readers engaged, so regular, consistent posting is essential. Make use of Google Analytics to discover on which days people visit and read your blog the most. With this knowledge in mind, you can create a schedule for yourself and ensure the highest possible number of reads and levels of engagement as a result.

Promote All New Blog Posts on Social Media 


What’s the point of writing amazing content if nobody is aware of its existence? Make use of the tools available to you and promote all of your new blog posts on your company’s social media platforms. Encourage your staff members to share them on their personal pages as well, and should you receive any likes, questions or comments, be sure to respond timeously.

Ensure a Healthy Balance between Text and Visual Elements 


No matter how incredible your blog may be, people are often put off when they see copious amounts of text on the page. Knowing this, you can reduce your bounce rate by creating a healthy balance between text and visual elements, like images, infographics and videos. This will assist in maintaining the reader’s attention and increasing their chances of actively engaging with your posts.

Keep an Eye on Your Competitors’ Efforts


While we’re certainly not suggesting stealing any of your competitors’ ideas, a comprehensive competitor analysis is sure to provide you with some insight into what’s working and what isn’t. It might even spark a few ideas in terms of new approaches to try.

For more information about blogging, or for professional content creation, be sure to get in touch with Decimal Agency.