Once again, Thanksgiving is here. It’s a time for hanging out with your family and friends, eating delicious turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, watching the Macy’s parade and learning about our country’s history. It’s also a chance to reflect upon what you’re thankful for in your life.
Here at the madison/miles media digital marketing agency, we are thankful for a lot of things. We have a talented team filled with awesome people who are always willing to learn and grow. We have amazing clients who trust in us to deliver only top-quality work. And we have big goals and dreams for where we want to go in the years ahead.
We could go on forever about what we are thankful for, but we’ll keep it to seven items this Thanksgiving.
1. The Best Tools at Our Disposal
You can’t succeed as a marketer without the right tools for things like inbound marketing analytics, SEO analysis, keyword research and content management. Here at m3, our SEO specialists use platforms and tools like ahrefs for site audits, keyword exploration, content exploration and rank tracking, and SEMrush for competitor research, backlink development and keyword research. HubSpot is one of the tools we use for inbound marketing analytics, lead generation and blog posting and management. Through BrightLocal, we can check up on our clients’ local listings and ensure they are accurate. We’re always looking to add new tools to our repertoire to speed up processes, increase productivity and guarantee client satisfaction.
2. Ownership
When a team member has an idea for how to push our business forward, Creative Director and Co-Founder Mario Medina will encourage it 9 times out of 10. We can own our ideas and run with them. If we want to create high-authority white papers or blog posts, he gives us the thumbs up. If we want to experiment with a new marketing platform or find training that we think the team will benefit from, he lets us put these ideas into motion. If we want to find new ways to approach our inbound marketing analytics, he gives us some suggestions for tools he’s heard about. Mario trusts that we are coming up with awesome ideas that will only improve m3.
This is just good management. According to Harvard Business Review, business owners can more successfully engage their employees if they give them psychological ownership of their jobs and ideas. By being able to call an idea “mine,” we automatically forge an emotional connection to it. This connection leads to an increase in workplace happiness, productivity, job satisfaction and commitment to the company. This is certainly the case for the team at m3.
3. Emphasis on the Client
No matter what, the client is always right. We’re taught to say “Of course!” to our clients and never “No.” Their expectations are never too lofty. We’re ready to take on any challenge that comes our way, and deliver on or under budget and before the due date.
4. Respect for One Another
Here at m3, we treat each other right. If we make a mistake, we own up to it as soon as possible so we don’t throw off another team member’s progress. If someone needs to take a personal day, our team respects that and will give the space and time he or she needs. We respect each other’s boundaries and time constraints, because we know there is more to life than just work. Family comes first, always.
5. A Commitment to Data and Analytics
We have great ideas for marketing campaigns, but we always back them up with the right data and analytics to get our point across. We need to prove to the client that our strategies are going to work, or that they’ve worked out in the past, so we break out the hard numbers.
Here at m3, we look at inbound marketing analytics surrounding our clients’ traffic, how much time visitors spend on the site, what pages visitors are exploring, the lead conversion rate, the amount of engagement on social media, the click-through rate, the number of people who become customers and much, much more. We know there are so many different factors that go into a customer’s purchasing decision, and we pinpoint exactly what will persuade him or her to make the leap and do business with our clients.
6. Innovation
Marketing is constantly changing. The tools and processes that may be relevant one week can change the next. Maybe an exciting new software is introduced or some Silicon Valley startup releases an incredible social media platform everyone is trying out. Perhaps a new way to collect data on customers is available for download. The rapid changes in technology bring about fast changes in the world of marketing, too. More and more, companies are focusing on bringing in their potential customers with inbound marketing as opposed to advertising and other outbound methods.
Thankfully, m3 is always seeking out new and innovative methods for reaching and engaging with customers. If we stopped moving forward with the times, we wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of competitors and attract the attention of valuable leads and customers. We’re constantly looking at marketing trends, such as the increasing use of chatbots, content made for voice search, live video optimization and the growth of influencer marketing. We are always on the pulse of what’s to come in the months and years ahead.
7. A Great Sense of Humor
We can’t forget to mention our team’s great sense of humor. We take our work seriously, but we’re always up for a good laugh and a bit of humor. After all, we created an inbound marketing comic book starring an elephant who analyzes the efficiency of his SEO strategies. Suffice it to say, our clients went “wild” for our comic book.
Also, to see our silliness in action, just take a look at our website. We call our leadership “The Big Cheeses.” At m3, we have a “dairy” good sense of humor, we must say. We had to “milk” that joke just one last time.
Getting Started with madison/miles media
We are excited about our work and thankful that our culture cultivates teamwork, productivity, humor, respect and job satisfaction. When our clients work with us, they recognize that we’re not your average digital marketing company. We go the distance.
