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The Agency Landscape is Changing Before Our Eyes. Daily.

Posted on April 29, 2020January 13, 2021 by Mindstream Media Group

Creative Agencies Win by Partnering with Media Firms

We’ve seen it as immediately as the last two weeks. The “once was” is colliding with the “now is” strategy and structure of operating a successful agency. Full-service and creative shops are morphing before our eyes as everyone looks to answer for the future state of their business.

What exactly does the future state look like?

For our team at Mindstream Media Group, we look to the horizon, while remaining anchored in our PURPOSE:

We don’t discriminate in WHO we view as our “clients” in this purpose and in our delivery of services—from national brands and franchise businesses to general and creative agencies.

We work with 20+ agency partners from Southern California to Maryland, and some relationships have existed for as long as 10 years. Other relationships are just starting to blossom as we “win together” with creative agency partners. Agency partnerships are especially interesting now, as agency models are being reinvented.

Why is that?

It’s really a terrific question. The “jack of all trades” creative shop or full-service partner likely had to evaluate resources in the last 30 days. Everyone in our space has. No one is immune to the ripple effect of the virus and the impact on our service teams. Offerings are being pared down and a refined focus on the work is coming back into a clearer perspective. What’s needed more now than ever is a high-quality account and/or strategic lead. Then, lean on the talents and perspective of a trusted partner to bring it to life.

This BEFORE & AFTER image represents the typical, pre-pandemic agency account structure and what challenges will exist going forward.

Agency structures are reinventing at a rapid pace due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But clients aren’t going away. Agency owners, COOs and account teams are looking for trusted partners to help them bring their ideas to life. As the economy rebounds, Mindstream Media Group can insert quickly into the statement of bringing ideas to life. No one will have time to waste when ramping back up.

Now, let’s say you’ve never considered this approach pre-pandemic… What specifically does Mindstream Media Group bring to the table to help retain your business and GAIN new opportunity (clients) in this new economy?

We exist to Fast-Forward Your Business through perspective, capabilities, a CRUSH IT culture and the pricing insight $500 million in scale brings. We’ve distilled our unique perspective, capabilities and scale into 12 ways we can help agency partners moving forward.

In addition to uniquely beneficial partnership models and full-solution media capabilities, one example of value we deliver is seen in No. 2 under SCALE (Research). Re-evaluation of an agency P&L may have left many of these crucial research tools by the wayside. We get it. Let us, or another partner, lift the burden of cost and ensure you’re continuing the stewardship of your client dollars. Our team invests nearly $1,000,000 annually with research and strategic planning tools. The key word is “invests” in the tools. We rely on this wealth of research data to help define and drive our media recommendations.

We have agency partner relationships spanning over a decade. Why? Because together: they win first; then we win by truly being an extension of their team and delivering a full range of media solutions.

Challenge presents opportunity, and as a collective, our fellow agencies are certainly living this challenge. If any of this speaks to where you are today, embrace the opportunity to scale your business, and let’s start a conversation. Reach out to me directly or submit the form below and we’ll get back to you.

Zac Keeney, President of Mindstream Media Group, leads the agency’s sales and marketing teams. His 15-year career in media encompasses working with many Fortune 500 brands to successfully strategize and implement campaigns of all shapes and sizes. Zac’s competitive spirit fuels the drive to keep a constant focus on moving client business forward. The unique challenges that every client presents allows Zac and his team to thrive by consistently providing unique, agile solutions in an ever-changing marketing landscape.

[Infographic]: The Consumer Buying Journey for Multi-Location Brands

Posted on November 16, 2017 by Mindstream Media Group

When developing marketing strategies, it’s important for brands to understand their customers’ buying journeys. I.e., how does someone go from a consumer realizing a need to a customer making a purchase? It can be tough. Buying journeys have become increasingly malleable, it’s no longer about trying to figure out if the journey is linear or cyclical. It’s about understanding what consumers need at each stage of the buying journey and delivering them the right message at the right time.

This is especially true for multi-location brands, who not only have to define target audiences by demographics, behavior and intent like any other brand, they also need to refine that audience to consumers within a set radius from their locations.

With this infographic, you will learn:

How the flow of the buying journey has changed for multi-location brands
What multi-location brands should be doing to reach consumers at each stage of the journey

How to Keep Consumers from Abandoning Online Carts

Posted on March 21, 2017January 27, 2020 by Mindstream Media Group

Cart abandonment is a growing hole in marketing’s leaky bucket as online shoppers continuously leave sales behind. And, the reasons they’re jumping to competitors’ sites or closing out browsers all together are many. Meanwhile, retailers and their digital agencies continue refining strategies and techniques to stem the flow.

How bad is it?

According to U.K.-based Baymard Institute’s analysis of 22 studies, over 67 percent of online carts are abandoned costing businesses hundreds of billions annually.

The two primary reasons consumers walk away are purely financial – shipping costs and the overall price tag of the order, according to FuturePay. Other research points to technical problems on the website, account requirements and long payment processes as further hindrances.

How to plug the holes.

Keeping sales from spewing out due to any of the reasons mentioned above requires a multi-pronged approach. While not watertight, reducing losses to a trickle is an attainable goal. Here’s how online retailers can get more conversions:

Ensure a great user experience. Any glitch will test a consumer’s patience. Slow page loads, lengthy checkout processes or confusing instructions will have your buyer running to your competitors. Requiring the user to spend the least effort necessary is the goal. Above all else, get these basics right.
Step up your remarketing/retargeting efforts.
- Email campaigns – Capturing email addresses is more than a means of delivering periodic newsletters or promotions. Capturing emails before the potential buyer clicks away from the site allows marketers to contact the user with reminders to complete their checkout. According to Website Magazine, including the customer name and product detail brings the email open rate to 46 and 44 percent, respectively. Sending an email an hour after the cart was abandoned yields the highest conversion rate of 6.3 percent. Use of product images and ensuring a great mobile experience for the email are also beneficial.
- Display ads – Shadowing your users with ads specific to items last viewed or left in your page’s cart as they browse other sites is increasingly commonplace. Major retailers are all over this tactic. That dress that was looked at, but not purchased, at Nordstrom seems to follow the user across social and other sites and apps for the next day or so. This constant tug at the shopper’s virtual purse strings ensures the product isn’t easily forgotten. It’s also important to set up smart-burn pixels and pages so if the user does return and complete the purchase, the ads stop showing.
Offer onsite assistance. Whether staffed by service reps alone or with chatbots asking the upfront questions, offer immediate assistance for shoppers throughout the online buying process – from research and recommendations through checkout.
Modify shipping price models. Nothing mysterious here; shoppers are turned off by shipping fees. Higher-end sites are removing shipping costs to the consumer altogether, and they make sure free shipping claims are on every page, in plain view. For those who haven’t removed shipping or absorbed it into the product price, additional options are free shipping on specified goods, through a limited time promotion or for purchases over a given spend threshold. Nominal flat rate shipping fees are also used.

Just like any other digital marketing effort, watch your analytics, test content and strategy constantly and keep optimizing to slow down your shopping cart losses.