The Modern Blog Playbook: What Every Post Needs to Stand Out

Blogging has been a cornerstone of digital marketing for years. Companies of all sizes have used it to build brand awareness, generate leads, and drive sales. But with the pace of technological advancements, it’s essential to stay updated on best practices to ensure your blogs remain effective. 

Here are a few compelling statistics to consider:

  • Companies with blogs produce 67% more leads monthly than those that don’t blog (DemandMetric).
  • Businesses that blog generate 55% more website visitors (HubSpot).
  • 70% of people prefer learning about a company through articles instead of advertisements (DemandMetric).

These numbers highlight why blogging is a smart marketing investment. But rapid changes in digital marketing make it harder for companies to keep up with best practices. In this post, we aim to demystify some of these shifts and share key elements that can help businesses create more effective blog content.

The Evolution of Blogging: What’s Changing and Why It Matters

Over the last two decades, blogging has gone from a niche hobby to a mainstream marketing tool. However, recent trends and changes have made it increasingly difficult to navigate, especially for businesses trying to maximize their blog’s effectiveness. 

Here are three key changes that businesses need to consider in 2024:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Content Creation

Artificial intelligence has transformed how businesses approach content marketing. It’s now easier than ever to use AI to generate blog post ideas and outlines. However, while AI can save time, it also runs the risk of stripping away the human touch that readers crave. Blogs that rely solely on AI often lack the personality and unique voice that build trust and authenticity with readers. While AI can assist in the writing process, it’s crucial for brands to add a human element that resonates with their audience.

2. Google SEO Algorithms

Google’s search algorithms are constantly evolving, and this has significantly impacted how blogs rank in search results. Recent updates, like the introduction of Google Gemini, have altered how content is indexed and displayed. Businesses now need to be more strategic about keyword usage, meta descriptions, and overall content quality. Blogging is no longer about simply stuffing posts with keywords—it’s about delivering genuinely valuable, well-structured content that aligns with Google’s latest ranking factors.

3. Changing Consumer Preferences

Consumer behavior has also shifted, with shorter attention spans becoming the norm. Today’s readers prefer content that is easily digestible, concise, and actionable. Long, text-heavy posts without visuals or interactive elements struggle to hold readers’ attention. 

Companies that don’t adapt to these changing preferences risk losing their audience. To stand out in 2024, blogs need to be scannable, engaging, and offer immediate value to the reader.

The Anatomy of an Effective Blog Post in 2024

Given these changes, there are several key elements every blog post should include in order to remain effective and resonate with today’s audience. Incorporating these elements into your blog will help you navigate the evolving digital landscape and ensure your content remains relevant.

1. Valuable Content Your Audience Cares About

The foundation of any successful blog post is content that matters to your audience. In 2024, this goes beyond basic keyword research. Your content should address your audience’s pain points, answer their questions, and provide actionable insights. 

Readers are bombarded with information every day, so your blog needs to offer a compelling reason for them to spend time on your page. By prioritizing high-quality, relevant content, you’ll not only improve your SEO but also foster a deeper connection with your audience.

2. Compelling Images

Images do more than break up text—they enhance engagement. Studies show that blog posts with images get 94% more views than those without. 

In 2024, visual content is essential for maintaining reader interest, especially considering shorter attention spans. A well-placed infographic, photo, or chart can provide a visual explanation of complex ideas, making your content more accessible and enjoyable to read.

3. Engaging Headlines and Subheads

Your headline is the first—and sometimes only—chance you have to capture a reader’s attention. With so much content competing for clicks, your headline needs to be both compelling and concise. 

Subheads also play a crucial role in keeping readers engaged. They make your blog post easier to scan, which is especially important for readers who skim before committing to reading the full article. Well-crafted headlines and subheads can boost your click-through rates and help guide readers through your post.

4. Links to Other Forms of Content

An effective blog post doesn’t stand alone. It should serve as a gateway to other forms of content, whether that’s additional blog posts, case studies, videos, or social media channels.

Internal links can help drive traffic to other parts of your website, improving your site’s overall SEO. External links to reputable sources can also enhance your credibility, showing readers that your blog is well-researched and grounded in industry knowledge.

5. Clear Call to Action (CTA)

Every blog post should have a purpose, whether that’s to educate, inspire, or persuade. A clear CTA at the end of your post ensures readers know what to do next. 

Whether it’s subscribing to your newsletter, downloading a free resource, or contacting your sales team, your CTA should guide readers toward the next step in their journey. An effective CTA not only drives engagement but also helps convert readers into customers or leads.

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going

Blogging in 2024 is more complex than ever, but by incorporating these key elements into your posts, you can create content that engages your audience, supports your marketing goals, and adapts to the latest trends. 

At Green Apple Strategy, we’re continually evaluating the effectiveness of our clients’ content marketing strategies, including blogging. We’re also committed to sharing what we learn with our community.

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How Businesses Can Use TikTok for Marketing

Photo of a phone on TikTok's TikTok profile on the screen

There’s no denying that TikTok has become the social media platform that’s garnished the most attention within the past couple of years. And it looks like it will continue to be one of the B2B social media trends in 2023 that businesses should consider. Whether you personally love it or hate it, business leaders and marketers are wrestling with the question, “Does our company need to be on TikTok?” 

As with any social media platform, investing in TikTok for marketing really comes down to whether it can help you reach and cultivate relationships with your potential customers. It’s also important to note that TikTok will continue to change and evolve as more innovations roll out, so you’ll have to stay updated on the changes to this platform.

4 Ways Businesses Can Use TikTok for Marketing

As we’ve worked alongside clients to determine how they can use TikTok for marketing, we’ve found a few helpful tactics that seem to work best for businesses. If you’re looking for a way to leverage TikTok for your brand, here are a few ideas to consider based on the latest trends: 

1. Post Educational Content 

TikTok can be a great way to educate current and potential customers with helpful insights about your products, services, or industry. According to Vidyard’s 2021 Video Benchmarks report, the most common types of business videos are product demos, followed by how-tos and explainers. Because of its visual nature, TikTok provides a way for you to create informational videos at a relatively low cost. You don’t have to invest in expensive cameras or editing software if you have someone with an engaging personality who is good at keeping people’s attention and teaching your audience. 

2. Find Your Target Audience 

One of the unique features of TikTok is the subcultures and threads that have been created around specific industries and areas of interest. For example, #BookTok and #MoneyTok are two distinct subcultures that make it easy for users to connect with like-minded people who share their interests and passions. One of the best ways to reach new customers on TikTok might be to invest time in developing a presence in a particular subculture that aligns with your business or industry. 

3. Invest in Influencer Marketing 

Sometimes the best TikTok strategy isn’t creating your own content but instead partnering with influencers who have already built an audience. The platform has proven to be a creative incubator for rising thought leaders and industry influencers. If you recognize that there is potential in reaching your target audience on TikTok, but you don’t have the time or resources to launch your own channel, it’s worth exploring how to identify and connect with influencers to promote your brand.  

4. Share “Behind-the-Scenes” Content 

In addition to providing the opportunity to educate customers, TikTok is also a social media platform that can humanize your brand. While every social media platform was created to help humans connect with one another, content that businesses create for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can still feel very corporate and sterile. In many ways, TikTok opens the door to reconnecting with your audience in a way that feels authentic and not overly formal. You might consider sharing “behind the scenes” content for your brand or creating a “day in the life” video that features an employee. You can also collaborate with current customers or community members to feature their videos on your profile.

Social Media Best Practices when Using TikTok for Marketing

As with any social media platform, it’s important to understand what makes marketing on TikTok effective. Here are a few basic best practices to follow when creating videos for TikTok: 

1. Make sure your content is authentic and represents your brand.

Becoming a thought leader in your industry requires authenticity and approachability, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Humorous, light, fun content works really well on TikTok. 

2. Engage with your followers so they feel valued. 

One way to increase engagement is to interact with your audience directly on the platform. People love to feel valued and heard.

3. Use data to consistently evaluate your investment. 

While you may not experience instant success, it’s important to always ask yourself, “Is this helping us work towards our larger marketing goals and objectives?” Asking the right questions to evaluate your social media content is an important way to make sure you’re maximizing your ROI.  

4. Test often to see what works and what doesn’t. 

You may be surprised by which ideas work and which ones fall flat. Don’t be afraid to experiment. 

While we don’t recommend TikTok to every client, it might be the best way for your business to get outside of your comfort zone this year. Once you’re ready to dive in, don’t forget to use TikTok Analytics to evaluate the success of your social media strategy and identify the type of content that can get you the greatest results.

Is Print Advertising Still Viable?

Printing press

Let’s face it: It is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to stand out and earn attention in today’s noisy world. While most of our content marketing focus has gone digital, especially in the news and media industry, print advertising is still a viable tactic to consider. Here are some surprising statistics about the viability of print advertising that are important for businesses and marketers to know:

  • Print ads generate a 20% higher motivation response, even more so if it appeals to more senses beyond touch. 
  • There is a 77% higher brand recall for print ads vs. 46% for digital ads.
  • Magazines and newspapers delivered the highest ROI of advertising at 125% — more than other ad mediums, like TV and digital’s ROI of 87%. 

Print advertising isn’t dead. Depending on our clients’ target audience and goals, we’ve found that print advertising has some advantages over digital features.

4 Benefits of Print Advertising

Here are four unique benefits that print advertising offers for your marketing:

1. Print advertising can help boost brand awareness and reputation. 

Print can be a powerful ally in reinforcing the brand message, establishing brand identity, and raising brand awareness. In fact, the percentage of people who pay close attention to print ads has more than doubled in the past decade, from 23% in 2010 to 49% in 2020. 

2. Print advertising increases the longevity of exposure.

Ad view times are incredibly low online. When you invest in print media, you create an opportunity for your advertisements to stick around for years. Whether it’s in a magazine, newspaper, or other printed publication, investing in print advertising provides long-term exposure for your audience. 

3. Print advertising is often more memorable.

The internet can be a distracting place. This weakens the effectiveness of digital advertising. On the other hand, people tend to remember more of the print content they read, which could have a bigger impact on mindshare for your brand. A recent study found that 75% of people reading the print ad could retrieve the information on it, compared to 44% who saw a digital version of the same ad.

4. Print advertising helps create a more emotional connection with your audience. 

Creating an emotional connection with potential customers is essential for inspiring them to take action. According to a study conducted by the United States Postal Service and Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making, print advertisements initiated a more robust emotional response than digital. Printed advertising has the unique ability to engage all the senses, which, in turn, creates a more emotional experience.

How to Strategically Invest in Print Advertising

How can you make print advertising work for your brand? Here are a few key strategies to consider:

1. Identify publications that reach your target audience.

Knowing your target audience is an essential part of any marketing strategy. When it comes to print marketing, this is important because you need to know what publications will help you reach your audience and what advertisements will be most appealing if you want them to work. 

2. Make sure your advertising grabs their attention.

You want to make sure your print ads and marketing campaigns rise above the noise. If you want to grab your audiences’ attention, your print advertising should make a statement that instantly intrigues and entices your customer. You can do this by using things like a strong headline or compelling images.

3. Create an omnichannel experience with your print advertising.

Combining traditional advertising, like print, billboards, and direct mail, with digital ads has proven to be four times more effective than those just employing digital resources to generate consumer engagement. That’s why it’s important to consider how to drive your audience to engage online through your print advertising. It could be adding an enticing “hook” and driving people to your website or social media accounts. QR codes have also become an effective way to combine print and digital advertising. 

4. Find ways to track & measure your advertising performance. 

Print advertising can be harder to track than digital so you can never be sure about how many people you’ve reached. That’s why it’s important to find creative ways to analyze your investment. One of the best ways to track print advertising is by placing a unique URL within the ad that leads customers to a specific landing page just used for that purpose.

Developing the most effective print advertising campaign comes down to the basic marketing principles of knowing your audience, creating compelling content that inspires action, and constantly analyzing your efforts. If you’re looking for a new way to reach customers, consider the impact print advertising could make for your business.

5 Creative PR Tactics Your Business Should Explore this Year

Brainstorm meeting in a office

In today’s increasingly digital world, it can be difficult for brands to reach customers through the traditional PR tactics that our industry relied on for decades. Today’s buyers are not easy to reach. Nevertheless, public relations is crucial for enterprise technology companies and B2B brands, regardless of size, vertical, or industry. We’re constantly encouraging our clients to consider creative ways to integrate public relations into their comprehensive marketing plans. While the tactics may have evolved, the end goal of public relations remains the same: increase brand awareness, credibility, and trust with the people you’re trying to reach.

Creative PR Tactics Your Business Should Explore This Year

Here are a few creative PR tactics we’ve used to help our clients gain traction and create tangible results through their PR efforts:

1. Develop a Digital PR Strategy

We encourage every business to create a digital PR toolkit that can be used to enhance their relationship with current and potential customers. One essential element is a survey tool that helps capture feedback from clients. In today’s digital world, the customer has more power than the business when it comes to brand perception. Bad reviews can tank a company’s reputation. If customers aren’t happy with your product or service, customer reviews allow you to proactively address them. If your product or service generates raving fans, you’re able to leverage those reviews to promote your business to other potential customers. 

2. Maximize the Power of Podcasts

If social media has replaced traditional news as the way we keep track of important events, podcasts have replaced industry publications as the way to learn and grow in our professions.  Almost 40% of Americans listen to podcasts every month, and that number has grown steadily every year. Additionally, the on-demand nature of podcasting means that listeners are typically actively listening to the entire podcast. This provides you with the focused attention of your audience through a single medium.

If you don’t have the bandwidth to start your own podcast, consider advertising or pitching an idea or topic to be a guest on a podcast that already reaches your industry. If you’re looking to leverage this tactic, your first step is to take what you know about your audience and start searching for podcasts that hit this niche.

3. Create Specific & Targeted Press Releases for Local Markets 

Today’s media outlets are bombarded with dozens of press releases and requests. The more targeted and personalized you can make your press release, the more likely you are to gain coverage and reach your audience. Think of specific ways you can tailor your PR pitches to local markets. Targeting local media means you’ll have a higher chance of getting your story out there and ensuring your target audience sees it.

4. Give Back by Embracing Corporate Social Responsibility 

Businesses of all sizes have benefitted from proactively giving back to their community in recent years. One tactic that’s growing in popularity is to adopt a corporate social responsibility platform that is tied to your community or a specific cause. Doing so is a great way to earn attention. It also generates goodwill with today’s consumers, who increasingly care about giving back. 

5. Leverage Influencer Marketing to Reach Your Target Audience

As social media has evolved, influencer relationships have become a successful strategy for many brands. However, you don’t need to pitch celebrities or influencers with huge followings in order to generate success. Micro-influencers can be just as powerful, especially if your audience is in a niche industry or market. Finding an influencer in your industry is a powerful way to help build brand awareness because it is authentic and relatable to your audience. 

You don’t have to implement every one of these ideas in 2022 to experience public relations success. But if you’ve struggled to gain momentum through traditional PR tactics, we’d encourage you to collaborate with your marketing agency to try a few. Implementing even one of these approaches could provide the valuable insights you need to transform your PR efforts in the future. Green Apple can help you select and deploy the right strategies to increase your influence and your brand identity. We’re available any time to help you craft a successful PR approach.

How to Become a Thought Leader in Your Industry

Climbers approaching mountaintop

Becoming a “thought leader” is an elusive goal that many business leaders and executives strive for. While some people may think of it as just another marketing buzzword, the reality of having a positive reputation for helping others with your knowledge and insight is important for every business leader.

We’ve been sharing content on thought leadership for years. The channels might have changed, but the opportunity to become a thought leader in your industry is just as possible today. 

Can Anyone Become a Thought Leader?

Before we dive into how to become a thought leader, let’s address a common misconception we hear from people: “I don’t have the time or connections to become a thought leader in the industry.”

While becoming a thought leader takes time and intentionality, the reality is that anyone can become a thought leader in their specific industry or niche. All you need is a willingness to do the work of codifying what you know and have the patience to build momentum over time.

4 Best Practices to Become a Thought Leader in Your Industry

So how do you become a thought leader? Here are a few simple best practices we encourage our clients to consider: 

  1. Stick with Your Message

The most effective thought leaders are known because they stick to a specific message. This makes it easier for people to discern what they do and why they’re doing it. Think about the key message you want to share, one that you would want to maintain as a consistent plumbline over the years. If you’re having trouble determining your unique message, you might want to consider the next point. 

  1. Discern Your Niche 

While you’re thinking about your brand, finish this sentence: The kind of presence I want to have when helping others is ____________________. The thought leaders who make the greatest impact are those who are committed to helping others achieve their goals. Think about what makes you unique and how you can leverage that as you develop your platform.

What’s your unique personality? Are you a generous encourager who wants to champion people in their work? Or are you a disrupter of the status quo who loves to challenge assumptions?

Are you better at providing long, drawn-out explanations? Or are you good at creating quick one-liners that get people thinking? Would you be open to speaking in public, or do you shrink at the idea?

Understanding your unique gifts and strengths will help you determine the way you build your thought leadership platform.

  1. Choose the Right Platform  

If you want to get the most out of your thought leadership content, it’s important to consider how your audience consumes what you share.  To create the greatest impact, you need to meet your audience on the channels they use (social, email, etc.) with the type of content they prefer (written, audio, video). Don’t be afraid to use a mix of platforms and content types as you’re discerning this. The level of engagement you see can help you discern where your audience is and how they prefer to interact with your brand. 

  1. Share Genuine, Authentic Reflections

The thought leaders we celebrate most aren’t the ones who know it all, but the ones who show us they’re human and that they care. As you consider what to share, don’t be afraid to show your humanity by highlighting mistakes you’ve made and lessons you’ve learned. 

  1. Embrace (Effective) Storytelling 

Storytelling should be at the heart of every piece of thought leadership content you create. Telling a story engages your audience by giving them a specific example with measurable stakes. Stories also help your audience understand how your company’s products and services could help them solve a problem. It’s important to tell stories your customers actually want to hear. If your audience can’t see themselves in your brand’s story, it won’t resonate with them.  

Position Your Brand as An Industry Leader 

When it comes to becoming a thought leader, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. However, these tips will help you develop a strategy you can use to reach more people. Any effort will be worth it as it gives you a chance to help others, build your audience and grow your business. For more help positioning your brand as an industry leader, reach out to us to schedule a strategy session. 

Case Study: How We Increased LinkedIn Followers 5X in 6 Months

linked in logo on an app icon


LinkedIn is an essential platform for many B2B companies, and there are several reasons why:

  • 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions.” (Source)
  • 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to research purchases. (Source) 
  • 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. (Source) 

There is no denying that LinkedIn is one of the most effective social media lead generators for B2B marketers. Since LinkedIn allows users to generate content and create engagement, it makes sense for those involved in the B2B industry to remain active on LinkedIn. 

Recently, our team at Green Apple collaborated on a strategy to enhance our LinkedIn presence that increased our followers by more than 500 in less than six months. 

The Challenge: Testing Ideas to Transform Our Strategies

We often help clients use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and find effective ways to optimize B2B LinkedIn pages for business. We also believe to serve our clients effectively, we should always be looking for ways to test ideas and strategies ourselves. Understanding the ways brands use LinkedIn gives us insight into how we can integrate new approaches into the social marketing strategy we create for clients.

In May 2021, we sat down to develop a year-long plan that would help us learn new tactics and achieve specific growth, interactions, and engagement goals. We started with a little more than 100 followers on our LinkedIn page. 

Our Approach: Collaboration & Content to Accelerate Connection & Growth

To test ideas and strategies, we worked through the same strategic marketing process we use with our clients: 

  • We identified a goal and created a feasible strategy — We started by setting a goal to have 1,000 followers by May 2022. This seemed like an audacious but achievable goal. We also wanted to develop a strategy that would be reasonable for our team to execute. We know our team is primarily focused on client goals, so we collaborated on a feasible strategy that was highly achievable. 
  • We used our team strengths to devise a plan — The strategy we created was built to maximize our team’s unique strengths and gifts. One of the things that makes Green Apple unique is that our team is diverse in experience and expertise. We wanted to highlight this by encouraging team members to be present on LinkedIn. We also wanted to give our insights into the marketing industry, share what our team members are learning, and highlight the milestones our team reaches. 
  • We created a team-oriented approach — We knew that collective buy-in would be essential for achieving our goal. From the very beginning, we rallied the team behind the goal and provided ways to engage with our content, share their own content, and grow our network. We also wanted to share content highlighting the “everyday” aspects of our team — including behind-the-scenes photos and personnel updates from the Green Apple Orchard. 
  • We evaluated and re-evaluated our content each month — It’s important to constantly measure your efforts and tweak your strategy based on what you’re learning. Each month, our team would spend time reviewing the content we posted. The insights we discovered based on the performance of the various topics or types of posts allowed us to adjust our strategy along the way.

The Results: Discovering the “Link” Between Intentional Effort & Exponential Growth

Six months into the strategy, we’re well on our way to achieving our annual growth goal. We’ve also experienced exponential growth in our engagement. We’ve increased our reactions by 4,872%, comments by 7,800%, and shares by 2,566%. Along with these quantitative results, we’ve also created deeper, more meaningful connections with people on LinkedIn we hadn’t experienced before. 

If you want to learn more about our approach or discover how you can leverage LinkedIn for growth, reach out to us to help establish a strategic social media plan. Also — if we haven’t connected on LinkedIn yet, we’d love to share our content with you. You can find our LinkedIn page here.

Client Surveys: The Secret Ingredient for any Successful Agency Partnership


Client satisfaction is an essential ingredient for a successful partnership between a marketing agency and the businesses they serve. Whether it’s creating a website or driving your lead generation and brand awareness campaigns, marketing agencies exist to help your business achieve more than you could on your own. At Green Apple, we firmly believe that if our clients aren’t benefiting from our partnership, we want to know. This is where client surveys have become an essential tool for creating successful partnerships with clients.

Over the years, we’ve helped our clients to build customer surveys that produce the highest return on investment. Recently, we’ve decided to integrate that approach into our own workflow. In this post, we wanted to outline a few specific ways that client surveys align with our values as an agency and why we see them as an opportunity to continually learn, grow, and improve to serve others more effectively. 

4 Ways Client Surveys Help Marketing Agencies Improve 

Here are a few specific ways that client surveys help marketing agencies in the work we do each day: 

  • Client surveys provide insights that help assess client needs and identify effective solutions. It’s difficult to know what’s working and what’s not without qualitative and quantitative feedback. We believe in the value of making data-driven decisions based on campaign results. We also value the qualitative feedback of our clients. Client surveys are a way for us to assess client needs and identify solutions. To formulate our approach, we combine what the survey metrics are showing with what clients express through the surveys.
  • Client surveys provide perspectives on how to better serve and engage clients. Client surveys provide a valuable opportunity to assess how we’re working with our clients, in addition to evaluating the work we’re doing for them. Ultimately, they allow us to assess everything from internal processes that support the work we do to the dozens of interactions we have with clients in a given month.
  • Client surveys give direction for change and improvement. We believe that our clients’ opinions and feedback are two of the most important factors that validate the decisions we make for our business. For example, a few years ago, a significant number of our clients needed more sales-enablement resources than general branding materials. This allowed us to find creative ways to change directions in our service offerings to invest more in sales-enablement strategies that benefited our clients’ needs.
  • Client surveys capture a big picture perspective & track change over time. We’ve had the benefit of working with several clients for numerous years. Client surveys allow us to uncover seasonal trends or see how any recent changes have affected our client experience throughout our partnership together.

Why We Invest in Client Surveys to Enhance Partnership with Clients

Here are a few more specific reasons we’ve decided to invest in client surveys to enhance the partnership we have with clients. 

  • We want to live out our values in every aspect of our business. One of our core values at Green Apple is to put the client first in every aspect of our process — that is our bottom line. We believe client surveys are one of the best ways to do that. Assessing client experiences allows us to listen to clients, hear their feedback, and work with them to help them face their specific challenges.
  • We want to continually look for ways to create strong partnerships with our clients. Partnering with an agency that has a general philosophy and approach to business that is similar to yours is key for effective partnership. Client surveys provide a way for us to make sure we’re in sync with how our clients want to achieve their goals. 
  • We believe that open and honest feedback is key to a successful relationship. Effective agency partnerships are based on achieving results and effective communication. Client surveys provide a way to create stronger partnerships with our clients by providing an anonymous way for them to clearly share their thoughts. 
  • We want to continually learn, grow, and improve how we serve clients. Continual learning and growth are essential in the marketing world. This is just as true in how we serve clients as it is how we keep track of the latest marketing trends. We believe client surveys are a way for us to continue to add value to our clients’ strategies because they provide a way for us to continually learn and improve. 

If you’re curious about Green Apple’s approach to partnership and how we work with brands, check out our services page or portfolio of projects to learn more.

5 Qualities of an Effective Marketing Agency

business meeting with people looking at computer screen

Marketing agencies exist to be a guide that meets your business where it is and helps you get where you want to go. Whether you’re looking to build a brand, increase awareness about your product, services, and mission, or drive sales through more effective marketing tools, your agency should be a partner who understands your industry and can provide ideas, tools, and resources to help you achieve your goals. 

For the past decade, Green Apple has worked with dozens of clients in a variety of industries. We’ve also partnered with other marketing agencies to help our clients achieve their specific goals. With that experience in mind, we’ve identified five qualities you should look for when selecting a skilled marketing agency.

1. Quality Relationships Across the Agency

At its core, the partnership between you and your marketing agency is a relationship. But that partnership is built on numerous individual relationships: between you and the agency representatives, between employees within the agency, and between your agency and their vendors. If there are relational issues or breakdowns, your results have the potential to suffer. 

Behind every successful marketing agency is a great team of people who have both the skills to execute strategy and a positive attitude that makes for a streamlined workflow. That includes the leadership level and those responsible for executing the day-to-day project management tasks.

2. They Understand and Can Support Your Greatest Needs

Marketing agencies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Each has its own unique philosophy, approach, style, and strengths. One important factor we constantly focus on as an agency is our ability to truly understand what our clients need and ensure we can support them. 

This is why an agency needs to get to know the ins and outs of your business. What are your biggest challenges? What would others in your company say? Making sure your marketing agency is aware of what’s happening across your business and communicating your goals will help them identify the best ways to support it.

3. They Communicate Expectations Clearly and Mistakes Quickly

Effective agency partnerships involve constant communication. This is why asking specific questions before hiring a marketing agency can be helpful. It’s essential to know how an agency communicates with clients. It’s also important to understand how they expect you to communicate with them. Clarity is key. 

An agency should also be able to proactively and quickly own up to any mistakes. There isn’t an agency out there that doesn’t make mistakes. We’re human. But effective marketing agencies can communicate mistakes quickly and provide quick resolutions.

4. A Robust Team that Can Grow or Adapt with Your Needs

The marketing world is ever-changing, so it’s important to partner with an agency that is agile and able to adapt as your business evolves and changes. This is one thing that makes our approach at Green Apple unique. We don’t believe your business fits into a marketing mold. Instead, we mold our marketing practices around your business to help you be successful. Then, as more data comes in, we pivot, adjust, and adapt those strategies to be more effective over time. 

Often, our clients engage with us for one or two services, and our relationship grows to cover several different areas over time. For example, one of our clients started with social media and website support services. That quickly evolved into SEO and branding needs as they expanded into new markets. Now, we also assist with additional internal marketing and onboarding procedures for new employees. 

A Proven Track Record of Creating Results  

The goal of every effective marketing company should be to deliver positive results for their clients. When considering a partnership with an agency, look for case studies and testimonials to see how they’ve made their clients successful, and ask about measuring ROI. Marketing agencies exist to help brands, businesses, and nonprofits achieve something they can’t do on their own. But there are a lot of factors that go into making that happen. 

If you’re curious about how Green Apple can help you achieve your goals, schedule an exploratory consultation with our team. We would love to learn more about your business and see if we’re the right fit for you!