Food influencer marketing, a term we’ve been hearing a lot, has become an integral strategy for food and beverage brands looking to connect with their audience in a more authentic way.
Simply put, it’s about partnering with individuals who have a strong online presence and can influence their followers’ purchasing decisions. And honestly, the impact is real. In fact, 69% percent of consumers trust the recommendations of influencers. This is actually solid proof of how a good influencer marketing strategy can boost brand awareness and drive sales.
Key Takeaways
What is Food Influencer Marketing, Why it Matters and Who Needs It?
You’ll learn what food influencer marketing is, why it’s important, and which brands can benefit the most from it.
8 Steps to Build a Successful Food Influencer Marketing Strategy
You’ll discover the essential steps to create a successful food influencer marketing strategy, from leveraging UGC to partnering with local influencers.
Top Food Influencer Campaigns to Learn From
You’ll see real examples of successful food influencer campaigns and learn how these brands achieved their goals through strategic partnerships.
A Comprehensive Guide to Food Influencer Marketing: What It Is, Why It Matters, and Who Needs It?
Traditional ads often feel impersonal, but food influencers add a human touch. They engage followers with relatable content, making food or product recommendations feel like advice from a friend. While boosting brand awareness, which most brands seek, this strategy also convinces audiences as followers are more likely to trust and act on recommendations from someone they admire.
Food influencers range from celebrity chefs to food micro influencers with dedicated followers.
They create content that attracts and impacts not just people in their region but many all over the world. Food content brings people together and introduces them to diverse cultures.
Naturally, this is a great advantage for many brands, as brand awareness can spread across the world.
With the help of food influencers and food and beverage marketing agencies, fast food chains, cookware brands or restaurants showcase new launches in a more engaging and intriguing way.
Why does it matter, though? Because we live in a world where we’re constantly bombarded with advertisements and the authenticity that food influencer marketing offers makes a real difference. They build trust and this trust translates into higher engagement rates and stronger brand connections.
Who needs food influencer marketing? Each and every food brand out there! It’s not just for big brands with massive budgets. Every food brand, regardless of size, can benefit. It can be particularly beneficial for smaller, niche markets where targeted messaging is key.
Especially the following businesses can benefit from this strategy:
Restaurants: Use influencers to attract local crowds when launching a new menu or opening a new location.
Food Brands:From large corporations to small, artisanal producers, food brands are able to display their products in a more appealing way.
Beverage Companies: Highlight new drinks or seasonal flavors with the help of food and beverage influencers.
Specialty Food Shops: Reach niche audiences and boost visibility for unique products.
Cookware Brands: Collaborate with food content creators to promote products, offering viewers quick insights on quality and ease of use, often with discount codes.
8 Steps to Building a Winning Food Influencer Marketing Strategy
You need more than just choosing the right influencers for effective food influencer marketing. Thus, we’ve listed unique steps you can take:
Step 1: Encouraging User-Generated Content (UGC)
One of the most powerful aspects of food influencer marketing is the ability to inspire your audience to create their own content featuring your products. When customers see influencers using and endorsing your products, they’re more likely to join in and share their own experiences. 79% of people say UGC highly impacts their purchase decisions. Leveraging UGC means encouraging influencers and customers alike to create and share content that features your products in an organic, creative way – such as through their own recipes, meal prep ideas, or unique serving suggestions.
The beauty of UGC lies in its authenticity—content created by everyday people feels more genuine and trustworthy than traditional ads. Plus, when influencers lead the charge, their followers are more likely to participate, knowing they’re part of a community.
Authenticity & Trust: UGC is trusted more because it comes from real users, making it more reliable than traditional ads.
Cost-Effective Content Creation: It is a budget-friendly way to generate a steady stream of content.
Community Engagement: Sharing UGC creates a sense of belonging, boosting brand visibility through ongoing engagement.
Diverse Perspectives: UGC showcases your product’s versatility, offering new, creative uses from different viewpoints.
UGC strategy is also effective because of the rise of micro and nano influencers. These creators typically have smaller but highly engaged followings, perfect for UGC strategies. These influencers often have a closer relationship with their audience, making their UGC more impactful and relatable.
Viral TikTok Presence: Crumbl Cookies has gained massive popularity on TikTok, where hashtags like #CrumblCookies and #CrumblReview has millions of views.
Weekly Flavor Drops Fuel UGC: Crumbl’s weekly introduction of new flavors is a key part of their strategy, encouraging UGC.
Step 2: Partnering Local Restaurants with Local Influencers
The value of local connections can sometimes be overlooked. However, collaborating with local influencers help food brands to reach the local audience, thus driving customers directly to the brand. Locals discover new places to try via influencers.
Local Discovery: Local influencers help people in the area discover new dining spots they might not know about. Their recommendations feel like tips from a friend, making them more likely to visit.
Community Connection: These influencers know what the local community cares about and can make your restaurant a local favorite by connecting it with community values and trends.
Word-of-Mouth Amplification: An influencer’s endorsement can quickly spread the word about your restaurant, leading to more visits and bookings from their followers who trust their advice.
Cost-Effective Marketing: Collaborating with local influencers is budget-friendly and can deliver great results without the high costs of traditional ads.
Relatable Content: Content created by local influencers resonates more with locals because it’s relevant and authentic, making it more impactful and shareable.
KarissaEats is one of the top food influencers online, especially having a strong following base on TikTok with over 6 million followers. Her content typically has a solid style where she tries different foods from all over the world. As shared by her, she recently moved to NYC with her boyfriend and continues to share content from every corner of the city. With her helpful content, travelers and locals are able to discover local delicacies, ranging from Indian cuisine to food trucks.
Inviting influencers to sample and review your products brings authenticity and excitement. These taste-testing campaigns, whether done live, virtually, or through social media, give audiences a real, sensory experience that sticks with them.
Genuine Reactions: Influencers sharing their honest thoughts on your product gives potential customers a real sense of what to expect, making it easier for them to decide to try it.
Interactive and Fun: This content invites viewers to engage, whether they’re watching a live stream or commenting on a video, making your brand more engaging.
Broadened Audience: An influencer’s review can introduce your product to their followers, who trust their recommendations and are more likely to give your product a try.
Cost-Effective Exposure: Taste-testing content is budget-friendly and can provide solid exposure without the need for expensive campaigns.
Sensory Experience: Taste-testing campaigns let consumers experience a product vicariously through the influencer’s reactions. Food is inherently sensory, and by watching an influencer taste and describe a product, audiences can almost “taste” it themselves. This sensory appeal is powerful in driving consumer curiosity and desire to try the product.
Wingstop is another food brand that has taken over TikTok and YouTube with its mouth-watering fried chicken strips and wings. What sets them apart is their wide range of flavors, especially their Cajun fries and ranch sauce, which have people around the world buzzing. The comments are filled with people outside the U.S. craving these flavors, begging the brand to open locations in their countries. This global excitement keeps engagement high. While they might not be able to sell to everyone, Wingstop has definitely created brand awareness that’s hard to beat, so salute to those influencer agencies across the US that bring the right influencers with the brand!
And how do you think that not-so newly established brand achieved this huge success? Of course with the help of content creators and food influencers.
Step 4: Limited-Edition Product Launch Collaborations with Influencers
Limited-edition anything generates a lot of excitement. And limited-edition or seasonal food products are no exception, especially when promoted by influencers. Their endorsement adds exclusivity and urgency, driving higher sales during the launch period. These products also tap into the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) effect, prompting consumers to act quickly. Most people hurry to buy these products, worried they might not get another opportunity.
Let’s take a look at the following example. Oreo has collaborated with Carrie Berk to introduce their limited edition S’mores oreos. This type of content generates hype and wonder, leading consumers to immediately go to the closest store to buy and try the product.
Most fast food restaurants have secret menu items in their menus and occasionally these items go viral. Thus, you may also consider adding a special quality like this to your brand and find the right influencers to highlight what you have to offer to their audiences. Brands like Starbucks use this strategy for their beverage marketing strategies, and we must say they become successful by it. These items are intriguing and make people want to try asap.
Many food-focused influencers may not have professional training. However, this does not prevent them from creating amazing content by cooking delicious meals. In such cases, cooking classes organized in collaboration with brands featuring these food influencers become quite attractive. Because it is not always possible to taste the dishes made by these creators, who share their home-cooked meals with millions. When such events are organized, both brand visibility increases and it becomes possible to meet these influencers and taste delicious food.
These sessions do more than just highlight a product – they position the influencer as a trusted expert who can guide their audience through the cooking process. When followers see their favorite influencer cooking with your product, it adds a layer of credibility and makes them more likely to try it themselves.
Step 7: Collaborate on Recipe Development
Recipe development by influencers is a direct way to integrate your product into their content in a meaningful and practical manner. When influencers create and share recipes featuring your product, it provides their followers with tangible, actionable ways to use it. This type of content is highly valuable because it goes beyond promotion and offers real value to the audience.
Barilla has partnered with Chef Gaz Oakley for a creative vegan pasta recipe. This appetizing recipe appeals to both a niche audience due to its vegan nature and to people seeking diverse recipes, while also inspiring viewers to use Barilla pasta.
Nutella is another great example of this strategy in action. The brand frequently partners with food influencers to create and share Nutella-based recipes. Most of this content goes viral because they both delight Nutella fans and also intrigues new consumers to try the recipe with the product in creative ways. Cooking recipes is considered to be the most popular form of content on social media, so if you’re interested in it, make sure to give it a try and start posting your recipes as well.
Blue Apron, a meal kit delivery service, successfully partnered with food micro influencers and food bloggers to showcase the convenience and quality of their products. These influencers created content that featured step-by-step meal preparation using Blue Apron kits, highlighting how easy it was to cook gourmet meals at home.
@kat_shultis Have genuinely loved using @blueapron throughout my pregnancy & now postpartum too to save me so much time & energy in such a new & busy season! right now you can get 30% off the first 5 weeks of a new subscription at the link in my bio, terms apply. #letsblueapron#ad♬ Back on 74 – Stan 🙂
The campaign resulted in increased brand visibility and a surge in new subscribers, as consumers were able to see the value of the service through the eyes of trusted influencers.
The paid collaboration below, for example, was viewed 1.8 million times, offering 65% discount for those who would use the link in the influencer’s bio to make a purchase.
Dunkin’ made waves by collaborating with TikTok star Charli D’Amelio. The partnership featured a limited-edition drink named after the influencer, which quickly became a fan favorite. Charli’s influence, particularly among Gen Z, drove significant traffic to Dunkin’ locations and boosted social media engagement.
Partnering with influencers who have a strong connection with your target demographic can amplify the success of a product launch.
Chipotle’s TikTok Challenges
Chipotle has been a frontrunner in using TikTok to engage with younger audiences through food campaign ideas that are fun, interactive, and highly shareable. Their #GuacDance challenge, which encouraged users to create videos of themselves dancing to celebrate National Avocado Day, was a huge success.
The campaign generated millions of views and led to Chipotle’s most successful guacamole day ever, with the highest number of guac add-ons sold in a single day.
Le Creuset is one of the most renowned cookware brands with its high quality dutch ovens. Their products are also very pleasing to the eye, making it a dream for most households. The brand collaborated with TikTok food influencer Isabelle Heiken, who has recently reached 1 million followers with its aesthetically pleasing food content.
The collaboration will consist of a series of posts but even the first PR package opening video of the creator has received a lot of attention with approximately 20K likes and over 150K viewing.
Conclusion
These successful campaigns highlight the diverse ways in which food brands that work with influencers can create impactful marketing strategies. Whether it’s through personalized experiences, relatable content, or interactive challenges, the key is to align your brand with the right influencers who resonate with your target audience. As the examples show, food influencer marketing isn’t just about reach; it’s about creating connections that drive real results.
As you consider how to apply these strategies to your own brand, remember that the most effective campaigns are those that feel authentic and provide value to the audience.
Once you apply the steps we’ve listed and learn from the successful examples, you can elevate your food influencer marketing efforts and achieve lasting success for your brand.
The sooner you take action, the sooner you’ll see the results. Begin now and transform your marketing approach with the power of food influencers.
At this time of the year, you can come up with inspiring back to school campaign ideas and boost your sales.
Many companies are profitably engaged in the fall semester of schools and colleges with their innovative marketing ideas for schools, higher education institutions and obviously, for students and their parents. Numerous kids and parents have already begun purchasing school supplies, clothing, and technological devices.
2024 Back-to-School Spending Forecast
According to Statista, average back-to-school spending per household reached
$789.79 in 2020
$848.9 in 2021
$864.9 in 2022
$890.07 in 2023
And projected to be around $874.64 per household in 2024.
People who shop for back to school are going to spend approximately $31.30 billion this year, or about $586 per student in kindergarten to 12th grade. This substantial spending highlights the importance of well-crafted back-to-school ad campaigns to capture consumer attention.
Unlike back-to-schoolers, college shoppers will spend the most on electronics ($229.21). Besides electronics, they also plan to spend:
$153.32 on clothing and accessories
$109.29 on dorm or apartment furnishings
$102.82 on food
$83.41 on shoes
$78.70 on personal care items such as skin and hair care
$69.46 on school supplies such as notebooks and backpacks
$62.61 on gift cards
$53.34 on collegiate branded gear
Compared to their habits prior to the pandemic, back-to-school and college shoppers intend to shop at a single location as opposed to multiple ones. The top five places for back-to-school shopping are;
Department Stores (61%)
Online Retail Apps (45%)
Grocery Stores (40%)
Dollar Stores (40%)
Office Supply Stores (29%)
9 Essential Back-to-school Marketing Ideas
As online back to school shopping is one of the most preferred places to shop in the US, eCommerce stores must enhance their offerings with the aid of eCommerce marketing agencies.
Customers can purchase your goods with a single click; however, you must develop innovative back to school campaign ideas to convince clients to choose you!
Top ideas:
Meet customers’ needs
Consider offering back-to-school promotions
Provide back-to-school packages
Think about influencer marketing
Organize social media contests
Sort your customers into distinct groups
Check your mobile purchasing experience
Engage your audience with email marketing
Get noticed with giveaways
Meet consumers’ needs
Every student enters the new school year with a unique perspective. Although the majority of students have returned to full-time, in-person education, some still face a hybrid remote/in-person education system.
Keep this in mind when designing and selling your items. Demonstrate how your items may benefit students and fulfil their needs. Personalize a variety of things, including backpacks (for school) and mouse pads (for at-home learning).
Consider offering back-to-school promotions
Every company must provide a convincing reason for clients to choose them over their competition. This is referred to as a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your unique selling proposition can be found by completing the statement, “Customers will purchase from me because my company is the only…”
Crafting unique USPs as part of your back to school ad campaigns for K-12 or higher education can attract more customers, especially when combined with digital marketing ideas for schools that showcase your brand’s strengths.
Your USP might alter as your firm or industry evolves, and you can create unique USPs for various consumer types.
For instance:
A stationery store might offer a free same-day delivery service to local businesses such as schools and colleges – a compelling USP for firms that require quick delivery.
The same stationery store may give a discount as a back-to-school promotion to clients who spend over a specific amount; this would be a USP for price-conscious consumers.
Provide back-to-school packages
Back-to-school shopping might be daunting due to its lengthy checklists. You can bundle deals for clients’ convenience. These packages may contain essential school supplies, snacks, high-tech devices, and sporting equipment.
Back-to-school packs appeal to the busiest consumers. This is because they save buyers money and reduce the amount of time required to find what they require before the start of the school season. Also, product bundles alleviate the stress associated with completing a lengthy back-to-school shopping list. This is one of the simplest and most effective back-to-school promotion ideas.
Think about influencer marketing
As more consumers go to their favorite social media stars for product suggestions, influencer marketing plays a more significant part in back-to-school campaigns.
A recommendation on an influencer’s feed adds a personal touch to your back-to-school marketing effort. Influencer marketing can also enhance the legitimacy of your products and increase brand recognition among your target audiences.
This is due to the fact that social media influencers, such as family blogs, have frequently established a robust and genuine connection with their followers. They can assist you in reaching a younger, social media-savvy audience through back-to-school posts and back-to-school advertising.
Organize social media contests
Contests are one of the quickest ways to engage your audience and increase brand recognition. A win-win situation. It generates significantly more interest than a typical social media post.
Here are some Facebook contest suggestions to help you get started:
Friend-tagging contest
A present giveaway
Photo contest
Caption writing contest
Sort your customers into distinct groups
Back-to-school buyers come in a variety of sizes and forms, including:
Parents
Students in elementary and secondary school
College students
Teachers
Professors
Always customize your back to school marketing campaign initiatives to your target audience. You may even tag them in your CRM so that you can send them tailored offers. The channels, strategies, and promotions may vary based on the preferences and demands of your target audience.
Whether you are attempting to reach back-to-school buyers in elementary school, high school, or college, tailor your marketing to the prevalent fashions of your target audience. You can also connect with the parents by empathizing with their problems or feelings.
If a product resonates with consumers, they are far more inclined to purchase from your company than the competitor.
Check your mobile purchasing experience
Note that back-to-school sales will not be limited to in-store and online purchases. This season also sees an increase in mobile commerce. You must ensure that your customers have an exceptional mobile buying experience.
Optimize your website, remain vigilant for flaws and attempt to offer a unified experience across channels. Another reason to take mobile-responsive design seriously is that Google will ignore your website if it is not mobile-friendly, which will at the very least have a negative effect on your SEO.
Engage your audience with email marketing
Email marketing strategy is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your audience, despite the fact that there are several alternatives.
There are specific advertising types that work particularly effectively for e-commerce stores. Included are:
Re-engagement: These initiatives target subscribers who have not engaged with the brand within a given time frame.
Upselling/Cross-selling: Occasionally, upselling and cross-selling are more effective than customer acquisition. With upsell marketing, you aim to persuade the user to acquire additional products in addition to their initial plans or premium versions. Cross-selling methods encourage consumers to purchase complementary products that are relevant to their purchase (e.g, accessories).
Exclusively for loyal customers: Offer exclusive promotions to your email addresses list to boost sales. Display to your audience products they may be interested in based on their website activity or previous purchases.
Get noticed with giveaways
Back-to-school giveaways and gift cards could be an excellent way to create excitement and interest. Consider holding a giveaway that you can promote on social media or in-store if you have the time and resources. Perhaps you could put together a pack of your favorite back-to-school products and distribute it to brand-engaged individuals.
And to promote your contest further, consider forming partnerships with social media influencers and brands. Find ways to connect with their audience to generate enthusiasm, exposure, traffic, and purchases.
The back-to-school season is an excellent opportunity to boost your sales. You can do a great job with the right strategies and campaigns.
5 Effective Back to School Marketing Campaigns from Renowned Brands
Let’s take a look at some real examples of successful back to school campaign ideas that have made an impact on both parents and students.
1. Target: Back to School: Made Simple
Target’s back to school campaign focused on simplifying the back to school shopping experience both for parents and students. The retail giant used a combination of TV ads, social media, and in-store promotions to highlight how parents could easily find everything they needed at Target. As convenience and affordability are the main concern for those who shop during the back to school season, the campaign solely focused on these aspects. And for the first time, Target offers 20 must-have school supplies that cost less than $20 to cover all classroom essentials for students.
2. Staples: That Back to School Feeling
Staples used humor and nostalgia to create its latest back to school campaign that resonated with both parents and students. They used influencer marketing by collaborating with David Pierre, a Canadian content creator, for their funny and nostalgic ad. The ad depicted the mixed emotions that come with the back to school season, balancing the excitement of new supply with the dread of homework. On TikTok, the ad was a huge success with almost 500K views.
@staplescanada I don’t mean to throw a wrench into your summer here, but I want to remind everyone that we are weeks away from back-to-school. [ad] . . respost @David Pierre So, parents, whether you’re ready or not, you can rejoice because Staples Canada makes back-to-school shopping easy, affordable, and fun. I got all the essentials for Eva and Ben in one visit! This means I can return to enjoying the few weeks of glorious summer we get here in Canada! Visit Staples today, and don’t make back-to-school shopping harder than it has to be! #StaplesCanada#BackToSchool♬ original sound – Staples Canada
3. Old Navy: “ONward! Back to School”
How cute are the little influencers? Old Navy partnered with younger influencers for their first day at school outfits and to showcase the brand’s affordable and stylish clothing. The target audience of these collaborations are middle graders and teenagers, as well as their parents. The influencer-driven campaign received a lot of engagement and led to a significant increase.
4. Amazon: Spend Less on Your Kids 2024
Amazon launched its 2024 back to school campaign recently, targeting students and their parents with a focus on affordability and convenience. Starring actress Michelle Buteau, this humorous ad promotes affordable prices on everything students might need from sports equipment to clothes. With the motto “love my kids but hate being broke” ad encourages you to do your back to school shopping on Amazon.
5. Urban Outfitters: “Shift Happens” Back to School Campaign
Urban Outfitters’ back-to-school campaign, “Shift Happens,” cleverly blends physical and digital experiences to connect with Gen Z. Partnering with Pinterest, the campaign features influencers creating brand-forward Pinterest boards, which are brought to life at a two-day activation event in New York. The campaign also includes pop-ups at college campuses and limited-edition drops from popular brands like Birkenstock and UGG. Through this multi-channel approach, Urban Outfitters aims to make the transition to adulthood an empowering experience for young consumers while boosting brand engagement.
Are you one of those who finds it challenging to forge a true partnership between brands and digital marketing agencies? You’re not alone—more than 70% of senior marketers believe it’s hard to find a digital agency that acts as a partner rather than just a producer, according to a survey of 100 marketing leaders.
This is where the Digital Agency Network’s marketplace comes into play. DAN’s digital marketing marketplace bridges the gap between brands and agencies, fostering connections beyond simple transactions to build meaningful, collaborative partnerships.
With the global digital marketing industry projected to reach billions quickly, brands and agencies have never had a better time to join forces and drive mutual success, right?
Key Takeaways
Collaborating with an independent agency brings expertise and supports business growth. DAN’s online marketplace provides a curated selection of agencies.
The Digital Agency Network (DAN) Marketplace streamlines the process of linking digital agencies with brands in need of marketing expertise.
DAN’s Marketplace is also a hub for staying current with industry trends and growing a marketing agency.
Both brands/businesses and digital agencies can connect via quotes and proposals in 3 simple steps.
Table of Contents
Why DAN Marketplace? Discover Multi-Vendor Platform
As you already know, at its core, Digital Agency Network has always connected brands with top-notch digital agencies, making it easier for both sides to find the perfect match. The DAN team has taken this mission to the next level with the Marketplace.
Consistent with many current research studies, collaborating with an independent agency brings expertise to the table and supports businesses. DAN’s Marketplace addresses this by offering a curated selection of agencies that align with your brand’s goals and values, fostering long-term partnerships that drive success.
Again, from the view of brands (and businesses), finding a digital marketing agency is a significant challenge. And, yes, the Marketplace simplifies that process by providing detailed profiles, client reviews, and performance metrics, helping brands find the right agency faster and with more confidence.
Another challenge? Budgetary concerns, no doubt. A significant point is that DAN encourages pricing structure transparency, with almost half of marketers citing it as a major challenge.
What about digital marketing agencies? What does the marketplace offer them?
For digital marketing agencies, the Digital Agency Network’s marketplace is a golden opportunity to grow their business and connect with clients actively seeking expertise in a specific area.
In the most basic terms, the marketplace is a way to get clients for a digital marketing agency.
When brands submit projects, DAN experts step in to match them with the most appropriate agencies. This means agencies connect with brands whose needs align perfectly with the services, increasing the chances of successful partnerships.
How DAN Marketplace Works for Digital Agencies
The Digital Agency Network (DAN) Marketplace is designed to connect digital agencies with brands seeking marketing expertise in simple steps.
Besides being matched with brands and projects, member agencies can browse and view projects submitted, giving them insight into potential opportunities.
The matching process works as follows for digital marketing agencies:
Create a Profile: It’s the fundamental step to becoming a member of the Digital Agency Network.
Start by creating a detailed profile that showcases their services, past projects, and client reviews, making it easier for brands to find and evaluate them.
Get Matched: When brands submit projects, DAN experts match them with the most suitable agencies, ensuring a perfect fit for both parties.
Finding the perfect fit depends on the brands’ preferences of location, budget, expertise in a field, or time scope while submitting a project.
Start Collaborating: Once matched, you can connect directly with brands, discuss project details, and begin collaboration on campaigns that drive results.
The process in a nutshell:
Remember that DAN Marketplace is not just about landing one-off projects; digital marketing agencies can build relationships leading to repeat business and ongoing collaborations. It’s also a hub for staying up-to-date with industry trends and acts as a boost to grow your marketing agency as well.
How DAN Marketplace Works for Brands
So far, we’ve covered how digital agencies can benefit from the Digital Agency Network (DAN) Marketplace. Now, let’s focus on what this platform offers for brands.
Brands using DAN’s Marketplace gain access to a curated network of pre-vetted, industry-specific agencies, all of which have undergone a rigorous vetting process. This ensures that you’re partnering with trusted experts who truly understand your marketing needs.
For brands, this means a simplified, more confident search for an agency that can deliver impactful results tailored to your goals.
Here is the 3-step process for brands/businesses looking for their marketing match:
Post Your Brief: Start by detailing your marketing needs and goals – the project’s timing, budget, expertise requirements, and more.
To submit your project, go to the DAN Marketplace page or Join DAN and click on the Request Your Free Quote button.
Then start providing your brief about your project. This submission gives you access to a network of pre-vetted, industry-specific agencies.
Reach Verified Agencies: Let DAN connect you with 2-5 agencies based on your project’s location, needs, expertise, or industry.
Browse through the matched agencies to find the best fit.
Get Your Quotes: Once you’ve reviewed the options, connect directly with your chosen agency and start collaborating on your campaign.
The process in a nutshell:
Last Words on Finding Your Marketing Partner
To wrap up that blog, here are a few facts and highly anticipated responses regarding the digital marketing marketplace:
The Marketplace is open to applications from all types of digital agencies. The agencies are notified if they are accepted into the platform following a research process conducted by DAN experts.
Brands and businesses are, of course, not obligated to work with any of our selected agencies. DAN Marketplace helps brands and businesses find each other; it does not get involved in further communication or collaboration.
In case a brand’s project is anonymous, it does not have to provide full information.
Keep in mind that by filling out this form, you give your consent for DAN to share the project details with the selected 2-5 agencies for potential matches. However, your personal information will not be shared with any third parties.
There is no certain timeframe for receiving proposals from digital agencies; the timing of contact varies depending on the agencies’ schedule, the time of the year, or the specific requirements of the project.
Brands/businesses can submit as many projects as they like for matching. DAN’s RFP system is designed to assist in finding the right agencies for all digital marketing needs.
While DAN strives to match each project with at least two agencies, there may be instances where agencies decline to submit proposals. This could be due to factors such as project scope, budget, or agency workload. Brands/businesses could expect to receive up to 5 proposals.
Whether you work at an agency or you’re managing a marketing budget in-house, you’ve probably had the classic debate before: do you focus on organic lead cultivation through SEO or try to generate as many leads as possible with aggressive tactics right now?
I won’t pretend to be impartial: When you have the choice, favoring SEO is almost always the better investment. This isn’t an unfounded hunch, either: in our client programs here at TopRank Marketing, organic traffic consistently converts at a higher rate than overall traffic across a range of conversion types.
Marketers tend to argue that SEO is important because it’s essential for “long term” growth. The time’s come to reframe that argument: SEO is essential because it unlocks the true potential of a brand’s lead conversion.
Here are the big ways SEO unlocks that potential, with real-world examples from TopRank’s case studies.
Brand awareness generates more leads than demand generation over time
When the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) noticed that brand marketing was “losing the budget war” to lead generation a number of years ago, they conducted a large scale study to find out why.
At first, this study confirmed the conventional wisdom that led to marketers emphasizing lead gen over brand marketing in their budgets. Direct response efforts yield much faster results that translate to a quick spike in leads. Marketers can point to these short-term results as a measurable win.
As they looked at the results, however, the IPA noticed something else: brand marketing driven by SEO took longer to ramp up than lead gen, but while these lead gen tactics fizzled out quickly, the brand marketing’s effectiveness kept rising.
Ultimately, the IPA study showed that SEO-based brand marketing initiatives reliably generated more leads for the same share of budget than their direct response counterparts. On average, your money goes further when you use it on brand marketing than when you spend on lead gen.
This conclusion led the IPA to formulate the famous “60-40” rule, which states that the optimal balance of brand and demand is 60% branding and 40% direct response. Your lead gen efforts guide your customers through your sales funnel to conversion, but your SEO brand marketing is what brings them into that funnel in the first place.
As this study proves, when you emphasize brand marketing, you simply put your brand in front of more leads overall than you would with lead gen alone. And if you want to maximize your lead gen potential, SEO is a clear necessity.
Intent-driven SEO provides the right kind of visibility for lead gen
Impressive as these numbers may be, the best argument for the importance of SEO has more to do with quality than quantity. In today’s SEO, search volume isn’t the end-all, be-all it once was. When determining which keywords to pursue now, SEO experts carefully consider a combination of search volume, keyword difficulty, and — most importantly — search intent.
Search intent attempts to understand why a search engine user types in the keyword they’re looking for. Understanding this intent is the best way to provide best answer content to these users. As search engines become more intelligent, intent is increasingly the best way to rank highly in Search Engine Result Pages. But understanding and capturing search intent is also one of the most important things you can do to generate leads.
Your ideal leads have specific intent whenever they use a search engine. If you can understand this intent and provide users with the information they’re looking for, the quality of traffic to your site will rise. The people who find you via organic search will be looking for what you have to offer. Through your best-answer content, get to know your brand, start to associate you with your area of expertise, and then look to you for help if and when they become leads.
The right intent-focused SEO doesn’t just raise your brand visibility; it brings you the right visibility to generate leads. And, as the IPA proved, it continues to do so effectively over time.
An example of how this works: one of TopRank’s clients, a public accounting firm, came to us for help raising their brand visibility. Instead of focusing on general visibility, we developed a highly-focused SEO strategy to zero in on the relatively low-volume but high intent keywords the firm’s highly-educated, relatively technical audience would be looking for.
This strategy helped the client rank for over 55 new keywords in SERP positions 1-3 and earn a 96% year-over-year gain in new keywords in top search positions. Even more crucially, however, the keywords we were able to rank for drive the right kind of audience to the firm’s site permanently. The client has become visible to the right people for the right reasons, and the leads follow.
Strong SEO can multiply the effect of all other lead gen initiatives
As the examples above show, SEO strategies aren’t just for raising brand awareness. Instead, it’s more accurate to think of them as the central hub of any digital marketing strategy.
After all, everything you do — from your long-term brand raising efforts and content marketing to your SEM lead generation — feeds back to your site. The more effective you can make this hub, the more all your other efforts will benefit as a result.
When a luxury home décor retailer approached TopRank Marketing, they were looking for a way to stand out against much larger national brands and e-commerce juggernauts in their competitive category. To do that, they would need to carefully manage a long, multi-touchpoint customer journey.
To help them achieve their goal, TopRank incorporated every tool in our tactical mix into an integrated, multifaceted strategy with SEO at the heart.
Through competitive auditing and analysis, our SEO experts identified high-intent keywords our client’s audience was searching but their competitors weren’t winning. We pivoted the client’s SEO and content strategies to focus on these opportunities, then used a combination of lead-generating influencer marketing, social media marketing, and video and content affiliate marketing to drive leads back to the newly SEO-optimized pages.
The result of this strategy was a 11.2% month-over-month increase in revenue, driven by +28.6% MoM gains in organic traffic, +30.9% gains in total website sessions, and a +55% return on ad spend.
By starting with SEO strategy, TopRank was able to provide the backbone that the rest of the initiatives needed. First, organic SEO, focused on intent, captured the attention of the right audience. Then, we retargeted this audience with social media and influencer lead generation advertising. Finally, these ads led the audience back to search engines – and back to the high-intent pages we optimized to give them what they wanted.
It’s time to stop thinking of SEO and lead conversion as two separate objectives to be pursued in isolation: they are both a part of the same buyer’s journey. If you want your marketing to convert leads as effectively as possible, building a strong SEO strategy should be one of your top priorities.
Harry is one of TopRank Marketing’s Content Strategists, and has been a professional digital content specialist since 2016. During this time, he has honed his content writing skills and worked closely with SEO and SEM experts to enhance his understanding of how to most effectively create high-quality content that performs well on both search engines and social media. Harry is passionate about creating content that represents the voice of his clients well and provides genuinely relevant, insightful information that his client’s customers will find helpful and entertaining to read. When Harry isn’t writing content, he’s usually reading it, or watching movies. He watches a lot of movies.
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