Leave it to the professionals

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Red Design Systems
In mid-2016, Andrew and Charlie, a pair of brothers passionate about fashion, decided to create their sportswear brand. During the first three years and with the help of some loans, they got to open three stores in major cities. Their advertising medium was always word of mouth, through friends and family who bought from them and at the same time recommended them, also by sharing stories or posts on their social networks and being recognized in the places where their stores were located. 

During these years, everything was going well. But when the world turns upside down with the arrival of Covid-19, mandatory quarantines, and social isolation, these brothers have to close their three sales points temporarily. Being closed for half a year and experiencing a drop in income, Andrew and Charlie are forced to lay off their employees and hand over their stores. 

This is where the need to find an alternative to market their products efficiently during a crisis such as the pandemic comes in. Taking into account the constant restrictions for the mobilization and the necessary evolution of businesses in digital media, these entrepreneurs must work on key areas such as workflow management and artwork management to attract new customers and build audience loyalty, as well as generate automation processes and optimization of digital marketing to achieve good results.  At this point, Andres and Carlos have three options. 

The first one would be to continue with word-of-mouth advertising, offering some special promotions to their friends and family so that they can help recommend them to their acquaintances and be able to sell. On the other hand, they would continue to post on their social networks so that their contacts or followers can place their orders and deliver the products to their homes. But even with all this, the income would not be enough to sustain their business as before.

During a pandemic, more American consumers are increasingly making online and curbside pickup purchases. In addition, for the first time, more than half of the advertising expenditure in the United States went to digital media; by 2021, the figure is expected to increase by 18% to reach USD$ 130 billion or 55% of the total investment. On the other hand, word-of-mouth is very restricted, as many people still practice social distancing, which limits the potential reach of the market audience. Furthermore, the chances of expanding the audience outside the local city are very slim, as travel and commuting have been drastically reduced since the beginning of the pandemic.

The second option is to try to embrace digital marketing themselves keeping in mind that most consumers are online during a covid world. It could work to run ads on popular shopping websites or even post their special offers on social media using the money they are earning from sales to their acquaintances. The problem comes when neither sibling has experience in the digital marketing world and designing the best campaigns can be expensive and difficult; as well as risking investing money in a campaign that may not have a good response due to lack of knowledge on the subject. 

The last option is much easier, and that is to "leave it to the professionals". Digital marketing agencies, such as Red Design Systems, have been around since the rise of the Internet, and have proven to be one of the most effective methods in expanding a business in the modern era; this is especially important in a world where 90% of business exposure comes from the Internet. A digital marketing agency (DMA) would take the heavy burden of advertising off this pair of brothers, and instead, use their professionals to create the most effective marketing campaigns for today. This is how Andrew and Charlie can focus on improving the quality of their products, while the DMA expands their target audience on the Internet and continues to grow their business.

Finally, they both decided to take charge of marketing by their means, creating their page on social networks, contacting a cousin who was starting to study marketing and investing their current earnings in advertising. The result of all this was not as expected, the only thing they got was some visits to their Facebook page but very few sales, the target audience was not the right one and the purpose of the campaign was not well defined either; in short, the money invested was lost, in addition to a great waste of time and effort.

After all this, Andrew and Charlie understood that they had made the wrong decision and realized that they could have avoided this reprocess and left everything directly in the hands of professionals. This is how our clients usually do in Red Design Systems, where with all the necessary knowledge and tools, we help them to grow as a brand, locate potential customers, increase sales and optimize their business.

Red Design Systems
22 September, 2021