CREATIVE PRODUCTION

Creative production plays an important role in marketing, helping brands communicate their stories effectively. Copywriting involves the art of using words skillfully in the brand’s process of expressing itself and connecting with consumers. Strong and attractive texts convey brand messages clearly, allowing the target audience to establish an emotional connection and identify with the brand identity. Graphic design, photography, animation, and 3D increase the aesthetic appeal of the brand by using visual elements effectively. Visual content strengthens customer interaction by highlighting the unique features of the brand.

Video editing, video production, audio production, and web development contribute to the brand establishing a strong presence on digital platforms. Videos provide the opportunity to dynamically tell the brand story and engage with consumers. While sound and music reinforce the brand identity, web development strengthens the brand’s online presence and offers consumers an interactive experience. These types of creative production enrich marketing strategies, allowing brands to effectively communicate not only their products and services but also their values and personality.

01 | COPYWRITING

Digital marketing is a type of marketing that includes plenty of textual expressions. In addition to copywriting, which is one of the important departments of traditional advertising, content writing has also become an important profession in digital marketing. Content writing does not have a specific sales target like copywriting. It is mostly done to inform customers about certain issues. It is the content writer’s job to prepare blog texts, e-books, video transcripts, or podcast scripts. Copywriting refers to texts written to increase the sales of a product or service. Email texts, advertisements, or product descriptions are texts written by the copywriter.

Copywriting is possible by understanding very well who the target audience is. No copywriter can do his job well if he doesn’t have a clear idea of the customers. A copywriter who knows his target audience well defines customers’ needs better. The copywriter who knows his target audience well can speak the customers’ language. She knows which phrases can attract customers’ attention. People can genuinely connect with brands that speak to them as if they were in real life. This is one of the most critical points of copywriting. Writing the texts sincerely, as the general tone of the brand allows, will increase conversions. Simplicity is a point that must be achieved in copywriting. Complex expressions will also create a complex image in the perception of customers.

Customers turn to brands to solve their existing problems. Perceiving this problem correctly will make it possible to express the solution correctly. The brand that finds a solution to a problem is preferred. There is a lot of content and advertising text in today’s digital media. It takes a long time for customers to find what they want within this content. Also, nowadays a person’s attention span is quite short. A customer needs to be persuaded within their attention span. Otherwise, customers will shift to different websites or content. Using impressive language in short periods of time is achieved by appealing to emotions. A clear and concise language that appeals to emotions will provide the desired transformations.

The rules of SEO should not be forgotten when writing a text for the website. Titles and keywords should be compatible with the strategy created for SEO. It is necessary to write conversion-oriented texts. Additionally, writing actionable texts will contribute to achieving the desired results. Phrases like “buy now” will persuade customers to purchase the product without leaving the website.

Types of copywriting are as follows:
  • Marketing Copywriting
  • Social Media Copywriting
  • Brand Copywriting
  • Conversion Copywriting
  • Technical Copywriting
  • PR Copywriting
  • Thought Leadership Copywriting
  • Email Copywriting
  • SEO Copywriting
Frameworks that can be used while copywriting are as follows:

AIDA: It consists of the first letters of the words attention, interest, desire, and action. When creating text, customers’ attention must first be captured. Customers are fed with information that will keep their interests alive. Desires are then aroused that compel the customer to take action.

BAB: An attempt is made to convey what happens before and after customers purchase the product or service. First of all, the customer is shown having problems. Afterward, it is explained how the problems of the customer who bought the product were solved. Finally, it is explained rationally how the product or service solves this problem.

FAQ: It is the narration of the benefits of the brand by a real or fictional hero. The hero is shown with his problem, talks about his story and problem, and his problem is solved with the product.

4C: Texts should be concise. Short texts are always easy to understand. Texts should be clear. Fancy words no longer attract customers’ attention. Texts must be credible. Brands that are truly knowledgeable on the subject are preferred. Texts should be impressive. Memorability is possible by being impressive.

ABF: Speciality is about what the product is. The advantage is what advantage the product has. The benefit is what is gained by using the product.

02 | GRAPHIC DESIGN

Graphic design is a very important point for branding and digital marketing. Visuals have been the most effective solution to convey a message since the early years of marketing. Graphic design plays a very important role in both creating brand awareness and creating advertising works that will affect sales. Complex messages can be explained more simply with graphic design. For this, it is necessary to adhere to the basic rules of graphic design. Knowledge of typography, page layout, color use, visual hierarchy, and image use constitute the basics of graphic design.

One of the most important steps in branding is visual works. The brand must have a unique appearance to differentiate itself from other brands. In order for customers to understand what the functions of a brand are, visuals must reflect the correct perception. This is possible with graphic design works created from a strategically correct perspective. With graphic design, you not only create a brand but also ensure that the brand has a consistent appearance in all other media. In addition, creative advertising works and eye-catching visual works will be met with interest by customers. Visual creativity is always the easiest way to capture customers’ attention.

The areas of use of graphic design for marketing are as follows:

Branding: One of the basic elements that form the character of a brand is the identity of the brand. Creating a brand identity is possible with graphic design. The logo chosen for the brand, color options, fonts, and photo usage are important points that create the brand identity. The distinctiveness of all these visual elements will be enough to distinguish the brand from its competitors.

Advertising and marketing: Companies that have successfully carried out their branding work start advertising activities to communicate with their target audience. Visual studies constitute a wide area of marketing activities. Visuals for flyers, e-books, emails, and websites are created with graphic design.

Web design and user interface: Web design is the most critical point of digital marketing. Web pages created by web design developers contain many graphic design elements. Websites with high user experience are also very good in terms of graphic design. Theme selections, page interfaces, landing page images, and photographs for blogs are evaluated in terms of graphic design.

Motion graphics: Graphic design should not be thought of as just a static work. Most videos created for marketing efforts contain graphic elements. Graphic elements are animated and turned into video works. Logo animations, animated presentations, 2D promotional videos, and GIF works are created with graphic design studies.

Social media content: Most social media content is created with interesting visual elements. Attractive post designs are the works that social media users interact with the most. In addition to content created only with text, works enriched with visual elements provide more conversions. In order to increase access and visibility rates, graphic design studies should be given importance.

Graphic design elements are as follows:

Line: Lines form the basis of a design. Lines appear in different forms in the design. The use of lines is very critical to create the composition. The design can be enlivened by using lines in different styles. Connecting lines with each other creates shapes.

Shape: Geometric, abstract, or organic shapes are found in every composition. Shapes in different textures and formats are used when designing a logo, preparing informational content, or creating motion graphics.

Color: If the design wants to evoke an emotion in the masses, colors are very effective. Colors have an effect on human psychology. Different visuals can be created by using the three main properties of colors, tone, value, and saturation, at different values.

Typography: Typography is the arrangement of texts in different styles to become graphic design elements. Typefaces are a frequently used element in graphic design. Texts of different sizes, colors, fonts, and densities are used in graphic design works produced to convey a message.

Texture: Every element used in the design can be given a texture. Rough, soft, shiny, etc. Textures are textures that can be used in accordance with the design composition. Design composition can also be created with textures.

Size: Composition is the most critical issue of a design. The size and smallness of the elements to be included in the design create the depth of the design. In addition, the importance of the elements in the design is determined according to their size.

Void: A void is an empty space in the design composition where the elements of the design are not included. A design is not just the elements included in the design. Space creates a balance of emphasis in a design. The emphasis of the design elements is determined by the empty spaces around them.

Graphic design principles are as follows:

Balance: The use of symmetry and asymmetry determines the balance of the design. Any proportional dimension between graphic design elements creates the balance of the composition. Balance is the building block of design.

Alignment: Seeing the design regularly is possible with alignment. With various grids, graphic design elements are aligned and the design appears balanced. There are grid or guideline types specific to each design type.

Proximity: The visual hierarchy between graphic design elements is related to the degree of proximity to each other. Proximity affects the perception formed in the mind of the viewer.

Contrast: Emphasizing certain aspects of the composition is possible with contrast. Some graphic design elements in the design are highlighted with contrast.

Repetition: Creating concepts in design is possible by repeating some elements. Consistency in design is achieved through repetition.

03 | PHOTOGRAPHY

The importance of photography in marketing efforts has become even more important with digital marketing. Nowadays, increasing internet and social media usage has increased the daily photo consumption more than ever. Product photos, entertaining content, or lifestyle frames are visual content that internet users frequently encounter. Brands that want to attract the attention of their customers fill their social media and websites with interesting photos to show their products in a different way. Today, articles with images attract more attention than articles without images. Text-only ads receive fewer conversions than photo ads. The majority of internet users perform visual searches through search engines. The majority of purchasing decisions on e-commerce sites are made by looking at product images.

One of the areas where technologically advanced smartphones have improved today is photo-taking features. The number of movies shot using smartphones is increasing day by day. Nowadays, taking photographs does not require as much professional equipment as before. By using similar solutions to visualize their products, brands use the budget they allocate for production more balancedly. However, the more professional team and equipment the photographs are taken, the more quality and transformative works will be produced. Brands that cannot allocate a budget for their photography team and equipment become members of stock photography platforms and provide their visual needs from these platforms. Although stock photography causes the use of unoriginal and similar images, it is a solution used by many brands today.

In terms of marketing and advertising, photography can be categorized as follows:
  • Advertising photography
  • Product photography
  • E-commerce photography
  • Lifestyle photography
  • Corporate photography
  • Architectural photography
  • Portrait photography

Advertising photography is for the production of creative and interesting photographs within the campaigns of brands. It is organized to attract the consumer’s attention and support sales. The photographs we encounter on websites, social media, and digital advertising are advertising photography. Product photography is specifically for visualizing brands’ products. Products are photographed in an eye-catching way and presented to consumers. Many of the product images we encounter on the website today were taken by product photographers. E-commerce is a structure created by brands located on websites and marketing platforms rather than physical stores. Photos prove the physical state of the brands. Photography is a very critical issue for e-commerce. Brands don’t just sell products, they offer a lifestyle to their customers. Showing products in a lifestyle is possible with photography. Today, the majority of social media work consists of lifestyle images. Additionally, consumers show great interest in lifestyle photos. By photographing their activities, employees, and events, companies both create a digital archive and engage in announcement activities through press sharing. Those who hold important positions in the company are photographed with porter photography and shared with the media.

The following equipment is needed for photography to be applied in the field of marketing:

  • Camera
  • Tripod
  • Lighting
  • Lenses
  • Background
  • Filter
  • Camera straps
  • Color reference card
  • Flash
  • Reflector

Lighting setup is one of the first actions to be planned for a photo shoot. Lighting should be used in indoor and outdoor shooting. Eliminating shadows will improve shot quality. Three-point lighting is frequently used in commercial photography. It is necessary to take detail shots rather than general shots. This is necessary to highlight the different points of the product. Additionally, obtaining a variety of images for products is critical to creating plenty of options for sharing.

04 | ANIMATION

Animations enable many subjects that are difficult to understand and portray in an understandable way. Animations attract more attention than static images. It is also very affordable considering the costs spent on filming. Considering the filming organization, animations that require less effort take more time than static images. This is because, compared to static images, animations include audio elements, transitions, animated text, and logos. Additionally, animations have a certain duration, speed, and dynamics. It is necessary to bring all these elements together in an appropriate way. In addition, the dynamism of the video should be supported with transitions between scenes.

There are certain stages in preparing content with motion graphics. First of all, the copywriter must write the scenario of the animation and the texts that will be included in the animation. Next, the graphic designer must design the elements that will be animated. Illustrators must draw the drawings that will be included in the animation in advance. The sound designer in the team must prepare the music and sound effects of the animation. Finally, the animation designer brings all these elements together to make the animation final.

There are many reasons why animations are frequently used in marketing communications. Emails created with animation are more interesting and provide higher conversions. In a search made on Google, video content is ranked higher. Video landing pages provide higher page time. Video ads made through Meta get more conversions than static ads. This makes it possible to generate income at lower costs. Even though the Twitter platform is a text-heavy channel, the interactions of video content are increasing day by day.

The importance of motion graphics for marketing can be listed as follows:

Brand awareness: Effective animations make brands more noticeable to potential customers. Brand logos are animated and displayed on the screen. Thus, its memorability is further increased.

Simplification: Some brands’ products or services may be abstract or complex in a way that cannot be directly displayed on the screen. This situation can be prevented with animations. Information-rich animations can explain each point of the brand service in detail to potential customers.

Impressiveness: Animations attract more attention than static images and texts. Audio elements, transition effects, color transitions, and moving elements attract the attention of the masses.

Establishing an emotional connection: Animations are the most effective storytelling technique. Stories are effective in connecting potential customers with brands. Customers’ emotional bond with brands directly affects their purchasing behavior.

Interactivity: Impressive, educational, or funny animations attract people’s attention, and people tend to like what interests them and share it with their other friends. This means sharing the brand among potential customers. Animation works have a great impact on the organic growth of brands.

There are many different types of animations used in marketing communications. Some of these are as follows:

Promotional Animations: Brands have products and services. Every brand owner wants to explain their products and services to their customers in the most understandable way. Promotional animations are the most effective and understandable way to do this.

Advertising Animations: Advertising campaigns are one of the most intensive communications of brands. Animated advertisements are one of the most frequently encountered advertisement types on social media.

Training Animations: Brands try to portray an expert image in the eyes of customers. That’s why they offer educational videos to their customers about their products and services. Most of these educational videos are designed as animations.

Brand Promotional Animations: Every brand has a story. Brands try certain ways to tell their stories, values, and missions to their customers. Animations are one of the most frequently used methods of explaining how brands emerged.

Social Media Animations: Brands carry out intensive communication activities through social media. Special days, celebrations, trending topics, or competitions are shared with animated videos.

There are some factors to consider in order to effectively prepare and share an animation. Determining which target audience the animations are aimed at is one of these factors. The age, gender, educational level, and interests of the target audience affect how the animation should be. Animations should be short and effective. Customers need to watch the animation without getting bored and perceive the message quickly. Animations are used to simplify complex topics. That’s why animations should be simple. No matter how colorful the animations look, they must reflect the identity of the brand. Only in this way is it clear which brand the animations belong to. The brand’s color, logo, and fonts should be used in a balanced manner within the animation. Sound files should be used to strengthen the effect of the animation. Background music used in animations quickly conveys the emotion of the animation to the audience.

Animation techniques used in marketing communications are as follows:
  • Live-Action Animation
  • Whiteboard Animation
  • motion graphics
  • mechanical animation
  • Cutout Animation
  • Claymation
  • Typography Animation
  • 3D Animation Style
  • Stop Motion Video Style

05 | CGI/3D

CGI is the computer-based generation of things that do not actually exist to produce realistic virtual worlds and objects. Objects designed as 3D models frequently appear in video games, architectural presentations, or commercials. The entire Metaverse universe, which has become a popular discourse lately, is designed as 3D modeling. Things that do not exist in reality or that are difficult or expensive to photograph and record on video are modeled in 3D. The created 3D models are edited in certain programs and turned into video animations. CGI technology, which is not limited to marketing only, also finds a place in the cinema and entertainment industry. In almost all blockbuster movies, many scenes and effects that are difficult and costly to shoot in reality are produced with CGI technology.

Not only digital media but also product photographs on brochures used in advertising were produced with 3D modeling. In this way, the product can be photographed in any environment and in any format desired. In addition, when AR technology is considered, the virtual effects that appear in front of the frames that are translated into the real world with the camera are 3D models produced by CGI technology. In this form, CGI has opened the doors of limitless creativity to the world. Considering the resulting product, it is quite costly compared to the real thing. In addition, considering the difficulties of shooting, CGI technology provides working efficiency without the difficulties that production companies must overcome. All physical difficulties disappear. The color, type, and style of everything can be changed in minutes. In addition, CGI technology makes it possible for many independent artists to work on the same project simultaneously. A different scene can be substituted for a desired scene in the project. This is almost impossible to do in standard video production. Because almost everything is planned before production.

CGI and 3D technology are used in many different industries and fields. Here are some of the main areas where these technologies are used:
  • Cinema and Television
  • Advertising
  • Game Development
  • Architecture and Design
  • Training and Simulation
  • Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
  • Medicine and Scientific Research
  • Music and Visual Arts

CGI and 3D technologies have been used in various areas of the marketing world, becoming powerful tools to increase brand awareness, promote products, and engage with consumers.

Some of the main areas where these technologies are used in marketing:

Product promotion and advertising: Showing the details of the products, showing the main benefits of the product, and creating a mascot for the brand.

Digital marketing and social media: Preparing attention-grabbing content, creating interactive content, and designing virtual reality experiences.

Website and mobile applications: Designing 3D graphics and animations, creating rich user experience.

Product packaging and design: Creating attractive product visuals with 3D modeling.

Virtual events: Creating virtual experience events in 3D modeled scenes, designing interactive experiences, and designing virtual stores.

Training videos: Demonstrating product usage and making complex services easier to perceive.

Customer experience: Designing the experience the customer will have while using the product with virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.

Online sales platforms: Enabling products to be personalized by designing 3D models of the products.

The use of CGI and 3D technology in marketing offers benefits in many ways. Customers experience an immersive experience with content created with CGI technology. Today, brands have started to integrate this technology in all areas where the CGI and 3D technology mentioned above can be used. The limits of imagination have reached an incredible level with 3D technology. Regardless of the size of the products, detailed examinations that no photographs can reach are achieved with 3D models. Brand identity has become even more prominent in CGI environments, where products are presented with the key benefits of each. With all this, customers’ interest in this type of content has increased and conversions have moved to the desired point.

06 | VIDEO EDITING

Videos are among the types of content that consumers frequently prefer. At this point, video editing is among the indispensable parts of the digital marketing age. As the quality of the videos increases, the interest of the audience in that content increases. From this perspective, the interaction of campaigns created with good video editing is quite high. Nowadays, there is almost no campaign without video. Sometimes the launch of the campaign and sometimes the follow-up communications of the main campaign are made with video-supported shares. Nowadays, people turn to videos rather than visuals and texts to get information. This increases brands’ preference for video content in their communications. The increase in content on the internet has also affected video durations. The first seconds of a video have become very critical in terms of attracting attention. Content that cannot capture the viewer in the first seconds of the video cannot achieve conversion.

Today no matter how much advertising budget is allocated to a poorly edited video, viewing times will be quite limited. The importance of video editing emerges here. Video editors follow video trends and try to create videos that viewers will enjoy watching. From this perspective, video editing is a creative process. The more creative a video is and attracts the attention of the audience, the more successful it will be. In addition, videos contain color palettes, texts, graphic shapes, and transitions, just like animations. Blending all of these in a single video makes it necessary to be creative. Creative video editing can contribute to making digital marketing strategies more effective and memorable. Visually appealing, entertaining, and original content can be created to impress customers and strengthen the brand.

Here are a few important things to consider when editing videos for marketing:

Determining the target audience: Who is the target audience of your video? It is important to understand the demographic and behavioral characteristics of your audience, such as age, gender, and interests, and adapt the content accordingly.

Video duration: Since the attention span is short, videos should be kept very short. There should be a striking opening that can attract the audience in the first few seconds.

Clarity of message: The purpose and message of the video should be clear. The viewer should understand the desired action by the end of the video.

Use of sound and music: The use of quality sound and music can help your video make a more effective impression on the viewer. Care should be taken to choose music in the spirit of the content.

Visual quality: High-resolution images and professional image quality should be used. The visual style within the video should be consistent; a Brand-specific color palette and design elements should be used.

Impressiveness: An emotional connection should be established with the audience. Making the audience laugh, make them think, or impress them can cause them to form a stronger bond with the brand.

Mobile-friendly design: It is necessary to ensure that videos can be easily watched on mobile devices.

Mastering some techniques for video editing is necessary to create more effective videos. Video work edited technically looks professional, and visual and sound quality is at maximum level. In videos where storytelling is at a high level, the viewer experience is also high.

Different video editing techniques are as follows:
  • Linear Video Editing
  • Non-linear Video Editing
  • Offline Editing
  • Online Video Editing
  • Cloud-based Video Editing
  • Simple Cuts
  • Bespoke Editing
  • Insert Editing
  • Assembly Editing
  • Live Editing

It can be said that some video editing styles attract more attention today. The most important of these are vertical videos. The design structure of smartphones has increased the interest in vertical videos. This video style, which goes beyond the norm, is very popular today. Live broadcast videos have also entered the present day with the increase in mobile usage. Edits, in-broadcast graphics, and cuts made during live broadcasts have opened a new field. The decrease in video duration to 5-6 seconds has created a new era in video editing. Video viewing times on each platform vary. Artificial intelligence video editing tools have also become very popular today. Creating unique effects or making artificial intelligence-supported additions are frequently used in video editing today.

06 | VIDEO PRODUCTION

Internet users’ intense interest in video content has increased the share of video in marketing communications. It is possible to encounter brands that cannot communicate with video content alone. Videos are the most common content format that brands use today to explain their products and services. Videos offer a more impressive narrative alongside words. This is because videos are versatile. Videos have the power to tell about a brand’s products, the day its employees are in the office, the highlights of its campaigns, or what the after-sales services are. It can also make use of real images, graphic shapes, music, and sound effects while doing this.

According to research, most customers watch the video of a product before purchasing it and make their purchasing decisions accordingly.

The most popular video content types today are as follows:
  • Video Blogs
  • Product Videos
  • Ads
  • Customer Testimonials
  • Tutorials
  • Behind the Scenes
  • Live Streams
  • Explainers

Video types, the number of which increases day by day, are shared by brands on all platforms, especially websites and social media channels. These types of videos positively affect customers’ purchasing decisions. Brands gain traffic to their websites and increase their interactions through videos. In addition, liked videos are shared by customers, opening up ways to reach potential customers organically. Thus, conversions increase, and product sales increase. Brands strengthen their brand identity with the brand images they integrate into their videos.

Video production is a discipline that requires a specific plan. For a video to emerge, multiple steps must be met meticulously. If these stages are not carried out with proper planning, unprofessional video work will be produced. First of all, it is necessary to start by determining the target audience. Who is the viewer of this video? However, a video work in which the target audience is correctly defined will achieve the desired conversion. Correctly defining the audience that will watch the video makes it possible to write the video text with the correct formulas. Being original and creative will increase the number of views and memorability of the video. At this point, doing keyword research related to the subject and style of the video makes it more possible to produce videos on popular topics. Only in this way can a correct screenplay text be written. Video production for marketing should not be left to personal tastes and decisions.

Video production consists of certain stages that continue each other. These stages vary depending on the size of the project and budget. Some brands carry out video production with their team and equipment. Others try to hire a professional production company directly or with the guidance of their agency. Creating a professional and high-quality video is possible with teams that apply professional approaches and use equipment suitable for the project.

Pre-Production:

Video Production Glossary: It is a dictionary containing terms related to video production.

Video Production Strategy: Defining the target audience and brand message.

Video Production Briefing: Determining elements such as goals, tone, and style.

Script Planning: Designing the story, characters, and dialogues.

Scripting: It is the preparation of a scenario by detailing the story, characters, and dialogues.

Storyboarding: Visualization of scenes.

Location Scouting: Selecting the locations where shooting will take place.

Casting: Selection of actors and determination of characters.

Production Scheduling: Determining the timeline of shooting.

Shot Listing: This is the list in which the scenes to be shot are listed.

Production:

Equipment: These are the equipment to be used in shooting.

Camera Operator: The person who manages the camera during shooting.

Producer: The person who takes overall responsibility for the project.

Director: The person responsible for the creative management of the project.

Lighting: It is the lighting process of the shooting location.

Sound Recordist: The team responsible for sound recording.

Hair and Makeup Artists: These are the people responsible for the appearance of the actors.

Live Streaming: It is the process of instant online broadcasting.

Drone: It is the technology used in aerial and general shooting.

Post-Production:

Stock Footage: These are ready-made video recordings that can be licensed and used.

Green Screen: It is a technique that allows adding different backgrounds to the video.

Motion Graphics: It is the use of animated graphic elements.

VFX: CGI is the process of adding special effects or animations to a video.

Color Grading: It is the process of adjusting the color tones of the video.

Voiceover Recording: Adding a voice over the video.

Music and SFX: It is the selection of sound elements suitable for the atmosphere of the video.

Sound Mixing: It is the process of combining and arranging different sound sources.

Video Distribution: It is the process of sending the video to the platforms to be published.

TVC Submission: It is the delivery of the commercial film to the TV channels where it will be broadcast.

Marketing video production requires a variety of equipment to produce, edit, and produce high-quality visuals.

Common equipment used in video production for marketing purposes are as follows:
  • Camera
  • Lens Types
  • Tripod and Camera Supports
  • Light Equipment
  • Sound Equipment
  • Green Screens and Backgrounds
  • Camera Accessories
  • Drone
  • Recording Devices and Hardware
  • Video Monitors
  • Fiction Set
  • Graphics and Animation Software
  • Color Grading Instruments
  • Prompter
  • Storage Devices

Each of these processes requires certain professionalism and discipline. Video production team and equipment can be expanded depending on the size of the project and budget. Determining goals and preparing a plan constitutes the first part of these stages. By creating a summary of the video production, the general structure is determined. Determining the creative process is clarifying the ideas for the video. The Pre-Production process is completed with the preparation of the scenario and the time planning for shooting the video. The production phase is the stage where video shooting is done. The critical thing here is to work with the right team and equipment. The size of the project and budget determine the size of this stage. The Post-Production phase is the part that takes place until the video work is finished shooting and published. The video is edited, special effects and color are applied, sound effects are included, and the video is converted to publishing suitable formats.

07 | AUDIO PRODUCTION

Sound production in marketing communications is a multifaceted process and discipline that attempts to use sound art for specific purposes. In other words, audio production for marketing is the process of producing, editing, and broadcasting audio elements based on certain reasons. The critical issue here is that all operations performed on voice serve marketing goals. Sometimes the jingle played in an advertisement or the background music used behind a product promotion is chosen to evoke certain emotions in the target audience. This is also preferred to reinforce some catchy messages about the brand. Sound has the ability to evoke emotions quickly. The emotional bond desired to be established between the brand and the target audience is brought to the desired level with the audio files used. The right combination of music, voice, and sound effects in a YouTube video and Spotify podcast can strengthen this bond.

It is a fact that just as visual elements create brand identity in the perception of customers, sound elements also present a certain image. Certain sounds can reinforce the perception the brand wants to project. The jingles they use in their advertisements, the signature sounds used with logos, and the sound effects used in transition animations are identified with the brands. After a while, when customers hear brand sounds without looking at the screen, only that brand appears in their minds. Podcasts are increasing in popularity. Brands not only advertise on podcasts but also sponsor podcasts that are associated with their brand. Customers who listen to podcasts sponsored by brands describe these brands as thought leaders and representatives of the subject.

With advances in technology, audio production is evolving to create immersive experiences. Binaural audio, spatial audio, and 3D audio technologies are used to provide consumers with a more immersive and engaging auditory experience. Whether it’s narrating a brand’s journey or explaining a product, audio production excels at storytelling in light of these technologies. The narrative potential of sound is used to attract and maintain the audience’s attention. Additionally, audio production adapts to the fast-paced and dynamic nature of social media, contributing to brand visibility and engagement. From radio ads to social media campaigns, audio elements contribute to a consistent brand narrative. Voice production in marketing is essentially a dynamic combination of creativity, psychology, and technology. It goes beyond simply conveying information; It strives to create an audio experience that resonates with the target audience, leaves a lasting impression, and contributes significantly to the brand’s identity and success.

Some common types of voice production in marketing include:

Radio advertisements are audio advertisements created to attract the attention of the audience with interesting scenarios and suitable voice actors.

Podcasts are recordings of interesting and informative audio scripts covering specific topics.

Marketing videos feature plenty of audio files, with professional voice-overs and sound effects used to enhance the storytelling and overall impact of the visual content.

Jingles are short, catchy songs associated with a brand. They are often used in radio commercials and TV commercials to strengthen brand awareness.

IVR systems use recorded voice prompts to guide callers through menu options during telephone interactions.

Audio Logos are short audio elements that represent a brand. They are used strategically in marketing materials to improve brand recall and identity.

Creating educational videos and e-learning materials can be made more instructive with audio production. Clear narration and sound effects increase the effectiveness of educational marketing materials.

Live events involve creating announcements, introductions, and background music to enhance the overall atmosphere.

Retailers are using audio production to create in-store audio elements that add to the overall branding and shopping experience.

Producing audio for marketing is a job that requires extreme caution. It is necessary to ensure that the message is clear and aligns with marketing objectives. Consistency with the brand’s tone and identity must be maintained. It is necessary to take into account the preferences and demographic characteristics of the target audience. Clear and crisp audio increases the professionalism of the content and contributes to a positive user experience. Background music and sound effects should be chosen that complement the message and enhance the overall atmosphere. Working with a voice actor who is suitable for the brand and connects with the target audience makes it easier to convey the message effectively. It is necessary to carefully consider the platform on which the voice will be used. Whether for radio, podcasts, social media, or other channels, audio must be optimized to fit the needs of the platform and audience behavior.

Common audio production equipment used in marketing are as follows:
  • Microphones
  • Audio interface
  • Headphones
  • Pop Filters and Windshields
  • Mic Stands and Boom Arms
  • Studio Monitors
  • Acoustic Treatment
  • Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
  • MIDI Controllers
  • Audio Processors
  • Backup Storage
  • Cables
  • Digital Signal Processors (DSP)
  • Computer and Monitor

08 | WEB DEVELOPMENT

Web development refers to a wide field, from coding a project to its design, from creating its content to the implementation of a website or web application. It is a more comprehensive field compared to web programming. It requires mastery of programming languages. Project management also includes fulfilling development requests from brands. Web development is the holistic use of web design, coding, and programming skills.

The types of web development a web developer can specialize in are as follows:

Front-end Development:

It refers to the visible side of websites, programs, or software. It is the design and development of layout, graphics, and other visual elements within a project. The aim is to ensure that the user navigates the website or application with the best experience. User experience is relevant to this area. Web development can be considered the starting point of the field. The most common front-end development languages used today are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. HTML is the first language that comes to mind. It defines elements of a website, such as headings, paragraphs, images, and links. It is the backbone of a website. CSS is responsible for the visual appearance of the website. It is the area where the colors, fonts, layout, and design elements of the website or applications are arranged. The compatibility of web pages on desktop and mobile screens falls within the scope of CSS. JavaScript, a dynamic programming language, is where interactive elements of websites such as drop-down menus, forms, and animations are designed. With Java Script, websites have a more dynamic structure. To program with JavaScript, JavaScript libraries such as React or jQuery can be used.

Back-end Development:

The front-end constitutes the visible side of websites. The back-end deals with the invisible part. The back end is responsible for keeping everything running smoothly on the website or in a program. Servers, operating systems, APIs, and databases are the work area of Back-end developers. Python is an entry-level programming language. There are search engines such as Django and Flask that handle database management and HTTP processing tasks. Its library is open source and quite extensive. PHP is a very common server-side coding language. It works seamlessly with HTML. It serves to manage databases, create dynamic content, and interact with web servers. Versatile and widely used, Java is a programming language used to build websites that require high performance and security. C# is a programming language developed by Microsoft. It is used to create Windows desktop applications and web services.

Full Stack Development:

It refers to working with both the front-end and back-end of a website. It means building a website, application, or program from start to finish and running it smoothly. A developer who has served on both sides can detect problems faster and make the necessary improvements. Comprehensive information makes it easy to optimize the performance of the project.

Website Development:

It is the concentration of programming knowledge only on websites. Mobile applications and desktop software are not included in this area.

Desktop Development:

Programs don’t have to work only online. Some programs are locally running applications and some are used in offline services. Desktop developers develop software applications that run natively on devices.

Mobile Development:

Some applications are developed only for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile developers focus only on applications that run on mobile devices. Mobile applications have a different programming language than normal website software.

Game Development:

Console games, PC games, and mobile games each consist of certain codes. These codes are coded by game developers and offered to game lovers.

Embedded Development:

Some non-computer hardware, such as electronic interfaces, consumer devices, and IoT devices, consists of codes and software. Embedded developers are in high demand these days with the increase in smart devices.

Security Development:

Websites or programs face the threat of malware or hackers. Security developers are responsible for creating more secure software by eliminating vulnerabilities in websites or applications. For this purpose, they identify security risks and establish secure systems.

Developing a website varies depending on the size of the project, programming language, and resources. First of all, it is necessary to state the purpose of the website.

MARKETING COMPONENTS

Brand identity can be thought of as a whole that reflects a brand’s unique characteristics, personality, and values. This identity is formed by the integration of marketing components. First of all, branding and corporate identity determine the basic character of the brand and create visual and verbal elements. Logo design, color palette, typography, and corporate communication standards shape the visual identity of the brand. These elements contribute to the formation of corporate identity by leaving an impression that reminds customers of the values and quality of the brand.

Marketing components such as website, advertising, social media, mailing, game, and print design strengthen the brand’s presence on digital and traditional platforms. The website offers the brand the opportunity to interact and tell its story in the online world. Advertising campaigns and social media reach large audiences, increasing brand awareness and strengthening interaction with customers. Mailing, games, and printed designs enable the brand to be expressed in an original and innovative way. With the combination of these components, the brand gains a unique character and recognition and establishes a strong bond with its target audience.

01 | BRANDING

How the brand will appear from the outside is determined and secured by the brand identity. The logo, slogan, color, font, advertising samples, web design, and social media concepts of the institution are specified in the brand identity guide. Brand identity can be expanded depending on the scope of the company. The brand identity process is a branding exercise. Building a brand from scratch is a very critical and professional task. Strategy should take an active role in the entire branding process. The insights gained from the strategy should be applied to the website, advertising efforts, color scheme, or font selection.

The building blocks of branding efforts are visual elements. A brand is embodied by its visual identity. All branding efforts start with good research. Researching the market, researching the competition, and examining customer structures give us information about how the brand should appear. A brand’s strategy provides information about the brand’s model, personality, identity, and basic positioning. The basic strategy of the brand should be examined correctly before carrying out branding work. Research and strategy outputs form a compass for determining the visual elements and marketing touch points of branding efforts.

The elements that will be involved in the branding work are as follows:

The logo is the brand’s mark in the market. Logos can consist of signs as well as words. It is found in logos designed as a combination of words and signs. Meaningful logos get into people’s minds more quickly and convey the function of the business more easily.

Colors are very important to reflect the culture of the brand. Each color has different meanings in different cultures. The values advocated by brands are conveyed through colors. Knowing what kind of perception colors correspond to is useful for finding the right color tones for the brand.

Typography is the typefaces that will appear in the visuals that the brand will use in its marketing activities. Each font has a specific character. Choosing fonts suitable for the brand will reinforce the character of the brand.

Shapes are as important as the logo, font, and colors. Figures are supporting drawings for the brand to take its place in customers’ perceptions faster. The important thing is that the shapes to be used are designed to be close to the basic identity of the brand and to explain its function.

Icons are visual elements that are included in various design works of Brands and strengthen the narrative. Their icons strengthen the written expression. Although the shapes used by brands are similar to each other, their styles differ for each brand.

Texture and pattern are supporting elements. Each brand has certain visual elements and textures in its photographs. Patterns, on the other hand, make it easier for customers to perceive the brand in visual areas such as icons and shapes.

Photographs are visuals that brands have to use in many areas. These images must be used in accordance with the basic visual structure of the brand. The usage styles, tones, and angles of the photographs should be determined.

The elements above are the basic building blocks of a branding effort. Branding efforts can be expanded depending on the structure of the brand. A broad branding effort may include data visualization, layout design, interactive visuals, video and animation formats, and social media design styles. The important thing is that each visual element to be produced for the branding work is designed in accordance with the identity of the brand.

02 | CORPORATE IDENTITY

Determining what the brand’s design elements will be only gives it a character. Corporate identity design is an identity booklet that also includes the visual elements of the brand. It is the most valid way to make a business individual and preserve individuality. The brand’s communication, values, culture, visual elements, corporate behavior, forms of advertising, printed materials, and employee uniforms are included in the corporate identity. In this form, the brand achieves a unique structure by distinguishing itself from other brands. Thus, the brand gains a unique place in the minds of its target audience. In addition, the correct use of the brand by different media companies, collaboration companies, agencies, or 3rd party employees is ensured.

All elements within the corporate identity should be processed in coordination with each other. Together creates the corporate image.

Brand identity consists of the brand’s purpose, values, vision, mission, positioning, and architecture. The brand’s purpose is the company’s internal motivation for its purpose. What is the main purpose of the brand other than making a profit? Brand values refer to the values that the brand has acquired throughout its life. Vision is about what the company wants to achieve. It is forward-looking and inspiring. The mission is about what you do. It explains what added value is. Brand positioning expresses the position of the brand in the market. Positioning is the differentiator of the brand in the market. Brand architecture is the determination of the positions and areas of activity of other sub-brands belonging to the brand within the main brand.

Corporate Communications is based on a company’s communication strategy. What kind of image does the institution create in its communication activities? What are the distinguishing elements in internal and external communication? What are the company’s tone and language rules? Every brand has its own tone of voice. The important thing is for brands to achieve a tone of voice that will be most accurately understood by their target audience. A brand story is a narrative within corporate communication.

Corporate design is created by including the visual elements created for branding in the corporate identity guide. In addition to the branding work, the printed products to be used for the institution are also included in the guide. In addition to logo, font, and color preferences, letterhead, envelope design, business cards, file holders, vehicle and office dressings and employee uniforms are some of the corporate design elements.

With the corporate identity guide, brands secure the values, stories, and visual elements of their companies. When designing a brand, determining only the logo and colors should not be considered sufficient for branding work. These are just a few important elements of corporate identity work. Corporate identity is an indicator of the culture of an institution and the internal and external elements that will form that culture.

03 | WEBSITE

Users log in to websites to perform an action or get information on a few topics. The more importance is given to usability and user experience when designing a website, the more interaction rate will increase. Any intervention that hinders simplicity will cause users to leave the website within seconds. Simplicity is the most critical feature to look for in a website. The simple use of colors as well as design elements will take the website design to a good point. Making fonts readable will increase the user experience. Graphics should not only be added visually but should be kept functional.

Just like magazine or newspaper designs, it is necessary to create a design that complies with the visual hierarchy in website designs. The size and positioning of images, titles, and texts should be designed to make it easy to navigate and read the website. The most critical feature of a website is that users can easily find what they are looking for. With the navigability feature, users should be able to navigate the website pleasantly and perform their transactions in a simple way. To do this, a site map must be added to certain points of the website. Additionally, a search bar should be added to the top of the site so that users can find what they are looking for with keywords. All pages of a website should be designed in the same format and manner. Consistency will allow users to understand which page they are on within the website. Websites have specific templates for certain pages, if not for every page.

Websites are viewed by many different devices today. It is not possible to access websites designed only for computer screens and make quick transactions from tablets or smartphones. That’s why websites should be designed considering each device separately. Optimized websites receive more traffic and engagement. It is necessary to design websites that can work not only on different devices but also on different website browsers. Today, users have formed certain website experience habits. Acting in accordance with these habits will increase the website experience. The website slider area should always be at the top. Contact information is usually at the bottom of the website. Buttons must be clickable. A website that complies with each of these recommendations is deemed trustworthy by visitors. Users only spend time, get information, and shop on websites they find reliable. We can say that the user experience is high for a website that meets reliability and expectations. There are specific online tests for this. It is necessary to get feedback by running user experience tests on the website.

Nowadays, website design is mostly done using website builders. The most important of these are WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and Webflow. It is extremely useful among website builders with its design templates, customization areas, and panels that facilitate publishing activities. It is necessary to decide which platform is the most suitable by determining the needs of the website.

Web design elements are as follows:

Content is the most space-consuming element of a website. Texts placed in harmony with visual elements will increase the readability rate.

Header and menu form the top parts of websites. It allows visitors to quickly find what they are looking for. The logo is located in the header area.

The footer is the bottom part of a site. This is the section where basic contact information is located. Additionally, icons that direct you to social media pages are located in this area.

Blogs are pages containing articles and writings on various topics related to the brand. Blogs, where the brand can show how knowledgeable it is in its field, are also important in terms of SEO.

Visuals are important because they make the information that needs to be conveyed supportive and interesting. It is necessary to select visuals that are appropriate to the corporate identity and appropriate to the nature of the communication that needs to be conveyed.

Navigations are indicators of what websites have to offer for visitors. Navigations are necessary to ensure easy access between pages and to maximize the site experience.

C2A are actionable items. It is very useful for the website to achieve the desired conversion and for visitors to take action towards the desired pages.

Forms are contact forms that allow visitors to communicate directly with the brand. Forms to interested visitors are a critical conversion KPI. Registration forms serve to create customer data by asking visitors for their information.

04 | ADVERTISING

Advertising in the digital world is created to attract the attention of internet users and achieve conversion. The entire creative strategy is aimed at attracting users’ attention and taking the desired action. In order to get customers to take a certain action, it is necessary to meet the requirements of digital advertising. Digital ads are created with a combination of text and visual elements, just like traditional advertising. Digital advertisements basically have two tasks. The first of these is creating brand awareness. In traditional advertising, this task consisted of newspaper ads, brochures, and posters. Advertisements created to raise brand awareness also reach a wide audience. They are also planned to be published on many different platforms and websites. Another goal is to achieve conversion. It is attempted to obtain traffic, membership, or sales by publishing advertisements on social media or websites with a certain audience.

Advertising types in the digital world are as follows:

Display advertising is the most common type of advertising published in the digital world. Appears on websites, blogs, landing pages, and pop-ups. They are not included in search results. Display ads that can be designed in different sizes can be placed on any website. The relevance of such ads for target audiences is quite low. They are published without any targeting thought. However, since they are low cost, the number of people who see the advertisement is high. Display ads can be scheduled through different channels. Digital PR companies, programmatic advertising, and display ads through Google Ads can be published on planned sites.

Native ads differ from display ads in terms of audience targeting. Native ads do not look like any other advertising image. They appear as content of the website or blog pages on which they are located. Since they are placed on certain pages with a strategic decision, their interaction rates are quite high. Since the advertisements are directly related to the subject discussed on the visited page, the rate of visitors clicking on such advertisements is quite high. Some native ads contain the word “sponsored” in certain places.

Social media ads are paid advertisements that social media platforms display to registered audiences. The structure of these ad types can be display, native, and video. Advertisements published in line with advertisers’ targeting appear before the masses depending on the price paid. The word “sponsored” appears in certain parts of the advertisements. They can be of different sizes and structures depending on the content types of social media. Advertisements are published only within the social media platform for which they are placed.

Search engine marketing is sponsored advertising that users encounter based on the keywords they search in search engines. They look just like the results we see in organic search. Their only difference is the word “sponsored” at certain points. They have no visual structure. Textual expressions are designed to get users to click on the ad. Search engine marketing designed with the right strategy provides a very high rate of conversion. Pricing models vary. The critical thing here is to choose a pricing policy that suits the strategy.

Video advertisements are the way brands appear before their target audiences on certain video platforms with promotional videos. Viewers click to watch a video. Video ads appear before the video you want to watch. Additionally, video ads can be integrated into certain websites and blogs like native advertising. Videos can also be preferred as an ad type in social media ads. Although video is a very effective type of advertising, its production requires effort and time. However, video advertisements are very useful for promoting products and services.

Mobile advertising is a type of advertising planned for mobile users as mobile usage increases. SMS can be sent via mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. Additionally, display banner ads can be shown within applications. Push notification is a widely used type of mobile advertising. Information about campaigns is provided by sending notifications to permitted data.

Audio advertising is ads that can run on music platforms and in between podcast broadcasts. It is exactly similar to radio ads in traditional advertising. Catchy and effective messages spread to large audiences.

05 | SOCIAL MEDIA

Brands use social media channels to communicate one-on-one with their target audiences, send instant messages, publish paid advertisements, and celebrate important days for their customers. The important thing is to correctly perceive the structure of social media channels and establish the social media strategy correctly. Determining a brand voice and tone that fits the strategy is one of them. All content should be created as if it originates from the same source. The jargon to be used, the scope of the language, the structure of the sentences, the way Emojis are used, and expressions containing C2A should be specified beforehand.

It is important to use social media management templates as well as create a social media style guide. Who is in the team? What kind of content will be shared? Is a content calendar used for scheduling? Is there a crisis plan? All these questions make it possible to manage social media more professionally. The corporate identity of brands can be used as a basis for social media visual guidance. The usage patterns included in the corporate identity should be adapted to social media use. It is necessary to determine from the beginning which colors will be used. It should be determined how the logo will be used on social media channels and posts. What kind of images will be used? Will any filters be applied to the images? All this information needs to be determined in advance.

Content formats that can be used on social media are as follows:

Short videos are one of the most engaging social media content formats. Can share information with followers very quickly. Since they are small in size, they can be easily shared. Many social media channels support the short video-sharing format. It is an ideal format for preparing fast and entertaining content. Nowadays, short videos are the most preferred format type. TikTok videos, Instagram Reels, and YouTube shorts are ideal for such formats. Social media has made it easier for users to create content with their own templates.

Long videos are shared from online video platforms. It is the ideal sharing type for educational and informative videos. In-depth topics are shared with customers through long videos. YouTube and Facebook are the first video platforms that come to mind.

Images are one of the most frequently published content formats on social media. It is very useful for branding. With static images, brands can present their logos, colors, typography, and slogans to their customers in the easiest way. Images are more memorable than words. As mobile devices upgrade their camera features, the rate of content created with photographs has increased. Instagram and Pinterest are the most frequently used visual-sharing platforms. Content can be personalized by adding filters, effects, and emojis.

Text-based posts are ideal for messages that are better conveyed through textual expressions rather than visual content. For some customers, text-based content is still their most consumed content category. Brand tone and voice are very important here. Starting a conversation for feedback and suggestions from customers is more effective than text-based posts. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit are ideal social media channels for text-based sharing.

Live videos are a type of event where businesses and their customers come together in real-time. Nowadays, live videos have become very popular. Brands can organize webinars with their customers and make presentations at virtual events. Real-time responses can be used by brands to gather customers’ opinions. Live broadcasts can be recorded and turned into ready-to-share videos. Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube Live and LinkedIn Live are platforms where live broadcasts can be organized.

Audio content is possible by choosing audio recordings rather than videos, images, or texts to create content. Audio content can be selected from topics that will attract the attention of the listeners. Podcasts are a very common type of content today. It is the only content possible to follow when engaging in a different action. Spotify and Apple Podcast are the best podcast platforms.

06 | MAILING

Brands contact their customers with contact information via e-mail. Apart from different digital marketing methods, email marketing is one of the oldest types of marketing. An effective e-mail title and design increase customers’ interest in the e-mail. In this regard, brands need to resort to very creative ways. A standard email sent by the brand will remain unopened in customers’ mailboxes. At this point, it is necessary to apply innovative techniques and new strategies.

Segmentation is critical for email marketing. Choosing the right audience to send emails to is the primary way to reach audiences relevant to the subject. Issues such as location, age, purchasing preference and time, and membership history can be used to create segmentation. After segmentation, it will be necessary to work on separate texts and visuals for each group. Thus, a more precise marketing communication will be made.

Personalization creates the perception that customers are being contacted directly. Mentioning the customer’s name in the email is the first thing that comes to mind for personalization. The important thing here is to carefully select the topic to be personalized. It is debatable to what extent customers want brands to have an opinion about them.

Automation has become one of the important features of email marketing in recent years. The increase in the number of data has made it difficult to control and track the customers to whom e-mails will be sent. Emails created using automation are more practical than those created manually.

Conversions are the most critical issue in email marketing. Did the mail reach customers? Did customers click on the email and read it? Were the links placed in the email clicked? Did customers arriving via e-mail show purchasing behavior?

Interactive elements increase the time spent on e-mail. Images and GIFs placed in the e-mail make the e-mail more interesting. With AMP, mailers can be transformed from designs into mini websites. For this, email service providers must allow this. Apple and Outlook do not display AMP content.

Mobile design has become a priority in e-mail designs with the increasingly widespread use of mobile devices. Content created with responsive designs maintains its readability on mobile screens and attracts more attention. Optimized content will be followed by more people.

07 | MOBIL APP

Brands are trying to improve their digital marketing channels by developing mobile applications for different reasons. Accessing user data, expanding target audiences, sending instant notifications, creating customer loyalty, and showing their innovative side may be among these reasons. It is easier to communicate with customers through applications. It shares customer data with brands due to the requirement of membership to the mobile application. This creates authorized data for brands. Sharing information with permission data is a benefit that brands would like to achieve.

The points to consider when developing a mobile application are:

The user interface is an interface design designed to enable customers who experience the mobile application to carry out their transactions more easily. The layout of the buttons, the harmony of color schemes, and the flawless appearance of images and animations bring the user interface to a good point. A good user interface allows users to navigate mobile applications flawlessly.

Navigation has gained a new style with mobile applications. With smartphones, scrolling down was in common use. With the innovative design, downward scrolling combined with sideward scrolling broke the monotony. Thus, a more entertaining user experience emerged.

Easy login makes mobile applications more useful than websites. Logging into a website is not as easy as mobile applications. Websites require authentication at every login. Mobile applications have eliminated this obligation.

Artificial intelligence has started to be integrated into mobile applications. Artificial intelligence chat robots enable faster transactions by answering customers’ questions instantly.

Animations make mobile applications even more interesting. 3D animations explain the features of products and services better.

Smooth movement is a feature that mobile applications enhance the user experience. Physical buttons have started to be removed from smartphones. The designs that mobile applications include in their interfaces enable users to navigate within the application as they wish.

Contactless interaction is possible with voice assistants built into mobile applications. Today, Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa are at a very important point in the virtual assistant market. Brands have also started to create their own virtual assistants and integrate them into their mobile applications.

08 | GAME

Computer, mobile or web games are one of the activities that people enjoy while spending time. Brands have started to take part in this enjoyable activity. Branded games, advertising, and promotional games are a new type of digital marketing. The products and messages placed in games are marketing content that users encounter during the game. Branded games are today the most effective and entertaining way for brands to spread their marketing communications. Brands must understand the form and mechanics of the games well.

It is difficult to categorize products developed for marketing purposes. Games can be designed on any subject, in any format, and dynamic. Today, with the development of virtual reality, games have gone beyond computer and mobile devices. The important thing is to decide which game type and content will fit the brand strategy and target audience.

Branded games and their features can be listed as follows:

Mini-games are quick and easy games where brands give promotions to their customers at the end of the game. It is the most common of branded games. It can be developed for many different platforms.

Instant games are web-based games. Facebook, WeChat, and Google are among the instant game developers. Brands can promote their campaign launches through Facebook Games.

Educational games are a type of game in which brands share some information about their products and services with their customers through educational games. Simulations are very effective in learning some subjects. A training simulation that is visually and auditorily constructed correctly may not provide an experience that will be remembered for a long time.

Augmented realism games are realized by positioning brand-related graphics in the real world. Augmented realism, which is quite new in terms of technology, has a high memorability. Brands are increasingly using augmented reality games to raise awareness.

Virtual reality games are games that brands integrate into VR systems. Branded products or brand messages included in virtual reality simulations surround users.

Web games are among the types of games that brands have frequently used since the early days of the internet. The accessibility rates of the games are quite high. All web portals support web games.

Android and iOS games are games exhibited on mobile gaming platforms. Its size and scope are larger than other branded game genres.

09 | PRINT DESIGN

Print designs are physical materials created using printing machines rather than digital designs. Brands still use printing extensively for marketing communications today. Although their purposes are different at some points, they are similar to digital designs in terms of both branding and marketing benefits. Today, print designs are encountered almost everywhere. Printing work is a graphic design process. Works designed in digital environments are printed on paper, cardboard, plastic, or metal materials. Someone who deals with print designs must have high material knowledge.

Printing works are very critical for the identity of brands. There are guidelines in the corporate identities of the brands about how the printing work will be done, what measurements will be adhered to, and what the rules will be. Printworks are required to create brand awareness or develop promotional products. In addition, the packaging of the products is also a print design. Branch and vehicle wrapping works are made possible with print designs.

It is necessary to adhere to the basics of graphic design when doing printing work. Typography, color, use of images, spacing, page layout, and basic design principles must be taken into consideration when printing. Fonts that are easy to read should be chosen. Printworks must be high resolution and CMYK. Documents must be prepared in accordance with the print design. Before printing, the work must be carefully confirmed as error-free. Before the works are printed in large numbers, pre-press copies must be made.

Some of the print works include:

Corporate Products:

  • Business card
  • Letterhead
  • Pocket folder
  • Envelope
  • Catalog
  • Magazine
  • Stamp
  • Insert
  • Badge
  • Flag
  • Certificate
  • Invitation
  • Agenda
  • Packaging

Advertising Products:

  • Banner
  • Brochure
  • Flier
  • Sticker
  • Magnet
  • American service
  • Billboard
  • Paper cup
  • Roll Up Banner

Promotional Products:

  • T-shirt
  • Hat
  • Cup
  • Calendar
  • Pen
  • Notebook
  • Bag
  • Pad
  • Bookmark
  • Mousepad

FORMAT

Creativity encompasses a variety of ideas that can be expressed in several different formats. Various formats such as text, visual arts, video, animation, audio, and 3D design are used to express creative thinking tangibly and engage the audience. The text format offers the chance to put thoughts into words with word games, stories, or informative content. Visual formats aim to impress the audience with designs and images that can be understood at a glance. Video and animation enable an emotional connection with moving images and dynamically tell the story. The audio format delivers a sensory experience to the viewer through music, sound effects, or audio narration. 3D design presents works of art or products in a three-dimensional perspective, providing a realistic and impressive visual.

The limitless world of creativity is enriched by the ability to express ideas in various formats. Each format is chosen to suit a particular style of storytelling or expression and is used to convey creative thought more broadly and deeply. Diversity of formats allows a project or campaign to reach its target audience more effectively. Text aims to be clear and concise in conveying information, while visual formats aim to create understandable and catchy designs at a glance. Video and animation allow the viewer to establish an emotional connection, while the audio format creates an atmosphere unique to the project. 3D design, on the other hand, offers an interactive experience that is closer to the real world. Formats are an important tool in the process of realizing projects in a wide and colorful palette of creativity.

01 | TEXT

The most basic and most effective way to communicate is through text. Most of the things we see on the Internet are made up of text. In many areas of marketing, texts meet the masses as headlines, slogans, or keywords. Sometimes texts used for information purposes can be used in storytelling. Sometimes it is used to reinforce existing knowledge.

The texts can be used as plain text in the form of blog content, or they can be designed visually as a graphic element. It can be transformed into a shape by the concept and expressed with color. Logos are names. Slogans are textual expressions that will strengthen brands. Texts are the most basic way to convey brand messages.

Product descriptions can be made using texts. Product descriptions on the website or social media channels allow customers to be informed about the brand. The vision and mission of the company, its goals, and future projections are explained. Impressive and persuasive language is used in marketing and advertising texts. Technical information about the services of the companies is prepared in written format.

02 | IMAGE

Images are the most effective way to tell a story. A correctly chosen visual is the tool that conveys the desired emotion to the other party in the fastest way. Today’s marketing requires very fast communication. Websites have turned into places visited in seconds. Images are what make the message or advertisement interesting. Images used in social media, blogs, and display advertising increase conversion rates.

Images, which can be preferred in the form of photographs, graphics, or drawings, are frequently used in marketing. Preparing images requires a certain amount of time and effort. Production support is required for more comprehensive studies. In addition, an archive consisting of images of the product or service should be made. The visual types to be selected by the marketing strategy should meet the needs of the target audience. Image types can be brand images and graphics. It should be a reminder of the brand to the target audience. GIFs are frequently used on social media platforms today. Stock photos are the most commonly used type in marketing. Images used from paid or free sites are often preferred. The interaction rate of the images produced by the users is quite high.

Engaging visuals allow customers to spend more time on the website or social media channel. Images increase the rate of sharing and interaction. Display advertising models are one of the most frequently used types of performance marketing today. An effective advertising image can achieve sales targets.

03 | VIDEO

It is very common today to describe a brand, product, or service using video techniques. Using all the features of communication in a fast and impressive way is possible with video. Video marketing is highly developed by incorporating strategy and planning in it. Video consumption on social media is increasing day by day. The interest level of the video is quite high. It increases the time customers spend with the brand.

Video can be considered an investment tool. A compelling video can influence buying behavior. It can increase conversion rates in display advertising. Video is used in every step of marketing strategies. Search engines show video content in rankings. Video content is one of the most preferred content types today. Video is the most effective way to educate and inform customers. This is also to build a sense of trust in customers. A trusted customer engages in purchasing behavior.

The trend of live video on social media is increasing day by day. Events or launches of brands are shared with their target audiences via live videos. In terms of SEO, it is more possible for the pages to rank higher with video content. How-to videos are the type of video that customers often follow. Product demos are a type of content that customers refer to before purchasing a product.

04 | AUDIO

Listened digital media is expressed as sound. It listens live in online broadcasts. It can be shared and listened to in different audio formats offline. Audio is critical for videos. Music is included in the videos as background or voiceover. In addition, music produced for campaigns contains brand messages. Podcasts are widely used as a content type today. Online music platforms are increasing the number of users day by day.

User experience can be increased by using audio files on websites. A more effective presentation of information to the audience can be made in infographic videos. With the right background music, the theme and concept of the communication work are transferred to the target audience faster. As an alternative to microphones, the sound recording technologies of mobile devices are quite advanced. Audio interviews can be prepared for blog pages. Small in size and easy to share, audio files are very important in the marketing world with their impressive use.

Audio advertising is a format that today’s busy person can also consume while doing business. While listening to a podcast, you can be busy with another job at the same time. The Internet radio can be listened to while commuting or doing sports. The use of sound in marketing is important in drawing attention to the ad copy.

05 | ANIMATION

Animation has created brand-new opportunities in marketing. Animated visuals are the easiest way to convey brand messages. It makes it possible to present the message impressively by appealing to emotions. It can be consumed more easily than images and text. Animations stay in memory more than other formats. Animation can simplify complex matters. Thus, it is the most preferred method for describing services that are difficult to show. An abstract concept can be more easily explained.

Animation production is a field that requires as much time and effort as video production. However, it does not cover the costs of animation, filming, hiring actors, and setting up a studio. Desktop animated movies are cheaper to produce. Animations keep the brand image and style at the maximum level. The colors and font of the brand can be integrated throughout the animation film. Sales presentations consist of animations. Pages with specific topics are linked to each other with animations and presented to customers.

Explainer videos can be much more impressive with animations. The product and service are presented in the most descriptive format with animation. 2D animations are among the most commonly used genres today. The customer journey can be explained with character animations. Brands’ logos and symbols are animated with animation. In this way, the brand becomes more eye-catching and interesting. When animation is combined with the limitless world of creativity, it contains endless opportunities. A niche work for special occasions can become a trend by getting high shares.

06 | 3D

The conversion rates of 3D works in marketing are increasing. It is more memorable than 2D animations. Watch time is higher than other video types. Technical products can be mirrored exactly with 3D drawings or videos. 3D provides a more complete purchasing experience for customers. Virtual tours have influenced today’s online activities with their 360 experiences. International meetings take place online, where employees and customers meet in 3D environments. Immersive experiences can be created in 3D. 3D commerce sites are environments where customers can view products and services with computer or VR tools. There are purchasing options on websites with high infrastructure.

The inclusion of 3D models of products on websites allows customers to examine more detailed products. With the use of effects, products are made more impressive. Brand images created with a high degree of art create a reputation. This pulls the brand perception in the desired direction. Simulations prepared in 3D environments can be easily changed by the brand image. This protects customers from serious costs. With online personalization, customers can create the product model they want in seconds.

Games have always managed to attract the attention of consumers. Brands aim to provide a good experience to their customers by producing games with content. Gamification is the most entertaining marketing method where customers can learn brand messages while having a good time. Awards create opportunities for the brand to present its products as gifts. Games produced in 3D environments are environments that can attract the attention of the new generation.

SOFTWARE

Using software for creative production in marketing is of critical importance to optimize business processes and increase efficiency. Software used in the design, video editing, copy creation, and other creative processes enables teams to produce faster, more effective, and diverse content. For example, graphic design software offers designers flexibility and originality, while video editing tools enable the rapid creation of marketing videos. These software support collaboration and collaboration by providing design templates and asset libraries to increase creativity as well as ensure brand consistency.

At the same time, management programs used to manage marketing teams make it easier to track projects and optimize collaborative work. Featuring task assignments, project calendars, progress tracking, and communication tools, these programs help teams complete projects on time and on budget. Managing marketing processes in an orderly and coordinated manner, ensuring cooperation and effective communication through software and management programs is one of the basic elements that increase success in creative production in marketing.

Marketing management programs are tools that institutions or agencies use for their needs. The management process of each type of marketing is different. The integration of many channels with each other is mandatory in marketing. With a comprehensive program, all channels can be managed through a single software. It has made the use of data-based marketing management programs mandatory.

Social Media Software:

  • Hootsuite
  • Buffer
  • Octopost
  • Sprout Social
  • Zoho Social

E-Mail Software:

  • Campaign Monitor
  • Mailchimp
  • Act-On
  • GetResponse
  • Constant Contact

Web Analysis Software:

  • Google Analytics
  • KISSmetrics
  • Adobe Analytics

Marketing Automation Software:

  • Marketo
  • Pardot
  • HubSpot
  • Sugar Market
  • Drip

Team management programs help large teams to work in an organized manner. It is effective in completely completing complex job lists. Job descriptions are made and deadlines are not delayed. Finished works are uploaded to the software, eliminating the risk of being lost. Software is important for teams to work efficiently and for no work to be overlooked.

  • Asana
  • Trello
  • Slack
  • Range
  • Jira
  • ClickUp
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Zoom

Design and creativity programs are highly functional tools for experienced artists. There are many programs. Designers make their designs by choosing the program that is ideal for them. Software is divided according to ease of use, performance, and cost. Web templates, banners, advertising posters, and many marketing designs are produced with these programs.

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Sketch
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Lunacy
  • Mega Creator
  • Affinity Designer
  • Adobe InDesign
  • CorelDRAW Graphics

Video, Animation, and 3D programs are used to create flashy content. Feature-rich programs need a powerful computer. Programs can meet many different needs. This differentiates the programs in terms of performance, ease of use, and price. If professional solutions are aimed, investment should be made in the video and 3D programs.

  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Adobe After Effects
  • Apple Final Cut Pro
  • Apple iMovie
  • Corel VideoStudio Ultimate
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • Movavi Video Editor Plus
  • Pinnacle Studio Ultimate
  • Autodesk 3ds Max
  • Houdini
  • Cinema 4D
  • blender
  • ZBrush
  • Flame
  • Nuke

CREATIVE PROCESS

Combining a creative idea with a specific art form creates a new concept. To create this concept, it is necessary to go through a certain creative process. This is a comprehensive collaboration involving many departments and disciplines in the creative process. The entire process after determining the brand strategy and digital marketing plan is the creative process. Each creative process varies depending on the customer’s demand and specific goal. In general, a creative process consists of research and planning, concept development, design and implementation, testing, and improvement stages. After all these processes, the output is shared with the customer and shared through mass media with approval.

During the creative process, skills such as creative problem-solving, idea development, text writing, and design are used. There should be members in this team who can adapt to each other and can transition to new projects according to the needs of the customer. Before the creative production process, creative operations must be carried out completely. Creative operations are the top management that organizes the entire creative process, handling project management, resource allocation, and quality control issues. Ensuring that the creative team produces correctly is possible with the support of the creative operation. Creativity is an open-ended concept. The framework of what needs to be thought and revealed in creative production must be determined correctly.

While some companies create the creative production process through in-house teams, some companies receive services from agencies to carry out this process. Although creating an in-house team seems less costly, this has some pros and cons. The expertise of a team established within the company may not be as sufficient as that of agency employees. In addition, in-house teams may not adapt to changing conditions as quickly as agency employees. The subjects in which the team to be established within the company has expertise will also be limited. Companies will have to employ freelancers depending on the size of their projects. On the contrary, companies working with agencies can get the output they want from agencies, regardless of the size of their projects. Agencies include many creative individuals in different disciplines. However, companies have to bear the costs and expenses imposed on them by the agency they have agreed with.

Stages in the Work Process of the Freelance Team

The stages and steps in a freelance team’s workflow are detailed versions of the overall process. The stages remain the same, even if a freelance team uses different steps when working on a video project or building a website. Below are the steps of the first stage, called the “Definition and Planning Stage”, in detail:

Definition and Planning Stage:

This stage is one of the most critical stages where the foundations of the project are laid, expectations and goals are determined by communicating with the client, and the project’s scope is clarified. Each of the steps to be taken during this process is vital to the successful completion of the project.

  1. Communicating with the Client

In this stage, initial meetings are held with the client and a comprehensive understanding of their needs, goals, target audience, brand voice, and specific preferences are developed. This is important to ensure that the overall creative direction of the project is aligned with the client’s vision. The information obtained during these meetings forms the basis of the entire process and guides the subsequent stages.

  1. Writing the Creative Brief

A creative brief is an important document that will be referenced throughout the project. It is a summary of the information received from the client and outlines the roadmap for the project. The creative brief includes critical information such as the project’s purpose, target audience, key messages, tone, style guides, and timeline. Using a creative brief template can help ensure that all important elements are fully included.

  1. Determine Roles and Responsibilities

In this step, the team members who will be involved in the project are identified and assigned specific tasks and responsibilities based on their areas of expertise. This increases workflow efficiency, clarifies responsibilities, and helps ensure efficient use of resources. Having a clear definition of who is responsible for what ensures that the team works collaboratively and the project progresses smoothly.

  1. Determine Project Milestones

Creating key milestones throughout the project timeline is critical for tracking progress, managing deadlines, and ensuring that the project is completed on time. These milestones act as checkpoints throughout each phase of the project and help the agency complete deliverables within the agreed-upon timeframe. Each milestone allows the freelance team to evaluate their work and change direction if necessary.

Creation and Development Phase:

After the project scope is determined, the creation process begins. In this phase, ideas that will help the project achieve its goals are developed and these ideas are transformed into concrete outputs. Each step is a part of the creative process and directly affects the quality and impact of the result.

  1. Conducting Research

In this step, information and data appropriate to the project goals and target audience are collected. This may include market research, competitor analysis, user research, or sectoral trends. An in-depth research ensures that the creative work is based on a solid knowledge base. This helps the decisions to be taken during the project to be more accurate and the creative process to progress on the right track. For example, in a video project, collecting information about the target audience’s viewing habits and preferences ensures that the content strategy is determined correctly.

  1. Brainstorming

In this collaborative process, team members come together to produce ideas and concepts. Brainstorming brings together different perspectives and provides an opportunity to produce innovative solutions. Team members freely share their thoughts and create a creative synergy by being inspired by each other’s ideas. If the team is stuck for ideas, various brainstorming activities can be tried.

  1. Concept Development

During this stage, ideas are refined and transformed into concrete concepts. By working on the initial ideas, details are added and the concepts are aligned with the project goals. This process is critical for maturing the ideas and clarifying the creative direction to be used in the project. For example, a concept developed for an advertising campaign is clarified on how it will use visual and verbal elements to convey a certain message.

  1. Design

During this step, the visual elements of the project are created. The design process includes the creation of elements such as layouts, color palettes, typography, and visuals. The design should be aesthetically appealing, functional, and compatible with the brand identity. All details specified in the creative brief are taken into consideration and implemented during the design process. During this stage, designers create various design options in accordance with the determined concept and develop the most suitable one.

  1. Creating Sketches

Based on the concept and design, the first drafts of the product deliverables are produced in this step. These drafts are subjected to internal evaluation before being presented to the client. During the internal evaluation process, the team checks whether the drafts are in line with the project goals by giving feedback. Designs are reviewed, ideas and designs are refined, and the best ones are selected and prepared to be presented to the client. This process is the first quality control step before the project reaches its final form.

Review and Approval Phase:

This phase is carried out after the completion of the creative process to ensure that the project fully complies with the client’s expectations. Obtaining client feedback and making the necessary adjustments are critical to the successful completion of the project.

  1. Collecting Client Feedback

In this step, the completed work is presented to the client and their opinions and suggestions are collected. The main purpose of this phase is to understand how the client evaluates the work, which areas they want to improve, and to what extent it meets their expectations. This process allows the identification of potential areas for improvement before the project reaches its final form. Client feedback is carefully analyzed and aligned with the project goals. This is an important step in ensuring client satisfaction and final approval.

  1. Going through Revision Cycles

In this iterative process, improvements are made to the design or specific deliverables in line with the feedback received from the client. Revision cycles are important in terms of managing the project efficiently in terms of both time and quality. In this process, it is necessary to determine the number of revision rounds and clarify turnaround times. In each revision cycle, the necessary adjustments are made and the client’s approval is obtained. Finally, these cycles continue until the project reaches its final state and the client gives final approval. Effective communication throughout the revision process helps manage the expectations of both the team and the client.

  1. Developing Final Assets

This step involves additional production after the client’s initial approval is received. This may include creating marketing materials, preparing files for printing, or developing website elements. As final assets are created, it is important to ensure that every detail is correct and aligns with the overall goals of the project. During this process, the final assets must be re-submitted to the client and final approval must be obtained before launch. Planning enough time for this final client review phase will ensure that the process goes smoothly. Once the final assets are prepared and approved, the project is ready to be published or distributed.

Launch and Evaluation Phase:

Once client approvals are secured, the content is ready to be published and the final step, the launch, is carried out. After the launch, the success of the project is measured and analyzed in line with the parameters determined at the beginning.

  1. Launch

This phase refers to the process of bringing the completed project to life. The launch can take place in various ways depending on the type of project; for example, the publication of a new website, the launch of social media campaigns, the distribution of printed materials, or the publication of an advertising film. During this process, all preparations are completed to deliver the project to the target audience and the content is presented through the determined platforms. The launch process should be managed meticulously to ensure that the content is published at the right time, in the right places, and in the right way. During the launch phase, technical details (e.g. SEO optimization for the website, timing for social media campaigns) are carefully considered and the content is ensured to reach the right audience.

  1. Evaluating the Project

This final step involves evaluating how successful the project is in line with the goals and objectives set at the beginning. The evaluation process involves analyzing performance metrics, identifying areas for improvement, and sharing the findings with the client. For example, for a social media campaign, this evaluation can be done on metrics such as campaign reach, engagement rates, conversion rates, and ROI (Return on Investment). While the overall performance of the project is examined, the results obtained serve as a guide for future projects. In addition, the feedback and suggestions shared with the client contribute to strengthening relationships and making future collaborations more successful. The insights gained during the evaluation phase allow the agency to optimize its processes and produce more effective results.

The Core Components of a Freelance Team’s Workflow

The core components of a freelance team’s workflow consist of several interconnected elements that are essential to the successful execution of projects. Each of these elements is crucial to ensuring the efficiency of the workflow and the quality of the project. The success of an agency’s workflow depends on the effective integration of elements such as strong communication, comprehensive briefings, adequate resources, defined deadlines, and clear revision cycles.

While creative agencies are flexible in adapting to unique client needs, maintaining process structure, managing creative operations, and ensuring a well-defined workflow is critical. Striking a balance between flexibility and structure allows teams to cope with the unexpected while also adhering to established processes and delivering on time with high quality.

  1. Effective Communication

Effective communication plays a critical role in the relationships between freelance team members and the client. Maintaining a constant dialogue throughout the project builds trust and strengthens collaboration. Listening carefully to the client and taking their feedback into account ensures that the project remains aligned with the client’s vision. In internal communication, a clear and continuous flow of information between team members helps maintain alignment throughout each phase of the project. As the project progresses, regular meetings and updates ensure that all parties are on the same page and prevent potential problems.

  1. Comprehensive Project Briefings

Comprehensive project briefings set the roadmap for the project and establish clear goals, audience, deliverables, and specific requirements from the outset. A well-prepared briefing lays the groundwork for efficient project execution and aligning expectations from the outset. These briefings prevent misunderstandings among agency teams and ensure that everyone is working toward the same goal. It’s important to remember that briefings are the fundamental guide used to manage the project.

  1. Optimized Resource Allocation

Strategically allocating resources maximizes team productivity and ensures that each task is handled by the most competent person. Allocating tasks based on each team’s strengths and areas of expertise ensures that the project moves forward efficiently. This process contributes to the successful completion of projects by ensuring that both time and skills are used most efficiently. Resource management also includes budget and time planning; therefore, proper allocation helps to keep overall project costs under control.

  1. Clear Timelines

Creating clear timelines provides a structured overview of the project’s phases, milestones, and deadlines. This structure makes time management efficient and allows projects to progress according to the planned schedule. Timelines ensure that the team works within the specified timeframes, while also providing clients with clear information about the project’s current stage. Regularly updating and monitoring these timelines helps to avoid potential delays.

  1. Setting and Tracking Milestones

As mentioned earlier, milestones are important checkpoints that ensure that projects are completed within the specified timeframe. Regularly monitoring these milestones allows for early detection of potential obstacles and timely corrective action. Milestones also serve as a roadmap to measure project progress and help the team and client evaluate the project at each stage of the project.

  1. Structured Revision Cycles and Quality Control

Implementing clearly defined revision cycles allows for client feedback to be captured and the work to be iteratively improved. Implementing quality control measures throughout the project process ensures that potential issues are identified early and addressed promptly. Revision cycles help manage expectations for both the client and the team, while also ensuring that the final product is of the highest quality. Consistent quality control throughout the revision process ensures that deliverables are as expected and error-free.

The creative process is a complex process that brings together different skills and expertise. Managing this process correctly from the beginning ensures that the process progresses in a higher-quality manner. The important thing is to obtain outputs that meet the brand’s exact wishes. Whether progressing with an in-house team or producing with the support of an agency, brand strategy is the fundamental basis of the creative process. Today, the increasing need for digital channels and content has made it necessary to manage creative processes in a much more organized manner. At this point, progress in the creative process must be planned correctly. The goal should be determined with clear statements. Communication among the team should be maximized. The use of technology greatly affects the creative process. Software offered to professionals today has made it possible for the creative process to occur faster and more effectively. Working in a comfortable atmosphere for creative individuals increases the quality of creative production. Creating a flexible and comfortable working environment is as important as creating the right teams.

IDEA

Every communication work has a clear, effective, and differentiated idea. Creative thinking is the most critical feature that makes an advertising campaign strong. That’s why a big idea is needed in every campaign. Before starting marketing activities, it is necessary to spend a lot of time finding creative ideas. Creativity is the most effective way to distinguish brands from other brands. Creativity is the discovery of the new. Influencing the masses is only possible with ideas to be remembered and shared. Every communication work has a main idea. The main idea is the overarching message that will be integrated into all marketing efforts. 360 marketing activities are realized by designing the main idea to be integrated into all channels.

The big idea is the creative main idea for campaigns. It is an inclusive summary for everyone involved in marketing work. The idea should be such that it will meet the goals that the brand wants to achieve. Before brainstorming, the target audience of the brand, product, and service, and the market should be analyzed well. Insight should be presented in a way that understands the consumer’s problem. The big idea should make an impact and resonate with the target audience.

Creative ideas attract and affect customers, employees, and investors on an emotional level. Brands need ideas with which customers will spend more time on their websites. Interactive content ideas will increase brand awareness. Immersive brand experience ideas will create unforgettable memories for customers. That’s why creative ideas are so important in marketing.

Creative ideas are needed to connect brands with their customers. Creative ideas are realized with strong concepts. Distinctive and remarkable messages depend on their presentation of concepts that support the big idea. Communications presented as concepts allow target audiences to perceive the message quickly. The presence of the concept will keep the main image constant, even if the images and texts change to attract the attention and attention of the target audience. Common images will connect the messages.

Marketing is the activity of transforming ideas into ideas that will benefit a project. Ideas should be able to be integrated into various platforms. Current media trends should be followed. Innovative ideas should inspire and differentiate the brand from its competitors. A conceptual perspective is essential for generating original ideas. Ideas can include different arts and disciplines. Ideas must be approved by competent experts before they can be put into practice.

Using Creativity for Marketing Success: Igniting the Imagination

Applying creativity in marketing involves integrating creative concepts and strategies into your marketing efforts to promote a product or service. While the general goals of creative marketing are consistent with traditional methods, the approaches and tactics used can differ significantly. Using creativity in marketing efforts aims to provide audiences with experiences that attract, inspire, and resonate with them, ultimately improving brand awareness and understanding.

Incorporating creativity into marketing is crucial for several reasons. While traditional strategies remain prevalent, encouraging innovative approaches can provide numerous benefits:

Creating Brand Identity:

Creative marketing efforts provide ample opportunities to strengthen brand identity. Delivering creative campaigns that cleverly integrate the brand’s essence can leave a lasting impact on target audiences, distinguishing the brand from competitors and increasing brand recall.

Enabling Target Audience Collaboration:

Creative marketing facilitates deeper engagement by tapping into the audience’s emotions and perspectives. By adopting creative strategies, one can develop a collaborative relationship with target audiences, gain valuable information about their preferences, emotions, and needs, and thus improve marketing strategies.

Encouraging Idea Generation:

Integrating creativity into marketing strategy encourages idea generation in the team. By encouraging innovative thinking and inspiring the development of new promotional concepts and campaigns, success, interaction, and sales can be increased.

Optimizing Resource Allocation:

Effective application of creativity in marketing can lead to significant resource savings, especially in advertising expenditures. Well-executed creative campaigns often drive significant organic engagement, reduce the need for extensive promotional investment, and make marketing efforts more cost-effective.

Improving Performance:

Combining creativity with data-driven insights can significantly improve the performance of marketing efforts. By analyzing the success of creative campaigns, you can gain valuable insight into audience preferences and engagement patterns, enabling iterative improvements and increasing performance levels.

Integrating creativity into marketing strategies improves brand differentiation and audience engagement and fosters innovation, resource efficiency, and increased performance in marketing initiatives.

Refreshing Marketing Strategy: Six Steps to Inspire New Ideas

Businesses often need fresh ideas to compete in the marketing world. The six steps to adding new and creative ideas to marketing strategies can be explained step by step as follows. By following these steps, a business can breathe new life into its marketing strategy and increase its competitive advantage.

It is necessary to note new concepts that come to mind while wandering around or taking a relaxing shower. Surrounding the environment with creativity-enhancing colors always helps. It is necessary to document all new ideas, no matter how disconnected they may initially seem from the marketing plan.

Do any of the new ideas resonate? Can these be included in the business’s marketing strategy? Although new and creative approaches may seem eccentric, they often require exploration.

Which ideas should be tried first? It is preferable to choose a new approach every time. Rather than rushing into multiple ideas for which one does not have the necessary energy and resources, it would be right to focus the effort on implementing it effectively and thoroughly evaluating its effectiveness.

What results are expected to be achieved with the newfound idea? It is necessary to make sure that the goals you define meet the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely).

How will the innovative idea be transformed into actionable steps in the marketing strategy? The tactics to be applied during implementation need to be determined.

After a reasonable period, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of the new tactic. Is there room for improvement or should an alternative approach be considered?

Introducing new tactics into the business’s marketing efforts will regularly strengthen the strategy, prevent stagnation, and ensure its continued relevance.

Design Thinking: The Management Tool of Creativity

Design Thinking has emerged as an approach that can adapt to the changing business environment and is widely adopted by companies to develop strategies, marketing plans, innovation efforts, and organizational design. Indeed, design thinking has powered leading brands such as Apple, and Google to develop intentional, human-centered products.

Design Thinking is one of the many tools you can use to solve complex problems. Design thinking is an iterative approach that aims to understand users, redefine problems, and question assumptions; This allows exploring alternative solutions and strategies. It is a way of thinking and working that involves a diverse collection of applied methods.

Design thinking focuses on developing a deep concern for the people being designed for when designing products and services. It allows questioning problems, assumptions, and conclusions. Using this approach, by reframing ambiguous or unknown problems in human-centered ways, brainstorming sessions can generate many ideas and a hands-on approach can be taken in the prototyping and testing stages. Design thinking also involves constant iteration and experimentation – sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out new concepts and ideas.

Marketing today is more about connecting with people and less about money. Successful marketing campaigns create an emotional connection with audiences and touch their hearts. Beyond providing quantitative market research data, qualitative data from design research allows for empathy with potential customers. One can empathize with customers to understand why they buy something.

How Can You Use Design Thinking in Marketing?

Marketers often forget how to acquire and retain customers by focusing on customer characteristics and forget what kind of problem they want to solve with products. Empathy is the key to getting to real customer problems. It is important not to think of customers just as numbers, but to analyze their hopes, fears, emotions, and the unique stories they will share. Once you get to know and empathize with customers, there will be an opportunity to think about products and marketing methods from a completely different perspective.

It is necessary to utilize design thinking tools such as empathy mapping, buyer personas, and roadmaps to uncover customer pain points and opportunities. Resources and budgets can then be systematically prioritized to transform the customer experience. In design thinking, flare methods or decomposition thinking are used to gather a wide range of user stories to explore ideas find opportunities, and increase the quantity without judgment while brainstorming. From a set of concepts or themes, fewer concepts and themes can be created using focusing or integrative thinking methods.

Traditional marketing processes are not fast. Once time and money are invested in an idea, it can be difficult to let go of it. Design sprints can be helpful here because they save time spent creating ideas by quickly progressing to the test, learn, and iteration phases. This will help gather more insights and create new opportunities to enable growth and scale.

As a result, Design Thinking can help marketers keep in step with increasingly savvy customer expectations and take marketing to the next level. The design thinking framework systematically addresses problems and ruthlessly measures results, from dollars earned to customer satisfaction levels. This is a methodology that encourages innovation, encourages new thinking, and develops groundbreaking ideas, but remains realistic. It combines customers’ wishes with what is technically possible and economically feasible for the business.

ART

Art as a form of communication is visual, textual, and auditory codes. It gives form to the transmission and effect of knowledge. Art is what words cannot say. Storytelling is a form of expression that everyone can perceive and be inspired by. Art is calming, exciting, and surprising. A creative work of art is different. Anything different attracts people’s attention. Art is effective in influencing the masses. A piece of music can be heard all over the world with the same enthusiasm. It is a universal form of communication. Art makes people more empathetic and provides a better emotional transition.

As a marketing tool, art is a way of establishing an emotional connection with the customer. Art is necessary to create the overall visual identities of brands. The formation of a standard style of brand is possible with many branches of art. Art is used for an engagingly designed ad image, captivating videos, or ad soundtrack. Marketing is the result of the collaboration of art and technology. Both logical data and artistic aesthetics are in balance in marketing communication.

Art and marketing professionals can present different perspectives when preparing an advertising work. For the marketing professional, a video is an interaction and transformation, while for an art director, it is aesthetic and emotional content. However, the resulting work must be in direct proportion to the brand’s strategy. Art elements make it possible to appeal more effectively to the desires, fears, or other abstract emotions of the target audience. Art builds bridges between customers and ideas. And it manages to do this on a global scale.

It is only possible for a brand to tell its story in the best way with photographs, drawings, videos, or texts. At this point, brand and art are intertwined. When the best advertisements are examined, it is seen that they consist of masterfully created art. Marketing exists when many branches of art it contains meet on a common ground for a specific goal.

The use of a strong concept in advertising campaigns enriches all communication activities. This is the creative formula to differentiate and differentiate from other campaigns. A strong concept allows an ad that lasts 30 seconds to turn into a social media post that can be perceived in 5 seconds. Because at the concept stage, color, font, typography, picture, and other visual and auditory elements were determined. Wherever the campaign messages within this framework appear, it will be understood which brand they belong to. The concept is a guide to the style of communication work. It is a framework for the entire creative process.

Ideas are thoughts constructed to solve a particular problem. Concept, on the other hand, is a comprehensive guide planned to achieve the desired result. Concepts can be divided into visual and verbal. The verbal concept is about what the brand will say and how. It may contain abstract concepts. It consists of the messages to be conveyed in the design. The visual concept, on the other hand, is more concretely about design, color, and image. Concepts in which both are compatible with each other are effective in attracting attention to advertisements.

Art and Advertising: A Complex Relationship Evolving Throughout History

In today’s societies, the aim is to sell products through various channels, relying on the consumer power of the population. However, the traditional role of art in society has been portrayed as distancing itself from commerce, aligning with literature and music for higher purposes. Yet, the claim that art has remained far from the sales-focused nature of commerce can be questioned.

Sir John Everett Millais’ painting “Bubbles” is one of the earliest examples of a renowned artist’s work overtly used for commercial purposes. Created in the late 19th century by Millais, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the painting was utilized by the British soap company Pears for advertising.

The Art Nouveau movement can be considered a period when art and commerce converged. Alphonse Mucha, a key figure in Art Nouveau, designed his art as a form that could be consumed for advertising purposes. Using his works, particularly portraits of the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt, for commercial posters marked an early instance of art being open to consumption.

The emergence of the Pop Art movement marked a reversal of power roles between art and advertising. Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” depicted popular consumer products as art objects, symbolizing a shift in the relationship between art, advertising, and popular culture.

Logos, designed for companies to ensure recognition and memorability in a competitive market, are a product of using artistic iconography. In 1969, the Spanish lollipop brand Chupa Chups hired the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí to design its commercial logo, showcasing how art evolved to be more integrated with brand identity.

In conclusion, the relationship between commercial art and advertising has generally been mutually beneficial. However, this relationship has been complex, and art has consistently maintained its tendency to both represent and critique the reality of its time. Art can serve as a source for advertising, but at the same time, it can be its most potent critic.

Visual Art in Advertising: Crafting Consumer Connections

While advertising aims to sell a product, it can also be considered a form of visual art. Graphic artists working in advertising and marketing agencies utilize various artistic techniques to create aesthetics. The primary goal of commercial art is to establish an image for the product and the manufacturing company. This image intends to evoke emotional connections between the consumer and the product. The artistic methods employed in advertising mainly focus on shaping this image.

  • Line: Lines can convey speed, solidity, and purposefulness. Different line styles, such as jagged, broken, thin, or thick lines, may be used in ads to elicit specific emotional effects. For example, an industrial ad in a farm magazine might use thick, vertical black lines to promote a tractor, while an online catalog ad for lingerie could feature soft, curvy, wispy lines.
  • Shape: Shapes can suggest various concepts. Curves may imply femininity and voluptuousness, while angles might suggest masculinity and practicality. The dominant shapes in an ad can drive the creation of images and associations based on these fundamental ideas.
  • Forms: Forms are more intricate than shapes and represent the outward manifestation of inward content. Graphic artists may use two-dimensional forms to create the illusion of three-dimensional forms for realistic or abstract representation of a concept.
  • Texture: Texture refers to the surface qualities of an object, and artists face the challenge of creating a visual representation of a tactile surface. Various techniques are employed to create the illusion of texture on a flat surface.
  • Color: Colors are powerful image builders. Different colors evoke different emotions; for example, red is often used to depict youthfulness, power, and action, while blue is associated with relaxation. Color choices can significantly impact the perception of an ad.
  • Value and Intensity: Values, typically related to color, refer to changes in the actual color in the “form” of an object and can also change in intensity. Intense colors may suggest speed, youth, and virility, common in ads targeting a youthful audience.
  • Use of Space: Space is the most comprehensive of all artistic elements, serving as the synthesis of all other elements in a campaign. It is the stage on which all artistic elements come together. The spatial distribution of objects in a defined environment is crucial in conveying the intended message.

In summary, advertising incorporates various artistic elements, making it a visual art form with the primary objective of selling a product while creating a specific image and emotional connection with the consumer.

Shaping Brand Image through Art Direction

Art direction begins with creating an overall visual concept that turns brands into a memorable identity. This creative vision is translated into a set of brand guidelines that any designer producing content for various platforms can adopt. Art directors manage the creative process to ensure different artistic elements work together to create a unified message. This often involves overseeing design teams consisting of graphic designers, photographers, filmmakers, and copywriters. Whether for brand design, content marketing, or advertising, the goal is to ensure that different media formats, including images, videos, graphics, and print, work together harmoniously.

When art direction is done well, it guides the target audience through the sales funnel by providing a memorable experience that elicits an emotional response, making them want to explore more and engage with the business, products, and services. Art direction ensures that the visual personality of your brand works together to deliver a compelling message that resonates with the audience. Without an art director ensuring the consistency of the customer’s journey, you may end up with a mixed and unfocused user experience.

Art directors address these issues by:
  • Considering the perspectives and opinions of different stakeholders without pushing the design in multiple directions.
  • Ensuring the creative team is clear on what they need to do to achieve the goal.
  • Ensuring the quality of the design work meets the client’s expectations.
  • Ensuring the designs conform to the brief, branding, and style guidelines.
  • Keeping the project on track and delivering it on time.

Art directors oversee design projects to ensure they meet the design brief and align with the brand identity. This involves determining the project’s tone and visual objectives, directing creative staff by setting the creative direction. From brand design to marketing campaigns, content marketing to advertisements, art direction plays a role in all marketing areas. It’s important to note that the absence of someone with the title of art director in your organization doesn’t mean the work isn’t being done. Depending on the size and structure of the organization, responsibilities may be divided differently.

For instance, in a smaller company, the role may fall on a graphic designer or a senior graphic designer, with responsibilities shared among other creative team members. In a larger organization, responsibilities for conceptual and big-picture tasks often concentrate on the creative director. A creative director has authority over all creative aspects, both visual and non-visual. In this case, the art director is more responsible for interpreting the brief, directing the creative team, and managing the project.

Guiding the Creative Process: The Role of an Art Director

Art direction is concerned with creating the overall concept to visually communicate the campaign message effectively and interpreting the marketing brief. While creating this vision is often the responsibility of the creative or art director, doing it correctly requires experience, insight, imagination, and intuition.

Additionally, understanding the target audience to resonate with the campaign’s style, tone, and mood may involve market research. Another crucial responsibility of an art director is overseeing the design process to ensure that artistic elements align with the desired core message or idea. This means the art director must convey the brief to graphic designers and other creative team members and supervise the team’s work throughout the project’s development. This ensures that all visual assets align with the visual design brief, brand guidelines, and design principles.

Art directors need to regularly review and provide feedback on the work of the creative team. This involves identifying and developing inspiring ideas. In practice, project management can change multiple times throughout the project lifecycle. The creative process always evolves in response to new ideas, perspectives, or situations. This can be due to client input, new research or information, or inspiration from the creative team.

Art directors often receive client feedback by presenting different concepts and design options during progress meetings. If the client’s project management team is not satisfied or sees something they like, they may request the design to move in a different direction. Feedback from focus groups or trials may necessitate a review of the brief. Art directors must expect the design team to find inspiring ideas and then present them to stakeholders for approval. Therefore, art directors consistently make efforts to stay connected between the design team, account managers, and clients, ensuring everyone works towards the same goal.

This requires art directors to play a role in:
  • Creating project plans, schedules, and deadlines
  • Assigning tasks based on individual strengths and seeking external assistance when needed
  • Managing the daily work of the creative team
  • Maintaining client relationships and negotiating with all stakeholders
  • Monitoring the progress of projects
  • Presenting work at progress meetings
  • Ensuring projects stay within budget
  • Delivering projects on time and in a manner that satisfies client expectations


In today’s highly competitive market, brands are compelled to seek differentiation through innovative management strategies due to a new breed of consumers who are more demanding, informed, active, and skeptical of conventional advertising. The uniformity in product features has led brands to explore relevant and emotionally engaging communication. In this context, incorporating references to art in commercial brand communication is proposed as a valid means of creating a connection with consumers. The evolving relationship between art and advertising supports an integrative vision, where both mutually benefit from each other. Empirically demonstrating the positive impact of visual art on consumer product perception in advertising, brands increasingly adopt this strategy. The various formulas for using visual art as an advertising resource can be classified into eleven types based on the form of expression and content, opening avenues for future research in this evolving field.

PERFORMANCE MARKETING

Performance marketing is a type of digital marketing based on results. Advertising costs based solely on performance are very friendly to brands’ budgets. In addition, successful studies bring high conversions to brands. Brands optimize their performance-based ads by reviewing them at the end of the campaign. Thus, the efficiency of advertisements will be further increased in future campaigns. The criteria for success in performance marketing are correct segmentation, auction bid, quality score of advertisements, and the resulting conversion rate.

Performance marketing is a type of marketing that aims to take action. It is based on data and needs to be analyzed after advertising studies. The important thing is that the campaign is measurable. Clicks, visits, subscriptions, or sales can be one of the desired conversions of the campaign. CPM and CPC are traditional conversions. These models are mostly used to measure clicks and views. The contribution of the campaign to sales cannot be understood by looking at these models. For this, it is necessary to tie campaign success to conversion-based targets such as potential customers or sales. Only in this way can the success of the campaign be fully measured. The return on investment (ROI) of campaigns can be evaluated through direct sales or form downloads that will turn into sales. Only in this way can advertising budgets be used more efficiently. This is an important opportunity to get ahead of the competition.

Performance marketing generally consists of 4 groups:

Advertisers: This is the group formed by brands. Brands announce their products or services through their affiliates or publishers. Advertisers set campaign goals and look for a publisher with whom they can achieve them.

Affiliates or Publishers: Marketing partners who publish ads, campaigns, or direct products of advertisers. Product review sites, blogs, and mobile applications can be given as examples of this group. Such platforms have a certain traffic. Advertisers who want to benefit from this traffic introduce their brands to potential customers on these platforms. Platforms must align with the brand’s core identity and strategy.

Affiliate network and third-party tracking platforms: These are platforms where brands can reach affiliates that will publish certain marketing materials through a single address. Through these platforms, brands aim to increase their sales by giving sales commissions to affiliates. Partnerize, Commission Junction, AWIN, and Impact are some of such platforms.

OPMs (Outsourced Program Management): These are the support units that brands will deal with affiliates or affiliate platforms on their behalf. Having support from outside the company has enabled them to specialize in subsidiaries.

Understanding the place and importance of these groups within performance marketing increases the number of successes to be achieved. Only in this way can brands reach new audiences and increase their traffic. By knowing the structure of these groups, brands can plan where they can invest more. Advertisers agree to a CPA model with affiliates, which means payment will only be made when the desired action is taken. This means a high return on investment with a low payment.

Performance marketing offers a broad category that includes marketing strategies aimed at measurable and specific targets in the digital world. These strategies are designed to increase brand awareness across various online platforms, optimize customer engagement, and most importantly, target tangible conversions. Various types of performance marketing, such as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Display Advertising, Social Media Ads, Native Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Video Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Email Marketing, Sponsored Content, and Programmatic Advertising, allow businesses to develop strategies that suit their specific needs and target audience. recognizes.

01 | SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Search engine marketing is paid advertising that brands use to have their products and services appear on search engine pages (SERPs). Brands type certain words into search engines to research or purchase a product or service. They generally tend to click on pages that appear first in search engines. Brands that cannot do the right work in terms of SEO manage to rank at the top of search engines organically. Brands that fail to achieve this pay for certain keywords and rank higher in searches for these words. In other words, businesses that want to invest in SEM enter the auction of the keywords they have determined and pay certain fees.

Google ads go through an ad auction before being displayed. To enter the ad auction, you must first select specific keywords and determine the amount you are willing to spend per click on each. However, not every keyword is guaranteed to appear in every search; If some keywords are not commercially viable or irrelevant to the user’s search query, the ad may not be displayed. Additionally, the maximum bid and Quality Score of the ads are important to win during the ad auction. Quality Score measures the quality of the ad, keyword, and landing page; A higher Quality Score makes the ad more likely to perform better.

The issues that need to be considered to be successful in search engine marketing are:

Keyword: Finding the right keyword to bid on is the most critical issue. It is necessary to do good research on this subject. It is necessary to brainstorm on which word to search for the product. Prioritizing specific words that carry purchasing intent would be a budget-friendly approach. If the budget is large, bids can be placed on more generally relevant words rather than words to be searched directly with the intention of purchasing.

Keyword Volume and Competition: Keyword volume refers to the frequency with which a particular keyword is searched in a particular period, which is an important factor in measuring the popularity of a keyword. High-volume keywords often offer the potential to reach a wide audience, but can also result in intense competition. The competitive analysis evaluates how much other advertisers are bidding for certain keywords and the intensity of competition for these keywords. Advertising in areas with intense competition can increase cost per click and negatively impact budget effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to take a balanced approach to keyword selection. Low-volume but less competitive keywords can offer the potential for more authentic engagement with your target audience.

Keyword Cost: Keyword cost refers to the cost an advertiser is willing to pay per click for a particular keyword. This cost may vary depending on keyword popularity, level of competition, and industry-specific factors. High-volume and competitive keywords generally have higher costs. This indicates that a particular keyword is in demand by its target audience and competition against this demand is increasing.

Account and Campaign Structure: Account structure determines how an advertiser organizes their campaigns in Google Ads or other SEM platforms, and this structure ensures that campaigns are effectively managed and optimized. Each campaign typically represents a specific product, service, or marketing goal. The account structure allows grouping campaigns and making settings specific to these campaigns. The campaign level is where the overall strategy is determined. Below are the campaign groups; each campaign group contains ads associated with specific keywords.

Ad Text: Each ad copy should be created by targeting a specific keyword or group of keywords. These texts should be directly associated with the targeted keywords and respond to users’ search queries in the most appropriate way. Titles, descriptions, and URLs should be conveyed to potential customers in a way that highlights your brand’s value, unique features, and benefits.

Website Optimization: Keywords should be used correctly in website content, title tags, meta descriptions, and other important HTML tags. Thus, search engines better understand what topics the website is about and can rank better in relevant searches. Additionally, technical factors such as website speed and mobile compatibility are also important. A fast-loading website allows users to navigate better and is appreciated by search engines. Content quality also plays a critical role in website optimization. Relevant, valuable, and original content both pleases users and is rewarded by search engines.

Landing Page: Landing Page plays a critical role in ensuring that users find the right information and interaction options on the page they land on after clicking ads. Landing pages should be designed to ensure that advertisers focus on a specific campaign goal and allow users to quickly reach the content they are looking for.

A/B Testing: A/B testing involves an experiment where two different ad or page variations are used simultaneously. This testing offers a data-driven approach to understanding which elements are most effective and improving strategies. A/B tests involving different elements such as ad copy, headline selections, calls to action, color schemes, or conversion forms give advertisers the chance to determine the most effective strategies to achieve specific goals.

Search engine marketing offers marketers a powerful strategy by offering the ability to deliver instant results, comprehensive targeting options, a variety of pricing options, ease of automation, and extensive analytical data. Thanks to the advantage of instant results, advertisers can launch their campaigns on the same day and start seeing results immediately. The targeting feature allows you to reach customers directly through various parameters such as location, interests, and online activity. At the same time, flexibility in budget management is provided by choosing between a variety of paid search channels and techniques. The automation feature ensures that ads are delivered automatically after one-time adjustments, saving time and resources. Analytical data helps develop a comprehensive understanding of the target market and business strategies by monitoring the performance of SEM campaigns in detail. When these features come together, SEM offers marketers an effective, fast, and measurable marketing strategy.

02 | DISPLAY ADVERTISING

One of the oldest examples of online advertising is display advertising. Banner ads are among the ads that internet users are used to seeing. Brands use display advertising to raise awareness, drive traffic, and reach their potential customers. The critical thing here is to correctly determine the platforms where the target audience is located and the type of display advertising suitable for this platform. Display advertising can be with images, text, GIFs, or videos, or it can be designed in an HTML format that includes all of these.

With the rapid increase in internet usage brought about by the digital age, it has become inevitable for businesses to direct their advertising strategies to the online environment. Display advertising offers businesses the advantage of reaching a wide range of internet users with visual and impressive advertisements. Reaching a target audience through large platforms such as the Google Display Network may present potential risks, but with a careful strategy, the opportunities this format offers to increase brand awareness and attract potential customers with visual interaction are valuable. Eye-catching formats of display ads offer benefits like strengthening brand consistency, nurturing leads, and transforming PPC strategies, fueling businesses’ online success.

Display advertising, like search engine marketing, is a type of PPC advertising. It is budget-friendly as it charges per click or view. When it comes to display advertising, the first thing that comes to mind is Google ads. Apart from this, display advertising formats made through other social media platforms such as Facebook Ad Manager are also included in display advertising. However, these are discussed under a broader heading as Social Media Advertising. YouTube advertising is also planned through the Google Ads platform under the scope of display advertising.

When display advertising formats are examined, 4 formats stand out:

Static Ads: These are simple, inactive ads consisting of text and images. These types of ads are usually saved in JPEG or PNG format and have the advantage of fast loading. Ideal for those who want to communicate with a simple design and text.

Animated Ads: Use movement to attract attention and convey the message more dynamically. Created as GIF or HTML5 files, these ads contain multiple frames and are used to tell more complex messages or stories.

Video Ads: Attracts the attention of the target audience by combining visual and audio elements. They can be shared on websites and social media platforms. Video ads are used to make a strong impression and tell the brand’s story.

Interactive Ads: Contain clickable elements, forms, or other interactive features through which users can interact with the ad. They are often created using HTML5 and encourage users to interact with the ad.

These types of display ads are published at various points on the website or applications. The most common of these are banner ads. Banner ads are located at the top, bottom, or side of websites. Large ads are full-screen ads that cover the interfaces of websites or applications. Large advertisements appear on the screen when the website or mobile application is opened and disappear after a certain period until the main page is opened. It is mostly used for promotions and announcements. Pop-up ads are small windows that suddenly open on a website. Pop-up ads that open right in the middle of websites are quite eye-catching.

When examining the display advertising forms, the most popular forms are as follows:
  • Banners
  • Billboards
  • Skyscrapers
  • Buttons
  • Boxes
  • Pop up
  • Pop-under
  • Floating Ads
  • Expanding
  • Wallpaper
  • Interstitial
  • Superstitial

The Google Display Network brings together more than 2 million websites around the world, handling the bulk of most visual advertising. This network includes many websites, from small to large, popular to niche, which means the potential advertising space is large. Google also includes Gmail and YouTube. Google also provides a variety of tools to tailor an advertiser’s ads to a specific audience. When creating a campaign based on this type of advertising, it is possible to determine targeting, that is, to whom the ad will be shown. Facebook Audience Network is one of the giants of digital marketing and offers ad placement on its services. Meta has a very wide reach as it includes many popular networks. Another option is the Twitter Audience Platform, which can put your service in front of 700 million people.

Proper targeting allows you to reach an audience that is truly interested in your company and generate leads. This service may be a bit costly, but with effective targeting, the investment can be well worth it.

In general terms, when we divide display advertising according to its specific features, the types are as follows:

Site Placement Advertising (Banner): There are certain websites, blogs, or applications that the brand’s potential customers visit. The existence of these platforms often depends on the display ads they include on the site. Brands prepare and send banners to these platforms in the dimensions given to them. These banners are published within the period determined by the agreement.

Display Networks: Google Display Network brings together more than 2 million websites worldwide, handling the bulk of most visual advertising. This network includes many websites, from small to large, popular to niche, which means the potential advertising space is large. Google also includes Gmail and YouTube. Google also provides a variety of tools to tailor an advertiser’s ads to a specific audience. When creating a campaign based on this type of advertising, it is possible to determine targeting, that is, to whom the ad will be shown. Facebook Audience Network is one of the giants of digital marketing and offers ad placement on its services. Meta has a very wide reach as it includes many popular networks. Another option is the Twitter Audience Platform, which can put your service in front of 700 million people.

Advertising efforts used as display advertising are targeted in different ways:
  • Geographical targeting makes the target groups reached tied to a specific location.
  • Contextual targeting means ads are customized based on specific keywords and the topic of a website.
  • Thematic targeting, ads are displayed on websites with a specific area of expertise
  • Directional targeting, ads are displayed on certain selected target sites (individual preference possible).
  • Retargeting refers to ads appearing to viewers who have previously visited the website and taken a specific set of actions.

Social Media Display Ads: Social Media Display Ads are a type of advertising that brands use to promote products, services, or messages on social media platforms. These ads are ad formats that appear visually in users’ social media feeds or other content areas. Social media platforms use these visual ads to reach users more effectively and direct them to a wide audience to increase brand awareness. This type of advertising is widely used on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Brands can use social media visual ads strategically to reach their target audience directly and strengthen their online presence.

Programmatic Display Ads: Refers to a technology and process used to automatically and efficiently buy and sell advertising inventory from advertisers and publishers. This form of advertising is carried out using programmatic advertising technologies. This type of advertising offers a faster, more efficient, and more targeted approach compared to traditional manual ad-buying processes. Programmatic Display Ads offers advertisers a powerful tool to achieve better results and effectively manage their advertising budgets.

Some example companies operating in this field are:
  • The Trade Desk
  • DoubleClick by Google
  • AppNexus
  • Adobe Advertising Cloud
  • Rubicon Project
  • Criteo

These companies are just a few of the leading players in the programmatic advertising space. Each has different features and services and provides advertisers, agencies, and publishers with a variety of tools to implement programmatic advertising strategies.

Native Display Ads: This is a type of advertising in which ads are integrated appropriately into the natural content and design of the platform on which they are located, offering an organic appearance without disrupting the user experience. These ads are designed to fit in with other content and are often presented in a format that doesn’t explicitly identify them as an ad, but has a more organic feel. These types of ads often appear on social media platforms, news sites, and various other content platforms. These ads provide advertisers with an effective tool to attract and engage users more naturally.

Display ads can identify the target audience. It creates strong interaction with the customer and can be easily noticed thanks to creative graphic solutions such as large formats, photos, animations, or videos. Affects the user; Display ad formats enable interactions such as commenting, liking, or sharing. It significantly increases brand awareness, especially vital for specific brand or product campaigns. It increases the product thought process and creates purchase intent. It is effective in the e-commerce industry and digital display ads are more economical when compared to traditional ad formats, such as TV, radio, and print.

03 | SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Social media advertising is a type of digital advertising and means spending a budget to deliver content to a specific target audience on the preferred social media platform. This concept, called “paid reach,” refers to the number of people who see the ad and contrasts organic reach with people who view content distributed for free. Social media ads offer an effective way to reach the desired target audience directly, and ads can be paid for before making special efforts to create viral content.

Social media advertising allows you to reach new customers as well as develop strategies for returning customers. It also helps optimize advertising strategies by offering the chance to run hands-on A/B tests. The downside is that it is costly, but social media platforms offer flexible pricing options to suit various budgets. Therefore, a certain budget should be created to start with social media advertising.

To do social media advertising, it is necessary to narrow it down using filters, settings, and criteria. This targeting may include targeting by geographic locations, ages, hobbies, and professions. Then, after determining the starting point, it is necessary to determine the goal. Although different social media advertising platforms offer conversion tools, the main goal is usually to direct people to share their contact information. This goal can be achieved by filling out a form or visiting a landing page on the website.

Paid social media platforms for marketing are as follows:

Each paid social media platform has its unique features, and these features differentiate the platforms from their competitors. All major social media platforms offer advertising options, but it’s not necessary to use them all. When choosing where to place the ad, it is important to know which social networks the target audience prefers. Which platforms are the places where the target audience is most dense and accessible?

FACEBOOK

Facebook ads can appear in various parts of the app, including users’ feeds, stories, Messenger, Marketplace, and more. These ads look similar to regular posts, but they always include a “sponsored” tag. Facebook ads include more features than regular posts, such as CTA buttons, links, and product catalogs.

Facebook is popular across many demographic groups, with 2.91 billion monthly active users. Although millennials stand out as the most active demographic, young people, Generation X and even the elderly also use this platform. Offering detailed targeting options for this wide user base, Facebook is a great platform to start social media advertising.

Facebook advertising models are as follows:
  • Feed
  • Marketplace
  • Video Feeds
  • Right Column
  • Business Discovery
  • Stories
  • reels
  • In-Stream Video
  • Instant articles

Facebook advertising types offer businesses a wide range of options. Image ads use a single image to promote products or brands in a basic format. Video ads include a single video used for product demos or tutorials. Carousel ads allow you to showcase different products by presenting ten clickable images or videos. Playable ads preview products or apps by providing interactive experiences. Collection ads provide a mobile shopping experience, allowing you to browse the product range. Slideshow ads serve as an alternative to video ads with little data usage. Stories ads drive engagement in a full-screen vertical video format. Messenger ads allow users to initiate interaction with the brand. This diversity allows businesses to choose the most effective type of advertising to suit their goals.

INSTAGRAM

Instagram ads address six broad campaign categories, including awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion, and sales. The platform is popular among Gen Z and Gen X users, especially millennials. Although there are fewer boomers and older users on Instagram compared to Facebook, the platform offers extensive custom targeting options, the ability to create lookalike audiences and identify audience behaviors, interests, and demographics.

Instagram advertising models are as follows:
  • Feed
  • Profile Feed
  • Explore
  • Explore Homepage
  • Stories
  • Reels
  • Search Result

Instagram ads can appear in users’ Feeds and Stories, as well as in the Explore and Instagram Shop navigation experience. All Instagram ads carry the “sponsored” icon and may include a C2A button. There are a variety of ad styles available, including Boosted Posts, which look like regular Instagram posts, Carousel ads that allow users to swipe to different images, Instagram Stories ads that appear in a full-screen format, Reels that highlight video content, and Instagram Shop ads that showcase products on the Shop tab home page.

Promoted posts carry the “Sponsored” label, while Carousel ads allow users to scroll to different images. Instagram Stories ads use photos or videos in full-screen format for up to 120 seconds. Reels is an Instagram highlight that focuses on video content and supports looping ad Reels of up to 30 seconds, encouraging engagement with comments, likes, shares, and saves. Instagram Shop ads are ads that promote products on the Shop tab home page, allowing users to click through to get more information on the product details page. Instagram’s variety of ad formats gives businesses the flexibility to choose the most effective style based on their campaign goals and audience.

X

Twitter ads support three main business goals: awareness, opinion, and conversion. It seems that the platform’s accessible audience includes male users.

X advertising models are as follows:
  • Promoted Ads
  • Amplify Pre-Roll
  • Amplify Sponsorships
  • Trend Takeover
  • Timeline Takeover
  • X Live
  • Dynamic Product Ads
  • Collection Ads

The platform’s advertising services include various options such as Promoted Ads, Product Ads, Amplify, Takeover, and X Live. Promoted Ads are a type of advertising that allows brands to show special content to X users to people who are not their followers.

While Amplify allows brands to place their video content before certain publishers, Takeover ads come in two different types, Trend Takeover and Timeline Takeover. Trend Takeover offers the ability to display sponsored ads on Twitter’s home page and in the Trending tab on the Explore screen. Timeline Takeover, on the other hand, includes ads that appear at the top of users’ timelines on their first visit of the day.

While Twitter Live is available for free to everyone, it stands out as an option that brands can pay to maximize their reach. Additional features like polls, hashtags, and branded hashtag ads are also among the various branding opportunities offered by X ads.

LINKEDIN

LinkedIn ads work towards three basic marketing goals of businesses: raising awareness, generating opinions, and achieving conversions. Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn is a more business-oriented platform and offers targeting options based on professional characteristics such as job title and seniority.

LinkedIn advertising models are as follows:
  • Sponsored Content
  • Sponsored Messaging
  • Lead Gene Forms
  • Text and Dynamic Ads

Among the different types of ads used on this advertising platform is “Sponsored Content”. These ads are available in a variety of formats, including single image, carousel, document, video, or event ads, and appear in a similar position in the LinkedIn feed as organic content, but are marked as “Supported.”

LinkedIn also offers a type of advertising called “Sponsored Messaging”. This involves sending direct first-person messages and allows users to engage with a series of referrals of their choosing, either by delivering personalized messages to the audience’s LinkedIn inbox or through interactive “Conversation” ads. Additionally, a personalized ad format called “Dynamic Ads” automatically adapts for each viewer, allowing personalized campaigns to be automated at scale.

YOUTUBE

YouTube ads can help businesses achieve business goals such as awareness, generating opinion, and driving action. YouTube’s user base consists mostly of men and has a wide spread among age groups up to the age of 65.

YouTube advertising models are as follows:
  • Skippable Video Ads
  • Non-Skippable Video Ads
  • Bumper Ads
  • In-Feed Video Ads
  • YouTube Shorts Ads
  • Watch Feed
  • Masthead

There are various video ad formats on YouTube. The “Skippable Video Ads” option has options that viewers can skip or skip (15 seconds maximum) and can run before, during, or after videos on YouTube. “Bumper Ads” are quick ads that last six seconds and cannot be skipped, and are an ideal option if you want to share short and striking content. “In-Feed Video Ads” are ads containing a thumbnail and text that can appear next to videos on YouTube, as part of search results, or on the YouTube homepage on mobile.

Masthead ads, on the other hand, are a type of advertising that is offered only to VIP customers through a Google sales representative through reservation. This featured ad appears at the top of the desktop site or mobile app and can play automatically for up to 30 seconds.

TIKTOK

TikTok ads can help you achieve business goals like website visits, app downloads, and online sales. TikTok users consist of young people; almost seventy percent are under 34 years old. Despite TikTok’s “don’t advertise, make TikToks” mantra, they offer paid brand solutions.

TikTok advertising models are as follows:
  • In-Feed Ads
  • TopView
  • Branded Mission
  • Branded Effect
  • Spark Ads
  • Promotion

Social media is teeming with user-generated content, and it’s important to have a personal feel. To optimize advertising expenditures, it is necessary to use the targeting tools of social media platforms. Advertising effectiveness can be increased by reaching relevant audiences based on factors such as location, interests, and browsing habits. Every social media platform has certain content rules. By following these rules, advertisements must be kept on air for the duration of the planned campaign. A strong “call” (CTA) should be used. Social media platforms provide statistics about your advertising campaigns. Advertising strategies can be developed by examining the data provided by major platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

05.04 | NATIVE ADVERTISING

Native advertising historically dates back to the era when advertising was only in print and emerged in the 1940s. This concept is intended to “match” the look and feel of the publication in which the ad is placed. Over time, native advertising has evolved to include any paid content designed to adapt to the form and function of the channel in which it appears. Nowadays, it is used extensively within the scope of digital marketing.

Native advertising takes advantage of the publisher’s efforts to attract a broader audience, rather than using advertisers’ channels. However, for native ads to be effective, the site must adapt to its content universe, which affects the performance of high-quality content. Similar to content marketing, native advertising can be successful based on the quality of the content and emphasizes the need for content to adapt to the natural flow.

The performance of native ads has been shown by many studies to have higher click-through rates and attract more attention from consumers compared to traditional display ads. Native ads may be less intrusive and better fit the target audience, resulting in lower annoyance and a higher likelihood of engagement. It appears that the use of native ads is an effective method for brands to engage with their target audience and build trust.

The main purpose of native advertising is to increase engagement by providing a smoother user experience. While in-feed advertising is the most common, there are many different native ad formats. While social media ads and search results ads are not included in this list (technically some of them can be considered native advertising because they adapt to the environment), they are considered along with other ad types to make digital advertising a seamless experience for all users.

Advertising models frequently used in local advertising are as follows:
In-Feed and In-Content Native Ads

The main difference between in-feed and in-content native ads is where they are placed. In-feed native ads appear within the normal content of a website or app, and users often encounter them in their news feeds or social media feeds. These ads blend in with the surrounding content, are often labeled “sponsored” or “promoted,” and may include static images or videos. In-content native ads are placed within a single piece of content, for example, a news article. These ads mimic surrounding content and can be served programmatically, similar to in-feed ads.

Content Recommendation Ads

Content recommendation ads generally refer to widgets located below news articles or content pages that present users with a list of related articles or products. These widgets are usually labeled with labels such as “recommended,” “sponsored,” or “you might also be interested in,” and have a design that matches the normal content of the website. Content recommendation ad widgets allow brands to promote their content or products naturally. Consumers generally respond more positively to these types of ads because they suggest relevant content that may be of interest to the user. These types of ads are also called content discovery ads or sponsored content ads and often redirect users to external sites.

Branded/Local Content

Branded/Native content includes content where a brand’s paid content is published on a publisher’s site in the same format as full editorial content, often in collaboration with the publisher’s content teams. This broad definition explains why it is sometimes called sponsored content or partner content. Some also refer to this as publisher-partnered content because this type of native advertising relies on the relationship between a brand and the publisher. While broadcasters generally produce the content, leading broadcasters appear to produce local content from a journalistic perspective through their studios.

Promoted Listings

Promoted listings are a type of native advertising commonly used by online retailers and are the process of giving special prominence to certain product listings. This may include methods such as showing them at the top of search results, highlighting them in a special area, or presenting them with a dedicated page of their own. The main goal is to increase the visibility and click-through rates of these products, ultimately increasing sales and conversions. However, challenges with this strategy include potentially significant higher costs, paying for prominent positions, especially on major e-commerce platforms, and having to invest in up-front marketing efforts to increase recognition for lesser-known brands.

For successful native advertising, it is important to focus primarily on originality. Original content builds trust and encourages interaction, which in turn gets the target audience to click on your website and make a purchase. It should be noted that native ads need platform-specific adaptations and relevant content to connect with the target audience.

It’s also important to deliver a non-intrusive experience. Native ads encourage users to engage more when designed to suit their platform. Finally, creating a plan and focusing on specific goals is important for measuring and improving the success of native ads. The data obtained by tracking established metrics can be used to increase the effectiveness of local campaigns.

05 | PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING

Programmatic advertising involves the process of automatically buying and selling online ads. The purchase and sale of advertising space occur in real-time through the Demand Side Platform (DPS), an automated system. Compared to traditional advertising, programmatic advertising offers a more automated approach. Instead of dealing with manual processes in traditional advertising, in programmatic advertising advertisers upload their ads to an automated platform, select their target audience, and let the platform do the rest.

Local programmatic advertising is a subcategory that focuses on geotargeting by establishing exclusive partnerships with local media groups, such as publications, radio stations, and TV channels, specific to the geographic region. This method allows advertisers to run ads in publications within a geographically determined area. For example, a localized programmatic advertising campaign places ads on local media groups such as news stations, local radio, and newspapers.

Three important concepts to know in programmatic advertising are:
SSP (Supply Side Platform)

SSP (Supply Side Platform) maintains the publisher’s inventory. The publisher sends a web page as the source for an ad to an SSP, which will then connect to one or more ad exchanges, ad networks, and DSPs. SSP places a pixel code on the page to track visitor behavior. The code provides anonymous data about visitors and the actions they take. SSP is programmed to maximize the value publishers receive from an ad interaction. SSP allows publishers to filter ads by advertiser and other criteria and set different fees for ad spaces.

DSP (Demand Side Platform)

Algorithms that form the basis of programmatic advertising collect data from online users to ensure that ads match the needs of the target audience. Through DSP (Demand Side Platform), advertisers define their target audiences with the parameters they set, and programmatic advertising uses this information to automatically deliver ads to target audiences on various websites. Programmatic advertising offers advertisers the flexibility to automatically reach a wider audience while providing the ability to measure campaign performance with tracking and analytics tools.

DMP (Data Management Platform)

DMP (Data Management Platform) is an independent platform that collects, manages, analyzes, and activates data. The platform provides advertisers with comprehensive user profiles so the data can be used within a programmatic algorithm to match visitors with those most likely to convert to the best advertising.

One of the advantages of programmatic advertising is that it helps the advertiser make data-driven decisions and increases advertising revenue. It is also budget-friendly, offers the opportunity to closely examine KPIs, and offers the ability to target highly specific target audiences. But while programmatic advertising is a way to effectively place ads across channels and mediums, it faces some shortcomings. Programmatic advertising lacks the human touch because it is an algorithm-driven process. There is a case where handpicking may show better results as a single publisher provides a more targeted reach than a dispersed group of websites and channels. Additionally, there is the potential for poor content matching due to the absence of a marketer placing ads on behalf of the brand. Additionally, programmatic advertising carries the risk of paying for empty views due to pay per thousand impressions.

06 | E-MAIL MARKETING

Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that involves sending promotional messages or newsletters to lists of subscribers. The main goal is to build customer relationships, promote products or services, increase brand awareness, and ultimately increase sales. Email marketing is a channel that not only reaches your target audience directly with personalized and relevant content, but is also cost-effective, easy to track, and provides valuable data to analyze campaign success.

The popularity of email marketing stems from the fact that it is a flexible and cost-effective communication tool. It also offers the ability to target specific audiences with personalized messages and build potential customer relationships. Email marketing can be used in a variety of forms, such as announcing new content in a single email, customer communication with regular newsletters, or product updates. Email may not be as glamorous as other marketing channels, but it’s a reliable way to build an effective audience.

The benefits of email marketing are quite diverse. There are more than 4.3 billion email users worldwide, indicating that email is an effective way to reach customers. Most marketers state that email marketing is the most effective marketing channel. Investments in this channel are expected to continue to increase. The flexibility and high return on investment of email marketing are important advantages for marketers.

There are several important steps to consider when creating an email marketing strategy:
  • First, you should know the target audience and plan an e-mail campaign that suits their needs.
  • Next, campaign goals should be determined and realistic goals should be set, taking into account average email statistics for the industry.
  • Building an email list is also an important step, and various methods should be used to ensure potential customers choose to receive emails.
  • When choosing the e-mail campaign type, the needs of the target audience should be focused on and different lists should be created for different types.
  • Finally, trust must be established by consistently implementing a specified program and its results must be measured continuously.

Compliance with email regulations is important by regulating consumers’ wishes regarding the protection and use of their information. CAN-SPAM compliance ensures that commercial e-mails are sent by the wishes of subscribers, and in this context, e-mails must include company information and unsubscribe links.

Another important issue that email senders should pay attention to is avoiding spam filters. Falling into spam filters can negatively impact deliverability rates and cause customers to miss emails. Creating a whitelist, including instructions in welcome emails, not using spam trigger words, and choosing a reliable email service provider can help avoid spam filters. Finally, it is important to adopt a consistent analytical strategy to measure the success of email marketing efforts. Businesses can evaluate and improve campaign effectiveness through email marketing analytics.

07 | SEGMENTATION & TARGETING

Customer segmentation is the grouping of customers based on common characteristics, which enables personalizing marketing, service, and sales efforts to specific groups. This process can lead to increased customer loyalty and a potential increase in conversions. By identifying customer segments, businesses can tailor their products and services to the specific needs of each segment.

Customer segmentation provides businesses with a competitive advantage by identifying groups with similar characteristics and needs. In this way, it is possible to offer a personalized customer experience. For example, sending customized messages to specific customer segments can increase businesses’ competitive advantage and contribute to closing deals.

Better targeting of paid campaigns is also an important benefit of customer segmentation. Campaigns such as PPC, LinkedIn, or Facebook ads can be optimized based on customer segments. This makes it possible to create a more effective marketing strategy, providing a better return on advertising spend. The development of e-mail campaigns can also be made more relevant and effective thanks to customer segmentation, and customer relationships can be strengthened by offering special content to various customer groups.

Segmenting customers in performance marketing is generally done as follows:
Demographic Segmentation:
  • It is a method of grouping customers according to demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income, education, and marital status.
  • For example, in the e-commerce or fashion sectors, customer segments can be divided by gender, and special product recommendations and messages can be sent.
  • Criteria: Gender, Age, Occupation, Household Income, Marital Status
Geographic Segmentation:
  • It means grouping customers based on their geographic location, such as country, state, city, or town.
  • Useful if the business ships goods to different regions or caters to customers in different geographic areas.
  • Geographic segmentation provides the opportunity to offer specific and regional content to customers.
  • Criteria: Location, Preferred Language, Transportation, Work Area
Technographic Segmentation:
  • It is a method of grouping customers based on technology usage.
  • Focuses on factors such as mobile usage, desktop usage, applications, and software.
  • Criteria: Device Type, Browser Type, Source
Needs Based Segmentation:
  • It is the strategy of focusing on customer needs and separating the essential parts of the product or service according to certain customer groups.
  • For example, since a founder who needs software and a copywriter have different needs, segmentation can be made according to their needs.
  • Criteria: Product Attributes, Service Needs, Delivery Method
Value-Based Segmentation:
  • It includes the economic value of certain customer groups to the business.
  • Useful for businesses selling high and low-priced products or services.
  • Criteria: Customer Satisfaction Score, Number of Purchases, Average Purchase Value
Psychographic Segmentation:
  • It is a method of grouping customers based on psychographic factors such as personality, attitude, values, and interests.
  • Businesses that offer multiple services can use this model to segment their target audiences according to certain psychographic characteristics.
  • Criteria: Values, Interests, Personality
Behavioral Segmentation:
  • It is a strategy to group customers based on actions associated with your brand, focusing on customer behavior.
  • Segmentation is made based on factors such as trends, frequent actions, product or feature usage, and habits.
  • Criteria: Lifecycle stage, Website activity, End Customer Interaction

Although implementing market segmentation requires effort and resources, successful market segmentation campaigns can increase a company’s long-term profitability and health. Market segmentation allows management to focus on specific demographics or customers. Rather than trying to target the entire market, market segmentation enables a narrow, concise approach and is often less costly than a broad approach. Market segmentation forces management to consider how it wants to be perceived by a particular group of people. Once the market segment is determined, management must consider what message they want to create. A company’s branding and messaging tend to be more purposeful as this message is directed at the target audience. This may also indirectly contribute to customers having better experiences with the company.

Market segmentation offers consumers the opportunity to build long-term relationships with a company. More direct, personal marketing approaches can build better relationships with customers and create a sense of inclusion, community, and belonging. Additionally, market segmentation increases the likelihood of reaching the right customer compatible with their product range and demographics. Market segmentation allows a company to determine the exact message it wants to convey in the market and against competitors. This can also help create product differentiation by communicating how a company is different from its competitors. Unlike a broad marketing approach, management creates a more specific and memorable image. Market segmentation allows a company to implement more targeted advertising strategies. This includes marketing plans that focus on specific ages, locations, or habits, especially through social media.

The tabulation of advertisements placed through Google Ads and Meta is as follows:

Audiences used in Google Ads’ Display Network, Search Network, Video, Hotel, and Standard Shopping campaigns are comprised of segments or groups of people defined by Google as having specific interests, purposes, and demographic information. During the audience-adding process, you can choose from a variety of segments, such as sports and travel fans, car shoppers, or people visiting a specific website or app. Google Ads aims to reach targeted audiences by showing ads to people who are likely to be in the selected categories. Audiences are determined based on users’ activities using Google products and third-party websites. Activity and content on third-party websites are used specifically for audience segments on those sites, while activity and content on Google products are used to predict audience segments within those products.

Google Ads segmentation types are as follows:
  • Affinity Segments
  • Custom Segments
  • Detailed Demographics
  • Life Events
  • In-Market
  • Your Data Segments (Remarketing)

When creating a target audience in meta ads, narrow or broad approaches are generally adopted. Neither type of targeting is superior to the other, and it’s often nearly impossible not to include elements of both approaches in a given ad set.

Narrow targeting essentially gives you a very limited set of parameters to find the most suitable people to show the ad to. These parameters may look like demographic targeting, Custom Audiences, or similar audiences. This may provide a smaller potential audience, but one that may be more interested in what is being presented than a larger, broader audience. Broad targeting allows finding hard-to-find potential customers. Broad targeting should be done and then people and their reactions to ads should be examined by checking Audience Insights or Meta Advertising Reports.

Google Ads segmentation types are as follows:
  • Locations
  • Age
  • Gender
  • languages
  • Detailed Targeting (Clicks, Interactions (interests, Devices, Gestures))
  • Custom Audiences

Lookalike audience is a method of delivering your ad to potential customers who have similar characteristics to your existing customers. This method works by using an existing Custom Audience to find new people who share characteristics such as demographics, interests, and behaviors. The advertisement is directed to a target audience that has similar characteristics and is similar to the source target audience. Generally, a source audience of 1,000-5,000 people is recommended, but the quality of the audience is also important; for example, using a target audience of top customers can help achieve better results.

Segmentation in advertising is important because it allows businesses to focus on the specific needs of a particular consumer group. This allows businesses to develop targeted marketing campaigns that are more likely to align with the segmented group. The main goal of businesses is to create a good number of leads (customer potential). If you want to attract more customers, it is important to make sure PPC campaigns are effective.

08 | BUDGET & ROI MANAGEMENT

ROI (Return on Investment) aims to ensure that the revenue generated for each dollar spent on a marketing campaign exceeds that amount of money. However, a “good return on investment” may vary depending on the overall marketing strategy, distribution channels used, and industry. Considering different marketing tactics, it is difficult to determine an overall ROI metric. With PPC campaigns that automatically track ROI data, it’s easy to compare the ad’s performance with similar ads. Platforms like Google Ads can report many ROI comparisons based on long-term data. However, with other strategies, such as content marketing, it can be difficult to determine ROI, especially when the content does not directly lead to a purchase. While technologies such as tracking URLs can help measure success, return on investment must be evaluated from a long-term perspective, including non-financial gains.

The ROI formula is as follows:
[((number of potential customers x customer reach rate x average sales price) – cost or advertising expenditure) ÷ cost or advertising expenditure] x 100

To use the marketing ROI formula, it is necessary to define factors such as the number of potential customers, lead rate, average sales price, and cost or advertising spend. When calculating the lead ratio, it is important to determine what percentage of potential customers are actual customers. For example, if 12 out of 100 leads become customers, the lead rate will be 12% or 0.12.

The budget to be prepared for digital marketing activities includes the following:
Social Media Marketing
  • Production of content types such as images, video, text
  • Budget for advertising space on each selected social media platform
  • Research on the social media habits and preferences of the target audience
  • Creating and updating the company profile
Content Marketing
  • Production of various content such as images, videos, and blog posts.
  • Freelancer or in-house personnel costs for content production.
  • Payment for publishing content on external websites
Email Marketing
  • Design and development of email templates
  • Creating, updating, and managing the e-mail list
  • Budget for software and tools for email marketing
Search Engine Optimization
  • Editing and optimizing content
  • Identifying keywords and using them strategically
  • Increasing the authority of the website through external links
  • Editing technical SEO elements
  • Tools used to monitor SEO performance
Performance Marketing
  • Budget allocated for SEM campaign
  • Determining suitable keywords for the SEM campaign
  • Increasing the authority of the website through external links
  • Tools used to monitor SEM performance
  • Budget allocated for PPC ads
  • Determining suitable keywords for the PPC campaign.
  • Analyzing the target audience and competition
  • Creation of images, videos, and texts for PPC ads

When determining the success of the marketing strategy, it is important to consider not only the exact revenue but also non-financial elements that include social media followers, unexpected traffic on the website, and customer trust. Although these elements do not provide immediate financial returns, they can increase purchases or indirectly strengthen customer relationships in the future.

When creating a digital marketing budget, it is important to understand the customer conversion process by outlining the sales funnel. Additionally, determining operational costs is an essential step in planning the rest of the budget. Reviewing past results is important to evaluate previous quarters or years’ performance and determine future strategies. It is critical to determine this year’s goals by listing the goals and allocating the budget according to these goals. This guides budget allocation and helps identify areas that need focus.

Examining competitors can be a guide in determining effective channels in the industry. This is important to gain a competitive advantage and develop effective strategies. After creating the marketing plan, the budget can be finalized by estimating the cost of each activity. This helps to consider the possible return and use the budget effectively. Making every decision based on data requires relying on clear data to support the budget plan. Measuring the results allows for directing future strategies by closely monitoring the expenditures and results achieved after the budget is approved.

09 | CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

CRM represents customer relationship management, and a company’s CRM system covers all interactions with potential and existing customers. This includes the process from the website visit until the sales proposal is fully reviewed. CRM makes it easier to deliver a positive purchasing experience by providing detailed information about potential customers. By combining key company details with pop-up blog posts, emails, and other interactions, messages can be personalized, delivering more value from the start.

CRM makes business processes more efficient by automating call and activity recording, reporting, and opportunity creation. Agents spend less time on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on customers, which contributes to increased revenue. Sales managers can see salespeople’s interactions in real-time, enabling greater collaboration within the team. Account managers can quickly evaluate opportunities and support each other by facilitating information sharing among the sales team. CRM provides more information about salespeople by tracking team and individual performance in detail. Analyzing agent performance with data such as conversion rates, deal sizes and velocities by deal stage provides a valuable database for optimizing business processes.

Broadly speaking, CRMs can be divided into four main types:

Operational CRM focuses on managing daily business processes and often includes operational activities such as sales, marketing, and customer service. Tracks customer interactions and transactions, manage customer service requests, and provides lead information to sales teams.

Collaborative CRM aims to increase communication and collaboration between different departments. This type of CRM facilitates information sharing among team members, improves project management, and helps manage customer interactions more efficiently.

Analytical CRM aims to make strategic decisions by analyzing customer data. This type of CRM tracks customer behavior, preferences, and trends. Analytical CRM allows businesses to better understand customer relationships and develop customer-focused strategies.

Marketing CRM focuses on managing marketing activities. This type of CRM tracks marketing campaigns, enables customer segmentation and provides lead data to marketing teams. Marketing CRM aims to create customer-customized campaigns and optimize marketing strategies.

Each type of CRM offers different advantages depending on the needs and goals of businesses. Businesses often combine these types of CRMs to create a comprehensive customer relationship management strategy.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a valuable tool for managing customer interactions, lead processes, and digital data. However, it is important to know the limitations of these software and understand what they cannot do. CRM software can manage the customer journey on your website and collect data, but it cannot create or publish a website. CRM typically optimizes external-facing functions such as sales and customer service but does not manage internal business operations. CRM is effective for managing contacts, lead processes, and customer journeys, but it lacks the features needed for comprehensive project management. CRM can be successful at collecting data from digital channels (social media, ads, email), but may have limitations when collecting data from non-digital sources. To maximize CRM benefits, it is important to ensure staff training and consistent use.

Concepts to know about CRM are as follows:

Contact: In CRM, contacts contain customers’ names and personal information.

Potential Customer (Lead): These are prospective customers who have the potential to do business in the future but are not yet fully mature.

Opportunity: These are prospective customers who are truly interested and willing to purchase the product or service.

Quote: It includes the price given to potential customers who are almost ready to make a deal and the products or services they will receive.

Deal: Tracks situations in which the product or service is sold successfully or the opportunity is wasted. They are divided into won and lost deals.

Profile: Represents the users within the company using the CRM software. It is usually associated with roles that have certain permissions.

Campaign: Represents marketing efforts. Each campaign includes its audience, results, and ratings.

Tag: Used to add additional information to items such as a person, agreement, or company. Provides additional data for filtering and sorting.

Activity: Represents any event in the CRM, such as new deals, contacts, opportunities, or messages from colleagues.

When choosing the best CRM solution for business, it is necessary to consider five important criteria:
  • CRM should be easy to use and quick to learn. It should be a platform with a clean interface and free of unnecessary features.
  • The ideal CRM should be a solution that fits business needs and can solve specific use cases.
  • Change is inevitable in the business world. There should be a CRM system suitable for both growth and contraction.
  • It should include a suitable solution to avoid paying for features that are not needed.
  • Modern CRM features are based on AI technology. Therefore, one should choose a CRM provider that invests in AI.

A complex and difficult-to-customize tool gets in the way of nurturing customer interactions and increasing productivity, getting in the way of improving customer relationships and negatively impacting productivity. When choosing CRM software, it’s also critical to consider how it aligns with sales, marketing, and customer service departments. When marketing automation is paired with other performance marketing tools, customer data can show you what type of interaction with customers would be more effective, leading to an increase in sales.

SOCIAL MARKETING

Social Media Marketing, a dynamic component of digital marketing strategies, provides an effective platform for brands to interact with their target audiences, increase brand awareness, and promote their products or services. Social media allows brands to communicate with their audiences in real-time through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This strategy strengthens the brand’s digital presence and increases customer loyalty through posts, content, campaigns, and interactions. Social media offers brands an innovative engine and the ability to instantly connect with potential customers in a rapidly changing digital world. Social Media Marketing includes a wide range of strategies, from content creation to influencer collaborations, from advertising campaigns to organic sharing.

01 | CHANNEL

Today, products and services are promoted free of charge using many social media channels. Communities formed by target audiences are managed. Shares are made via social media channels to drive traffic to the website. The features and uses of social media are changing day by day. For this reason, marketing rules are constantly changing on social media. Brands that are aware of the change and share accordingly receive a lot of interaction from their customers.

Facebook is ideal for brand awareness and ad sharing. It can be preferred to reach both Generation X and Generation Y.  Worldwide, its daily use is quite common. It has been the most established social media channel since 2004. Facebook is ideal for collecting potential customers and increasing product and service sales.

What can be done with Facebook?
  • A business or brand page is created.
  • Information about the business can be presented in the description section.
  • Contact information can be provided by sharing the URL, phone number, or e-mail address.
  • Traffic can be generated from followers through shared links and URL links.
  • Trust can be created in the target audience by creating verified pages (blue tick).
  • An advertising account for the business can be created with Meta Business Suite.
  • Impressive campaigns can be prepared with Facebook Ads.
  • Target audience identification can be made with Meta Insights.
  • By defining a target, communication activities can be carried out for brand awareness, brand image, or customer services.
  • Content in many different formats can be shared from the business page.
  • Group pages can be created in accordance with the structure of the business.
  • The company’s commercial sales channel can be created using Facebook Marketplace.
  • Ads are tested and analyzed with the code placed on the website using Meta Pixel.
  • Any content can be turned into an ad by boosting the post.
  • Live chats can be held using Facebook Messenger chatbots.
  • All ads published on Facebook are checked with the help of the Facebook Ads Library.

Instagram has reached 1 billion monthly active users. Suitable for B2C business models. Generations Y and Z are dominant. Attempts are made to attract customers’ attention with visually striking posts. With the advanced e-commerce feature, brands can both promote and sell their products through a single channel.

What can be done with Instagram?
  • Photos, videos, carousel images, reels, and stories can be shared organically.
  • Paid promotional models such as Story Ads or Shopping Ads can be used.
  • Shop tabs, product labels, and catalogs can be created as shopping tools.
  • By opening a business account, you can have a professional account, unlike a personal account.
  • By getting verified badges, a reassuring account view can be provided for customers.
  • With the Feature Post option, posts can be shown to large audiences for a fee.
  • More specific advertising efforts can be initiated by creating an advertising campaign.
  • E-commerce, product tagging, and product link options are available with Instagram Shopping.
  • By using hashtags, the chances of the content appearing on the explore screen can be increased.
  • Customers can be contacted via content comments and DM.
  • Intimate events can be created with Instagram live broadcasts.
  • As influencer marketing, collaborations can be made with accounts with high followers on Instagram.
  • Organic interaction can be increased by organizing contests.

Twitter(X) is a text-based social media channel with 210 million daily active users worldwide. Generation Y is dominant. It is suitable for B2B and B2C business models. Ideal for brands’ after-sales service, PR work, or community management. Twitter is also useful for checking trends and understanding what is being talked about and gaining popularity.

What can be done with Twitter(X)?
  • A Twitter professional account can be opened for the brand.
  • Post and page-specific research can be done using Twitter(X) Analytics.
  • A brand-specific page can be created with a profile photo and biography.
  • A content competitor analysis can be performed by researching rival Twitter accounts.
  • With the social media style guide, how the brand will speak and the use of hashtags and emojis can be determined.
  • The tone of responses and how to act in the event of a PR crisis can be determined in advance.
  • With Twitter Trends, you can learn which topic, phrase, or hashtag is gaining popularity.
  • Groups consisting of target audiences can be created with Twitter(X) Circle.
  • People with common interests can be brought together with Twitter(X) Communities.
  • Voice chat rooms can be created with iOS users with Twitter(X) Spaces.
  • The post you want to highlight with a pinned tweet can be moved to the top.
  • By determining the voice and tone of the brand, posts with consistent discourses can be made.
  • With Twitter surveys, questions and feedback are received from target audiences.
  • With Twitter(X) threads, consecutive tweets on the same subject can be posted.
  • By using hashtags, you can take an active part in popular or niche topics.
  • By doing social listening, you can examine what customers are talking about the brand.
  • Goals such as target audience growth, product promotions, or driving traffic to the website are achieved with Twitter Ads.
  • These are shortcodes added to links with UTM parameters.

LinkedIn is a social media channel preferred by working professionals who want to network and evaluate new opportunities related to their work. It is very efficient for recruiting and B2B businesses. Creating a relevant community related to the industry is possible with LinkedIn. It is very useful for brands to promote themselves effectively on business platforms.

What can be done with LinkedIn?
  • Data about the target audience is obtained through LinkedIn Analytics.
  • Showcase pages are important for large organizations to make their internal marketing effective.
  • Employees can be encouraged to frequently share the company page as a link.
  • Job postings can be created as an employer brand.
  • Long articles can be shared as thought leadership articles.
  • You can respond to comments and create a chat environment with customers.
  • Employees can be enabled to create content for the company using common hashtags.
  • Direct messages can be sent to people who are considered potential employees or customers.

TikTok is growing as a platform preferred by many young people today. It is on its way to becoming an alternative platform for the promotion of products and services. In addition to TikTok advertising, videos shared organically have a high probability of going viral. This allows brands to gain brand awareness most appropriately.

What can be done with TikTok?
  • Business TikTok accounts can help potential customers find the brand.
  • With TikTok advertising, ads can be prepared based on the bidding model.
  • Views can be gained organically with branded content.
  • Branded hashtag contests can be organized.
  • Stickers and filters can be offered to users as brand effects.
  • Trend-setting content can be prepared with branded hashtag challenges.
  • You can benefit from the popularity of TikTok influencers by collaborating with them.

02 | MANAGEMENT

Brands aim to be closer to their potential customers by taking part in social media channels. They interact with their customers, talk to them, identify their needs, and revise their products and services accordingly. Additionally, social media accounts have become the primary medium through which companies announce their innovations. Nowadays, customers browse brands’ social media channels before purchasing a product or service. The importance of two-way communication between brands and their customers is increasing day by day. Brands take steps to create brand loyalty through communication through social media.

Social media management activities include content planning and creation, content publishing, analysis, social media monitoring and listening, community management, and social media advertising. Before all these activities, it is necessary to create a strategy for social media marketing. Who are the target audiences, what are the goals and KPIs, what is the content strategy, what are the criteria for community management, and what is the status of the competition? It would be wrong to start social media marketing without answers to all these questions. Communication activities carried out with a correct social media strategy will lead to increased brand loyalty, expanded audiences, increased interaction, and increased brand awareness.

Some management tools should be used to make it easier to manage social media channels, the number of which increases day by day. Planned social media management using the right tools allows fewer mistakes to be made, time management, strategic continuity, and balanced processing of topics throughout the year. This way, it is possible to run campaigns at the right time. Determining priorities and goals is an important factor in choosing a social media management tool. How many social media accounts will be managed? How much time per day will be devoted to social media? How often will social media posts be shared? Is an employee or team available for moderation? These and similar questions will determine which tool will be chosen for social media management.

Each social media channel has a specific page structure. Profile images, cover photos, descriptions, contact sections, link-sharing areas, sharing images and text structures of the channels are different from each other. When a brand’s social media account is opened, these fields must first be filled in correctly and content styles must be determined. The brand’s social media accounts are then connected to the vehicles to be managed from a single interface. The tools’ visual content calendars enable quick management and sharing. This helps posts be made quickly, shared on a set day and time, and ensures consistency. Thus, their posts will be planned daily, monthly, and yearly all at once. Automatically sharing posts as planned will allow for more creative and interesting content to be prepared.

03 | CONTENT TYPE

Social media marketing is ideal for increasing brand awareness and improving relationships with customers. Increasing website traffic, achieving more conversions, or gaining more followers is possible with a good social media content plan. Social media marketing, which is a cost-effective type of marketing, enables small businesses to compete with large companies. It allows brands to convey their values, character, and purpose to customers. Brands have to be educational and engaging when talking about themselves. In order for social media users to be informed about the brand, they must encounter eye-catching content. Standing out from the communication bombardment on social media with catchy communication is only possible with interesting content.

Planning is very critical in social media marketing. Posts to be made on social media should be planned in advance in accordance with the strategy. Only in this way can social media marketing be used beneficially for the brand. Content types change every day depending on trends, and interesting ideas are shared from brands’ accounts to attract users’ attention. The structure of social media channels is different from each other. Today, the social media channels that internet users browse for entertainment or information differ from each other. Knowing this, marketers try to meet the needs of customers by preparing content in accordance with the structures of social media channels. Brands need to clarify their goal before determining the content type. These goals could be brand awareness, website traffic, sales, or getting engaged.

After the selected social media channel, it is necessary to decide on the type of content that is suitable for that platform and will increase interaction. Content types should be selected in accordance with the social media channel, user demand, and needs. A blog post, a technical whitepaper, a TikTok video, or a 15-second story… Anything shared on social media in different formats can be content. In the simplest sense, content is things produced for information and entertainment. Shared content may vary in length, duration, format, or size depending on the structure of the channel. The important thing is to produce content that suits the needs of the target audience. For this, before starting content production, social listening should be done to investigate what kind of content competitors share and what type of content potential customers are interested in.

3 main content types: educational, entertaining, inspirational

Educational content is content that aims to inform customers about a specific subject. Brands positioned as leaders, experts, or pioneers build trust in the perception of their target audiences through educational shares. Contents can provide information about the product. It can explain service details. It can explain how to provide post-purchase support. Opinions of customers who have experienced the product can be obtained. It can be clarified how the problem was solved. Frequently asked questions from customers can be answered in educational videos. The results of a survey can be shared with an infographic table.

Entertainment content is the most common type of content that allows users to have an enjoyable time. Brands try to attract attention by entertaining their target audiences with enjoyable videos. Trends are critical to determining entertaining content. Current events, special days, or popular topics can be followed to create entertaining content. Fun videos have a high chance of going viral. The important thing is to produce content that will not contradict the brand’s character. It would be wrong for a company making a serious brand positioning to share intensely entertaining content.

Inspiring content is life-filled content that people enjoy watching, reading, or listening to, and which increases their awareness. Brands adopt certain feelings and lifestyles. Every lifestyle has some aspects that inspire people and are worth exploring. Brands try to attract attention with posts that will attract the attention of potential customers.

Types of content that can be used in social media marketing

Content is the most critical issue in social media marketing. No matter how the website and social media channels are planned in accordance with the brand strategy, it is the content that will create interaction. Each channel has its own content format. The important thing is to find out in which format the specified content type is more interesting. The number of content types is not limited. Any topic or theme can be created with many types of content. Depending on trends and popular culture, content types differ day by day, and the intensity of interest changes.

  • Cultural contents
  • Company news
  • Product and service announcements
  • User-generated content
  • Thought leadership content
  • Competitions
  • Quizzes and surveys
  • Interviews
  • References and reviews
  • Case studies
  • Quotes and comments
  • Product shipments
  • Influencer collaborations
  • Press releases
  • Campaigns
  • Guests
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Product

When choosing a content type, the important thing to consider is the balanced distribution of the content within the annual and monthly plans, depending on the strategy. Content created by users gives trust to the brand. Referring to thought leaders in content increases brand authority. Increasing followers on social media is possible with competition and competition content. The number of participants can be increased with exams and survey questions. Content that shows the product or service being used by customers positively affects potential customers. Inspirational quotes are the simplest way to show how a brand thinks. Social media is a marketing channel that is always open to development. Brands that know what their target audiences want, produce content in line with trends, and improve their content with analysis will be successful.

04 | CONTENT FORMAT

Content to be shared organically on social media channels can be prepared and shared in many different formats. The important thing is to share the content in the most appropriate format. There are many different sharing formats on social media channels. While some channels are suitable for video sharing, written content attracts more attention on some channels. After choosing the most suitable social media channels for the brand, it is necessary to ensure that the most appropriate content is shared in the most appropriate formats. There are 5 social media content formats.

Text: The most intense content format used in social media is text. However, the most difficult content format to consume is text. Blog posts, LinkedIn informative paragraphs, Medium articles, and Facebook and Twitter text shares can be given as examples of this format. The texts provide detailed information about the offer. It is very effective in search marketing. Links are text. It is easier to prepare and takes less time than other formats.

Visual: All kinds of pictures, photographs, charts, infographics, and cartoons used on social media are visual format shares. Using the right photography is the most frequently used method to make the idea interesting to the target audience. Nowadays, social media channels that focus on visual sharing are increasing and attracting more attention. Instagram is the most popular social media channel that supports photo sharing. Blog posts contain at least 1 descriptive image. Facebook has been functional for mass photo sharing since day one. Pinterest is very suitable for creating visual archives. Images are more eye-catching than texts. Although not as easy to create as text, it is faster to consume than any other format. For images to be included in search engines, it is necessary to add textual descriptions.

Video: Social media channels are constantly improving their software to further improve video content consumption. Today, every brand doing social media marketing wants to increase video sharing rates. Live video sharing is increasing its popularity day by day. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. It is very easy to consume. It is not as easy to produce as text and visual formats. YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn Slideshare, Periscope, or blogs are suitable for video sharing. Videos are the most effective format for capturing the attention of viewers.

Audio: Audio files have become frequently used as a type of format in social media marketing. Interviews are the most intensive sharing where audio files are used. Audio recordings of blog posts provided an alternative experience to reading the articles. Music is an indispensable part of marketing communication. It is possible to convey the idea or topic to the target audience with high emotion by using the right music. Podcasts are a type of content whose popularity increases day by day. Regularly created podcasts are a type of content shared on many social media channels. Podcasts listened to on iTunes and e-books purchased on Amazon show the current popularity of audio use.

Presentation: Presentation of information with visual and textual elements for an instructive purpose. It is integrated into social media and shared. Blogs on websites are very suitable for presentations. Presentations are formats in which information is presented in detail. It increases searchability. It can be used effectively, especially in B2B business models, on platforms where products and services are explained in detail. The impressiveness of presentations can be increased with professional graphic design support.

Facebook content formats:
  • Photo/Video
  • photo album
  • Photo Carousel
  • Slideshow
  • Canvas
  • Facebook Reels
  • Facebook Story
  • Facebook Ads
  • Phone Call
  • Offer
  • Note
  • Text-Based Post
  • Message
  • Events
  • Facebook Live
  • Podcast
  • Facebook Live Audio Room
Instagram content formats:
  • Feed Photo/Video
  • Story
  • Real
  • Instagram Ads
  • Live Video
  • Guide
  • Instagram Shopping
Twitter(X) content formats:
  • Text
  • Retweet
  • Hashtag
  • Photo
  • Video
  • Slideshare
  • News Summary
  • Link
  • Twitter Ads
  • Twitter Live
LinkedIn content formats:
  • Articles
  • Native Video
  • Text-Only Post
  • LinkedIn Poll
  • Carousel
  • Images
  • Multi Image
  • Document
  • Story
  • Celebration
  • Live Video
  • Events
Tiktok content formats:
  • In-Feed Video
  • TopView Video
  • Brand Takeover
  • Branded Effect
  • Branded Hashtag Challenge

Many content formats can be used to attract the audience’s attention. The important thing is to choose the format that best suits the content. It is necessary to understand the structure of social media channels correctly. Social media channels are suitable for sharing content in different formats. The same information can be shared in multiple formats. While a brand’s values can be expressed textually on Twitter, they can be shared visually on Instagram. While brand value can be shared as a video on YouTube, it can be presented to the target audience in a presentation format on LinkedIn.

05 | ENGAGEMENT

The primary goal of social media marketing is engagement. Social media, which has transformed from a virtual platform where friends meet each other online to an experience where brands share their important messages and come together and communicate with their customers, has become an indispensable element of marketing communication today. Today, small businesses use social media very effectively and make a significant portion of their sales through social media channels. They work positively on brand awareness by ensuring customer loyalty through social media. The aim is to ensure that messages spread organically to large audiences with many more participants.

The extent to which target audiences participate in branded content from their social media accounts determines the engagement rate. Interactivity is related to many behaviors of users on social media. Likes, favorites, comments or replies, shares, clicks, and mentions… Interaction is the best way to measure the communication efforts of brands on social media channels. The number of followers on a social media channel never indicates that that channel is a good one. The important thing is that the relevant target audience subscribes to the channel. From this perspective, it can be said that quality, not quantity, is more important for social media.

Before making moves to increase interaction, it is necessary to analyze the current situation well. How many shares are being shared? How many likes do you get per share on average? What types of content are liked or shared on an average monthly basis? This situation assessment will show which content type and format receives how much interaction and is working. Since each brand’s strategy and expectations from social media marketing will be different, the targets set for interaction will also be different. Knowing which social media channels the target audience is on, when they are more active on social media, and the type and format of content they like will provide important data for brands to create a correct strategy.

Engagement is the positive reactions users give to the content. Customers must be given specific opportunities to make a response. Nowadays, brands try many types of content to get engagement. These include surveys, questions, quizzes, and competitions. This type of content is very effective in increasing customer engagement. To understand which content really works, it is necessary to share and watch the content. This is the best way to find out what content can generate what kind of interaction. Brands don’t always ask their own questions. Sometimes they plan to attract the attention of target audiences by commenting on current topics. The types of content that users interact with the most are current posts. Users find the reactions of brands to current issues interesting. When users start to see brands as people, they increase the interaction rate. Likewise, brands that respond quickly to comments gain a positive image in the eyes of customers. Instead of answering questions manually, the entire workload can be controlled through a single application using social media tools.

Comments, likes, or shares… Each of them has a numerical value. Putting these numbers together and transforming them into meaningful interpretations shows the extent to which the interaction is taking place. The success of brands is tried to be measured with social media analytics. There are various tools for this. Facebook Analytics shares numerical data about reach and engagement, actions, contacts, views, and posts. Twitter shares analytics results on topics related to engagement rate, reach percentage, link clicks, and optimal post time. With Instagram Insight, audience demographics, optimal times, and popular content can be checked. Audience demographics, profile views, and content statistics can be accessed through Tiktok Analytics.

06 | MONITORING & LISTENING

Social media monitoring is a method used to analyze which hashtags, comments, likes or keywords related to the brand, product, and sector are used by potential customers. By monitoring these analyses, the assets of the brands that month are revealed. With sector-based monitoring, it is understood what percentage of conversations about the sector are with the brand (social share of voice). It is understood whether the tone of these conversations is positive or negative (social sentiment analysis). It is discovered which hashtags and keywords work to increase reach (relevant hashtags and keywords). What potential customers are talking about is revealed (trends). Discovering what customers are interested in, what they say, and what they find interesting on social media protects brands from making mistakes. These very complex processes can be solved more easily with professional monitoring tools produced for this purpose. Hootsuite, Nexalogy, Mentionlytics

Social media monitoring, in its simplest terms, is using some tools to track, filter, and discover conversations based on keywords or searches on social media. While research can be done with monitoring tools, comments can also be responded to without switching to social media platforms. The main difference with social listening is that the scope of social media monitoring is more limited than the other. By monitoring we mean monitoring and management activities on a daily basis. Comment liking, chatting, and replying are social media monitoring. Listening is seeing the bigger picture. It is to make general comments by looking at the data collected monthly or annually. Thus, an insight into the sector, target audience, and competitors is obtained. Information about trends is gained, new opportunities are discovered, and a possible social media crisis is prevented by creating proactive crisis scenarios.

If we need to take a closer look at the differences between social media monitoring and social listening;
  • Social media monitoring provides a retrospective perspective, while social listening provides a future perspective.
  • While social media monitoring collects information, social listening creates analysis from this information.
  • Social media monitoring focuses on details, while social listening tries to see the big picture.
  • While social media monitoring measures success, social listening provides a guide for strategy.
The most ideal tools for social media monitoring:
  • Meltwater
  • Hootsuite
  • SproutSocial
  • Brand24
  • Mention
  • Analyze Buffer
  • falcon.io
The issues to consider when monitoring social media are as follows:

Social media monitoring can be done easily and professionally using a variety of tools, but it can also be done manually. When choosing a vehicle, you can start working with one of the suitable vehicles by using the list above. It should be determined which words customers or potential followers use to reach the brand. Branded hashtags, slogans, managers, product names, or company names are the first searches that come to mind. This research for the brand should be further expanded by including sector, market, and competitor searches. Sectoral hashtags, communities, keywords, or locations… When choosing a tool, it is necessary to be careful to choose tools that can perform all these searches at the same time. Also, checking feeds regularly is the golden rule of social media monitoring.

The issues to be considered when doing social listening are as follows:

Before brands start social listening, they need to determine their success criteria correctly. While paid listening tools can be used, free tools such as Google Alerts can also be used. For multi-channel listening, paid tools should be used to analyze the data correctly. Excessive data will make tracking difficult. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the correct data is listened to. Keywords can be used to categorize conversations. The data obtained as a result of listening should be used to be effective in strategies. As a result of listening, the issues that make customers happy or unhappy should be identified and changes should be made in these areas. Unlike tracking, social monitoring requires scanning many social media channels together. Thus, potential customers are revealed. Customer experience is increased in the desired direction.

The most ideal tools for social media monitoring:
  • Hootsuite
  • HubSpot
  • Sprout
  • Clarabridge

07 | MODERATION

Moderation is a form of management in which brands manage the messages, comments, and content created by followers on their social media accounts. Social media accounts are social areas where followers can comment. The moderation team prevents unwanted sharing by preventing trolls and bot accounts. In this way, the problems of the followers who want to communicate with the brand are resolved without any interruption. Additionally, swearing and aggressive attitudes that may appear in comments are prevented.

Social media accounts have become customer service units of companies. Before social media, customers tried to answer their brand-related questions by calling hotlines. This was a difficult way of communicating for brands and their customers. Today, social media serves as customer service with comment and direct message features. Just like customer service, the moderation team must carefully answer and record customer problems. If questions concern other departments, customers should be directed to the relevant department. The important thing is to respond to messages, whether from comments or direct messages, without wasting too much time. This also positively affects the brand image. It has also been proven that reviews have a direct impact on sales.

Points to consider when moderating are:

The entire moderation process should be clarified by introducing certain rules. An outlined moderation management is beneficial for brand image. Who consists of the moderation team? Which comments will be responded to in what manner? What comments will be blocked? How often will you respond? Is there a specific answer template? How will the issues beyond the moderation team be handled? How will the issue be moved to other departments? The answers to all these questions should have been given beforehand. In this way, crises can be prevented and the brand will not encounter unexpected surprises. Every comment made on social media should be responded to appropriately. If the issue or complaint is so complex that it cannot be answered through comments, the customer should be invited to a different communication platform. Words that do not want to appear in comments should be determined through filtering. Automatic answers are ideal for time management and quick resolution of specific questions.

Some recommended tools for moderation include:
  • Hootsuite
  • Respondology
  • BrandFort
  • Smart moderation

08 | LIVE CHAT

Live chats are software developed to provide real-time communication to customers visiting social media or the website. Live chats are very advantageous for brands doing social media-based marketing. It takes more than just a social media team to provide a full-service customer support service. The social media team will not be sufficient to cover all customer support services. Additionally, live chatbots supported by automation and integration are ideal for quickly resolving specific customer issues. Live chats appear as drop-down menus not only on social media but also in the bottom corners of websites. Nowadays, live chats that work integrated with social media are very popular. Brands provide instant information through live chats on the platforms where they come together with their customers.

The advantages of using live chat on websites or social media channels are:
  • By using automation, representatives are prevented from being able to instantly answer questions from live chats.
  • Live chats provide the opportunity to respond to multiple customers at the same time.
  • Whether it is an automatic answering system or a live customer representative, live chats are the platforms where problems can be resolved fastest.
  • Customers leave happy from platforms where their problems are resolved quickly. This means increased loyalty to the brand.
  • Customers go through various steps to purchase a product. Customers who need more specific information to make a purchasing decision can access this information with the help of live chats.
  • Customers with private questions avoid voicing such questions on open platforms. Live chats are platforms where customers can ask their questions more easily.
  • Live chats for remarketing are very useful for collecting customer data.
  • Links shared in live chats allow customers to quickly navigate to the desired link without leaving the platform.

Nowadays, brands plan to communicate with their active customers by integrating live chats into their social media. In addition, profiles of customers coming through social media channels are revealed. There are many live chat software available today. Although there is diversity, the purposes of the software are similar. Live chat software is integrated into websites or social media channels. There are ready-made answers in live chats supported by automation. These answers are guided answers for customers to solve their specific questions faster. There is also a form in live chats. Certain forms can be filled out by the customer without requiring agents to actively participate in the conversation. The forms examined by the brand are very important in determining which issues customers have problems with. When the live chat is completed, the quality of the chat can be measured with a survey to be shared with customers.

CONTENT MARKETING

Content Marketing, an indispensable element of digital marketing strategies, is one of the cornerstones of building and strengthening the online presence of brands. Content is a powerful tool to tell brand stories, deliver valuable information, and connect with target audiences. Content Marketing not only promotes products or services but also provides audiences with information, entertainment, or inspiration through valuable content. This strategy, used in a wide range of sites from websites to social media platforms, deepens the processes of brands interacting with their audiences and has the potential to leave a permanent mark in the digital world. Content Marketing is a powerful shield that allows brands to stand out in today’s competitive digital atmosphere.

Content Marketing is the process of creatively expressing a brand’s voice and personality. Formats determine the format in which content will be presented; It can be text, images, video, audio, or a combination. Content type includes content types determined by the brand’s purpose of reaching and interacting with its target audience. This includes various content formats such as blog posts, infographics, videos, and podcasts. Topic keyword determines the main themes and keywords of the content so that it attracts the attention of the target audience and is better understood by search engines. These elements, which are the backbone of a content marketing strategy, allow brands to effectively tell their stories, engage their audiences, and establish a strong presence in the digital world.

01 | FORMAT

Content marketing is another way to attract leads and sell by generating more traffic. Writing content is not just about sharing blogs on specific topics for the website. Content formats in digital marketing are quite diverse. New formats are developing every year with the development of technology and the diversity of tools. The behavior of people consuming content and the subjects they are interested in vary from time to time. The important thing is to create content with the most appropriate content formats for the sector and target audience. At this point, while producing content, instead of creating content for a specific format, it plans to try several formats simultaneously. Budgets are carefully organized to reach the widest audiences.

Some content consists of only articles. Blog posts or press releases are examples. Others are just audio files. A potential customer listening to Spotify can stay informed or entertained with branded content by listening to a sponsored podcast. Some content is created by using many formats at the same time. The video content we watch on YouTube contains visual, textual, and auditory elements. Social media posts can consist of only one photo or brand messages can be placed on the same image. Whether it is textual content or visual sharing, the important thing is to choose the format that will reach the target audience most effectively. While doing this, the channel and device on which the content will be broadcast should also be taken into account. The computer makes textual expressions easier to see on larger screens. The habit of watching videos on mobile devices is quite high. If an advertisement work on smartwatches is considered, very limited text should be used.

The content formats that can be used for digital marketing are as follows.
  • Image
  • Video
  • Live Broadcast
  • GIF
  • Blog
  • Article
  • Podcast
  • Ebook
  • Checklist
  • Social Media Post
  • Tool
  • Press Release
  • Webinar
  • Micro Site
  • Presentation

Each format type has its advantages and disadvantages. While some formats are easy to produce, they can be difficult to consume. Textual formats are easy and inexpensive to produce, but a very long product description cannot be expected to take the time to read by customers. The production of the video format takes time and effort. However, the most interesting and easy-to-consume format is video content. For video production, the company needs a specific team or outside support. What brands need to do is work with a team of freelance content producers who can produce content in any format.

02 | CONTENT TYPE

Customers’ expectation of content is always changing. Awareness of expectations paves the way for what types of content brands should create. Sometimes people want to spend time with great, sometimes informative, and sometimes educational or inspiring content. The customer journey is a map that goes until the target audiences realize and think about a product and then buy it. Before buying a product, people try to decide by going online and following the content related to that product. With the content funnel, it is necessary to determine separate content types for each point in the customer journey.

The awareness stage is the stage in which the customer’s ideas about a product are newly formed. The need is tried to be met with a product. It would be correct to present the customers’ audience as educational. Telling the story of the brand informs the target audience. Entertaining content is highly effective for customers to notice brands.

The evaluation phase is the period when customers need more information about products, services, and brands. The brand should provide information on how and in what way it will meet the need. At this stage, the fact that brands offer guide content will capture the trust of the customer.

The decision stage is the closest to making a choice. Comparative content comes in handy at this point. Case studies shed light on how customers who have encountered the same issue have resolved the issue. Product reviews are one of the most frequently referenced content in the type of video content today.

To increase my interaction on the platforms used, it is necessary to produce interesting content. Based on the content funnel, certain types of content are scheduled to be shared. It is necessary to prepare content types with various ideas for content that will be covered all year round. Content types can be diversified by utilizing the structure of digital channels. It is possible to research which topics are interesting by following the trends.

As an example of the content types that are widely shared within the scope of content marketing;
  • Product shipments
  • Special days
  • User-generated content
  • Influencer collaborations
  • Quotes and comments
  • Questions and answers
  • Surveys
  • Case studies
  • Infographic
  • Report
  • Product reviews
  • Mention
  • Competitions

For channels or websites to be successful, they need to make sure they are using a variety of content formats effectively. Brands that know their target audience well and know what type of content will benefit them will be successful. No matter what type of content is, no content type can replace popular topics. Content created by users is the most effective way for customer loyalty to be perceived by other customers. Some brands create their content-paring strategy by directly focusing on this genre. Special days are the branded content we encounter most frequently on social media today. However, the entire social media page should not be filled with post works for special days only. Contests are the most common type of content where brands engage with their target audience. Thus, brands both pave the way for customers to try their products and increase the number of interactions. Survey content is the most effective content type for brands to listen to the opinions and suggestions of their customers. Case studies are studies where customers will learn how customers who encounter similar problems solve their problems.

03 | TOPIC-KEYWORD

It is very effective with content marketing that search engines move web pages to the top. The words researched for SEO studies form the roadmap of content marketing. As in the SEO word research model, interesting topics should be found by researching specific themes for content marketing. Topic sets can be created using Semrush’s Topic Research and Keyword Research tools. It will be effective keyword research to determine a central word and prepare sets of sub-topics of that word.

Competitive research is as critical as keyword research. The positioning, tone of voice, content formats and types of similar brands, and the keywords they determine will show where the competition is. There are many tools available to analyze keywords used by competitors. Moz, SimilarWeb, and SpyFu are one of them. Manual monitoring, rather than paid tools, is one way to understand what content formats, genres, and keywords competitors are focusing on. For this, competitors’ websites, blogs, and social media should be examined regularly.

After the determined keywords are customer-focused, what type and type is secondary? It should not be forgotten that the content created with the determined keywords will be consumed by the customers. At this point, the issues to be determined will be planned according to the tendencies of the customers and content will be created in this direction. Search volume is one of the issues to be considered. The average number of searches for the keyword each month will give us how often that topic is searched. It will give an idea of whether the general trend is going up or down on that subject. Keyword difficulty indicates the difficulty level of ranking for the keyword. Higher difficulty means more potential value.

04 | STYLE GUIDE

Content marketing is a type of marketing that will achieve success based on consistency. How successful the content is produced is as important as how long this success is maintained. The general strategy of the brand should always be on the agenda. Content should be in line with the identity and personality of the brand. Content that does not comply with the personality of the brand will create a false impression in the perception of customers. Serious brands should protect the content they share on their social media with the same seriousness. Brands that have created a certain language are required to maintain this language on all platforms. A style guide created with this perspective makes it possible for brands to capture a consistent style in their content.

It contains many topics in a style guide. Tone and sound are among them. How to talk to the target audience should be determined at the strategy stage of content marketing. Working hard on brand identity and exploring the boundaries of brand identity is essential for creating a style guide. The brand identity guide is a guide to how all the visual elements of the brand should be used. The content style guide is also a guide in which style the brand content should be prepared. The guide includes grammar, language usage, tone of voice, and forms. It is not necessary to look at the guide frequently to create new content. The guide is created in line with the needs of the target audience. A consistent approach ensures that audiences find the content they need, when they want it, and how they want it. This is the best opportunity to build loyalty and trust in customers.

05 | PROCESS

Content production is a process that requires a lot of time and effort. The number of writers and managers who will participate in content production varies according to the needs of the brand. Regardless of the number of the content team and the workload, it is imperative to make business management and planning. Content strategy planning, keyword research, and determination of the types of content and production should take place at certain periods. Sharing and analyzing the content after it is prepared are the other steps of the content marketing process. Evaluating the success of the shared content and planning the work to be done in the coming days requires content marketing to progress in a continuous cycle.

Editorial Calendar is the process of planning and managing content according to certain categories. It allows the content to be scheduled before the sharing times arrive. It is mandatory to redesign the content with certain revisions and make it ready for sharing. The editorial calendar is a strategic plan. The content decided in the editorial calendar is included in the content calendar and is ready for sharing. It includes important days, topics, posting frequency, and where the content will be used in the editorial calendar.

Content Calendar is a tool that shows you how to schedule and share content. With this model, in which the whole team is integrated, it makes it possible to prepare the contents in an orderly manner. It is a testament to progress. It sheds light on how success is achieved and where the missing parts originate. The content calendar makes it possible for daily management to be done in a planned way. With a detailed study, the contents are followed in a planned manner. The contents determined within the scope of the editorial calendar are ready to be shared.

Content management is a type of marketing that is very open to chaos and crisis management. Putting the content production cycle in a healthy flow will ensure that the content is published at the planned times. Various sources can be used for content production. Untreated issues can be brought to light by examining the available resources. With editorial and content calendars, content created within the budget can be planned daily.