Here at Elastic we were lucky enough to be interviewed via email by Danae Wessman, a Marketing Communications major and Social Media minor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in the United States who’s currently taking a course in Scotland on International Business.

One of her assignments while here was to interview a business and she asked us a number of interesting questions. In part three, we talk about research, digital vs print, and what kind of laws we have to follow as a marketing agency.

How do you generally go about your creative process?

We begin by understanding who our client is.

• What do they represent?
• How are they different?
• Where have they come from?
• What are their plans for developing the overall business?

They need to be inspired, and we need to be inspired. Inspiration can come from many places and sometimes unlikely ones.

Do you conduct research for your clients? What form of research to you typically do?

We conduct research in a number of areas. We will research ourselves and find out as much about the client as we can, looking at their market and their competitors, and testing their own assumptions about what they represent and where they are headed.

We also conduct keyword research which involves optimising a site for search engine marketing. It’s important to find out which words and phrases people are using to find products and services that are relevant to a particular business.

This is then all factored into a content plan. Content is written with specific keywords in mind and metadata is crafted so that a client’s pages will rank well on Google.

Additionally, we carry out market and competitor research using a number of tools.

• We use SEMRush to look into the search traffic a competitor will be receiving and to gain insight into sector opportunities.
• We conduct research into specific demographics and where they might be visiting in the digital landscape.
• We conduct audience research on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn to find out how many people, within a demographic, are present on each platform.

Finally, we research developments in the overall digital environment. What’s new? What’s changing? What new technologies are proving effective, and what are people thinking?

Do you push digital or print marketing, and why?

Digital is great for tracking and intelligence gathering – by looking at how long someone spent on a website, what they looked at and where they’re from, we can see in real time the effect of our creative campaigns. It’s also great for getting a message out to a wider audience.

Print is relevant for the right scenario as some audiences want to hold something and feel something in their hands; some older or more traditional audiences still prefer print.

What marketing efforts do you currently do for Elastic?

There can be the classic case of the successful agency that doesn’t have time to promote themselves – in the past we’ve been there! Creative agencies whether they be advertising, PR or design have, in the past anyway, often been guilty of not doing it for themselves or doing it but not doing it well.

We’re currently experimenting and open to ideas for ourselves – it’s actually quite exciting as we develop our own self-promotion. We promote across several social media channels and continue to develop our own visual and written content.

What marketing laws do you have to follow?

Data protection is a big one. We’ve run campaigns where we’re looking to gather user data such as names, addresses, and contact details.

While doing this, it’s incredibly important to be upfront with people about the information you’re gathering, to gather the minimum required data, and to only keep data that you’re actually using.

It sounds like common sense, but it’s always vital to keep this in mind.

Do you think Brexit will affect Elastic?

Hopefully not too much.

Clients work with us because of our expertise, our flexibility and our “can-do” attitude. Technology has broken down many barriers including geography and our placement and experience means that we understand both European and North American business needs for example.

While staying competitive we do not sell ourselves on price; instead we focus on return. We have a great track record of achieving great results which have meant that our clients have benefitted by doing things properly.

The politicians don’t appear to have a very clear answer themselves so it makes sense if we’re all honest that whatever you say there is going to be some question marks. We’re going forward positively and we’ll just have to see.

What have been some of your favourite campaigns?

Across the years we have been fortunate to work with loads of great people. Intelligent and smart but also just nice people too – it’s been a real pleasure.

Here are five highlights:

• • Brightsolid – great technology rebranding project with a vision and a true entrepreneurial spirit
  • Seeds – an unusual & fantastic product and great people to work with
  • Skibo – we’ve built a great history with this luxury destination
  • Vox – a transformative & visionary property project
  • NHS – for many years we’ve delivered many projects – it’s always great to be involved in affecting people’s lives in a positive way

Is there anything else you would like to share with me about your business?

We love what we do and what an exciting area to work in. Elastic by nature and elastic by name – we work across many different sectors and many different disciplines which means it’s always different – always exciting – and I think that comes across in how we approach things. it’s why people want work with us.