is really important ,” she says . Regarding sponsored content , Crawford explains that businesses often don ’ t see tremendous results from their initial efforts , leading them to abandon the practice due to a lack of results . Crawford says the exact reason a sponsored post doesn ’ t gain much traction can sometimes have little to do with the quality of the content itself , but with the approach to putting it out there .
“ If you ’ re going to sponsor something for a couple of days , it won ’ t have time to optimize itself on any of the platforms ,” she says , pointing out that Partner & Bloom sometimes work with
clients who haven ’ t experimented much with sponsored content and the impact that different approaches have on the effectiveness of the posts . Testing out more “ direct-fed sponsorships over a longer period of time , where , on balance , they ’ re probably not spending any more money ,” Crawford says , can have a significant impact , as long as the content is highly tailored to its intended audience .“ If they want to draw attention to something — if that ’ s a giveaway or a product launch — it ’ s probably worth sponsoring something on that main feed because you ’ re going to be increasing the traffic onto that platform . If you ’ ve had a bad experi- ence spending small or not so small amounts of money on things like digital advertising , and you don ’ t feel like you have seen any tangible results from that , that ’ s a great shame , but it doesn ’ t mean that there isn ’ t an enormous opportunity there for you as a brand .”
They say — to paraphrase an old expression — that half of marketing works , but no one is sure which half it is . But , with the tailored , authoritative approach to digital marketing that Crawford describes here , you and your business can end 2021 on a high note with an aim to reach new peaks in 2022 . n
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021 n PULSE 31