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Six ways Covid-19 is changing the future of digital marketing

25th Jun 2021 by Temple Team Leave a Comment

We all have to think differently about how we market digitally, as consumer behaviour has changed, we have to change, and probably for the long haul. The goal remains the same: to generate brand awareness, increase leads, create customer loyalty, and ultimately grow and scale our businesses. Also with the growth of online activity and more websites, more hacking is happening. Hackers gain access to your details, causing a breach of your information and also causing havoc to your website and brand.

In this article, we will take a look at six ways Covid-19 has changed the future of marketing

  1. SEO and paid search

SEO (Search engine optimization) and paid search are some of the most impactful ways the pandemic has changed and increased users searching online. 

The current health crisis is changing the behaviour of consumers. A lot of people are avoiding the shops and if they do go, it is for a very brief time. They are using the web to search for items before they shop. 

Search engine optimization has always been powerful, as a marketing tool for your business to be found, however, with the advent of the Coronavirus and the changes in consumer behaviour, SEO is more important than ever. This includes local SEO, as well as local marketing in general.

Many businesses will not be able to withstand the pandemic, but for those that do, customers are going to want to check online and confirm that they are still open before venturing out in public.

There will also be a lot of new businesses popping up, and customers will do their research and then decide if they want to venture out to visit or contact the business, hence the crucial importance of SEO, local SEO, and paid search. 

  1. Digital advertising

During Covid-19, ad spend shifted dramatically in response to the shift in the way customers shop. As lockdown measures were put in place around the world, cinema, out-of-home, and print advertising shrunk almost instantly. 

In the meantime, in-home media usage went up, including: 

  • TV viewership
  • Streaming services
  • Social media
  • Search
  • Video
  • … and various other media.

Because of the way we are shopping these days, there is more focus on product features, specifications and price. And with the consumer behaviour shift online likely to remain post-COVID, marketers now have to focus more on advertising the right messages, to the right market using the right media. To see how advertising spend has changed, see the ad spend article here.

  1. Digital First

Most companies did not approach their marketing as digital-first. However, that has changed since the outbreak of the pandemic. It has become critical that businesses approach their marketing as digital-first, including branding, user experience, e-commerce, security and so on.

This is especially true for businesses that have been most impacted by Covid-19, such as the travel and tourism industry, retail – brick and mortar stores, restaurants, automotive, and apparel/fashion businesses.

Speak to us so we can assist with a Digital-first and digital transformation strategy.

  1. Social Media

Social distancing and staying at home has boosted social media in a way never seen before. 

People are using social media for socialising and are now more familiar with the different platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and more – all of which have experienced a massive increase in usage.

We as a business now have to maintain and build stronger relationships with our customers, and marketers are looking to build more quality than quantity, in terms of their communication.

There is now a higher focus on corporate culture, mission and vision. As we stay home to protect people and our loved ones, everyone is making a sacrifice for the greater good. That change will and has moved into the way people shop and consume content. 

That sense of community will drive consumers to want to know that their hard-earned money goes to companies doing the right thing in the world. For instance, they want to know whether or not their food is sustainably sourced, and they are protecting their employees during these times. Social media is a great way to help companies and marketers achieve these and other goals.  

  1. Digital events

Virtual events are here to stay and much of the webinars, meetings and digital events have been necessitated by the outbreak. 

Companies and marketers are making use of event tools like Google, Zoom and Microsoft Teams to help them stay resilient during the pandemic. With tools like these, we can continue to communicate, and add value to customers, even at a time where businesses are faced with constrained budgets. 

  1. Video marketing

Video is more popular than ever and continues to grow at a phenomenal pace. 

Even before Covid-19, more and more people were choosing video over all other types of content. Today, video marketing continues to grow at an incredible pace. See article here.

YouTube and other video sharing sites have seen a significant increase in usage and the video marketing space will continue to provide opportunities for businesses that can create high-quality, informative videos that resonate with their audiences.

We recently launched the B.O.N website with a video campaign that we created, showing a family story that was emotive and captured the right target market. Video is a powerful marketing tool and especially on marketing video channels like YouTube.

To conclude

Marketing has changed, and the key to success in such an ever-evolving environment is to not get left behind.

We were already living in an increasingly digital world, and the global Coronavirus crisis has accelerated that trend exponentially.

Let Temple help guide you through these challenging times, and help ramp up your digital marketing strategy. 

CEO of Temple Wisdom online

Brendan Temple is a business owner, marketing strategist and passionate mountain biker. Connect with him on brendan@nulltemple.co.za

Filed Under: Covid-19, Digital Marketing Tagged With: covid-19, digital agency, seo, social media, video marketing

Temple in the making – An Origin Story

19th Oct 2020 by Carmen Barends Leave a Comment

We start at the beginning, it’s a very good place to start. We take a look at a journey that brought about the agency, Temple – Wisdom Online. What transpired to transform it into the digital agency it is today?

Durban Technikon was where it all started for Brendan Temple, with a Diploma in Graphic Design and Advertising. This is now called DUT, but was back then the equivalent of Red and Yellow and Vega School of Branding. Finishing in 1997 after 3 year diploma, Brendan discovered his passion for traditional design and advertising. He worked with traditional ad agencies, with a stint at Hunt Lascaris where he found his calling in conceptualising and creating award winning ads. 

Stepping into Digital as a Need to Create Relevant Work

However, this all changed in 1999 when Brendan moved to the UK and discovered the internet and building websites. There he was offered was offered the opportunity of a lifetime, working for a Royalty Free picture library called Digital Vision, which then became Getty Images. With absolutely no experience in web design, (he had hardly used emails), this was a whole new very hard change. His first boss said to him “you have 3 months to sink or swim”; and he decided to swim.

21 Years later it was the best move Brendan ever made, taking the conceptual and advertising experience and bringing it into a web and digital transformation. Doing this with the aim of helping clients to grow and stay in business.

In the Beginning

In January 2006, it all began when Brendan Temple defined his vision to help small to medium businesses navigate through a challenging marketing world. Temple Creative, the agency, was started because Brendan identified a serious lack of competent web development companies in business. There were plenty of ‘back street mechanic web companies’ that were offering a web service, but really not doing a quality job. Rather frustratingly, this didn’t stop them from calling themselves web development companies. 

Thanks to Gary Smith (of Finserv), who assisted me with getting my business up and running, and answered questions as to why I was doing what I was doing, i.e starting a business that would be hard and massively time consuming. Gary got me to think about it more seriously and also question myself. He then helped me get the core fundamentals of business right, i.e budgets, cashflow etc. Without his and others’ assistance as a guide, I may not have made it in business.

I saw that a company was needed that could be trusted, an award-winning company, that offered people solutions to their online problems.

says Brendan.

There was also a distinct lack of valuable information out there for companies to be able to make the best decisions in marketing themselves online. Temple Creative took on the mandate to fulfil this role as a full design and web agency, that serviced PMB and the Midlands. One of the agencies first tags lines was “Temple Creative is a digital marketing agency that cares about you the client who is challenged by the murky online world“.

CEO - Brendan

Temple Growth

What started as this back in 2006, “Temple Creative is a digital marketing agency that cares about you the client who is challenged by the murky online world. We bring truth and clarity to your world of online marketing. Temple provides knowledge and expertise based on practical experience and keen insight. We are your knowledge partners in a relationship that will bring you wisdom with all your online business and marketing solutions. Temple Creative, separating truth from illusion”, has grown to become something bigger with even more purpose and direction. 

In 2019 Temple Creative underwent a Brand Name change as our vision had grown, and became Temple – Wisdom Online. The client base had also grown and it meant that, operating under the Temple brand, we are now ‘Temple Marketing’ as the Inbound Marketing agency, and ‘Temple Dev’ which is the custom web and software development team. This helps us to ensure that our clients get the best treatment, and that we have a full house team to attend to their marketing needs, and their custom web and software development needs.

This helps us to ensure that our clients get the best treatment and that we have a full house team to attend to their marketing needs.

Technique at Work | The How

Temple has always been about marketing your business in the right way. Following the principles of Perry Marshall and Dan Kennedy, we started off to get the right message, to the right market using the right media. It’s about failing fast, and finding what works and what doesn’t in our clients’ market. 

We help you with your Unique Selling Proposition and to find the right people to sell to and convert those leads into business. Our job is to get the right leads to your site and convert those leads into business until we hit the sweet spot.

In order to get everything working like a dream, you need the right team. After working with the business coaching company Emyth, we are guided on the right hiring process, to find the right people who could fill the correct positions, based on what the Company needed to achieve, to help our clients. In a Steve Jobs’ interview, he said “your job as an entrepreneur, is to find talent, so you are a talent scout”. Learning from this allowed us to find new members of the team at Temple.

The other aspect that holds our team together and helps us work at optimum, is Systems. The best book we can recommend on this so far is “Work the System” by Sam Carpenter, where he explained how he saved his business using and developing systems. Temple is very focused on systems and have a dedicated Systems documenter, which is essential for key operating systems to be done and maintained. These two factors are how you become a premium brand.

Brendan & Francois

Getting Marketing Results

The goal of marketing is to find the right people to sell to and convert those leads into business. Our job is to get the right leads to your site and convert those leads into business, which is tracked and tweaked until we hit the sweet spot. 80/20 applies to business marketing and our job is to find the 20% of people who bring in 80% of the results.

Metrics give us direction and tell us so much. We measure everything and using the right tools, capture data that can then be turned into action steps to help us know we are focusing on the right 20% of the market that will bring in the 80% of results. 

Temple : Back to the Future

It is 15 years down the line, and Temple have moved to the purpose that was written in 2006. To be a truly creative, fun, innovative, proudly South African New Media company with a passion for the internet. The agency is growing to be a world class organization with the primary goals of enjoying what we do with creating website systems, designs and online marketing that gives the user and customer an unbelievable experience every-time.

We want our clients to know that we get huge enjoyment in bringing them campaigns that help them build successfully and grow.

If you are starting out and want to get it right to build a great foundation and brand, if you are a growing Company and you want to continue to be successful, or if you are a Corporate that wants to put a fresh spin on your marketing or or build a world-class app or have a custom web or software solution developed, contact us. We will guide you to making the decisions your business needs to be successful.

Filed Under: Temple Team Tagged With: Company bio, digital agency, origin story

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