An Interview With COM Beyond Video Workshop Instructor, Álex Gargallo

Álex Gargallo is the founder and digital strategist of Digital Bloom, a full-service digital marketing agency. Her career began in film production, where she worked for a number of big-name audiovisual companies, but her passion for storytelling, communication, and design led her into digital marketing. Before Digital Bloom, she was the general manager of TheLineBtwn, where she directed award-winning social media campaigns and consulted dozens of businesses and creative companies. We're lucky to have Álex as a co-presenter for COM's inaugural workshop, How to Make a Marketing Video on a Budget. 

You recommend for companies to move away from the “social media as megaphone” model for their brands. What are some ways digital marketers can instead begin creating more engaging narratives for audiences through branded content?

Brands need to connect with their users, and the best way to do that is to know exactly who they are and what they are interested in. For example, if you are selling a product targeted to people who are 60 years or older, you probably don’t need Instagram (I know, gasp!), but LinkedIn and Facebook could be very useful. Once you know your consumer, think about how you can help them without trying to constantly sell, sell, sell. If you sell shoes, can you share some wisdom about how to pick the right ones for every occasion or how to avoid calluses? You might choose a picture of your product to illustrate the post or sneak in your branding, and that’s okay; just try to share information that they can find deeply useful, and start creating a community.

What are some common mistakes you see your clients making when trying to sell/raise awareness online?

The biggest one is overinvesting in Google Ads. I see this with almost all of my new clients. They usually have tried to put some money into Google Ads (sometimes, a LOT of money), and although they have seen an increase in visits, those visits don’t “convert” (they don’t buy the product, sign up for the newsletter, or “X” - whatever their goal is).

The second one is that they haven’t done any research. I cannot stress enough how important it is to understand who your target is and what your competition is doing. You can learn SO MUCH from your competition.

The third big one is to not have a clear strategy in mind. Of course, you want to create awareness in order to sell your product, but once you have created that awareness, what is going to happen? Do you have an email marketing strategy in place? Do you have interesting content to keep your communications updated regularly? Do you know when you’re going to be offering discounts or promotions? Planning is everything! It also makes the whole strategy less overwhelming, I promise.

Can you tell us about a recent success story bringing a client brand to life through digital content?

Yes! One of my favorites clients from 2017/2018 is The Great Lectures, a company that organizes bi-monthly educational talks in New York City, led by highly regarded professors from top universities.

They started the company back in September 2017, and their biggest challenge was selling tickets to their events. One of the biggest problems they had was that their target audience did not yet recognize The Great Lectures since it was new on the market and they had direct competition with a well-established company, One Day University. On top of that, they didn’t have a database to start selling their tickets to, nor did they have branding or a user-friendly website.

We helped them create beautifully cohesive and compelling branding, and a strategy to gain more subscribers which led to more ticket sales. This strategy was based on lead magnets, cross promotion (once we identified the target it was “easy” to find relevant media outlets), email marketing campaigns with discounts throughout the year, campaigns to receive Google reviews, and original content creation for social media (videos with highlights of the events, testimonials, etc).

We ended up achieving 10k visitors per month, 4k social media followers in less than 8 months, +2,500 new subscribers, email marketing campaigns with a 40% open rate, stellar reviews on Google, and on our last event of the year our conversion rate was 9% (3% is the average rate for online shopping).

What drew you to digital strategy? What excites you most about the future of content marketing?

I’ve always loved to write and loved the arts in general. My first and foremost love has always been cinema, and my background is actually in film production. However, there’s always been something so interesting to me in finding ways to promote a company while connecting with the user. I’m a storyteller at heart, and I’ve always felt that good content marked by compelling stories are what makes people connect, and I’m always excited about finding new ways to do it. If you ask me, community is the most important element to a successful business, and nurturing that community is imperative to its continued success. I love finding ways to connect with people, connect small business with their community, and above all, make people feel special!

COM Beyond draws on the deep expertise of our professors, instructors and experts – hosted by one of the top-ranked U.S. colleges for journalism, public relations and communications. We’ve trained more than 20,000 students, preparing them for success at work, a change in career, or admission to college. Let us help write your education’s next chapter.