Here's where we invite you to learn more about the fun and interesting things we're doing as an organization. It's a great place to learn more about our team members, client spotlights, and industry and community news.
AW President & CEO Monica Kolbay Participates in Digital Marketing Webinar
As we return to more normalcy after a year of pandemic-enforced restrictions, we’ve noticed that many of our clients are asking us to help them embrace more aspects of digital marketing. Obviously, digital marketing has been trending upward for the past 10 years or more, but recent factors have caused interest to skyrocket.
Our President & CEO Monica Kolbay recently joined two other thought leaders in the digital marketing field in a one-hour webinar entitled “Banking on Digital Marketing with Stories That Connect.” Jay Sedgwick, Banking Industry Specialist of WebbMason Marketing, led the webinar.
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Yoga Wednesdays at AW
There are plenty of ways we could celebrate Hump Day at ArachnidWorks, but we’ve found one that’s alcohol-free, sugar-free, and 100% relaxing… yoga!
Every Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 PM, the team gathers in the big, open area on the third floor of our new downtown office for a group yoga session. Led by our client Kimberlyn Cahill of Life’s Work Yoga, we spend the hour focusing on breathing, stretching, and learning the basics of yoga practice. Kimberlyn’s approach is “Come as you are,” which makes us all feel relaxed and welcome to participate at whatever level feels comfortable.
Fortunately, our new space allows plenty of room to observe the recommended physical distancing while still enjoying a group activity. And while each of us participates individually at a different level, these once-weekly sessions are interactive, collaborative experiences that build teams and lift spirits.
Working as a team is an everyday occurrence at AW, but our Wednesday yoga meet-ups are a different type of team work. It’s been interesting to observe how helpful the process of relaxing the mind and body in an intentional way can be.
Kimberlyn advocates an “intentional self-care” approach to living a more balanced life. With her guidance, even those who are brand new to yoga—like many of us—can explore the powerful connection between the breath and the body. Kimberlyn integrates breath work with a series of intelligently sequenced postures that builds strength and endurance in a way that is challenging but gentle, with adaptations for those who are less mobile.
There’s a saying “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Kimberly teaches “restorative yoga” that settles the nervous system and returns the body to a state of ease. After several months of practicing yoga individually and as a group, we are learning how taking as little as an hour a week to relax and unwind together revitalizes us and gives us even deeper creative reserves…and it feels great physically, too!
A Sign of the Times
Hey, Frederick locals—have you walked by our offices at 47 South Carroll Street lately? Did you notice anything new?
If not, glance up next time. With the help of AMI, our brand new signs are in place! Another local business and one of our former neighbors on Pegasus Court, AMI did a great job creating attractive signage that complements the one-of-a-kind 19th century building that has housed our offices.since last February.
You’ll notice that our traditional AW burgundy is set off with a border of light-hearted green—we think the combination is a fun graphic update for our business as we continue to grow and thrive in our new location.
Working in one of Downtown Frederick’s historic buildings just steps away from the Carroll Creek Linear Park is a creative opportunity we’ve only just begun to explore. Hanging these signs was the next step in making our new building our forever home.
Merry Christmas From ArachnidWorks!
‘Tis the season for ugly sweaters, too much food, and general holiday merrymaking—and everyone at AW was in it to win it at our annual holiday party.
Due to COVID-19, this year’s plans were a bit more sedate than in previous years, but a physically distant, masked good time was still had by all. We closed at noon and spent the afternoon enjoying monster subs from South Market Street Sandwiches (#trythe4sisters) with all the trimmings, playing games, listening to holiday music, and basking in the glow of our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. As always, the highlight was the presentation of the annual A-Dub Awards, where each of our unique contributions to life at Arachnidworks, Inc. is recognized and applauded.
For a bunch of geeks, we’re a highly competitive lot. Project Manager Joel Layman’s Grinch sweater helped him win top honors in the Best Holiday Attire contest, followed by a round of games as a warm up to the main event later in the afternoon. We ended up declaring a draw between designer Drew Ahrens and copywriter on the Holiday Trivia Game (just to keep the peace), but Wes Stull was the clear winner of Name That Tune.
Next we enjoyed some holiday hijinx at ClueIQ, one of Frederick’s escape rooms around the corner from our offices at 47 South Carroll Street. If you’ve never been to an escape room, it’s a live-action adventure in which two or more players have to use hidden elements to find clues, solve the puzzle, and produce a solution in less than an hour…not unlike working in advertising and marketing, so we all felt right at home.
This was our first holiday season in our new Downtown digs, so being within sight of Carroll Creek added to the festive vibe. A lot of things feel different this year, but the most important things are the same as they ever were—we’re grateful for our talented team, and another wonderful year of helping our clients thrive and meet their goals!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at AW!
Lumberjakkss & AW Team-up For Co-branded Boat
We would like to say a special THANK YOU to Lumberjakkss for creating this AWESOME co-branded boat for us!
We love it and we love having Lumberjakkss as a client!
If you’re strolling along Carroll Creek, be sure to check out this work of art on the wall behind our building!
ArachnidWorks Designs Programs for Rotary Club’s Centennial Summit
We wanted to take a moment to say congratulations to the Rotary Club of Frederick for a very successful Centennial Summit and for 100 years of service to Frederick, MD!
We loved creating the event programs for this celebration, as they turned out beautifully!
ArachnidWorks Welcomes New Project Manager, Joel Layman
When COVID-19 descended on the U.S. earlier this year, we had no idea how it would affect our business. Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay very busy during the pandemic helping our clients update their messaging, improve their website visibility, and position their brand more effectively in light of the COVID-19 challenges.
Another pleasant surprise over the past six months has been an influx of new clients. Having new people is always exciting, but it was obvious that we were not only going to need a bigger boat, we were going to need to bring on more talent– and not just any talent…we needed a person with the right combination of style and experience to be able to get onboard fast.
How lucky were we to find Joel Layman, a skilled project manager with great marketing chops and a real desire to add value to our customers’ brands! For more than 15 years, Joel’s been coordinating collateral and managing creative teams for organizations like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and STX Lacrosse. We love that he’s a utility guy with cross-over skills in web development, video production, social media, copywriting, public relations, retail initiatives, event planning, and grassroots marketing. He’s primarily a project manager, but we love that he’s got the big picture knowledge to understand how all the pieces need to work together to turn a complex vision into reality on behalf of our clients.
“I am beyond thrilled to join ArachnidWorks and help take the team and their clients to the next level,” says Joel. “It’s clear that Monica and everyone at AW are passionate about delivering top quality results to create true partnerships with each and every client. I have always loved building brands through meaningful stories and I am excited to bring my skills and experience to the group on both the agency and brand side.”
Top 5 Post COVID-19 Digital Marketing Trends
Call it a quarantine, lockdown, shelter-in-place, or a “safer at home” order, unprecedented public health measures forced by the global pandemic drove millions of people around the world into virtual seclusion. During this time, apps and platforms that were once used entirely for entertainment and personal connection have been hijacked for use by digital markers to reach consumers.
However, as the number and severity of COVID-19 cases begins to trend more positively, and some countries and US states are beginning to open back up, these same digital markers are wondering: how different will things look over the next year? Will things go back to normal? How has the novel coronavirus affected consumer behavior? And how will that affect digital marketing attempts to reach a society of consumers that have made significant changes in many areas of ordinary life?
Advertising & Marketing in the Time of COVID
It would be hard to find a segment of American life that has not been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic—and sales and marketing are no exception. Influencer Marketing Hub (IMH), a US-based marketing strategy company, recently surveyed 237 brands of all sizes to see how they the coronavirus public health crisis has affected them, and combined those results with additional COVID-related sales and marketing statistics to create an overall snapshot of lessons and trends.
General Findings
• Some industries have been and will continue to be more affected than others. Luxury, travel, and service-related companies are struggling to survive, while business that have been classified as “essential” are struggling to meet demand.
• Companies that rely on “old media” are especially at risk. Prestigious publishers have already ceased publication of well-known, long-running publications, with more likely to come.
• Both small (less than 50 employees) and large companies (more than 1,000 employees) surveyed express significant concern over the coronavirus’s impact, and are strategizing carefully about how to market their way through the economic downturn.
Findings from the IMH Survey:
Ad Spends
• 69% of brands expect they will decrease their ad spend in 2020. Many companies indicated that there is either a high likelihood that they will be decreasing their ad spend this year, the majority from regions still in lockdown.
• 25% indicated they will increase their ad spend during the latter half of 2020.
Whereas the majority of companies indicated that they have switched to survival mode, it was interesting to note that one company out of four indicated that it would increase marketing activities.
COVID-19 has had a massive impact on the media, but this impact has been very uneven. There are clear winners and losers:
• Winners:
o There has been increased interest in news. This sector saw a 52% increase in ad spending from before the global impact.
o Other areas to have seen rises in ad spending in that timeframe include hobbies & interests (31%), technology & computing (14%), and education (13%). Notably, these are all activities that can be consumed at home.
o e-Commerce companies doubled their ad spending in the four weeks between February 17 and March 9—a trend that has continued. Ad spend from e-Commerce sites doubled from $4.8 million for a trailing four-week period starting on February 17 to $9.6 million for the week of March 9. Brands that operate both an online and physical presence have moved their marketing to the web.
• Losers
o Of course, many sectors have cut back on their advertising activity. At 72%, the most significant drop in ad spending is for law, government, and politics
o At a spending slowdown of 65% is the travel sector, making it the most significantly affected private-sector group.
o There were also noticeable drops in ad spending on sports (40%), science (26%), and family & parenting (24%).
Social Media
Especially in places that experienced strict lockdown, people turned to social media in increasing numbers for information. They have also used videoconferencing and messaging apps to remain in contact with families, friends, work colleagues, and clients.
• In March when stay-at-home orders began, nearly three quarters of the firms surveyed reported having slowed down their social media posting after closing or slowing down activities. This number rose significantly after social media managers settled into working from home.
• Early in the pandemic, IMH’s research indicated that 34% of respondents indicated a shift in social network preference from Instagram to Twitter, presumably because of its focus on news. A significant number of respondents reported increasing their Facebook usage, although this may have been more to check in on their family and friends than for work activities.
• Facebook has seen a definite surge in the use of both Messenger and WhatsApp over the last few months, reporting 70% more time spent across their apps and a doubling of live views in a week. They saw messaging increase over 50% and time in group calling (calls with three or more participants) increase by over 1,000% during March. The countries with the strictest lockdowns have seen the highest use in messaging apps.
Email Campaigns
A possibly surprising stat relates to email open rates during the time that consumers stay at home.
• Email open rates have risen by up to 25% week-on-week in retail. Clearly, people have more time on their hands at the moment and can devote more of it to opening and reading their emails.
• Daily email open rates are generally increasing by 5-10% each week.
• Email opens and resulting interactions have increased more on desktop than mobile. Clearly, more people are working at home on their laptops, which they use to check their emails, rather than their smartphones, as they have previously. Reading email communications on the desktop provides a less distracting browsing experience than on mobile devices, and consumers are taking more time to read longer content.
A study by Pattern89 has noticed a shift in the types of imagery used by brands in social media ads during the pandemic. They found 27.4% fewer images showing models hugging or shaking hands in ads on Facebook and Instagram. According to the study, images and videos displaying water splashing, hand/face washing, or cleaning have risen at six times the regular rate.
Last week, despite the prediction that the global ad market would shrink by 7%, or $42 billion, a new study from Viamedia shows marketers are quickly adapting. According to the study, 83% of US businesses have overhauled their marketing strategies for a post-pandemic world. (Viamedia’s findings are based on a survey among business owners [59%] and advertising agencies on behalf of businesses [29%], conducted between May 15 and May 27.)
The study found that despite the economic downturn, there remains a strong need for advertising—45% of business owners from various industries say they’re seeking creative incentives for advertising. 40% of respondents also reported an annual marketing budget of at least $75,000—over half of which was allotted to advertising.
More than 46% of respondents say they’re offering incentives and promotions to drive sales and continue operating during the downturn, while 10% have shifted to digital operations, and 9% plan to expand. Still, 28% report that they are looking for guidance on how to change their marketing strategy to weather the pandemic.
This latest study reports that many respondents expressed optimism over their post-pandemic futures, with 36% saying they felt their business would be the same as it was pre-pandemic.