BR Interview | Alexandra-Georgiana Andrei & Ruxandra Florescu, Dare Digital: The Future of Digital Marketing

In an exclusive double-interview, Business Review sat down with Alexandra-Georgiana Andrei, Head of Digital Content & Social Media, and Ruxandra Florescu, Chief Growth Officer at Dare Digital, to delve into the agency’s future plans, the evolution of the digital marketing industry, and how they continue to deliver innovative, end-to-end services to their clients.

Ruxandra Florescu, Chief Growth Officer at Dare Digital

Ruxandra, what are the key growth areas that you are focusing on for Dare Digital in the next few years? How do you plan to drive expansion both within Romania and internationally?

Our growth strategy is dual-focused: enhancing customer experience through digital transformation that personalises customer interactions and enriching our workplace culture to attract and retain top talent. This approach is complemented by expanding our market presence and incorporating sustainable practices across all operations, aligning with global standards and customer expectations, with the support of a team with extensive experience in delivering business results for both local and international brands across multiple markets.

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Looking ahead, we aim to deploy a comprehensive growth strategy that includes advancing our technological capabilities to stay ahead of industry trends, entering underserved markets, and continuously improving our customer service. We’ll also continue to emphasise employee development to sustain our long-term goals, facilitated by our bespoke ERP system. This platform provides a comprehensive framework that enables effective monitoring and optimization of our campaigns.

Dare Digital offers a wide range of services from branding to smart digital media solutions. How do you see the diversification of services contributing to the overall growth and resilience of the company?

I strongly believe that in 2024, communication for the sake of communication will no longer be effective or yield the desired results for marketers. It’s crucial that every type of communication is purpose-driven, tailored to meet consumer needs, and delivers tangible business results for our clients.

Therefore, our growth strategy includes integrating a diverse team of specialists. By bringing together expertise in marketing, consultancy, e-commerce, IKA listing, and other niche areas on integrated projects, we provide actionable solutions for tangible business outcomes. This diversification of services not only addresses a variety of market needs but also strengthens our business model, making it more robust against economic shifts and enhancing our ability to innovate. By entering new markets and leveraging emerging trends, we mitigate risks associated with relying on a single service line, capturing a broader range of consumer segments, and ultimately facilitating the achievement of our clients’ objectives and KPIs. This strategic diversity is essential not just for service expansion but also for fortifying our resilience and continuous growth.

Given Dare Digital’s unique model of a core team supported by a vast network of collaborators, how do you manage scalability and ensure the seamless integration of these collaborators into projects? What challenges and advantages does this model present?

We manage scalability by dynamically adjusting team compositions based on project demands. Our model is designed to scale efficiently by leveraging a core team that sets standards and workflows, which are then extended through our network of collaborators. Daily, the core team assesses the project requirements and strategically assigns collaborators, ensuring optimal resource utilisation and seamless project integration.

We continually invest in community building and training programs as part of our internal work methodology, because they ensure and maintain quality across projects. When it comes to the actual onboarding of our partners, each collaborator is brought on board through a structured process that aligns them with our core team’s strategies and the specific needs of the project.

This tailored integration not only maintains consistency, but also transforms scalability into a seamless process rather than a challenge. Integral to our methodology for scaling the business, our advanced project management and CRM tools enhance this integration, ensuring smooth and efficient operations across all levels. This technology-first approach helps us manage scalability by providing real-time updates and facilitating collaboration across different geographies and time zones.

As the Chief Growth Officer, how do you perceive the evolution of the digital marketing industry? What emerging opportunities do you see for agencies like Dare Digital to better serve clients and stay ahead of the competition? 

The digital marketing industry is rapidly evolving with advances in AI and machine learning, enabling more personalised and efficient marketing strategies. We stay ahead by continually adapting these technologies to better predict customer behaviour and optimise marketing efforts. As (not so) new platforms like TikTok and emerging technologies redefine media consumption, the team is proactive in harnessing these new channels to deliver content where our audiences are most engaged, keeping our clients ahead in a competitive landscape.”

There is also a growing demand for sustainable and responsible marketing. We see this as an opportunity to innovate in how we create and distribute content, ensuring that our strategies not only meet client needs but also align with broader environmental and social goals.

Alexandra-Georgiana Andrei, Head of Digital Content & Social Media

Alexandra, can you share some of Dare Digital’s upcoming initiatives in the realm of digital content and social media? How do you envision these strategies evolving to keep pace with the dynamic digital landscape?

The digital landscape is ever-evolving and honestly, you cannot do social media unless you get used to being dynamic, up for challenges and a big try-on for new things, formats, small functionalities and new emerging platforms.

It’s a day to day task. It’s trial and error, a dynamic and ever evolving landscape with both challenges and opportunities for brands and new features that emerge regularly. This fluidity requires businesses to stay agile and adaptable, ready to pivot their strategies to capitalise on emerging opportunities and navigate changing consumer behaviours.

Despite the usual daily changes, social media isn’t all novelty, social media results come from incremental & day-to-day rightfully implemented on brand content & smart tactics to drive reach & engagement, followed by a smart media approach to amplify the communication and reach its proper target audience.

Dare Digital maintains a finger on the pulse of social media trends, algorithm changes and new technologies, adapting every functionality to the life and key point for each brand. We leverage the dynamism to our advantage and we stay ahead of the curve by mixing content & media in a smart and effective way to drive tangible business results.

We are an agency that gets involved daily in a brand’s life, we don’t only focus on large cross-channel campaigns. We go for daily content, for each bigger or smaller context relevant to target audiences, not just for celebrating high-intensity moments. As we do in life, actually.

With the rapid advancement of digital technologies, how is Dare Digital incorporating innovations such as AI and machine learning into your content creation and social media strategies? Can you provide examples of how these technologies have enhanced your projects?

We do recognize the potential of AI and machine learning in content creation and they do help us leverage data-driven insights to create more personalised and engaged content tailored to our audience’s preferences. Yet, we cannot dismiss the human touch that is mandatory to showcase a certain tone of voice, a certain entertaining touch or to rightfully contextualise each social media post.

Yet, we do use AI-powered analytics tools to analyse social media data and identify trends, audience demographics, allowing us to refine our content strategy for maximum impact. Additionally, machine learning algorithms help us optimise content performance by predicting user behaviour and recommending the most effective content pillars and approach, helping us streamline communication processes on social media platforms.

As Head of Digital Content & Social Media, what approaches do you find most effective in engaging clients and building strong, lasting brands in the digital space? Are there any recent success stories you can share that highlight these strategies?

Storytelling mixing real time-content, authenticity and interactivity are key to engaging users and building strong relationships in the digital space. We aim to build content that fosters trust and trustworthiness, while also building stories to connect with audiences on a deeper emotional level. Creating compelling narratives is a must, especially while dealing with an overcrowded digital landscape, while paid PPC strategies help us in driving better KPIs with our content, by effectively spending media budget. Furthermore, interactivity plays a crucial role in driving engagement and building meaningful relationships with clients that are important for the actual conversion phase of large campaigns.

Recent successful campaigns we are still working on include integrated communication campaigns & social activations for large Romanian brands such as ALCALIA, CESAROM, Glovo, a large player in the medical field and multiple other brands for which we are currently implementing online-offline activations to leverage each medium in business purposes. We tackle the simplest and honest moments from each brand’s journey with the same enthusiasm as peak moments of communication.

The digital marketing industry is constantly evolving. How do you stay ahead of market trends and ensure that Dare Digital’s content and social media strategies remain relevant and impactful?

I believe in a proactive approach to staying ahead of market trends. We continuously monitor industry upgrades and analyse data to ensure that our strategies remain relevant and effective. By leveraging data-driven insights and embracing a culture of feedback within multiple teams with diverse capabilities to optimise what works and scale quickly, we can adapt easily to changes in the digital landscape and capitalise on emerging opportunities.

Our success lies in our ability to combine creativity with strategic thinking and hands-on implementation processes, allowing us to engage clients and build strong, lasting brands in the digital space.

Through a thorough approach in content creation, targeted audience engagement and smart paid media campaigns, we have achieved significant success for our clients. By remaining agile, adaptable, and forward-thinking, we ensure that Dare Digital’s content and social media strategies remain at the forefront of industry trends, delivering measurable results and driving business growth.