Many business owners find it challenging to navigate the world of digital marketing due to a lack of time. Managing online marketing needs can be daunting without a trustworthy and competent digital partner. In recent years, the number of digital agencies has increased dramatically, making selecting the right one a challenge. In addition, many of these agencies lack professional experience and are learning on the spot.
Your bottom line depends on the choice of your digital partner. Your marketing budget can quickly be drained and your brand negatively affected if you choose the wrong one. Therefore, here is a recommended strategy for locating a digital marketing agency for your business.
Identify your needs and budget.
To begin, it is important to understand your needs. It would be best if you could give the potential digital agency a good description of the kind of services you require, including website development, search engine optimization (SEO), advertising, social media, and graphic design.
It’s also important to understand your budget and your willingness to spend. Ideally, a good marketer should be able to work within a reasonable budget and communicate your expectations in writing. An example would be a restaurant that tends to do a lot of social media and not much advertising, while a plumbing company will spend a lot on advertising and do minimal social media marketing. A good digital marketing agency is one that understands your needs and budget.
Make full transparency a priority.
The greatest red flag is the lack of transparency, which is also the most overlooked. A company’s website should include an address, bio, and a list of clients if there is no such information. There is a good chance the agency is concealing something if it appears to be doing so. That’s a simple truth. Offshore agencies make a lot of promises at low prices for example. The choice of a digital agency should be based on its transparency.
Credibility is vital.
The credibility and experience of the agency should be considered. Consider requesting references from past clients, including one from a less successful account. The agency has no doubt had engagements that didn’t go well, and getting an understanding of how they handled them in addition to gaining recommendations from the good ones is important.
It’s possible to misinterpret industry experience.
Ask the agency about those engagements, what went well, and what was challenging. If the agency has experience in your industry, then you may want to consider them. The fact that it does not raise a red flag. Instead, find out how it approaches a new market. We frequently see remnants of code and content indicative of other businesses in industry-specific organizations that take a cookie-cutter approach.
An outdated marketing strategy can often be re-energized with a fresh perspective and a new approach. Developing a winning strategy starts with assessing a client’s industry, its online presence, and its competitors.
Take into consideration the client, agency, and technical sides.
Clients and agencies are the two sides most marketers discuss. It is either one or the other. However, there is a third side that is often overlooked and can be very important: the technical one.
Any marketing strategy must understand website development technologies. You must build and host the website properly because it is your mothership. Consider asking your prospective account manager what side of this triangle they have worked on in the past. Those with experience in all three of these areas are likely to have a well-rounded perspective on digital marketing. Because of their operational experience, account managers who have worked on both the client and agency sides have an edge when it comes to developing digital strategies.
Innovative ideas often originate from operational experiences and thinking outside the box is very important in digital marketing.
Take it for a beer test.
If you are wondering what is a beer test, here’s a simple way we can portray the “beer test”. We all want to have an agency relationship that’s a bit different. As a business owner who is engaged in all the mundane operational tasks that are involved in running a company, marketing should be fun.
You should ask yourself what you really want out of this relationship after you have narrowed down your list to the top legitimate contenders. Think about whether you would like to have a beer with this person at the end of the day.
Thus, choose an agency that is fun for you to work with and that is aligned with your personality and availability.
This is a valid point, and it applies to the relationship between clients and agencies. In conclusion, you should only consider two factors when choosing a digital marketing agency for your brand
1) can they do the work
2) do you like working with them?
