With the steady decline of traditional marketing and advertising, the worldwide spend on traditional marketing methods could fall by 6.9% but online marketing spend is likely to rise by 8.6. (Zenith Optimedia).
These figures show that more marketing efforts should now be directed towards the online marketing world. The difficulties for businesses lie with which agency to choose? Online marketing methods are an unknown new way of promoting a business for many owners and have no idea what to look out for in an agency.
This article will outline 5 Key elements you should be looking for when choosing someone to take control of your marketing.
1. What Can They Do?
Most agencies should be able to provide you with a full list of services that they are able to provide your business. You don’t want to hire an agency that can only do pay per click or web design. You need an agency that can do the full package, this then gives you the option of adding new marketing methods down the line instead of hiring another agency to the extra work.
A digital marketing agency should be able to offer the following services:
- Marketing Strategies & Planning
- Search Engine Optimisation / Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Pay Per Click
- Web Design & Development
- Online Copywriting
- Conversion Rate Optimisation
- Email Marketing
- Usability Testing
- Banner Advertising
- Reputation Management
Although not essential the above services should be what a standard agency provides for their clients. Your business might not need them when you are originally searching but there is a chance that you will in the future.
2. New Trends
Online marketing is still a relatively new field of marketing that is always changing; therefore you must hire an agency that can keep on top of the latest trends. Social media marketing has actually been around for a while but has only just burst onto the scene in 2009 with businesses trying to utilise services such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Make sure any agencies you are thinking of hiring keep up-to-date with their marketing efforts and should offer digital marketing strategies such as mobile web and iPhone apps etc…
3. Experience
An agencies experience is vital when deciding which company to choose, a good agency will always have a portfolio available allowing you to see past completed projects.
Browse these projects and read the testimonials, if they have an impressive portfolio and you like what you see it would be a good idea to try and contact some of their past clients and asking them what they really think of them and if they would truly recommend using them again.
When looking through their portfolio make sure you look at any projects they have completed for business in a similar sector, but if they have worked with a direct competitor its best to remove them from your shortlist as they will not be able to work with you due to a conflict of interests.
4. What Are They Like?
Read the agencies about us page and any profiles of their employees. Do they seem professional, hard working? You need to find an agency that has a similar work ethic to your business. If your ambitious and want to make it big hire an agency that have similar ideas or have already grown in size.
If you like what you see, ask to come meet them at their offices and meet their key staff, this will catch out any ‘one man bands’ posing as fully fledged agency. When your there make sure they can give you a presentation on what they can do for you.
5. Search For Them
With the way the web works today using social media, if the agency you are looking for have ripped somebody off, or not completed a project you are bound to find information about it. Just search for the companies name in Google and any bad ‘forum posts’ or ‘tweets’ should be hanging around.
Search engine searches can also show you any good feedback to, try searching for ‘agency name feedback’ and see what you can find.
What To Do Next
These 5 points are all things you should check when choosing a digital marketing agency, once you have completed these checks and you have found 2 or 3 you like its is time to contact them.
Your final decision shouldn’t just be led on cost, but the quality of service you feel you are going to receive. If an agency charges a lot less than everyone else they are doing so for a reason, as they know that there service isn’t as good as there competitors. You get what you pay for. Some digital agencies will offer pay for performance or similar deals, these can be a good route but goals and terms need to be clear for both parties.
If you have checked all of the first 5 points though the agencies left should be of good enough quality to help your business strive forward.
If you are looking to bolster your online marketing efforts then why not see what The BIG Agency can do for you – request a free consultation and strategy session here.
Such a well written post.. Thnkx for sharing this post!
Searching for this for some time now – i guess luck is more advanced than search engines
Very helpful to see the list of “expected” tasks that an agency would fulfill.
Thank you for the useful post. I was searching on Yahoo for some slightly different infomation but your website gave me the answers I needed. Thanks!
This is something I have to do more research into, thank you for the post.
I’ve been visiting your blog for a while now and I always find a gem in your new posts. Thanks for sharing.
Very intresting post, thanks you admin for this wonderful information