Follow These Steps & Ask These Questions Before Hiring A Marketing Agency

The term ‘digital marketing’ is regularly heard in the business landscape yet its meaning and impact vary and can be a challenging area to navigate.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing encompasses any form of advertising or marketing that is done online and delivered via a digital medium. Most of the time, these kinds of marketing activities are aimed at increasing website traffic, leads and eventually, sales.

 

 

Why do businesses use Digital Marketing?

Unlike what we might consider traditional advertising channels, such as newspapers, billboards or audio visual channels, digital marketing is accessible to all budgets at some level. This makes it an attractive option for many small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

 

Digital marketing allows a business to find customers, engage and sell to their ‘people’ in a digital space. However, just like in any other area of business, it is wise to do your research and speak to a professional before diving into any sort of investment.

 

Owners of SMEs often lack the time, budget or expertise to guide advertising expenditure. They may or may not have an expert or someone suitable employed in house to drive digital marketing, and to the unfamiliar, digital marketing can seem a big investment in time and money for potentially very little return.

 

It can be very lucrative if you engage the right people at the right time and advertise in the right space. A digital marketing agency can help you navigate this journey and often, afford you a nice return on your investment.

 

How do you find a great marketing agency?

A great start when searching for a good digital marketing agency is to do an online search. Like any service enterprise, when looking for a capable digital agency or marketing agency we suggest you look for someone who is close to the action. When vetting an agency, ask yourself, are they using the strategies they’re prescribing or selling to me to grow their own business?

 

A basic checklist to use when choosing a digital marketing company:

  • What digital marketing strategies do they recommend to build your businesses?
  • Are they using the same strategies themselves?
  • How many businesses have they worked with in the past?
  • Which industries have they worked in?
  • What measurable results can they share?

How much should I spend on digital marketing?

Founder and director of top digital marketing agency, King Kong, Sabri Suby, recommends you invest big in digital marketing for big returns. Just like any service or consumable, Sabri says, ‘If you’re a good marketer, you’re not cheap. With digital marketing, if you buy cheap, you buy twice.’

And, if the marketing is good, it’s free. In other words, if you’re getting business from it, the initial investment becomes irrelevant.

 

How does a digital marketing agency measure success?

Just like when starting a business, it’s a good idea to be clear on your key performance indicators (KPIs).

We suggest with digital marketing KPIs, you start with the end game, that is, what you want to achieve, then work that into a strategy to get there.

 

Ask yourself these questions:

  • What does success look like?
  • What does business growth mean to you?
  • By how much do you want to grow (‘x’ figure)?
  • How many clients do you need to get (‘x’ figure)?
  • How many leads do you need to get that many clients?
  • How many clients do you currently attract and convert to sales per month?
  • How much does it cost to get a lead?

Once you have your markers, we recommend checking if you’re hitting the KPI on each of these things, and if not, identify what part of the funnel is breaking down and remedy it.

The value of your digital marketing leads is dependent on your ability to handle those leads. There needs to be a failsafe structure in place in the business to funnel and convert leads into paying customers.

 

How long until I see results?

There are varying factors that impact the outcome of digital marketing expenditure. Some clients of ours have experienced a 300% return or more from marketing campaigns, but it isn’t easy to get those results, it’s not a fast return, and similar results are not guaranteed.

 

If your business model is solid and your response to the leads you gain from digital advertising is well developed, then you should see a positive result in time. If you have a proven, successful business, and you’re already running paid ads, three to six months is a good ballpark figure for how long it will take for you to see results of a new campaign. If it’s your first dip into digital marketing however, it could take longer, sometimes up to 12 months to see results.

 

 

In summary, the job of a good digital marketing campaign is to go into the marketplace, get attention, and bring the customer back to your business. Digital marketing can help you sell an already working product. But digital marketing can’t fix holes in your business.

 

So, if you’re new to digital marketing and intend to engage in a digital marketing agency, we recommend taking a holistic look at your business, including your sales funnels, foundations, and lead response before you enter the digital arena.