Digital marketing is a huge initiative for many businesses to handle. After all, the field is vast and can be overwhelming to maintain.
You likely already know that creating and maintaining an online presence involves much more than creating a website. That’s why a lot of businesses choose to outsource their marketing needs to a trusted digital marketing partner or agency. However, picking a partner to manage your online presence is not as easy as a quick Google search.
In this article, we’ll outline all of the points you should keep in mind when choosing the best digital marketing partner for your brand. Let’s get started!
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Define Your Goals and Budget
Before you begin researching marketing agencies, Forbes recommends taking a step and understanding your needs. Consider your business’ website, if you currently use search engine optimization (SEO), your advertising needs, social media plan, and graphic design capabilities – all of these aspects are crucial to the success of any marketing strategy. If you know what you need ahead of time, your conversations with prospective agency partners will go much more smoothly.
Think about how you can break down your marketing goals into deliverables, such as a fully managed email marketing strategy. From there, define the goal of these deliverables, i.e. sending a monthly newsletter to engage your current customers. Finally, pinpoint your desired end result – for instance, if we continue with our email marketing example, your business’ desired end result might be for your digital marketing partner to fully manage and support your email marketing strategy.
Your next step should involve defining your budget. A good digital marketer is one who can work within your budget and set your expectations accordingly.
Which types of marketing technologies should your strategy consider? Get our list here!
5 Steps to Finding Your Digital Marketing Partner
So you have your marketing goals and budget outlined – great! Now, let’s look at some tips for vetting your potential digital agencies:
1. Look for a portfolio of past clients – One of the best ways marketing agencies demonstrate their capabilities is by compiling a portfolio of projects completed for past and current clients. Review an agency’s website and look for examples of their work. Do keep in mind, however, that some services (like SEO) are difficult to display. In these cases, you can ask for client references or look for client testimonials on the agency’s website and review sites like Yelp, Clutch, and Expertise. Further, if you work in a specific industry, you may also want to consider hiring an agency that has experience working with clients in your field. They will likely be more familiar with your unique challenges, and can suggest strategies and expertise that will help you develop marketing campaigns tailored to your target audience.
2. Ask about their martech tools – Every digital marketing agency needs tools to help them measure website performance, SEO, email marketing, and more. Your prospective partner may be using well-known tools like Google Analytics for SEO or Sprout Social for social media analytics (and these are just a few examples!). They may also be using their own proprietary technology to help them manage these types of tasks. In any case, they should be able to explain these tools to you and how they can provide value to your business.
3. Expect some common services – Overall, your digital marketing partner will help you increase business revenue by using various marketing techniques to grab the attention of your target audience and broaden your online presence. Some of the core services most agencies offer include:
a. Facebook advertising – Facebook advertising is one of the original tenets of paid ad management. Its large user base and targeting capabilities are great assets for any small business seeking a good ROI.
b. SEO – By getting your content to rank high in search engines, you are more likely to catch potential buyers at the ideal point in the buyer’s journey.
c. Content marketing – Content marketing is a great way to engage your audience and build trust in your brand. Ask about the different types of content your digital marketing agency can produce, including, infographics, blog posts, content analysis, and social media promotion.
d. Email marketing – When compared to social media marketing, direct mail, and other digital marketing mediums, email marketing has the highest conversion rate. Your ideal partner should know this and demonstrate best practices for understanding your customer and sending personalized messages.
4. Understand their pricing model – A reputable agency will be completely transparent about its pricing model from the get-go. When speaking to references, keep questions about pricing in mind to see if the agency has a habit of tacking on unnecessary extras or not.
5. Avoid unrealistic promises – Unfortunately, there are many dubious agencies so desperate for your business that they will promise you the world, but be unable to deliver on that promise. Therefore, if they claim that they can deliver results that no other agency can, ask for their plan. For instance, if your agency is promising you SEO optimizations that will land your business on the first page of Google, tread cautiously. SEO is a very nuanced discipline and it is impossible to guarantee first-page rankings. Just another reason to understand what you need before consulting with an agency!
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We create integrated, customized digital marketing solutions for your business by innovatively combining marketing tools and technology, all for the benefit of the end-user experience.
We focus on strategy, data science, media performance, and advertising, and use data intelligence to support businesses, connect people, and create experiences. Using our expertise, best practices, and statistical techniques, we provide actionable business insights based on data mining and predictive models, as well as analytics and social insights.
Are you looking for the best digital marketing partner for your business? Look no further than the Stefanini Group. Contact us today to learn more!
