HOW TO IDENTIFY THE BEST DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY FOR YOUR BUSINESS- Remi Martins
Here’s how to identify the best digital marketing agency for your business
If you are starting a business or Startup that is consumer focused, you must consider before other things, how to get your products to your target audience. Almost everything is consumed online these days, even Dangote Cement. Which invariably means that people buy almost anything online.
Depending on how you are starting you will need a Digital Marketer, Consultant or an agency to help you with strategies and leverage the possibilities of Digital Marketing to drive growth for your business. If you have good knowledge of Digital Marketing you can start by doing this yourself. All you need is to read resources online, especially case studies of businesses similar to yours.
This post is for people who can not do it themselves and who will typically need a team to help scale their business or ideas with Digital Marketing. After reading this post you will understand the elements that are important when looking for the right Digital Marketing Agency, you will also understand the things that don’t matter and buzzwords used by Digital Agencies to mostly bamboozle clients who know little to nothing about Digital Marketing.
SHALL WE?
I need to let you know that I work for a great Digital Agency that is 100{54d2fcdcd494adb6982253be6fe8d5492e5f586157f419110131714f9092ec60} Data Driven but we are not always going to be the best for every business. It is important to find a team that will bring the best value on board and promotes your business in the best way possible.
I consider the 5 points below very important when considering a Digital Agency.
- KNOW WHAT YOU WANT: It is easy to make the wrong decision if you are not sure about what you want for your business. It will be easy to know your marketing needs if you have a business plan. You may not know so much about Digital Marketing but doing a research on similar businesses and how they leverage Digital Marketing will give you insights on what you should be doing. Should you be more interested in building a great social media presence or curating impeccable content for distribution? For Instance, I.e Hotel businesses mostly acquire customers via search because when people need hotels they will most likely use search engines to find one while a small fashion business will leverage on Social Media to build a community and Influencers to drive engagement. Write a list of everything you want need a Digital Agency to do for you, the list may include media production, content curation and marketing, Social Media Marketing, Search engine Marketing, Analytics and so on.
2.RESEARCH THEIR WORK: Most agencies publish their work and case studies online. This should be available on their website or Social Media pages. Do some research from what you find to help you understand their process and value proposition. Identify the strength of the agencies that you are reaching out to and make sure it aligns with your needs. Look out for agencies that have worked with your kind of business before, the benefit is that they already know your market and will most likely understand your target audience. This doesn’t mean that you can’t try Agencies that haven’t marketed your kind of product before, you can assess them if you are convinced that they are exceedingly creative and have done work that is very commendable.
3.ASK QUESTIONS: At this point, you should know what you want from a Digital Marketing Agency, select 2-3 agencies from your research then proceed to interview. Before you interview an agency, get familiar with Digital Marketing terms so you don’t get carried away when they start using terminologies that you don’t understand. Share your vision and story with them and explain in clear terms what you want to achieve. Be nice but ask direct questions that will reveal if this agency is great for your company’s direction.
4.PRICE: Expensive or cheap is subjective but please note that expensive doesn’t always mean good. Be flexible, put your quote in a spectrum. Keep in mind that if you are the lowest paying client at an agency you may not get the dedication or resources available to their high paying clients. My advice is to select an agency that caters to companies with your kind of budget.
5.DOCUMENT EVERYTHING: The success of your digital marketing strategy is reliant on your planning and implementation, now that you have found the right agency for you I advise that your document your agreements. The document should state clearly the deliverables, time frame, strategy in phases etc. This way you are able to track their work and avoid miscommunication.
This may seem like a long process but it’s important that you get it right from the jump. Take your time at the research stage, be flexible but be resilient where it counts. You are on your way to finding the right agency that will take your company to the next level.
