03/08/2018
Looking for a digital marketing agency to assist you in your marketing efforts? Aren’t sure what you should be looking for? Look no further. We’ve got everything you should expect from your digital marketing agency.
Investing in digital marketing is no small decision, especially for small to medium sized business. Why? Because you’re entrusting your brand, your company, with people you don’t know. Yes, they are professionals, but you should really know what you’re getting into, before you shake hands and sign. Digital marketing campaigns are essential for your business to succeed online, so you need the right agency to plan yours.
But where could you find knowledge about a digital marketing agency, and find out exactly what to look for? Well, did you know we do marketing at Revive? Yep, we’re a full-service digital agency. Who better to tell you about what to look for then a digital marketing agency itself! We won’t hold back, and we’re going to give you an open and honest list of things you should be looking out for.
Whilst it may seem like digital marketers are saying this to entice you into spending more money, it is true. What are we talking about? Well, the secret to making digital marketing work most efficiently is to utilise all avenues of it. That means an agency that offers PPC, SEO, Social Media and more, is ideal as they have the potential to make all of these services work together. The greater the investment, the bigger the return – and with digital marketing, your ROI is measurable and trackable.
The first and golden rule of looking into a potential digital marketing agency, is to look at what services they can offer you. By all means you don’t have to sign up for every single one (although if you’d like to we won’t complain), but an agency that covers all the bases of digital marketing is key. See a list of each service that should be open to you (even if you’re not keen on using them) below:
For those that aren’t’ familiar with all the acronyms digital marketing agencies use, we’re talking about Pay per Click (PPC) advertising (also known as paid search). Specifically, this is advertising on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. PPC is considered a short-term fix to ranking on Google, through advertising, because ad appear above other search results – the costs are determined by different search engine metrics, but you’re only charged when your ad is clicked on. Pay per click management is something that needs to be closely monitored, in order to determine the most efficient ways to spend your budget – retuning quality leads and conversions.
Another acronym (sorry), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about optimising your website so it ranks on search engines like the ones we’ve mentioned above. Search Engine Optimisation isn’t a quick ranking fix like PPC, but it’s more of a long-term investment in helping your website organically rank. SEO and PPC working in conjunction with each other can help you dominate the search engines. Technical SEO isn’t easy to understand, but a great agency will have an in-house specialist to create your SEO and digital strategy.
Through writing blogs and creating videos, content marketing helps build your brands awareness and value online. Truly great creative content marketing will be shared on social (if it provides something of value) and can help drive traffic to your website. Creating blogs adds more pages to your site, which is beneficial for SEO – so content marketing is great for bringing in traffic, conversions and even helping your website rank on search engines too. Any good content strategy includes digital media, such as digital pr, keyword research and market research too – a great content marketer will put the research in, to create great shareable content for your specific audience and get it seen.
With the amount of user on various different social media platforms, it’s definitely one part of digital marketing you should be investing in. For small business owners, updating your social media is probably the last thing on your list. Whilst it is time consuming, social media management is essential to keep up your online presence. Marketing through social media can help bring in more business, but again, it is time consuming. Through analytics and digital advertising tools on social, you can create paid social and targeted ads to get your business seen by the exact demographic you need – next to PPC, it’s one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. So, it means that you’ll need a digital marketing agency that can do both for you.
One of the most effective methods of reaching consumers directly is through email marketing. It’s a great way of placing an advertisement, offer or promotion, directly into their inbox. But, there’s email marketing and then there’s great email marketing. Any good digital marketing agency will have tools at their disposal, to create email marketing campaigns that work. Bonus points for an agency if they have designers on hand to make sure your email campaign is in line with your brand and looks damn good.
Advertising products and services to audiences in social media can be great for conversions, however, if you haven’t got the right following, what do you do? With Influencer marketing, you can find someone with social influence to promote your products and services. Similarly, with affiliate marketing, you align yourself with a person of importance or business to market your products and services to their following.
If your digital marketing agency offers you all of this, then congratulations! They’ve passed the first stage.
Now, who do you know that offers all of this…? (it’s us).
Any decent digital marketing agency will make sure they’re reporting back to you – regularly. There should be an open channel of communication between you and your agency, so you can query, discuss and know where your investment is going – and if it’s working. It’s key to ask about an agency’s reporting and updating methods, because as it’s your business and your digital strategy investment, you want to know it’s working. Because you need results and reports to prove an ROI. The great thing about digital marketing is that results are trackable, through analytic tools. So, you should be updated monthly about the success of your investment – any digital agency that isn’t reporting back is a no-go zone.
One of the failings of some digital marketing agencies, is their hesitance at saying when something isn’t working. Why? Because they don’t want to lose their client – which isn’t ideal for you (the client). So, it’s key to look for an agency you trust, and more importantly isn’t going to mess around. If something isn’t working, they should tell you. And, even more importantly, they will come up with a solution. A brilliant agency will re-evaluate, reassess and realign their digital marketing strategy to make sure your investment is retuning the right results that you want. The more an agency can help you grow, the more you can invest in services to help you grow further. For this, you need to ensure that your agency is being completely honest about the success of their strategy – that’s where reporting comes in.
Another key trait of a digital marketing agency goes beyond just the marketing services they offer. Whether access to the back end of a website needs to be given for web designers to work on it, or a graphic designer is needed to brand up some social media posts, it’s all about having an agency that can do all of this in house. A full-service digital agency is the ideal, because any work that is required isn’t bottlenecked by third parties. Find yourself an agency that can do it all is the ultimate agency – who do we know who does it all… (Again, it’s us).
When looking for the right agency for you, make sure that you look into who the agency has worked with before. Reviews and testimonials are a great way of seeing how the agency has helped other businesses (sometimes similar to yours) with their digital marketing. If an agency’s website has testimonials, case studies and reviews, it’s a good sign – because they’re proud of the work they’ve done. Even better if you know another business that has used them before, you can ask them how they’ve helped them. Always look out for who the agency has worked with in the past and what their clients have to say about them.
Finding an agency that can get you results is one thing but finding one that supports your vision and gets you the same results and more – is better. Because most find they work best with people that share their goals, and if a digital marketing agency can understand your vision, you’ll work better with them. An agency that is goal driven feels a bit soulless, but an agency that can deliver results whilst embodying your brand and ideals is how you get the right results.
If your business is situated in the United Kingdom, and deals with UK based customers, it’s ideal to have an agency in the UK. Why? Because some agencies may be UK based, but outsource to third party national companies. Sometimes, it can bottleneck projects and the same quality of work isn’t always there. You need an agency that understands the UK market, and is based here too – so you can pop in for a catch up.
If you can find an agency that does all this, then you’re on to a winner – we’d recommend getting in touch with them. They’ll make you feel like this ^^^
Luckily for you, we’re all about helping our clients at Revive. We offer all the digital marketing services (listed above), paired with great web and design work too – to make sure any crossover is all kept in house. We’ve got a great and dedicated team of marketers who will take on your brand’s values and ideals, to help your business grow online. If we sound like the digital marketing agency for you, get in touch. Use our contact form below to speak to a member of the Marketing team!
