There are many factors to consider if you’re looking for a digital marketing agency. You want to ensure that you’re working with an agency with the in-depth knowledge and experience needed to achieve your goals.
In addition, you should be able to communicate easily and effectively with your potential agency partner. You also need an experienced team to help guide your brand through this process to grow its presence in the digital world.
Here are ten things you have to find out about an agency before you hire them for your marketing needs.
Article Breakdown
Find out if the agency will help you achieve your marketing mission
If you’re looking to hire an agency, it’s important to understand the difference between a digital marketing agency and a digital marketing consultant.
While both offer services related to online advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and content creation, these roles are distinct from one another.
The role of an agency is to execute your strategies in order to achieve your goals while taking care of all the day-to-day tasks such as creating content and managing social media channels.
A consultant is someone who offers advice on how best to tackle digital marketing issues. In this case, they’ll offer insight into what works best according to industry standards, but they won’t actually execute any work for you.
In other words, if you want somebody who will do all the work for you, and possibly help with strategy, then look no further than an agency!
Be sure they have a clearly-defined and detailed plan for every client.
A good digital marketing agency such as Tactica will have a plan for every single client, and that includes yours. They should be able to articulate how they intend to reach your goals, what their strategy is to get there, what your budget will be, and on what timeline those results will occur.
If you’re interviewing agencies and they don’t have this information clearly laid out for you in advance, or they can’t tell you, then move on.
It’s likely that they don’t know what they’re doing or how long it’ll take them either. And if an agency doesn’t know where it is going or how long each project will take, then there’s no way they could possibly deliver the results you need when they’re needed.
Is the agency experienced in your industry?
When you’re looking for the right digital marketing agency, the first thing to consider is their experience in your industry.
If you’re a new business without a lot of brand recognition, it’s probably best to find an agency that specializes in your industry.
On the other hand, if you are an established brand and want to expand your marketing efforts into digital channels that are not currently being utilized by your company, like social media and SEO, then it may be better to find an agency with experience working with companies like yours.
The right agency will be able to help guide you through this process and determine which options are best suited for reaching your goals while keeping within budget constraints.
How is communication with your potential agency?
In the world of digital marketing, communication is key. You will be working with your agency for a long time, so you should be able to easily and effectively communicate with them.
You should be able to talk with your agency in a way that feels comfortable and natural. If you have specific questions you should be able to answer them clearly and concisely. You may also want to ask about how often they will be available for meetings or calls. This can help you determine if this is the right agency for you.
It is important that the agency you choose can provide timely updates and communicate any delays or issues with you so that you can stay on track.
Here are a few pointers;
- They need to understand your business and goals.
- They should be able to answer your questions in a clear way that makes sense based on their experience as a digital marketing expert.
- They should also be able to explain their strategy in detail so that you can make sure it’s something that makes sense for your company.
- Finally, they should be able to explain what they are doing in terms of analysis and reporting so that you can clearly see how things are progressing over time.
A quality digital marketing company will have the ability to track results
The best way for a digital marketing agency to track results is through analytics. Analytics are used to measure how well your business is doing online, whether your website, display ads, or social media pages.
That is why it’s important that you use a company with good analytics skills.
Another way to tell a good agency is how they measure your ROI (return on investment) and conversion rates. They should be able to tell you what exactly they’ve done, how much money they’ve spent, and how much money you’re making as a result of their work.
It’s also important that your digital marketing agency has experience with measuring customer satisfaction. This helps ensure that people enjoy using whatever product or service they’re promoting through social media and other avenues of online advertising.
As you scan through the agencies, don’t take their word for it. Instead, find proof of their claims. If they say that they can increase your website traffic by 10% in a month, ask them to provide you with the analytics that proves this claim.
It’s also important to consider how long your agency has been around. Some agencies may have only recently started working with small businesses, while others may have been offering their services for decades.
How does the agency measure success?
There are many ways to measure results. Some agencies will use a combination of tools, including Google Analytics and Google Search Console, while others may use only one of these tools or even a third-party analytics tool.
It’s important to understand the different methods that your agency uses to measure results and what they mean for your business.
For example, if an agency says that they increased your website traffic by 50%, but they didn’t explain how they did this, then it could be difficult to know whether or not this was a legitimate increase.
Other agencies will use a program like WordStream or HubSpot Sales, which tracks the number of leads generated by each campaign and the resulting conversions from those leads.
Some agencies even have their own proprietary software that reports results in real time.
Ask your potential digital marketing agency how they measure success for you specifically so you can know what type of reporting system to expect.
What kind of support does this agency offer?
Support is an important aspect of any agency. You should be able to contact them 24/7, and they should be able to provide support in a variety of ways: phone, email, chat, and so on.
They should also have the ability to provide support in different time zones. A good digital marketer will have a team of people who can help you out when you need it most.
What results can you expect from the relationship?
This is perhaps the most important question to ask your potential digital marketing agency. You need to know what kind of results to expect from this relationship and whether they’ll meet or exceed your expectations. The competent agency will have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how they can help you get there.
A good agency should have a proven track record of success, with extensive case studies showing how they’ve helped clients achieve their goals.
You should also be able to see some of their work yourself so that you can get an idea of what it looks like once it’s been completed.
How much time is needed for the agency to deliver results?
The time required for you to see results will depend on two factors; the scope of your project and how much effort you put into it.
For instance, a full-scale website redesign will require more time than a simple content update. But even so, good agencies should be able to deliver results within a month or two at most.
If they take longer than this, then there’s probably something wrong.
You should also look out for agencies that make unrealistic promises about how quickly they will be able to deliver results. This is a common tactic among scammers, who use it to lure businesses into signing up for more expensive contracts than they need.
You should be offered a detailed contract
Before you hire a digital marketing agency, make sure you have a contract to define expectations and the scope of work.
You’ll want to know what will be included in the scope of work as well as how long it will take for this agency to complete their work on your project.
You shouldn’t consider hiring an agency without a contract in hand. A good contract should cover:
- What is expected from both parties (you and the agency)?
- Who owns the content produced by this relationship, including any analytics data collected from your site after launching new content or updates made by an external source
- How often do changes need to be made based on goals and objectives met during each phase of development (for example monthly, or quarterly)?
Before you hire a digital marketing agency, it’s important to know what to look for in a digital marketing agency. Here are some things to consider:
What kind of services does the company offer? Is it a one-stop shop or do they specialize in specific areas? Are they able to handle all aspects of your business’s digital marketing needs or just certain parts of it?
Are there any reviews online that mention their work with other companies like yours i.e., if they have done similar work? If so, what did those clients have to say about them? What were their experiences like working with the company overall and how did they feel about the results achieved by using their services over time as opposed to without them at all?
Finding answers to these questions would help you select the best agency that’ll take your business to new heights.
We hope you’ve learned a lot about what to look for in a digital marketing agency. If you need any additional information, feel free to contact us. All the best with your search!