Digital marketing is currently a powerful influence, especially for organizations focusing on sales and building brand identity, recognition, and customer reach. Digital marketing agencies are growing bigger by the moment, thanks to digital marketing’s massive potential for consumer engagement and business growth.
According to Statista.com, in 2020, the annual spending on digital advertising reached a staggering figure of $332 billion and is expected to reach $526 billion by 2024.
The potential in online marketing is because of the rise of digital media and the increasing willingness of businesses to go online.
What Does A Digital Marketing Agency Do?
Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of choosing the best agency to work with, let’s shed some light on what digital marketing agencies are and what they bring to the table.
A digital marketing agency in Houston like Enlmtd Group handles marketing campaign strategies that extend to both inbound and outbound forms of marketing.
The potential in online marketing is because of the rise of digital media and the increasing willingness of businesses to go online.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing in this digital era extends to the employment of strategies through website design, social media, SEO, and super targeted and niche marketing.
Outbound Marketing
On the other hand, outbound strategies involve more traditional marketing forms, including email marketing and searches.
This is the extent of services offered by digital marketing agencies. While it may all sound impressive, it can all go wrong for you if the right digital marketing service providers are not chosen.
As a business owner, you need to do your due diligence and treat the entire process like any other significant investment opportunity.
Related Content: Top 6 Digital Marketing Trends to Look Out For in 2023.
How Do I Find The Right Agency For My Business?
The answer is more complicated than you think and requires high-quality research and some healthy decision-making on your part.
As the numbers of digital marketing agencies increase at a mammoth rate, choosing the right people to work with has become even more challenging.
For successful execution, we will look into some significant steps an entrepreneur should take before choosing any digital marketing agency that has the potential to meet their needs.
Outsource An Agency Or Go In-House
Do you really need a digital marketing agency to cater to your marketing campaigns?
Apparently, the foremost consideration that comes to mind. If you are a small to mid-sized business, chances are you are already asking yourself this question.
Running your own digital marketing campaigns is by no means easy, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Regardless of your choice, it is essential to know what goes into launching a successful digital marketing campaign.
To come to a concrete decision, one needs to have a deep understanding of the target audience and their behavior.
It is essential to create a structured system to make the entire process more efficient while maintaining consistency on both the qualitative and quantitative levels, using all the tools at your disposal to improve the performance of future marketing campaigns.
Plan Your Budget
This process allows entrepreneurs to clearly define what exactly they require from a digital marketing agency.
A marketing budget is ideally based on how much you can afford in conjunction and the level of acceptable ROI from your marketing efforts.
Most importantly, it is best to keep your budget flexible, especially if you don’t have a proper idea of how much this service will cost you.
Create An Objective For Your Digital Marketing Needs
Depending on multiple factors unique to your organization, the services you require from a certain agency may differ.
This is the most significant step that you should take before turning towards a digital marketing agency.
- Figure out the end goal of running a successful campaign
- Do you require better positioning on search engines leading towards more clicks on your website?
- Or you want to send out emails detailing new product offerings to better your sales?
The point being, the clearer your objective is, the better the agency becomes at catering to your specific needs.
How do you expect a digital marketing agency to understand your needs and preferences if you yourself don’t understand them?
Understand Metrics
Once you determine your marketing objectives and goals, the next step is to understand how to measure their success.
Here success metrics, KPIs, and analytics are your primary resources of information. These will help measure every marketing success and failure. The key thing to understand is no matter what objectives you establish; there is a metric out there providing accurate information for that particular objective.
Value VS. Price
When it comes to finding the right agency for your business, it boils down to getting the best value out of your investment.
That value is defined through the goals you place for your organization and how comfortable you feel with the agency you pick.
Please note it is vital for the agency to hold the company’s interests in high regard when delivering as promised.
Therefore, low costs do not often guarantee the desired result, as it’s essential to realize that spending more in the initial phase of the process may be beneficial in the long-run.
As far as digital marketing goes, the sky is the limit, and no organization operates in entirely favorable circumstances.
Hence, an entrepreneur needs to strike a healthy balance between the desired value and the price that is being paid to achieve that value.
Market References And Research
When hiring, it is imperative to check for references. The same goes for case studies or portfolios and the feedback from the agency’s previous clients.
One can also keep a follow-up with the agency’s clients to better understand the skill level you are dealing with and if their work ethic and behavior could come into question.
Similarly, if you are going for a specific marketing strategy, it is advised to assess the client’s previously completed projects that are akin to the plan you want to implement.
For instance, if you are looking for an agency to set up a blog for your business, it is essential to check out the quality of the blogs previously published by the agency for their current and/or old clients.
By doing this, you will get a picture of how the agency delivers its content-based expertise.
Send RFPs
Once you have shortlisted a company that offers digital marketing services in Houston, you’d like to work with, it’s time to send an RFP to them.
Through the RFP, you’ll receive additional information, including the bidding process details, terms of the agreement, payment options and cycle, quotation details, and other general and technical minutiae required to close the deal.
Eventually, it is time to select the company that meets your criteria, business needs, and subsequent proceedings, as shown through the RFP.
The brand’s email marketing campaign to reconnect subscribers says ‘Your facial hair has become 1.5″ since your last visit.’ This is a quick method for snaring in clients as it inspires you to think and be uneasy to find out additional. Whenever the brief email allures readers, they coordinate through a list of Beardbrand’s products. The last source of inspiration says, ‘Check what I’ve missed,’ which is an excellent method for getting clients pondering what they have passed up – energizing them to stay associated with Beardbrand through FOMO.
Beardbrand uses a smart method for capturing its subscribers and standing apart from the commotion. They don’t adopt a commonplace deals strategy, instead, connect with the viewer through fascinating thoughts and accommodating data that connects with their products. They used the FOMO to stand out and captivate them, searching for additional products.
Email marketing is something precarious to get right. You want to use strategies that catch people’s eyes and lead them onto your deals page. It is wise enough to follow Beardbrand’s successful digital marketing campaign examples of how to do this.
Review The Agency’s Performance
The logic behind this step is to assess if the agency can run a successful marketing campaign for themselves. And if this is the case, chances are they will be able to do the same for you.
It is advised to review the online presence of agencies that you think might be a good fit for your brand’s custom needs. The way the agency produces its own material, designs, and posts can give you an idea of what they could do for you.
If you are looking to boost your SEO ranking, check how the agency has done the same for itself.
If an agency is unable to generate results with digital marketing strategies for themselves seemingly, what good can they do for your business?
The “Beer” Test
Time to meet your selected name in person!
Meeting in person/team is essential to gauge how your relationship with that particular online marketing agency Houston will pan out.
You must get to know the team you are working with and make sure you have all the issues and queries clarified before entering into any contractual obligation.
Meeting face-to-face can bring light to any potential personality conflicts that could negatively impact the success of your campaigns.
Determine Your Role
Determination of an organization’s role, its involvement, and the nature of the relationship with its agency needs to be established on a case-to-case basis.
In this process, there are some questions that you need to ask yourself.
- Do you want all the work to be handled by an agency or have them working as an extension of your marketing team?
- Would you instead work with a more prominent agency that provides a broad range of services?
- Would you want to go with an agency that specializes in marketing strategies?
Each method has its own merits and disadvantages. Choosing one is dependent on the kind of business you run and the ecosystem you operate in.
Final Thoughts!
In not so recent times, it was believed that bigger businesses are untouchable and uncatchable because they can invest heavily in the execution of marketing strategies.
But now, with the growth in the digital marketing industry, we can observe startups giving the big shots of the industry a run for their money.
The reason being is the development of digital marketing tools and an availability of solutions that are helping small businesses reach out online.
The key is useful research, an accurate understanding of the environment your business operates in, having a grip on your core competencies, and understanding how value can be delivered to the customers and effectively deliver it.
Having a solid digital marketing strategy doesn’t necessarily mean that there should be heavy capital invested. Instead, it is more about making smart choices.
We have observed huge organizations bite the dust because of huge investments made in the wrong marketing solutions.