Hiring the right digital marketing agency can help your business thrive and be seen online. If you’re looking to replace your marketing team, or hand your marketing tasks to a marketing agency, contracting out to a digital marketing agency is a great way to rise your marketing efforts.
What does a marketing agency do?
A digital marketing agency can use plenty of marketing strategies to reach consumers online, as such:
- Website design
- SEO
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
These are just some of the many marketing strategies you can use to reach a broader and better audience online. Digital marketing agencies vary in their capabilities and the benefits they bring to the table. How to know which digital marketing agency is right for you? To hire the right digital marketing agency, it’s essential to prepare ahead and ask plenty of reliable questions, and determine if their company matches your needs.
When thinking about which marketing agency to hire, ensure you don’t rely on the first one you find online. Make sure you read online reviews from past clients. You want to find an agency that aligns with your business goals, culture, and desires. In order to see which one’s best for you, start your journey by interviewing many agencies and asking the following questions.
Do you need to sign a contract?
Marketing agencies can differ in the type of contract they choose to sign and the commitments required. Most agencies desire to have a contract in place, which statuses a specific amount you’ll pay monthly for some time. Others will allow you to hire an occasional project and bill you, thus. Or, in other cases, an agency will want both.
Communication
It’s essential to know from the beginning what to expect from a digital marketing agency. Ask how they prefer to communicate with their clients? Phone calls, email, Zoom calls, etc. If you have other strong communication preferences, it’s critical to look for a digital agency willing to do so. Also, consider how often you will hear from your digital agency? Do you want to communicate often and make certain decisions, or do you prefer to contact them less often?
Additionally, ask them about their preferences and expectations regarding how much effort they expect from you.
How often do you want to meet your digital marketing agency’s team?
Of course, meetings will be plenty and often at the beginning, as you want to get to know each other and build a solid and healthy relationship before starting your projects. After this, it’s only normal to have monthly meetings; but each marketing agency is different. So, it’s a great idea to establish rules from the beginning.
How to measure your business success?
Your marketing efforts won’t always bring you direct and excellent ROI. Because not all marketing efforts are equally the same, marketing agencies use different measuring success based on the type of marketing efforts they’re doing for you, considering the goals you’ve got in place. For example, SEO is measured by keywords, SERP ranking, and search volume. On the other hand, social media marketing is measured by the number of followers, link clicks, post engagement, video views, etc.
Thus, ask your branding agency New York how they measure the success of your marketing campaigns and how they prefer to communicate this information to you. Make sure they use measurable metrics, like increased traffic, conversion rates, and engagement numbers. Additionally, determine your company’s goals and expectations for your campaigns, and clarify them to your marketing agency. It’s essential, to be honest and clear about the specific measurements you want to keep an eye on. For example, you may want to increase website traffic; therefore, the number of visitors might be more important than keyword ranking.
How soon to expect results?
Marketing efforts don’t usually show up overnight. You’re going to make an impact if you’re consistent. So, in most cases, you shouldn’t wait for immediate results. A reliable marketing agency will handle well how long it will take to see results from their marketing efforts, based on your company’s needs.
Will they create a custom strategy for your company?
Ask your digital marketing agency to show you examples of their work. It’s great to ask questions, but make sure you take a look at what they have previously done for their clients in the past. If you want specific projects to be done, like social media posts, email newsletters, eBooks, websites, etc., ask for examples of similar work.
Note the differences between work done for you and what they’ve done in the past. You should pay attention to design, usability issues, and other details that matter most. If they look like they’re using the same strategy repeatedly, you should reconsider your thoughts. Each campaign must be unique and provide a broader range of capabilities for its clients.
Do they have a place to sell themselves, like social media presence or a website? They should show the public what they’re capable of. If they aren’t doing these efforts for themselves, how will they be qualified to do it? If they’re not active on social media, they’re not going to create effective and relevant social media marketing for your business.
A reliable marketing agency will have their best interests in you. In most cases, you won’t even ask for samples. If a digital marketing agency considers they’re excited to show you their work, you won’t even have to bother asking them too many questions. If the opposite, you should consider it a red flag. It’s expected that a digital marketing agency keeps past projects confidential – if it’s not the case, they should be happy to share their work with you.
Finally, another critical factor to consider when hiring a digital marketing agency is its culture. What are the qualities you aim for when looking for a business partner? Ideally, you will want to have a marketing agency by your side that has the same values as yours.
