Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency

When deciding to work with a digital marketing agency, there are a number of important questions and considerations that you will be thinking of. In today’s blog entry we are going to try and cover some of these questions that you may have and we will also try and answer them as well.

If you are looking to begin working with an agency, there are probably a number of reasons for this, maybe you are simply too busy and don’t have the time needed to create marketing plans or undertake SEO work for example. It may be that you need the professional skill set of a digital marketing team and this is not your area of expertise, either way, choosing a partner to work with on your business’s digital marketing is an important step. It also marks a significant step towards growth as well as further investment in your marketing means that your company is growing, so it is worth taking a moment to stop and think about this and congratulate yourself.

Firstly, when choosing an agency you need to understand their speciality. For example, if you are looking for an agency to undertake SEO work for you and you find a really good looking website but you have come to it via a paid advertising, it is worth asking the question, does this website rank organically for SEO? This is important, because if an agency cannot rank for its own website, how well are they going to perform with yours? It’s important to stress here, that agencies shouldn’t and don’t use paid ads for SEO and other digital marketing services, but a little bit of research into their own organic ranking will offer you some insight into how well they manage their own organic rankings. It may simply be that they are expanding into new areas where they don’t rank and are testing the water so to speak with paid ads.

In today’s modern world, there are many places for people to leave reviews, comments and thoughts on how well companies have performed for them and it is worth doing some online research into the agency that you are talking with. Have a look at google reviews, social media reviews and also have a look at any case studies that may be shown on their websites. It’s important to try and gain a real understanding of the agency that you are talking to or looking to work with, after all, its a business relationship that should last for quite some time.

Another important factor to consider is to understand exactly what you want from the outset? What is it that you want the agency to undertake for you? It’s all too easy to say ‘I want to rank higher‘ or ‘I want more sales’ – after all, we would all like this, however it is quite vague and at best lacks direction, structure and ultimately a smart goal. It is worth discussing and identifying some long term aims and objectives, using if possible, data from sources such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console or Facebook Business Manager Analytics. If you have been using any of these and have some historical data, this can help both you and the agency you choose to work with set some meaningful and achievable goals.

I hope this blog entry has been of use to you and that you have found some value in it. As always, if you have any questions, thoughts or ideas for any future posts, podcasts or vlogs then please do leave a comment in the box below and we will try our best to answer them in future entries.