Clients seek digital marketing services to achieve certain goals – whether it is building a strong online brand presence; generate client engagement or close direct sales. The agency who knows how to generate leads and sales via digital marketing for your company with the least amount of cost in time, asset and finance (in that order) is the best to work with. There are a few things you must know to sieve through the plethora of agencies available and identify the best fitting partner for you:
Identify your digital marketing needs
Digital marketing is conducted via the internet deploying online tools to promote brands, products and services, and generate leads and sales. Now that you understand what digital marketing is, clarify what you intend to achieve with your digital effort. Is it to build an online presence, or to grow and establish your online influence? Maybe it is to hit the nail on the head and close sales? Identifying this clear-cut need first is crucial, as it presents your prospective digital marketing service provider with clear expectations. Depending on your understanding of digital marketing, you might need to get an independent expert opinion to decipher the best channel to achieve your digital goals – whether through search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising (PPC), custom web development, email marketing, etc. Armed with this insight, it’s easier to identify who to shop for since most digital marketing service providers specialize in different channels.
Does your prospective partner understand your business?
As a business owner, often your digital marketing work is outsourced to reduce workload on your already packed to do list which focused on operations, competition, annual financial targets and macroeconomics. Since the purpose of engaging digital marketing services is to meet company targets, it is imperative that your technical partner and their team members dedicated to your account understand your industry, business and competition.
The logic behind this is simple. A digital marketing service provider contracted to work on an industry it has not specialized in, would have to expend great amount of effort in researching the industry, building contacts etc. What would take the industry-novice digital marketer a week to execute would be done in a day by the industry experienced agency, because of its understanding of the industry, institutional knowledge on what works and doesn’t and pre-established relationships.
Portfolio
A simple method of identifying the digital service provider that can deliver on your business objectives is to check for case studies and ask for a client recommendation. Of course, these must be for a project relevant to your objective. So, if you are looking to generate leads through SEO-rich content, the agency’s SEO portfolio must show satisfactory results and recommendation s. This greatly verifies the agency’s capacity to deliver on your objectives.
Satisfactory account manager
Getting the best out of your partnership with a digital marketing agency is as much a question of relationship skills of the partner as it is of their capability. Therefore, inquire about the executive assigned to manage your account before signing a contract with your digital marketing service provider. Make sure the person possesses a good understanding of your business, satisfactory client-facing experience, great attitude and a high-enough level in the digital marketing agency. It makes interfacing with the executive an enjoyable experience and gets your work executed faster and better given the executive’s senior role.
For more tips or strategies pertaining to your e-commerce platform, please continue reading our online marketing solutions or send an email to info@midlanddigitalsolutions.com
