Effective digital marketing takes time and dedication and there is no single ‘right way’ of improving your results, but you may be considering the steps you can take to generate more leads or sales online.
Here are 6 signs you may need support from a digital marketing agency.
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You’ve got ambitious targets to hit.
If you want your business to grow, digital marketing can be a cost-effective way to open up opportunities to target and engage with new and existing customers and generate leads or sales online.
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Your in-house team is stretched.
Marketing can cover lots of different activities and often your marketing manager or team can find themselves managing a huge workload. This is especially prevalent if marketing responsibilities sit with lots of different people in the team or if you have people picking up digital marketing tasks here and there, but not fully committing to a digital strategy and executing it consistently.
Without a clear strategy and dedicated time to monitor and optimise your digital marketing activities, results can suffer and you may not reach your goals.
It’s important that your marketing activities are joined up and that you have a clear strategy to define the right channels to engage your customers, and how you will attract, engage and convert them.
This is where a digital marketing agency can add great value by creating that strategy alongside you and prioritizing the channels and tactics that are going to reach your objectives effectively and efficiently.
This can relieve strain on your existing team and provide clear guidance on how to leverage digital marketing for your business, as well as executing that strategy consistently month on month to achieve the right results.
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You need a mixture of expertise to achieve your marketing goals or you’ve identified some knowledge or skills gaps in your existing team.
Digital marketing involves lots of different disciplines from SEO (search engine optimization), to content creation, copywriting, paid advertising, social media, email marketing and much more.
Regardless of the size of your existing marketing team, it’s important to recognize what skills you have in your team, and the potential gaps that could help you take your marketing to the next level.
We’ve worked with several marketing teams that have certain areas absolutely nailed – whether that’s content and copywriting, or their social media management as an example, but require specialist expertise in other areas.
Those specialist skills can be found with a digital agency who can complement the strengths within your team, and act as an extension of that team.
Your digital marketing strategy may also need to pivot and adapt to changes in the market, or new product launches, or new channels where your audience spend time, so working with a digital marketing agency can also give you agility in marketing.
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You need a fresh perspective.
When you manage a business there are lots of plates to juggle and you have to work hard to take an objective look at what you are doing, because you are in the thick of it. Sometimes an outside perspective can shine a light on opportunities you might not have spotted, or help you make your approach more efficient and effective.
A digital marketing agency will be on hand to help provide that wider view. Agencies work with multiple clients and have insight into different organisations and industries.
Your agency can also help you to zoom in and out on the information that is most helpful to you from a marketing perspective and how to make more informed decisions.
There are lots of tools out there such as Google Analytics that can help you monitor the performance of your website. These tools are great, but just staring at a bunch of numbers every week isn’t going to have an impact. It’s about knowing the metrics that matter for your business and knowing what questions you need answered in order to get the most out of these tools.
A digital marketing agency will work with you to configure these tools and create a measurement approach – meaning that each month you can understand your progress more easily and visualize the impact of your digital marketing efforts and what steps to take next.
This emphasis on data and measurement can be monumental in elevating your digital marketing approach, understanding your customers better, and building a valuable set of data and insight to inform your marketing moving forward.
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You’re struggling to recruit or retain the right marketing talent.
Finding the right people for your business can be tough, especially for specialist and nuanced skills like digital marketing.
If you’ve been struggling to find the right people, this could be costing you valuable time and money, and could be causing strain on existing team members. Working with a digital marketing agency may be a better option to secure reliable digital marketing expertise that will benefit your business and start making an impact.
You may also have struggled to define what that new marketing role needs to look like in your organisation. Like we explored earlier, a digital marketing agency will have experts across a range of digital channels so can offer a complete digital marketing skillset that you may not find in a new recruit.
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You need help keeping up with the pace of change in digital marketing.
Over the last few years we’ve seen Google frequently updating its algorithm, new social media platforms have emerged in the blink of an eye, new regulations have changed the way we can capture customer data (think GDPR, or cookies!), and trends come and go…
Needless to say, digital marketing moves FAST and it can be hard to keep up or know how these changes impact your business.
Digital marketing agencies are submerged in this world and are implementing digital marketing for a range of clients, all day every day, seeing what works and what changes are on the horizon.
For busy managers and business owners, you’ve got a million and one things to think about. With a digital marketing agency on board and a team of experts who understand how digital is evolving, you can rest assured that your online presence and digital channels are nurtured and future proofed.
Your agency can also help you spot opportunities before your competitors and a good agency should be feeding back useful insights on a regular basis helping ensure you capture digital opportunities for your business.
Side note > to help our clients stay up to date as much as possible, we share a monthly digital round-up where we compile all the ‘need to know’ information, making it easy for our clients to have an awareness of the digital marketing landscape. You can check out our April edition here.
So there’s a few signs that you might benefit from working with a digital marketing agency. Before you do though, it’s important to have a couple of things straight.
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Prepare your team and get internal stakeholders bought in.
Make sure your team understand the need for a digital marketing agency and the value an agency can bring to the business.
It’s super important that any stakeholders – whether they are involved in choosing the agency, or working with the agency – understand what that agency is coming on board to do, and how you can form a successful partnership.
When you get started with a new agency, it’s important that the agency team understands your wider business goals, how the business works, who does what, and that the right communication channels are there to enable your agency to develop customer-centric and authentic digital marketing content and campaigns that resonate with your audience.
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Assess where you are now and where you want to get to, and the type of digital marketing agency you want to work with.
Some of the most important things you need to start a successful relationship with a digital marketing agency are transparency and context. This means you can start with a clear understanding of where the business is right now and where you want to get to.
Soon we will be sharing a blog which goes into more detail on how to brief an agency, but for now you may want to think about a few of the following questions which your agency will want to know:
What are your objectives for the business? Where do you see the business in a year’s time? How will the business evolve? What are your core values and USPs? Who are your customers? What success or challenges have you had in marketing so far? What qualities are important to you in a digital marketing agency? How can an agency work well with you and your team?
After reading this, if you think you’re ready to work with a digital marketing agency, email me at evie@socialb.co.uk and let’s have a chat.
