5 Essential Factors to Consider Before Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

Right Fit Gets You to Your Goals

It’s very likely you found this blog post because you’re interested in hiring a digital marketing agency. Research is important. A digital marketing agency can help you with your marketing needs, but not all agencies are created equal. You need a team that will be the best for your business. When you’ve found a good one, there are big benefits. That’s why, before you make your selection, it’s important to consider these factors:

1. Your brand’s goals
2. Your budget
3. Experience in your industry
4. Type of digital marketing agency
5. How is success measured

Let’s explore these factors in detail:

1. Your brand’s goals

It’s been said that if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. Before plunking down an investment in an agency to do your digital marketing, you’ve got to know what it is that you want for your business. What expectations do you have about marketing efforts? Do you need:

• A website?
• Mobile-friendly website?
• Your website to rank higher in search results?
• More traffic to your website?
• Better conversion of visitors to customers?
• A way to make current customers return?
• Social media presence?
• Email marketing?

When you are clear about your goals, needs, and objectives. You’ll start to understand how you can set yourself apart from the competition. Convey this to the digital marketing agency and ask them how they can get you there.

2. Your budget

Before you start making calls to digital marketing agencies, you’ve got to be fully aware of your budget. Determine what you are able to spend. Marketing is an investment that will help your bottom line, but you can’t expect to make all your dreams come true without opening your wallet. 

This is one of the reasons outlining your goals is so critical. When you determine your needs and what you’d like to accomplish, you can compare apples to apples when interviewing agencies and select the best team to fit your budget. If you aren’t successful, it will be necessary to reevaluate either your expectations or what you’re willing to spend.

3. Experience in your industry

Digital marketing agencies have their own niche and specialty. It’s good to pick an agency that understands your business. As you research, note the type of clients each agency currently serves. A digital marketing agency that focuses on the roofing industry may not have much experience with restaurants (or vice versa). And digital marketing agencies that are handling big corporations aren’t likely to have expertise with small or midsize businesses.

While you may be hesitant to select an agency that has many clients in your field, remember that having familiarity with your industry means that the marketing team has a deep knowledge and the ability to steer away from common pitfalls. You mitigate risk because that digital marketing agency knows what works best from previous campaigns. They’ll leverage all that insight to create marketing efforts that boost your business.

4. Type of digital marketing agency

Some marketing agencies are full service, and others provide specialized service.

Depending on your needs and your business size, you’ll want to explore whether you want to choose something like a direct marketing agency that only handles email marketing campaigns, or an agency that focuses only on web design. 

A full-service digital marketing agency can help with those needs and so much more. You don’t have to commit to everything available, but it’s often helpful to have many services at the ready because you may need those offerings as you grow. It’s also a plus to have a team in place that is familiar with your company and knows how different services may benefit you down the road.

Seeking more personalized service? Take a look at boutique digital marketing agencies. They are smaller and can provide more one-on-one assistance.

Want to reach your audience in a more targeted way? See if the digital marketing agency is data-driven. Not all agencies utilize customer information in the same way. 

Data-driven marketing agencies use techniques to create effective marketing, target specific audiences, and optimize the data it collects so that it benefits your ROI.

5. How is success measured?

Any agency can say they are “results driven,” but you need to be clear on what that means specifically for your business. Any good digital marketing agency will be upfront on what it will provide. Ask about the strategy, processes, communication, specific deliverables, and how they’ll meet deadlines (and what happens if they don’t). Get an overview of the first 30 days. See how they plan to deliver reports (Weekly? Monthly?) and how the data is presented. It’s helpful to see if the charts and spreadsheets will be easy to understand. If it is going to take a technical wizard or seasoned number cruncher just to digest whether you’re reaching your target audience and goals, you’ll want to keep shopping around until you find an agency that appreciates how important it is to speak in a language you understand.

Maybe we’re the right fit

The T.E. Digital team knows how important it is to get the right agency for your business needs. (That’s why we put together this helpful insight.) Check out what we offer and examples of our work. We’ve got years of experience, a number of awards, and a team that is passionate about what we provide for our clients. If you’re shopping around, let’s talk. It’s very possible that this conversation could be the beginning of a great partnership.