Choosing the Best Digital Marketing Agency – 7 Things to Consider

You have a business with well-defined products and services and a sales team willing to sell them. What you need to grow now are new customers. How do you go about acquiring these new customers? Run an advertising campaign, get your message out, right? Well, yes and no. While you must focus on getting the messaging out, who sees your message is just as important.

To grow your business in the digital world, you need to:

• send out your message to a target audience
• make your message exciting and relevant for the target audience
• offer a clear road to the user toward fulfilling the outcome

The outcome can be making a purchase, downloading assets, subscribing to a newsletter, or any other action.

A digital marketing agency typically has a team of experts in SEO, social media, PPC, web design and content marketing to deliver a full range of services. It makes sense to choose the experts in digital marketing to design an effective strategy with clear ROI.

So how do you find a digital marketing agency that best suits your needs? Let’s look at some things that will help you finalize the best agency for your business.

1. Do an Analysis of the Service Offerings

Are they a full-service firm? Do they offer everything that a digital marketing strategy needs or specialize in only a few of the functions?

Choose a digital marketing agency that can offer a full-stack web marketing service. They must do your SEO, competitive analysis of your website, email marketing, paid advertising & content marketing.

This wide range will ensure that you do not need to hire different companies for your digital marketing needs. You can deal with one company and keep a better tab at results and ROI with the help of analytics reports.

What to look for: Expertise in SEO, SEM, Content Development, and Digital Marketing.

Red flag: Pushing for a one-size-fits-all offering

2. Check Out Their Client List and Portfolio

An agency’s client list gives you an idea about the range of customers they have handled in the past and the result they have delivered. This information lets you assess their past performance and determine if they are suitable for your company.

The agency’s portfolio showcases their work and helps track their working style. If you like the look and feel, tone, and results achieved, you can choose them for your business.

What to look for: Quality, Variety, Results

Red flag: One type of clientele and limited portfolio

3. Get the Pricing Plans

The investment you need to make to hire the agency is a critical aspect of choosing the best digital marketing agency. You must be absolutely sure about the ROI that you can expect from the agency’s work.

Some agencies may offer a phase-wise delivery model and bill you accordingly. Others may have a fixed subscription model with a standard set of services. Often customized services cost extra.

You need to ask for the best pricing and leverage exposure with your brand in return for some discounts, if possible. However, a good marketing agency that ticks all your boxes is worth its weight in gold. Do not hesitate to pay top dollar for hassle-free and reliable digital expertise.

What to look for: Subscription model, Discounts

Red flag: Pricing is out of your budget

4. Seek out the Client Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients indicate the agency’s results so far. By reading the testimonials, you can discern if the customers were delighted with the service. When they offer praise for a particular person, campaign, or strategy, you know that the agency understood the client requirements perfectly and delivered results accordingly.

Feedback at platforms other than the agency website would be great to find, but may not be readily available.

What to look for: Testimonials from different individuals from different companies

Red flag: Testimonials on their website all sound similar

5. Study the Agency’s Industry Standing

You can tell a lot about the agency by looking at its press and media coverage. Award-winning agencies indicate that they have been in the digital marketing world for a substantial time, and they consistently deliver quality work.

What to look for: Awards, Certificates, Press and Media Coverage

Red flag: Bad feedback about their services or approach

6. Explore the Social Media Presence

When a digital agency says that it will handle your social media presence across platforms, it must do the same for itself. A strong social presence with engaging content and pleasing graphics is necessary for a digital marketing agency’s own branding and image building.

What to look for: Presence on multiple platforms, Uniform brand voice, High-quality social media posts, Error-free content

Red flag: They do not practice what they preach

7. Accessibility and Approachability

Best digital media agencies are a delight to work with at all times. They are open to answering your queries, discussing or negotiating the terms that are win-win for all, and are prompt in their response. After all, they are in the people’s business! If you often find it difficult to get hold of the person in charge of handling your account, you may want to rethink your choice.

What to look for: Awards, Certificates, Press and Media Coverage

Red flag: Too much time for responding to queries, Getting defensive of their terms, Postponing meetings frequently

Bonus Tip: Look at the Team!

People make the company. Look at the team members, see how long they have been with the agency, and study their expertise. You would do better with a team of specialists who have executed digital marketing strategies for a business like yours.

What to look for: Expertise of team members in their respective fields, Good mix of senior and fresh talent

Red flag: One person with multiple responsibilities, Lop-sided team composition

Conclusion

It is impossible to hire a couple of people to execute all the digital marketing tasks. Hiring an entire team of digital professionals can seem expensive. A digital marketing agency can be instrumental in helping you accomplish these goals. They can create a web marketing plan suitable for your needs and deliver relevant leads and drive conversions.

By choosing the right agency, you can free your in-house resources to work on their core competencies. You can leverage their digital expertise to design the right digital presence for your business. They can offer SEO, content marketing, and paid media strategies and recommend the right mix of organic and paid promotions.

To see a massive surge in organic traffic and experience real results, contact us at Scion Social. We have worked with a wide range of clientele and have deep expertise in all things digital.