Tips for Selecting a Digital Marketing Agency

2020 taught the world just how important digital marketing is. If you’re like most small to medium-sized companies, you likely don’t have an in-house team of marketing experts to help with your digital marketing efforts. That’s where full service digital marketing companies come in.

A digital marketing agency is a company that focuses on creating digital marketing strategies for their clients. These strategies can include website development, graphic designing, social media marketing, and other related services. There are also agencies out there that offer a full spectrum of advertising services, including print marketing, television commercials, paid media, and more.

Hiring an outside vendor to handle your internet marketing can sometimes be a tricky task. That’s why we’re offering some tips for selecting a digital marketing agency. We created this list of tips based on our experience with talking to new clients, and by considering our current working relationships with some of our best clients.

Figure out Your Company’s Goals

Small businesses tend to think in the short-term, but when you’re considering hiring an outside vendor for our digital marketing solutions, consider what your goals are.

These goals do not need to be specific, and instead can be something like:

• Growing organic traffic
• Increasing phone calls to a specific location
• Increasing leads for a specific service
• A website design and why you think you need that design

Make sure you understand what is is you are trying to achieve before you start reaching out to companies.

Do Preliminary Research

Head to Google and conduct some preliminary research about digital marketing companies. Are you looking for a local company? Are you looking for a company that specializes in your industry?

Consider these factors when researching and compile your top 10 list. After you have your list, review their websites. Here are a few helpful tips for weeding our the experts from the novices:

• Do they update their blog? (And do they have a blog?)
• Are their services clearly presented?
• Do they have a Google My Business page?
• What are their reviews like?

Depending on the answers to those questions, narrow down your list to 3-5 companies.

Interview the Company

The next step will be to reach out to the company to have a preliminary conversation with them. Most reputable digital agencies will reply within 2-3 business days.

You’ll want to get to know more about them and common questions to start with are:

• How long have you been in business?
• Are you Google Ads certified?
• What types of clients do you work with?

You’ll also want to inquire about their process. Each company has its own process for their services. For example, our content marketing process relies heavily on an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy that we create after an initial discovery phase.

If the company is able to do so, ask for samples. Note that some companies will not be able to provide those to you as they have non-disclosure agreements with their clients.

All in all, if you’re looking for a cutting edge digital marketing company to work with long-term, you’ll want to spend some time learning about them and their process.

I hope you found this helpful! If you have any questions or want to speak with us about your digital marketing needs, give us a call at (239) 362-121 or contact us through our website.