Time to hire a Digital Marketing agency?
Running a business or a department of a firm is no easy task. In both cases, stress runs high and patience levels run low. You need to put on different hats in order to get things done and coordination is required at maddening levels.
However, the end result may not as per your expectation. Well, i wish to ask you a question here… how many things can you do on your own when God has gifted all of us only 24 hours to live in a day?
When i had started my self-funded Digital Marketing agency, i would do everything on my own, be it meetings, content writing, accounting, billing and graphics too! Soon, I realized that my real work of creativity and strategizing for my dear clients was getting adversely affected.
In a matter of few months, I started meeting more business owners and no matter what size of their businesses, after gulping down a few drinks they would complain that they were not able to grow and multiply their business at the rate that they had initially thought. After a few drinks, the common reason for not achieving as much was the same- they were doing too many things outside their core expertise.
In other words, if a hospitality guy starts working on building a mobile app to track the productivity of his team’s calls, he is surely venturing into understanding a technical domain, and customizing its process to fit his needs. It doesn’t end at that, he would have dig up a lot of resources to do the thing that a specialist could have done in half or less than half the time. Dont you think the time he spent on building his mobile app could have been spent in getting more hospitality partners on contract and reaching out to more customers?
I saw the journey of one such highly promising entrepreneur, who from being a hero in his Hospitality domain, ended up in entering another domain and finally losing the sheen from both the domains. I couldn’t have felt more disappointed!
In my opinion and my not-so-vast Entrepreneurship experience, I feel we are a restless breed and we think that given some time, we can unlearn and learn everything possible. In other words, may be DIY-preneurs should be the right term for us. At a critical time, such an instinct gets the better of us as we end up wasting time over things that wont benefit us as much in the medium or the long term. Thus, i think it is better to stick to one set of skills and grow them in the long term rather than learn many new skills for the thrill of it!
One of the most important part of a self funded or an externally funded company is Marketing. Marketing is a vast field spanning across sectors, demographic cohorts, and the length and breadth of the Target base plus countless case studies (how can i forget them!). To top it, Digital Marketing involves studying and understanding user behaviors in a completely new environment and no matter how easy it may seem, succeeding in Digital Marketing is no child’s play.
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If you start exploring SEO then the technical terminology entailed within SEO will drain you out. If you are deep dive into blogging, then writing each blog will take 4 to 6 hours of your time and at the end of a couple of blogs, you might feel creatively potent but the stamina to write another blog post may have already run out!
Time to hire a specialised Digital Marketing agency
Here I will share with you a few trade secrets to find the right agency:
Get some clarity
Sometimes, it is good to be open to new ideas and new technologies but it is better to get a hang of where you wish to reach by latching onto those ideas and technologies. Thus, it is not rocket science for any business owner to get an understanding of what is lacking in the marketing mix and then ask the specialists for their suggestions.
All that glitters is not Gold!
It is no secret that Digital Marketing Agencies are spread out everywhere, however, finding the one that fits your business objectives completely is the real challenge. Some agencies might lure you through their glitzy presentations but at the end of 3 months of hiring them, they would not be able to deliver on their promises.
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India is huge country and people notice a wave, latch onto the wave and get over confident with their limited skill sets. Digital marketing agencies get a hang of how to grow your website traffic using whatever methods that suit them and many business owners without knowing the process behind it, fall for the trap. The result is that if Black hat SEO practices are used or illegal link farm techniques are resorted to, the business owner’s website may get blocked! This is a pitfall with many digital agencies that lead to the agony of my company owners!
Let’s go for the cheapest option
As a business owner, I understand that a startup would go for specialised services only when the need arises. However, as one of my mentor, lamenting about cheap digital marketing agencies below par services, rightly said that if the need has finally arisen to get specialised guys to do something, then why not shell out an extra buck for a better team to work for you?
Check out our blog post for gauging ROI of a Digital Marketing activity
Right Questions to ask
Hiring a digital marketing agency is no easy task and with plethora of such, all around you in all shapes and sizes (not literally!), it is important to gauge them on certain parameters after telling them what you do and what you wish to achieve.
- Who are the core members of the agency? Are they from reputed institutes and what experience do they carry?
Such questions are usually gauged during casual interaction but it is important to know the background of the people sitting across you. - If there is a client case study that they boast about, what are the difficulties they faced in achieving the success?
This is usually the point where you would realise if the work was actually done by them or is it a borrowed information. - Has the agency worked with a company in the same sector as yours, in the past?
- If yes, what was the brief of that client and what were the parameters being judged?
In some cases, such information would be confidential and without pressing for too much you can get a hang if the agency has worked on similar parameters or not. - If the answer to the first question is no, then according to the agency, who are the competitors in your segment and what is the pressing need of the sector at large?
This question may help you understand the level of preparation of the agency and their intellect and knowledge would be tested.
In my opinion, if the above 5 questions are answered well by a digital marketing agency, there is no reason why they can’t be your partners in growth!
Wonderful article! Concisely describes the factors to look out for while deciding upon a Digital Marketing agency for a brand!
Thank you Nidhi… i have partly observed your journey from the agency side to the client side and i am glad that you found the article useful!
I think now is the right time to get one if you have a business. Now more than ever, it matters that you have social media presence.
Very well said Kathy! As a Digital Marketing agency owner, i have been receiving a lot of enquiries about how to go for Digital Marketing and specially Social Media presence!
What a great article! Thank you for sharing this with us. This was very informative.
Kileen
cute & little
Thanks Kileen, I’m glad my article was able to provide value!
I think that as a small business, you must balance the cost of hiring a digital marketing agency and the return on investment. Will it save you time? Will it save you money? Will the results cover their fees?
So true Joanna! Setting the expectation is very important and the key ROI is even more important.
Thanks for all the information you shared here. Really helpful.
I am glad you find it helpful! Keep coming back for more!
As someone who does digital marketing myself, I agree that it can be incredibly beneficial to a company to take advantage of! Great points that you made here.
Really!! You are a Digital Marketer! Hi and welcome to the club! Why dont we write a blog post together? Let me know….
Now, this is truly an honest article that we can really depend and set our guide into it. It tackles every question we can think of, I may say.
I’m glad to read your comment! Answering almost all questions that come to your mind is the real purpose of this blog post.
Managing everything, including social media is definitely challenging. This was a very insightful article, thank you.
Social media management is a bit dependent on perseverance so yes it can be challenging at times!
You bet it is tough!
This is great advice and will be useful as I continue to grow my sites! Thank you!
Surely Marie… I would love to help you grow your digital presence!
You are most welcome!!
Hiring a digital marketing agency is so beneficial because you can have someone promote your business for you which is great if you don’t have the skills or knowledge in digital marketing. It is also great if you just dont have the time to market digitally.
Yes very well said!!
Hiring a digital agency is so important when you have a big business that really needs to focus on.
Yes in big organizations, processes are well laid out for their core work and sadly marketing and digital marketing suffers from ignorance. Thus the need for a digital marketing agency!
No matter the size of your business and the task at hand, a good digital marketing agency will produce a budget that suits the specific requirements of your business. Agencies Have More Time Than You Do. … Moreover, they have the right kind of tools to deliver massive success in digital marketing campaigns.
Affirmative!!!
Wow, you have mentioned some great points regarding the benefits of hiring digital marketing agency in this article. Very informative post, indeed!
Thank you for your kind words! I’m glad you find my post informative