Running a small business means you have to be ready to face numerous challenges and find solutions on the fly. To maximize efficiency, it is crucial to strategically structure your work, figuring out which tasks you can personally handle and which processes should be outsourced.
And here comes the challenging aspect: locating and selecting an expert who will meet your expectations. Marketing agencies can be a true partner to reaching new success, but not all agencies are the same. Some focus on specific industries, while others possess a diverse range of skills and services, with varying price ranges. Before you make the leap to hire a marketing firm, we recommend reading our comprehensive guide on the step-by-step process of effective hiring.
Benefits of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency
Digital marketing is powerful, but it’s not as easy as many business owners assume. That’s why having a skilled team can be particularly helpful. For businesses with very limited teams, outsourcing could be one of their first considerations.
Why Hire a Marketing Agency?
- Out-of-the-box vision
- A broad range of skills
- Lower Cost (In some cases)
- Scale without hiring
- Access to industry tools and technology
- You get to focus on running your business
Let’s look at the pros of hiring a digital agency.
1. Out-of-the-box vision
If you are familiar with the concept of cross-industry innovation, you may be aware that numerous problems we encounter have already been addressed in different fields. One of the most successful examples is how the Formula 1 Pit Stop brought the idea of fast-food drive-throughs.
Most digital marketing agencies work with all kinds of businesses and industries equipped with valuable expertise and best practices that they can share with your company. An outside opinion can provide a fresh vantage point to examine your organization and its marketing strategy.
However, despite all the advantages of outsourcing your marketing activities, there exist potential drawbacks. Here are a few factors businesses may want to hire an in-house team.
- Employees have a deeper understanding of your brand and company’s culture
- Communication is streamlined because your team members work closely together every day
- You have full control of creatives for your campaigns
2. A broad range of skills
Not every company has the financial capacity to have full-time SEOs, data analysts, web designers, content writers, PPC, or other experts. If you opt to work with a marketing firm, you get access to a diverse set of skills across different areas, precisely tailored to the number of hours or specific tasks you enquire at any given time.
If you’re planning to roll out a massive project and require assistance to drive your campaign, you can approach to an agency that offers a dedicated team of professionals specializing in diverse aspects of marketing strategy.
Instead of relying on the experience and expertise of a single individual, you can leverage the collective knowledge and skills of multiple marketing professionals by engaging an agency to launch your project. By opting for an agency, you can gain access to a diverse team of digital experts, rather than just hiring a single general marketing person for your business.
Professional agencies typically collaborate with a diverse range of experts across various domains, enabling you to apply the right mix of expertise to meet your goals. Let’s assume you own a business and you want to hire an agency in Noida that specializes in automation, branding, and analytics. Ideally, you would prefer to locate an agency that possesses the specific industry expertise and experience to fulfill your requirements.
3. Lower costs (in some cases)
There are instances where outsourcing tasks can be more cost-effective than employing a full-time staff, particularly when dealing with one- time or occasional requirements.
Hiring a qualified full-time specialist require a significant investment of time and effort, and it can often be more costly compared to collaborating with an external team.
Considering additional expenses that come with having an in-house team, like insurance, taxes, and retirement plans, the overall sum escalates to exceed $200,000 per year.
The services of a marketing firm aren’t free, but there are multiple agencies that cater to different budget ranges and provide various pricing models. This could include a retainer arrangement with an hourly rate or a project-based payment structure.
4. Access to industry tools and technology
Investing in the top software on a regular basis comes at a high price. However, a good marketing agency gives clients access to a plethora of industry’s must-have tools, ensuring they benefit from the finest technology available in the market.
suppose you want to purchase a Think your media subscription for your company. It will mean you have to pay $608 per month (Basic package).
On the other hand, if you partner with an agency, you can have access to extensive data. They can launch projects for your website and share them with you, so you can check out the capabilities of the tool and the scope of the data before purchasing an individual subscription for your own.
If you hire an agency, you pay for both their expertise and the marketing software they invest in.
How to Find the Right Digital Marketing Agency
There are four key aspects you need to consider when looking for the right marketing partner for your business.
Step 1. Understand Your Company’s Needs
What does your business need? It’s important to comprehend the goals you wish to accomplish through your digital marketing efforts and what you expect from an agency. Both sides of this partnership should have clear expectations from the beginning.
Establishing measurable goals enables you to monitor your progress and determine when you have achieved your objectives. For instance:
- I want to grow our organic traffic by X%.
- I want to get X number of leads.
- I want to drive X conversions during the holiday season.
When defining goals, you can use the SMART Marketing Objectives model:
Step 2. Build a Shortlist of Agencies
After finalizing your goals, it’s time to initiate the search for your agency partner. Here are three useful strategies for selecting candidates:
Step 3. Use a matchmaking platform
It serves as a platform where brands and agencies can discover their perfect match. There are two types of services:
- Independent, which usually includes not only marketing agencies, but also tech vendors, graphic design and video production firms, etc.
- Brand-centric, for example, Google Partners, Facebook Partner Directory, Shopify Experts, where established brands certify agencies within their network
If your company is a Think Your Media user, you may want to explore our Agency Partners platform, a matchmaking service that helps brands quickly find a marketing agency to get support with their next project.
Step 4. Ask your team
Someone in your team may have worked with a professional marketing services provider in a previous position. Inquire among all your colleagues if anyone can share relevant contacts.
Step 5. Ask other companies
You can also do some digging and find non-competing businesses you’re in contact with that seem to do a good job with their marketing. If you are unable to locate companies from the same niche, explore other businesses facing the similar challenges. Are there any individuals or entities assisting them with their marketing strategy?
Or, maybe there are vendors you currently work with. Who do they collaborate with? Do they outsource some of their tasks? You can ask them for recommendations and references.
Step 6. Give Them a Brief and Ask for a Proposal (RFP)
Create a formal request for proposal (RFP) that enables you to gather important information about particular vendors and choose the one that align with your criteria. Outline your project and goals and describe your requests.
Ensure to incorporate all the questions you want your potential marketing partner to answer, about the solution they propose, their marketing plan, timeline, pricing and fee structure, contract terms, etc.
Step 7. Match with the Ideal Partner
Now that you have a list of several agencies that you think might be a good fit, it is now time delve deeper into evaluating your candidates. We recommend taking the following actions to carefully select your prospective marketing partner.
Check the agency’s online presence
First of all, see how they market themselves on the web. If an agency specializing in social media marketing services has little activity on Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms, it could indicate a potential red flag. Agencies should not only advertise their services but also actively engage in self-promotion, creating valuable content to establish trust and credibility.
Search for firms that possess a commendable track record. Ask to read their testimonials and case studies.
Just observe how Agency get organizes its success stories.
You can try to get in touch with the agency’s current and previous clients and learn more about their experience with that vendor. It is essential to gather information about the agency’s actual results, an agency might be over-promising if it exaggerates the actual results.
Make sure you speak the same language
The agency you’ll choose will be representing your brand, that’s why it is crucial to be sure you speak the same language. For instance, an old-fashioned, traditional agency could be a good choice for a B2B construction company, while a young, trendy agency can have an ideal brand voice for a young startup.
Check if they have a blog on their website. Pay attention to its overall design and graphics, tone of voice, topics, writing, headlines, and calls to action. Ask yourself if their posts align with your vision and approach.
Meet the team you’ll be working with
Chemistry matters! Schedule a meeting with the marketing team you’ll be interacting with and ask them to send you an agenda. Additionally, take some time to compile a set of inquiries regarding the agency’s procedures, strategies or other specific things you want to clarify.
These meetings require a significant investment of time, yet are very useful because they help you better understand whether or not you can have a healthy working relationship and enjoy working with each other.
Every business is unique and needs an individual solution. The right agency will understand what you do and how you do it. The right agency will be able to mesh with your audience or sales cycle.
Wrapping UP!
Finding the right agency partner takes time and effort. The more comprehensive your search process, the higher the likelihood of making the correct selection. Conduct thorough research and ask the correct questions to ensure you make the right investment for your company. To get started, check out thinkyourmedia: a list of highly-qualified marketing professionals who are ready to help you in the next stage of your business journey.
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