How to Choose the Right Digital Marketing Management Agency
With just shy of 32 million US-based small businesses, any new business faces a steep climb to grab enough market share to stay afloat. That was before the Covid pandemic rolled through and forced most of the small business holdouts to embrace the world of eCommerce. Of course, taking your business online also means you must embrace digital marketing.
While that may sound simple enough, in theory, it’s a complex beast in practice. It’s complex enough that many small businesses opt for hiring a digital marketing management agency. Of course, that presents the challenge of choosing the right digital marketing management firm.
If you’re struggling to figure out how to do that, keep reading for some tips on making the choice.
Industry Experience
While almost any digital marketing agency can offer general digital marketing tips, it’s not the same thing as experience with marketing in your industry. You market restaurants one way and financial businesses another.
In much the same vein, you can’t handle marketing a startup the same way as you do an established business. For more on marketing a newly launched business, check out this blog post.
Minimally, you want a firm that has handled similar businesses in the past.
Specific Services
Not every business needs exactly the same set of services. You may just want help with SEO, while another business might want a package that covers the full range of digital marketing.
You should go into the selection process with at least some idea of what you want. That lets you select options that focus primarily on the services that interest you most.
If you do just want a few services, firms with that specialization will offer far more specific and actional digital marketing advice.
Reasonable Promises
Digital marketing isn’t a vending machine where you feed money in and results pop out. Reputable marketing agencies know this and do their best to offer realistic promises.
If they’re promising you’ll see overnight success, they’re overselling it at best. At worst, they’re flat out lying to you.
When a company tosses out numbers, such as expected traffic, sales, or growth, ask them how they came up with those numbers. If the company is on the level, they’ll have sound reasoning based on past experience to justify those expectations. If they stumble their way through the explanation without actually explaining anything, find another company to serve as your digital marketing guide.
Digital Marketing Management and You
Digital marketing can seem like wholly foreign ground, particularly for businesses with limited online experience. Yet, the ground rules for picking a digital marketing management agency follow the same general pattern for choosing any service.
Look for a company with experience helping businesses like your own. Choose a company that offers the kind of services you need. Look for companies that offer reasonable promises that they can back up with sound reasoning and real-life numbers.
Looking for more tips on managing your digital marketing efforts? Check out the Digital Marketing posts in our Tech section.