There are many reasons why you should invest in the services of a Digital Marketing Agency. We decided to highlight the top 10 that we feel are important.
The following are 10 reasons to outsource your growth activities to a Digital Marketing Agency.
Every company’s mission is to grow and evolve. Some are focused on scaling rapidly with ‘proof of concept’ products with crowd-funding rounds releasing company share equity as they go. Others are focused more on steady growth. So they rely on their own market research, evolving brand identity and a pitch-perfect product launch campaign. Which is all preceded by a carefully planned demand generation strategy. The later route to growth will normally involve the help (at some point) of brand strategists and a digital marketing agency to help identify and develop an online presence. Some experienced Digital Marketing agencies have the expertise to provide all in terms of consultation, development, strategy planning and execution. Allowing you to get on with your own business. There is an investment involved but the long-term benefits totally outweigh the costs.
The following are 10 reasons why you should outsource your growth activities to a Digital Marketing Agency.
1. Resource Management & Cost Control
When it comes to cost savings for digital there’s no comparison when outsourcing to an agency as compared with employing an team in-house. Traditionally most organisations realised the cost-benefit of outsourcing. According to the Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing survey “59% of companies outsource as a way of cost-cutting”. With this in mind, it would naturally make sense to outsource, reducing hiring costs, office space, IT systems, payroll and employee benefit expenses.
2. Dedicated Industry Expertise
Growing any company has many milestones and mountains to climb. Starting out entrepreneurs handle many aspects of their business. It makes sense in the beginning, to cost cut and save on employing resources. Some fall into a false sense of invincibility and believe they can do it all …most fail! Be smart! Invest in a digital partner that will provide the expertise to guide you in all areas of your digital strategy. Before your company reaches critical mass you need to make decisions about your organisational structure, who will do what? Do you have a skills gap? if so where and how will you fill it? Outsourcing your digital operation allows you to utilise a creative team of industry experts. Tap into their knowledge and expertise without having to recruit an expensive in-house digital team.
3. Website Design and Development
There are many do it yourself website builders out there. They are fine for a short while, but remember once your brand starts to scale so will your reputation. Your website will be the first impression you make on customers so it’s vital that it’s a lasting one. Streamlined navigation will allow users to glide through your website reaching their intended destination keeping them more engaged and returning again.
Most website design starts with a Brand Strategy and discovery process talking with key stakeholders understanding their needs and requirements. It’s normally a major overhaul, with more intuition implemented into the design architecture of the website.
4. Brand Strategy
Brand Strategy starts with a discovery and research process, an experienced branding agency will normally deep dive into the key elements of a brand. This includes their marketing activities, communication mix, target audience and commercial goals. Brand strategists will gather all this information to develop a brand strategy. This will guide you through all the branding elements from logo design and typography to complement your brand and providing direction in your marketing activities. One of the major elements in a brand strategy is your website. That’s why these two agency services work best when combined together. Some entrepreneurs feel that a brand strategy is not really what they need in the startup stage but the investment, in the beginning, provides far more clarity and saves unnecessary expenditure or u-turns later on.
5. Social Media
Do not underestimate how powerful Social Media can be in terms of connecting with your audience. Developing blog content for your website users to digest and ponder on is all well and good, but you need a touchpoint to drive them there. Social Media has many advantages that can be seriously exploited by an experienced Digital Marketing Agency. They have a unique skill in identifying key characteristics of your brand that will stimulate demand and awareness through social media marketing. Normally starting with a complete social media audit they can identify what works and what doesn’t for your brand. Establishing your communication mix and channels to reach and connect with your target audience is only one of many strategies that an expert Digital Marketing Agency can provide.
Boosting awareness in your brand will be the main objective, through targeted social media advertising and sponsored content. After that you might be offered a choice to either directly involve yourself in conversation via social media messaging or avail of an agencies services to handle your social communications and admin by way of a virtual assistant. These ‘head for hire’s’ provide great benefits in boosting your ‘brand authenticity’ and customer service, they are also normally highly skilled and ‘digital savvy’ so social and other marketing activities come second nature.
6. Content Marketing + SEO
Content marketing is the biggest driver of website traffic. It’s also great for search engine spiders to grab and digest webpage content. Therefore it’s best to approach an expert content writer who can help craft what you want your customers to read about. Content marketing is a great way to express how you understand the needs of the customer. It’s a slow sell but it builds a rapport with your prospecting readers. The more they read your content the more they get an understanding about you, your company values and ethos. An expert content writer will understand how to immerse readers with your brand.
Content Assets you should consider depending on whether you are a B2B or B2C business.
Another very important aspect of outsourcing your content marketing activities to a digital agency is SEO or search engine optimisation. Gone are the days that one would write content specifically for SEO purposes, Google’s algorithm updates have caught up looking for content that is enriching and provides for good user experience. Fresh, satisfying, content, however, still provides search engines for a good reason to crawl your site and assign a search result to your updated content. So the more ‘good quality content’ you release the more search visibility your website will get on search engine result positions or SERP’s. There are many more aspects to SEO that a good web designer or marketer can explain to you. All high-quality websites should be launched with a comprehensive SEO strategy, ensuring immediate traction and visibility with search engines.
Lookup: There’s are a very comprehensive article that we wrote on eCommerce SEO which takes you through the processes involved to maximise your website and product page visibility.
7. Analytics: Saving you time in deciphering large chunks of data
Behind all the software that runs your digital strategy and touch points, is an abundance of data for collection and analysis. Having the time to try and decipher all this data is something that can be too much for the busy entrepreneur. Also the trained eye of a digital specialist can spot anomalies and patterns allowing for more informed decisions to be made and better advice given from a digital consultant. Finally some of these analytics can be integrated with each touchpoint and a digital expert will know what will work best and why it will be of benefit to you.
Types of Analytical software:
8. Paid Website Traffic
Social media channels such as Facebook no longer jam their audience feeds with business and commercial posts since it’s algorithm change back at the beginning of 2018 it has focused more on its traditional roots as a social network for friends and family. This has obviously had a massive effect on businesses trying to drive brand awareness to its 2.4 Billion (as of March 2019) monthly active users. Having said all that it is still the biggest social platform on the planet. So if you are going to embark on an advertising campaign using its powerful advanced targeting options, then it’s best to get the specialist advice from a digital marketing agency that has the expertise in launching a targeted campaign and securing the best ROI (return on investment) for your media spend.
Another option in driving more traffic to your website is the Google Ads platform. Some brands choose to use the Google Ads display network allowing for imagery and a short product description that will show high prominence in search results or a text ad with a ‘call to action’ (CTA) and descriptive text that satisfies the searchers intent. It’s best to avail of the services of an expert PPC specialist preferably one that works within an agency or works with one. Paid search is a highly cost effective way of advertising as you are only charged for ‘click throughs’ rather than ‘impressions’ as with other forms of digital advertising.
Download Our eCommerce Marketing Strategy Cheatsheet!
9. Brand Activations
As brand activations are heavily reliant on an offline marketing event running alongside an online awareness campaign. You need to engage with a Digital Marketing Agency that has experience to provide advice and direction in developing a digital strategy. If you want to succeed in getting close to your customers and connecting with them on a personal level then brand activations are the best way. They allow you to build trust in your brand, provide an opportunity for offline revenue and also authenticate your social media content. Expert Marketing agencies will provide really useful insight into the best user-generated-content to look for and share on your social media from your own brand activation.
10. Marketing Automation Integration
Once your website is launched and live the work of a Digital Marketing agency doesn’t stop there. Traditionally when website’s were built first (back in the 1990’s) they were launched with clunky design, slow loading speeds and with no emphasis on marketing, lead flows or conversion touch points. Very often a new website just sat there with no strategy to drive traffic to it.
When digital marketing came into existence that all changed, as user experience became a fundamental design element so did how websites ranked with visibility on search engines. So where does marketing automation come in? Well marketing automation is primarily used for the automation of digital marketing tasks. Its purpose built software designed to improve an organisation’s digital output in a number of key areas.
We are a full service Digital Marketing Agency, specialising in Brand Strategy, Website & App Development and Strategic Marketing. All the key services that a company needs to scale and digitalise for the future. Enquire with us today to see how we can kick start or rejuvenate your brand.