Successful digital marketing may seem like a never-ending game of cat and mouse. But with the right strategy that evolves with the times, you can keep your finger on the pulse of success.
If your business is looking to outsource expertise, here's what to ask a digital marketing agency before you they're on your books.
Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?
Maybe your digital marketing needs a revival or you've been let down by your current agency one too many times. Whatever the scenario, it's wise to head into your next meeting armed with the right questions for a new digital agency.
In a nutshell, a new agency should help you:
Strategize and manage all marketing projects
Set achievable benchmarks
Interpret data
Offer knowledge on the ever-changing marketing landscape
The overall advantage of hiring a digital marketing team? They help your business reach tangible results, with minimal effort on your end.
What to Ask a Digital Marketing Agency: Key Considerations
Before you sign into any kind of contract or retainer with a digital marketing agency, you'll need to assess if they're a good fit for your business.
If you're going to be forking out for their expertise, what kind of deliverables can you expect? Here are 7 must-ask questions before committing to a new digital marketing team...
1. What is Your Agency Process in Helping Us Reach Our Goals?
It's very easy for a new digital agency to give you a generic set of answers to a generic type of question. ''How will you help us achieve our goals?'' is probably something every single digital agency is asked.
But if you refine your question to be more specific, you can get a better understanding of the entire process. Ask them about the details of the processes within the agency. An agency should be able to give you a detailed answer, including the tools they use. If not, consider it a warning sign.
2. What Does Your Success Track Record Look Like?
Ultimately, you need to find an agency that understands your type of business. It's wise to ask about their previous track record in working with businesses like yours.
Before moving forward, ask them about any specific expertise and skill they can offer your business. Ask about previous clients that they've helped before you.
Your best bet is to go with a digital agency that has dealt with your business niche before. With industry-specific experience, setting goals and achieving them is almost always guaranteed.
3. How Did You Build Up Your Own Brand?
A great way to garner a better understanding of the company you're working with is to get to know them beforehand. Before you sign any type of contract, ask them about their own business, brand, and success stories.
For example, ask about how they decided on specific strategies for their business and how they keep up with industry trends. What results have they seen from their own marketing efforts and what key lessons have they learned from building their own brand?
At the end of the day, you want to work with a business that practices what they preach.
4. How Closely Will You Work With Our Team?
It's super important to gauge how hands-on a new digital agency will be with your own team. Yes, they should be doing most of the leg-work when it comes to strategizing and implementing campaigns. But do they intend to teach or train your team as well?
In order for your digital campaigns to succeed, your own team should know how to meet goals, map KPIs, interpret data, and operate marketing platforms.
They should also take the time to understand your business product and exactly how it works. This means a close integration with subject matter experts within your team.
5. What and How Do You Charge?
Let's not pretend that agency fees and contracts don't make a huge difference in your decision-making process. What an agency charges for its services can be make-or-break for some businesses.
Essentially, you'll need to ask about the budget required to implement campaigns and find marketing success. Ask the agency to be upfront, honest, and realistic about how much you need to invest.
Don't forget to ask about an estimated return-on-investment (ROI), if they work on a contract, the retainer period, and any other deliverables.
6. How Do You Measure Marketing Success and ROI?
There are so many different facets of digital marketing. It's a mixture of scientific analysis, art, consumer engagement, and more.
This means that are several ways to measure and achieve success. So make sure the prospective agency goes into detail about how this success is measured. They need to support their recommendations with reliable data.
Make sure to ask the agency about metrics, benchmarks, and how data is analyzed. Don't be afraid to ask them to communicate and interpret industry jargon and analytics you don't understand.
The agency should also outline how often you'll receive analytic reports and how campaigns are amended if needs be.
7. When Can We Expect to See Results?
In reality, great results tend to take time - as with most things in life. So it's important to be wary of an agency that promises astounding results in little-to-no time at all.
In terms of marketing efforts, anything based on the inbound methodology should take time to achieve positive results. But the reason this method is so popular is that it's a long-term investment.
Generally, you should notice positive results in the first 6-8 months. After the first year to 18 months, your business should have substantial traffic and sales growth.
Dominate Your Digital Advertising With Us
At Savant DSP, we offer businesses an all-inclusive digital ad management platform. This platform allows you to easily navigate, place, and manage digital ad campaigns, from anywhere in the world.
Now that you know what to ask a digital marketing agency, allow Savant DSP to help your business find advertising success. Learn more about the multiple marketing channels we support, here.