Digital marketing companies (or agencies, as we often refer to ourselves as), handle all your digital marketing efforts.
If you want us to, that is.
As a business, you might have been advised to hire an agency. You might have read about how important it is, and how it can really help your business grow.
But why?
Why is digital marketing so important? What are the benefits? And why can’t you do it yourself, rather than ask an external company to do it for you?
We aim to answer all those questions. But the simple fact is that digital marketing is so crucial today, that you want to hire the best people to do it for you.
Your competitors certainly are. So if you don’t want to get left behind, we’d advise reading up a bit more on the subject, and putting together plans to outsource your digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is all the marketing you do on the internet.
It comes in many different forms. There are lots of different ways to market yourself online, choosing the right method is essential for success.
If you use the internet (who doesn’t, these days?) then you’ll be aware of how advertising works on this particular platform.
Seen an ad on Facebook? That’s digital marketing. The ‘sponsored posts’ you see on LinkedIn? Yep, same.
And it’s not only paid stuff. The text you see under a product on Amazon is sales copy – designed to compel you to buy that item.
So that’s digital marketing too.
We’ll get into more detail about the different types later. But basically, digital marketing is used to sell products and services online.
Most businesses will find their target audience online these days. If they ignore this, they’re missing out on a major source of revenue.
Why Outsource to a Digital Marketing Agency?
Think you can do it yourself?
Digital marketing is not easy and, depending on the size of your business, can not be handled by a single person, or even a couple of people.
That’s because there are many different disciplines within digital marketing – and you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who can cover everything.
You need someone familiar with paid media. Another who can focus on organic search (we’ll talk about what these terms mean later).
Then you’ll need a content writer, a social media expert, ideally a designer/developer too.
You’re looking at hiring 5-6 people if you want to cover all services.
It makes much more sense to pay an agency, which is stocked with experienced individuals across all areas, than it is to hire that number of people to work at your business.
Mainly because it’s a lot cheaper.
But also because it means you don’t have to worry about doing the work yourself. Leave it to the experts.
What Digital Marketing Services Are There?
There are a number of different ways to market your business online.
You might just want to focus on one or two, or you might want the full service approach.
Agencies will typically help you decide which areas to focus on. Good agencies won’t force you to buy services you won’t need – as it will look bad on them when they don’t deliver results.
There appears to be an endless amount of services these days, but for now we’re just going to focus on the main core.
SEO – Also known as Organic Search, is the process of trying to get your business to appear in the top positions of a Google search. For example, say you’re selling tennis rackets. If somebody searches for ‘good tennis rackets’ – you want your website to appear first – or second, if not.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It involves making sure your website is solid from a technical perspective, has useful, relevant content, and is considered to be an authority by other websites.
PPC – Also known as Paid Media. Your PPC expert will produce Google ads for your business that appear at the top of those search results pages. Your ads will be competing against the ads of your competitors.
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click – and the idea is that you pay a small fee every time somebody clicks on your ad and is directed to your website.
Content Marketing – Can tie in with SEO, but generally sits on it’s own. Content marketing can have different goals, from lead generation and data acquisition, to brand awareness and boosting social media presence.
Content marketing can be almost anything – it can be a blog post, an infographic, a video, an animation, an interactive web page, or even a quiz. A piece of content that people want to read or watch, or play around with, and then share with their friends and colleagues.
Social Media – There are two sides to social media, paid and organic. Paid is when you pay to push adverts for your business to people’s feeds, whether that’s on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
Organic is when you simply post things on your social accounts for your followers to read, with the aim of gaining even more followers. A good social media strategy will feature both paid and organic elements.
How to Choose the Right Digital Marketing Agency?
Before settling on a digital marketing agency, businesses tend to seek a proposal from a few different companies.
Then they can make a decision based on these agencies experience, cost, and sometimes even location.
It’s worth taking the time to research a few different companies, and asking them if they’d like to submit a proposal.
We always welcome those here at The Source.
And we’re always happy to talk about our services over the phone, via email, or even in person.
You can find out all about the work we do on the rest of our website. We cover a wide variety of digital marketing services, including those mentioned above.
Our ‘Your Goal’ page is a great place to get started. We help you determine what the best way forward is based on your objectives.
How Do I Know I’ve Chosen the Right Agency?
It’s up to your agency to demonstrate the work they’re doing is producing results.
Monthly reports are typical – you will be sent information regarding your campaign, how its going, what results have been achieved etc.
And you can generally call or email your contact at the agency to ask questions, or request an update at any time.
Good agencies will keep you in the loop, inform you of any major developments and explain what they’re doing to improve performance.
At least, that’s how we do things here at The Source.
If you’re ready to hire a digital marketing agency, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Give us a call on +44 (0) 33 009 471 88 to get started.
