The value of working with a digital marketing agency isn’t always well understood. Businesses may wonder why they should outsource work they can do themselves. While it is true that anyone can create content, the digital marketing space is saturated, and it takes expertise and strategy to ensure the content you create stands out and effectively connects with your specific market. If your team possesses those capabilities in house, you’re golden. But the digital ecosystem is complex, and it is rare that businesses have that type of skill within their ranks.
This blog will discuss the key benefits of working with a digital marketing agency – even if you have an in-house team – and what you can expect when partnering with one.
Key Benefits of Working With an Agency
Cost Effective
Working with an agency allows you access to many diverse skills and deep experience, often for a similar cost to adding just one person to your in-house team. Including user experience design, SEO, copywriting, and web dev expertise for less than the price of a full-time employee.
Agencies are process-driven. Once you hire an agency, they get to work with onboarding and strategizing immediately. This is in stark comparison to building or adding to your own team, where there is an interim training period before the new hires can perform efficiently. Additionally, marketing agencies already have access to key tools and software, so you don’t have to acquire them alone or spend money training staff to use them.
Knowledge and Expertise
Agencies have experience working with multiple clients across industries, providing specialized perspective on market trends and best practices. An in-house team can get siloed into their own business or industry and becomes unaware of what is happening outside of it. An agency approaches your situation with fresh perspectives to strategize to keep you ahead of the competition.
Marketing agencies are well versed in the specialized tools and techniques and provide the guidance necessary to navigate an increasingly complex space. They have already tested and explored a variety of methods and now know what works, preventing you from wasting valuable time by heading in the wrong direction.
Additional Services
Another benefit of working with a digital marketing agency is that they may provide other creative services like branding, web development, or corporate communications. In addition to being able to easily access these services, having expertise in these areas results in better-informed strategies and a holistic approach to your entire marketing efforts. Web presence is all about brand building and connecting with your intended audience. Marketing becomes a futile exercise if your branding is weak or website navigation is confusing. A disciplined agency will help you pinpoint and fix other issues before allowing you to over-invest in digital marketing.
What Does Working with a Digital Marketing Agency Look Like?
A digital marketing agency ties online marketing to your business goals and extends your brand or business online. It’s about developing a customized strategy for your business based on your industry, goals, KPIs, and the pain points of your target audience. Then connect your digital activities to your sales process.
Finding, onboarding, and working with an agency can seem like a daunting process. But with a bit of effort, you’ll find an agency composed of marketing professionals focused on getting results and providing a seamless client experience that resonates with you and your circumstances.
Onboarding
The onboarding process starts with discovery. The agency will deep dive into your business to better understand what you want to achieve and define your growth objectives. This includes but is not limited to surveying your current online presence, consulting with key stakeholders, persona workshops, competitor research, and evaluating current marketing efforts. With this information in hand, the agency will build a bespoke strategy for your business. This is a starting point and will be adjusted as your business evolves.
Time Commitment
Depending on the agency, the strategy, and deliverables, businesses can expect to commit a certain amount of time to liaise with the agency. At Red Rocket, we usually ask clients to put aside three to five hours a week for meetings, approving work, and providing subject matter expertise.
Agencies create custom content for each client tailored to the marketing plan defined during the onboarding process. The deliverables will depend on your strategy and industry, but you can typically expect emails, blogs, social media posts, premium content, and videos.
How Do I Choose An Agency?
Trust and communication are essential for success when working with an agency. The business needs to trust that they will get the results promised to them, and the agency must be able to rely on timely communication and approvals.
The business needs to be 100% invested in the process, engage with the agency consistently, and be willing to try new things. An agency is not an executor of your marketing plan; they are strategic partners that work alongside the existing efforts of your sales and marketing teams to grow your business.
The best way to evaluate an agency is to look at their work for previous and current clients. Most agencies will provide case studies of previous clients on their website, or you can look at the online presence of their current clientele. A good agency will provide concrete data proving the results of their work.
Final Thoughts
The diverse skills, experience, and knowledge of a digital marketing agency are not easily replicated with an in-house team. By delegating your online marketing to the experts, you will reach your goals faster and more cost-effectively, allowing you to allocate more time and resources to growing your business.
What you need to know before starting a digital marketing program
Learn how digital marketing aligns with the sales process, and how leads can be effectively converted to customers.
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