At some point, your company is likely to hire a digital marketing agency to provide you with a strategy that helps you achieve better results in your online campaigns. It is possible that you do not have a website, social networks, blog or that these do not monetize or convert to the level you would like.
At this point, many companies consider whether to outsource or directly hire a person in charge of managing their SEM campaigns, SEO positioning, graphic design, and web development. In this post, we will analyze what factors should be taken into account to select a digital marketing agency or when it is advisable to form an internal department.
When to Invest in Digital Marketing?
Contrary to what many outdated businessmen think, there is no minimum company size to start taking advantage of certain Digital Marketing strategies, according to Seovendor.co. An entrepreneur with an emerging business may find in some services a way to take off and shorten the time in which the return allows to cover the initial investment. When should you make the jump?
All companies can benefit from Digital Marketing in one way or another. So any entrepreneur, a priori, can hire an agency that is responsible for proposing a marketing plan aimed at increasing their sales, increasing their customer base and loyalty.
Of course, not all companies need, or should, launch into the pool asking for comprehensive management that includes SEO, SEM, Social Networks, Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn Campaigns, and E-Mail Marketing. The factors that determine the suitability of one or the other are several and are those that can evaluate and recommend according to the present situation of the company:
What is the function of your company?
The sector defines each market and each target audience. Depending on the market and the target audience, it will be necessary to consider some ways of attracting or others.
What investment capacity do you have?
Digital marketing is an investment, which return time will vary depending on the niche, the market, the product price and the quality of the campaigns and strategies employed. The greater the volume of investment, the more possibilities you will have.
If you have to de-capitalize to invest in Digital Marketing, you should think about something else. All investments must be made on money that you can afford to lose. There are no magic formulas or guarantees of anything. There are estimates of return based on hundreds of campaigns and sector analysis, but statistics are that. There is a standard deviation, a margin of error and although in a normal distribution we have a large majority of the results grouped in the center of the bell, where they fit the metrics.
What time do you have?
The rush is not good. A good marketing plan requires time to mature. Long, medium and short term objectives are set, concrete actions are established for each objective and evaluation indicators are determined for each action carried out with the idea of always improving performance.
Are you able to delegate?
Many entrepreneurs are addicted to micromanagement. They assume that if they are not above every singular detail of their company and behind each decision, things will go wrong. The reality is that nobody can know everything.
An intelligent entrepreneur will look for people, inside or outside, who know more than they do and will help them hit their goals. Its role is to manage human and financial resources. Nothing causes a digital marketing campaign to fail before an erroneous decision by an inexperienced individual.
Outsourcing or Internal Management
When considering the suitability of one or another type of management, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of your own company. Generally, an autonomous or SME cannot establish a department of digital marketing complete with specialists in SEO, SEM, Copywriting, Design Graphic, Design Web, etc.
What is true is that there are people with great abilities who can multitask and manage all these fields at once. But this causes problems, especially in the long term.
An agency can do two things. Fail or succeed. In the first case, the worker goes to the street. In the second, if he succeeds with the strategies, the company will experience growth that will imply a greater workload and the entrepreneur will see himself again in the same position.
How to choose the right agency?
If you opt for outsourcing and want to hire a Marketing Agency, the next question will come to your mind … Which one do I choose?
Do your research as there are plenty of options. Ask questions and make a shortlist out of which you can decide later on. Don’t rush with the decision and see which agency is ready to cater to your needs.
For any other service, you must do the same. Find those companies that stand out in what you need, check out who their customers are and if you know any, call them for references. Take a tour of their websites and be seduced by the ones that attract your attention. Make appointments with them and check their way of being, their facilities, the attitude of the team… Do not get carried away by the size.
A large marketing agency bills more than a small agency. It does not necessarily mean that the big company does a better job than the small one. Their work processes are different and there will be substantial differences in terms of time spent on projects, customer service, and reaction capacity.
