The idea of selecting a digital marketing agency seems very intimidating. As there are a lot of digital marketing & advertising agencies, and freelance digital marketers out there. When you have so many options, getting confused is nothing but expected.
But don’t worry, in this article, we will share the 5 most important criteria that will help you select the right digital marketing agency for your business.
So Many Digital Marketing Agencies Out There, Which One to Choose?
In the past few years, we have seen a rise in the number of digital marketing agencies. There are a lot of marketing agencies, social media agencies, Facebook ad agencies, digital ad agencies, influencer marketing agencies, Amazon marketing agencies, and business growth agencies out there.
When the options are so many, feeling a bit lost is quite understandable.
One of the reasons why we feel confused is our lack of understanding of the term “Digital Marketing.” Read: Who Needs Digital Marketing? What’s This Fancy Thing?
When we don’t know fully what digital marketing is, or what kind of digital marketing services are there, we struggle to make an informed decision.
The Art of Selecting a Digital Marketing Agency
Do I need a digital marketing agency that can run an ad for me on social media? or do I need a digital marketing agency that can run a highly engaging interactive digital ad for my upcoming project?
In the first case, almost every digital agency falls under your selection criteria. But in the second case only a few. It tells you that you need a digital ad agency that has these two things:
It has the capability to create interactive digital ads.
In the field of interactive ads, it know how to create highly engaging ads. Engagement on ads comes from fresh concepts, creativity, and sense of humor (social media users love watching funny things.) So, you need a digital ad agency that is creative, has a funny bone and fresh concepts.
Don’t Make This Digital Marketing Agency Selection Mistake
One common mistake that many of us make is getting blinded by the glitter of short-term gains at the cost of long-term profits.
This is not to encourage you to spend more, this piece of advice is to help you spend wisely.
Let’s try to understand this from our day-to-day life’s example.
How Not to Pick a Wrong Digital Marketing Agency?
Who doesn’t like a good sale!
So often we buy something on sale just because we find the deal irresistible. But later we realize the deal was not so great as we thought. And we regret the decision because that product failed to work according to our expectations.
In a case like this, we are left with two options.
1. Adjust with the not-so-good product and live with our mistake.
2. Spend again to get the right product this time and suffer some loss.
Most of us generally go with the second option.
My Red Heels and I: Learning From the Mistakes
Case 1
I once bought a pair of heels on sale. A beautiful pair of red stilettos for $140. They were on 30% off sale.
Seeing a saving of $60, I got a little influenced and I decided to buy them. After a month, the sole started giving me a little trouble. I used superglue to keep everything in place. It worked like a charm for some time. But finally, after 5 months, the pair became unusable.
So, what did I get in this case?
Pros
Immediate gratification.
A short-term gain in the form of $60 off.
Paying less than I should have.
Cons
The frustration of dealing with a broken shoe sole.
Inability to wear my heels on many occasions I wanted to.
The cost of superglue. (Not too much, but everything adds up.)
The real cost:
As my heels lasted for 5 months. That means my heels cost me $140/5 = $28 per month.
Case 2
After five months, I decided to buy another red pair of heels but this time from a good brand. I decided to buy it from a company that was known for the quality and sturdiness of its products.
The heels I liked were not on sale.
On the contrary, they were more than the non-discounted price of earlier heels which was $200.
They cost me $230. I was not happy with this price in the beginning but even after four years, they are still going strong. That makes me say that I took a good decision the second time.
So, what did I get in this case?
Pros:
A good product.
Long-term benefits.
Cons:
No immediate gratification.
Paying more than I expected.
The real cost:
A pair of heels lasting for four years implies $230/48 months = $4.7 per month. The heels are still in perfect shape, so this cost is going to go down further.
Making the Right Choice
If you look at $140 versus $230, the first one seems like a profitable decision.
But if you look at the bigger picture, you’re comparing $28 versus <$4.7.
A smart business owner will know which one was the right decision and which one was not.
We make the same mistake when we select our digital marketing partners. Many times we partner with an inexperienced digital marketing agency just because they offer low packages rather than an experienced digital marketing agency because their quality services come with a premium tag.
Short-term gains we get from such decisions make us blind to the long-term profits we could have gained.
How to Select a Digital Marketing Agency? 5 Criteria to Keep in Mind
I’m sharing some of the most important criteria to keep at the back of your mind when you’re selecting a digital marketing agency or a digital marketer for your business. These criteria are:
1. Experience of Digital Marketing Agency or Digital Marketer
The Story of Experience
When we do hiring for our business, we make sure to rank all the candidates based on their experience.
Let’s say you have a vacancy for the position of vice president of sales. What would be your first criteria to shortlist candidates. Would you consider a fresh graduate for that position? What about a candidate with 1-2 years of experience?
The answer is going to be no in both those cases. You would look for a minimum of 8 years of work experience because you know that experience matters.
If you hire a 1-year experienced candidate, you can’t expect the same results as an 8-year experienced candidate. The same applies when you hire a less experienced digital marketing agency or a digital marketer. The results aren’t going to be the same.
Let’s look at this from a different angle.
What do we do when we hire an employee with no experience or not sufficient experience in the field we are looking for?
We train!
But when we hire an inexperienced digital marketing agency, we forget that we are not giving them any training but expecting results that only a more experienced digital agency can provide.
As easy as digital marketing seems from far away, it’s not the same from the inside. It’s just like any other business.
Why does Experience Matter?
1. Improves Skills
Let’s not forget that you have become a better business owner with time because you have learned so many things from your experience. You have faced many business challenges and figured out their solutions. And that’s why you’re one of the experts in your industry.
2. Helps You Find Strategic Solutions
Moreover, experience makes you look at a situation from every angle. And this comes really handy when solving strategic business problems including marketing ones.
3. Gives You Speed
Additionally, experience brings the power of doing a thing faster and more efficiently.
4. Provides You Ability to Solve Tough Problems
Moreover, experience also brings the ability to find a solution to any unexpected and unseen problem.
I am sure this list is endless and I wish I had the time to complete it. But I will leave you with a little exercise to decide on your own whether experience matters or not. Answer these questions as honestly as you can:
A. Do you think you are a better businessman today than you were yesterday?
B. Have you learned anything that you were completely clueless about when you started your business?
2. Skills of Digital Marketing Agency or Digital Marketer
Imagine you are hiring an accountant for your business.
Now, answer this question does it matter if that candidate knows to account or not? Is it going to affect your decision if the candidate knows to account but is also good at it?
I am sure the answer is yes. You don’t want to end up making any mistakes in your financial documents.
You understand that this error will pass on to even other areas of your business. It’s going to affect the budget allocated to the HR department, finance department, and even the marketing department.
The Cost of a Bad Decision
It’s kind of the same with digital marketing. A wrong decision will affect your business in many ways that you haven’t expected.
The examples of businesses that lost their Google search engine rank or got banned by it are not so uncommon.
The reason is that they partnered with a wrong digital marketing agency that (as a part of their cheaper and faster services) ended up popularizing the business in the wrong digital neighborhood to attract fast web traffic.
These mistakes affect the business and its identity. Google doesn’t forgive and forgets instantly. It takes time. Many times many months, and even years.
The digital world is the new world for doing business and you want to keep your name clear here.
In the physical world, people will still forget such mistakes. In the digital world, no way!
Just with one Google query, all the past mistakes will come back alive. When your customer will type your name on Google, they will get to see the entire history. Now, it depends on you how you want that history.
That’s why when you give control of your business to any digital marketing agency, you are giving them your business identity.
The important question for you to answer now is – Do you want your business identity to be somebody’s playground?
Read: How to Maintain Your Online Reputation?
3. Trust Factor of Digital Marketing Agency or Digital Marketer
This is a very important criterion in the digital world.
When things go digital, knowing what is real and what is not becomes a little tough.
Anyone can easily hide behind a laptop, claiming something they are not. Do I have to mention spam emails here? Just read those emails once and you’ll know why I put so much focus on “trust.”
There are so many “businesses” out there claiming to help me earn a 6-figure salary, or generate 90 business leads in a month. Don’t want to forget but I have received emails from “Jeff Bezos” and “Warren Buffet” who want to send me money.
That’s why, when we are doing anything online, there is always a part in us questioning whether the other party is who they are claiming to be or are they somebody totally different. Maybe just a bot.
Cases of people using a fake identity on the internet are becoming very common more than ever. This is why trust is becoming a prized possession for anyone.
Also read: What are the various kinds of digital marketing services?
How to Know if a Digital Marketing Agency is Trustworthy or Not?
Imagine “Trust” as the background and reference check for your candidates. You want to make sure you are working with a trustworthy digital agency. Here’s how you can do that –
1. Check out their website
Does it look spammy? Or does it say anything that is hard to believe? Does it have “become a millionaire in a year” kind of claims? If not, then you should move on to the second step.
Does the website have a face?
What I mean by that does it tell who is running it? Who is the digital marketing expert behind that website?
2. LinkedIn
Go to LinkedIn, check out the experience of who you are going to work with.
If the website claims that the expert has 5 years of experience, does LinkedIn also corroborate that?
Does the profile seem genuine or fake? A Linkedin profile that has no picture and just one connection?
3. Google
Start Googling them and see what kind of results are showing up about the digital marketing agency or the digital marketer you’re planning to work with.
You will get an idea about their digital reputation by doing this.
4. Reviews
There is a widespread problem of fake or biased reviews out there. So, I won’t recommend just being dependent on the reviews for selecting a digital marketing agency. But keep an eye and look for some kind of consistency in reviews.
If 60% of reviews are saying that the people working at this digital agency are unprofessional. Then, there can be some truth in it.
4. Proof of Digital Skills
Would you go to a dentist who has bad teeth?
I will answer on your behalf, NO!
Why no?
Because you didn’t get the proof that he is an expert at fixing teeth as the claim didn’t reflect on their own business.
Why Does Skills Matter?
Now, let’s talk about digital marketing skills for a moment.
A digital agency with no social media followers, can they do social media marketing for you?
Isn’t it obvious if you have a skill, you can use it for yourself?
A copywriter can write good ad copies selling himself. Similarly, a social media digital agency should be able to sell its own social media.
Many use the excuse that the market is too saturated and that’s why we don’t have a good Google ranking or social media presence. But there is a difference between trying and not trying. If they have the skill then their efforts will be visible in some form or other.
Maybe they won’t have a million followers, but at least they will have 2k engaged followers. And that shows that they are working on something.
Or maybe they won’t be on the first page of Google, but at least they’ll be on the 3rd page of Google.
But having no good presence on digital channels when you are selling digital shows something is off.
You can discuss that out with your digital agency and see what they have to say.
Have they started the business very recently, then they will need time to build a strong social media presence?
But if they have started their business 10 years ago and still have no social media presence, then something seems fishy.
The same goes for SEO. A company selling SEO should have good SEO visibility.
A website designing company should have a great website design.
Similarly, a company selling content marketing should have good content.
Also, a company selling email marketing services shouldn’t be spamming you with poorly written sales emails.
And so on.
Read: The Difference Between Good Website Content And Bad Website Content
The only exception is a brand new company because implementing strategies take time.
In this case, you can check out other things like the past work experience of its team members.
There can be a possibility that a 20-year experienced marketer just started a digital marketing agency.
The agency might not have a strong presence but the marketer will definitely have something to prove that he has the skills that he is selling to you. LinkedIn seems like a good place to check.
5. Connection With a Digital Marketing Agency
Yes, the connection is an important thing. You are going to be working with your chosen digital marketing agency for a long time. Most of the partnerships are for a year minimum. Strategies take time to implement and you have to stick with your agency during that time. It’s never advised to change horses midstream.
And you want this time to be pleasurable and stress-free. For that, you want to work with an agency that thinks on the same wavelength as you. An agency that you like, trust, and respect. Also, an agency with whom you wouldn’t mind being stuck for more than a year.
As it’s a long partnership, you would like to work with a digital marketing agency that is friendly, attends to your needs, and shares a connection with you.
These are the five most important criteria that you should keep in mind while selecting your next digital marketing agency.
This is definitely going to make your decision-making process a little easier.
Also Read: Before Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency, 4 Things You Must Know
Key Takeaway: How to Select a Digital Marketing Agency?
Sure it can get a bit overwhelming while selecting a digital marketing agency. There is a sea of agencies everywhere but only a few will match your criteria and needs.
These few tips are sure to help you kickstart your search for selecting the ideal digital marketing agency for your company.
If you’re looking for a digital marketing agency which is data-driven as well as creative, get in touch with us.
So, what was the basis of selecting your last or current digital marketing agency? And how is it working out for you?
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
The secret to success in business isn’t doing what other successful people have done; it’s by avoiding the mistakes made by businesses that have failed. Instead of repeating their mistakes, now we can learn from them and best ensure business growth and commercial success.
17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail brings the cautionary tales of mistakes made by many businesses that ultimately led to their failure and which other businesses should avoid at all costs if they plan to survive and grow. Get your copy.
Small business owners are also reading:
