In order to find the best digital marketing agency, first, we need to understand "what is digital marketing", "will digital marketing benefit your business" and answer the question "how do I get more leads for my business?" - which should be the purpose of any marketing.
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What is a Digital Marketing Agency?
The dictionary definition of Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. So simple to summarise in one sentence, yet it can be a complicated process to get right and to ensure that all of your digital marketing is working together, not as silo activities. This is where the expertise and experience of the best digital marketing agencies can be hugely beneficial.
Traditional advertising, newspapers and paper directories, such as Yellow Pages, are increasingly less effective for businesses. Whilst a few years ago people would go to a computer to search for a product or service, nowadays people are connected to the internet all day, every day and "live online". Looking for information, a product or service is as quick and simple as searching on a laptop or computer at work or picking up their mobile telephone or tablet. Digital marketing focuses on getting your information, products and services in front of people when they are looking online. The best digital agencies understand the buying process of your products and services and ensure that your information is prominent to the potential customer at the appropriate time. In the digital marketing world, the various stages of the buying process i.e. research, consideration and purchase are called "micro-moments" and the very best digital marketing agency will present the relevant information, service or product at the targeted time in the buying process.
Whilst some digital marketing agencies will also create and manage traditional advertising or business marketing, such as newspaper advertising, specialist digital marketing agencies will concentrate on online marketing as opposed to "marketing companies" who commonly concentrate on TV, radio and print marketing.
Regardless if your business is business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C), digital marketing can be a fast, often instant, and reliable way of getting leads into your business and driving up revenue. The very best digital marketing agencies will manage all of the digital advertising based on return on investment (ROI) ensuring the leads generated are at a cost that makes business sense and increases profit levels. Digital marketing will benefit your business and answers the question "how do I get more leads for my business"?
Digital marketing, sometimes referred to as website marketing, can be broken down into a number of important features and services:
SEO Services
Search engine optimisation, most commonly abbreviated to "SEO", is the process of getting your website found on search engines like Google when people make a search relevant to your business, services or products.
Regardless if your website is e-Commerce or selling services it will drive leads and sales into your business if it is found for the search terms people use (often referred to as "keywords") to look for them in Google.
SEO requires experience and understanding of how Google reads your website. What messages and information you want Google to read for a webpage or website and knowing where to place that information so search engines can find it. A good SEO company will have a proven track record of ranking websites high in the search results.
SEO works best when the proven methods of obtaining rankings are applied in conjunction with latest trends that are driving traffic. An example of this is the "near me" phenomenon, which has seen a 150% growth in the last 12 months, where mobile phone users are adding "near me" to their search query i.e. "SEO Company near me". These customers are looking to buy and buy from a local service or product supplier.
Although SEO can be a stand-alone service, it is most effective when combined with PPC, social media and reputation marketing. SEO is also the cornerstone of effective PPC, social media and reputation management campaigns.
Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click (PPC) often referred to as "Google Advertising" or "online advertising" is where you position adverts at the top of the search results for specific search terms. These search terms can be the words people use when in the "research" phase of making a purchase or targeted at the "buying keywords" when potential customers are looking to buy.
Although your advert, depending on your budget, can be shown every time a search is made, you only pay when an internet user clicks on your advert and is taken to your website or calls you direct from the search results page meaning you only pay when you get a click from a potential customer hence the name for this form of marketing of Pay Per Click (often abbreviated to PPC).
How much you pay for each click is determined by a few factors. The "cost per click" (abbreviated to CPC) is determined by the quality and relevancy of the advert to the search term being used and the relevancy of the page on your website that the potential customer land on. These factors contribute to your overall "quality score". The higher your quality score, the less you pay per click and less you pay per lead into your business.
In the UK, Google has the vast majority of search traffic and most of your budget should be placed their, however, you will not want to miss the smaller, yet still considerable potential for customers from search engines like Microsoft's Bing platform, and a small part of the budget should be allocated to other search engines. Also, the very best PPC management companies will also discuss spreading your PPC budget over a number of campaigns aimed at different parts of the customer journey. A small part of the budget should be allocated to the research stage of the buying process when people are using broad search terms to find information, a small part of the budget when people are searching for yours, your competitors or market leaders company name. The majority of the budget when potential customers are using search terms directly related to making a purchase and lastly, a small part of the budget to re-market (show your advertising to people who have shown an interest in your services or products by visiting your website) to capture and drive up conversions from the customers previously advertised too.
The best PPC Agency will be a Google Premier Partner. A Google Premier Partner status indicates that the company has a proven track record in delivering high-quality campaigns, which generate good competitive/low CPC's and deliver high and positive ROI's. The very best PPC agency will have a robust PPC management process in place to quickly react and capitalise on changes in the PPC campaigns of your competitors.
Unlike SEO, that can take some time to be fully effective, Pay Per Click is instant in the fact that as soon as your campaigns are live they can be generating leads for your business.
PPC is highly effective when carried out in unison with SEO. A well-optimised website will improve the quality score of your Google advertising campaigns resulting in a reduced "cost per click" meaning you get more leads for your budget.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are now legitimate places for a business to attract leads. Facebook has over 38 MILLION active and regular users in the UK and the number is anticipated to rise to over 42 MILLION by 2020. Regardless if your business sells to consumers or other businesses, your potential customers are on Facebook and using it often.
Facebook is excellent at raising awareness during the customers "research" stage, reminding them of your services or products during the "consideration" stage and putting your specific products in front of potential customers at the "buying" stage. With such a large audience and the flexibility to target customers throughout the buying process, Facebook can be a digital marketing agency south africa good avenue to generate leads and sales and to deliver a great return on investment.
A good digital marketing agency will have a proven track record in delivering highly effective Facebook advertising campaigns. The very best digital marketing agencies will be able to demonstrate the conversion rate and cost per lead of your social media marketing.
Again, social media marketing and specifically Facebook marketing can be carried out as a stand-alone activity however it works so much better when combined with SEO and/or PPC. When a potential customer visits your website their computer is marked as having visited. This then allows you to target the user of that computer, who has shown an interest in your products or services.
Reputation Management
When considering making a purchase, a potential customer will scour the internet to find feedback and reviews from previous customers. Your online marketing and sales can live or die by the reviews for your business, services or products. Ensuring that positive reviews are easy to find and that any negative feedback is managed well, can be a huge benefit to your conversion rate.
Digital marketing companies call this "reputation management" or "online reputation management" however, in reality, it is creating systems to generate customer reviews and customer feedback ensuing positive customer satisfaction is captured and easy to find for potential customers.
Many businesses are concerned with allowing the public the ability to openly provide feedback. You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and companies worry that a bad review will have a negative impact on their business. Firstly, if someone is determined to leave a bad review for your business they will find a platform to do so and there are 1000's of platforms to choose from. It is better to have control of where customers are encouraged to leave a review. Secondly, a poor or bad review, if managed well, can be a positive for your business. Engaging with a bad review highlights that you care about feedback and subsequently, you care about your customers. One well managed bad review can be as good for your business ten good reviews.
A good digital marketing company will use one of the handful of recognised review platform and provide the tools and means of allowing you to capture, manage and respond to customer reviews.
If you have your in-house marketing team, you may still need to hire the services of another agency. Although you need to spend quite a bit of money for hiring the services of these companies, it is important to keep in mind that the benefits are greater than the risks. In this article, we are going to talk about 4 signs that you should look for before hiring a digital marketing agency.
1. You can't handle everything yourself
As a business owner, you have a lot of responsibilities. Therefore, you may not have enough time to handle social media, email marketing, and web updates. After all, you may not have expertise in all the areas of your business.
As your business grows, it will become even more difficult for you to manage everything. Therefore, we suggest that you divide your workload and hire a good digital marketing agency.
2. You Can't Plan Ahead
If you think that one month of learning is enough to help you handle your business, you are mistaken. If you want to put together a marketing campaign, make sure you have both short-term and long-term goals in place.
Therefore, if you work with a reputable digital marketing agency, you will be able to set your goals for the next 12 months. If you don't have enough time to set these goals for the next 12 months, you should hire a digital marketing agency.
3. Your Sales have Decreased
If you have experienced a reduction in your sales, you may want to hire a good digital marketing agency. The service provider will help you put together an effective inbound marketing strategy. With this strategy, you can target your primary customers.
According to 61% of marketers, their biggest concern is driving traffic and getting leads. For your team, the lower return on investment may cause frustration. Therefore, if you work with a marketing agency, they can help you create a plan to make an integration between your marketing strategies and sales process. This will help you generate leads and save plenty of time.
4. Your Website has Lost all the Ranking
If you have not updated your website for more than 2 years, make sure you get a new website to stay competitive. Today, Google ranks websites that are responsive and mobile-friendly, which means the website must fit the displays of common devices, search as a smartphone, tablets, and desktop computers.
If your website is not mobile-friendly, you might miss out on a lot of prospective customers. Plus, it will keep your website from getting ranked in major search engines.
Long story short, you may want to look for these four signs before you hire the services of a good digital marketing agency. Hopefully, these tips will help you get the most out of your digital marketing campaigns. Make sure you follow these tips when making your ultimate decision.
