Though we’d all like to do everything in-house, it’s just not possible these days. Sometimes the smartest choice is to find an agency or group that can provide tremendous value that would be hard to replicate in-house. But how do you figure out whether a digital marketing agency is a right partner for you and whether you are getting the most out of their expertise?
In digital or content marketing and web design company working with agencies can be a significant investment, especially if you are working with a reputable firm with a proven track record. This investment can prove cheaper in the long run if you have the right partner and a conversation-oriented approach in your strategy. It’s important to remember that when the investment gives you revenue returns, the financial factor is ROI and not just cost.
It all starts with identifying the right partner. If there was a silver bullet to get this part right, we all would be queuing up to buy that bullet, but, sadly, there isn’t one. The truth is, finding the right agency takes open communication with your potential partners to arrive at a fair assessment of their potential and expertise, as well as your comfort levels in working with them.
So, where do you start? Begin by asking the right questions. In this blog, we lay out some of the key questions that you should be asking your digital marketing agency. If you like what you hear as answers to these questions, you are well on your way. Here we go!
How Do You Define Success?
Success in digital marketing takes many shapes and sizes, all of them important in different ways. It is very easy for agencies to be out of sync with you in how they define and measure success. Many agencies look at numbers like traffic and engagement as stand-ins for success, which are good measures, but they miss the fundamental goal here: lead generation and ACTUAL return-on-investment.
The single most important metric that you should be tracking is lead generation. It is key to a successful partnership. Ask the agency how high-quality inbound leads can be directly attributed to their work. This conversation will bring the focus to the more strategic aspects of the plan and will give you insights into the level of expertise that the digital marketing agency has and to understand their approach better.
Also, ask the agency how they plan to balance paid and organic engagement. A relationship with paid campaigns as the sole source of lead generation in the plan is not going to be sustainable. You want to see effort on both fronts. Long-term digital strategy is about combining paid and owned channels and creating a more holistic inbound strategy.
At FVG, we are extremely conversion-driven in our approach. We work with content in many ways but BOTF content is one of the more critical aspects of a digital marketing strategy. These are content pieces that can be served to people further down the sales funnel with higher intent to buy or purchase. We can attribute conversions from these pieces of content through CTAs that can be actioned right after reading the pieces.
A conversion-oriented strategy is what you should be looking for. Agencies that talk about conversion above other metrics would be a good place to start.