Your business needs an online presence. In fact, in a few years with the pandemic-fueled acceleration to online purchasing, it might be your only presence. The problem with this though is that you often spend more time running your online presence than you do actually running your business.
No doubt, you’ll be spending time every day checking how your new Facebook campaign is running and how many more new leads it got you. You’ll then have to update your Facebook page, your Twitter feed, YouTube, put up a new post on Instagram, and a few pins on Pinterest, to keep all of the new followers your ads have got you entertained in the hope one of them will but something.
Are you managing your digital marketing or your business
It’s pretty obvious that you can’t run a business on likes and shares, but you don’t want to stop. In this position, you have to face up to the fact that you might not be very good at marketing (especially online) and it might be a better idea to get somebody else to do it for you.
There is the initial concern about the cost of hiring somebody else to do it, certainly. As the owner of what could be a very new small business, with limited revenue, you’ll want to keep expenses to a minimum.
However, once you add up the hours you spend every day marketing to and maintaining your digital audience, instead of generating cash in your business, you might find that outsourcing is the best plan.
How to pick the right digital marketing agency
There is no perfect digital marketing company that fits the bill for everybody. They all have different strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, every business they are likely to service will vary in size and habits of their customer base.
However, there are two ’extra’ things you need to take into account when looking to employ a digital marketing agency that you might not have thought of
#1 Keep it local – although the internet has made everything global if your business has a local customer base (ie you’re a nail bar or a bakery, a roofer or window cleaner, etc.) you’ll need a more local agency. So if you’re in London, pick an agency in the capital, if you’re in The Midlands, choose ALT Agency – Coventry who will have the local knowledge you need.
#2 SEO – Not all agencies offer this so you should pick one that does. Running advertising campaigns are all well and good, but as you’ve already discovered, you are paying to get customers every day. By employing an agency that has the skills to point some relevant Google searches in your direction, you can start to benefit from natural web traffic.
SEO takes time to take effect, so it is definitely part of the ‘long game’. For this reason, it is also advisable to employ an agency that can implement a long-term strategy to suit your business plan.