Marketing is all about connecting with your customers, and today, your customers are sophisticated, discerning, and tech-savvy. They rely more on reviews, referrals, and recommendations now than the messages delivered through traditional marketing means.
What is digital marketing?
In an age of mass-digitisation, businesses need to be innovative and creative and meet their customers online where they are already spending much of their time. By incorporating a technology-focussed strategy into your marketing plan, and increasing your digital presence, your business will certainly yield the results of engaging directly with your target audience.
Forging a digital presence, an online expression of your business, that will appeal not only to your ideal customer but also stand out enough to be seen by that customer requires a digital marketing strategy that is planned, effective, and, above all, ethical.
What are some of the benefits of a good digital marketing strategy?
Digital marketing is a non-discerning beast. It doesn’t matter whether your business is big or small, your market is local or international, your sector is real estate or construction; a well-planned digital marketing strategy can increase your bottom line, your market share and your brand awareness.
Digital marketing paves the way for better interaction with your target audience. Unlike traditional marketing methods, the interactive nature of digital marketing means that businesses are able to grow their client base and convert leads in a shorter amount of time and with fewer resources. Businesses can engage directly with customers and prospective customers in real-time enabling them to respond and adapt to market trends much faster and more effectively than in the past.
The very nature of digital marketing affords businesses the opportunity to analyse the efficacy of their marketing campaigns by reviewing available statistics. This invaluable information can be used to tweak future campaigns for better results, reach and returns.
A digital marketing agency can do that for you!
Partnering with a digital marketing agency
Partnering with a digital marketing agencyThe missing piece in your current marketing strategy could be a strong digital presence, but digital marketing is fast-paced; with changing consumer sentiment, fleeting online trends and ever-changing search engine algorithms, businesses need to have their ears to the ground and their finger on the proverbial pulse. All of these activities around marketing can divert crucial resources from a business’s main activity, leaving gaps in service and under-performance in development. To enable you to get back to what you do best, have you considered partnering with a digital marketing agency whose core function is to build, grow and strategise your online marketing efforts?
The best time to partner up with a digital marketing agency is when it’s still an option, rather than a necessity, as good, well-timed campaigns can stave off the competition, and establish market leadership and brand awareness. A digital marketing agency will not only grow your business but grow with your business.
Digital marketing, in itself, affords businesses benefits above and beyond the capabilities of traditional marketing and by partnering with a digital marketing agency, your business will be better placed to deliver genuine marketing results, staying ahead of the curve and having a marketing strategy that delivers your business’s ethos, values and passion well beyond the boundaries of traditional marketing.
What to look for in your digital marketing partner
Like with any business venture, it always pays to do some ‘homework’ and choosing a digital marketing partner that understands your marketing needs and business ethos is no different. Before engaging the services of a digital marketing partner, there are a number of initial checks you can do to decide if they are the right fit for your business:
- Do they have a blog?
A blog provides insight into the type of content the agency shares: is it valuable, are they keeping up to date with emerging trends? An active blog indicates that the agency has a dedicated team who are not only passionate about what they do but want to share that information with others.
- What do they offer?
The old adage: “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is!” is very relevant when choosing your digital marketing partner. Be mindful of what guarantees and returns you are being offered. Due to shifting market trends and algorithmic changes, promises of guaranteed page rankings and exact numbers of unique visitors should be carefully scrutinised.
- Online testimonials and customer reviews:
Online testimonials and customer reviews can be useful for determining an agency’s fit for your business as well as their ability to provide the kind of service you are looking for. Don’t just look for the reviews and testimonials posted on the agency’s website. Customer reviews posted on platforms that have no direct ties to the agency are likely to be more trustworthy.
- Analyse their website’s functionality:
Digital marketing is all about the online which is where today’s digitised consumers do much of their research about products and services. This research includes browsing websites and making snap judgements based on ease of navigation, design accessibility and quality of the information and page load-time.
- Check their social media profiles and commentary
No digital marketing strategy is complete without engaging on a number of social media platforms. Look up the agency’s social media profiles and note the type of activity and what others are saying to and about them. A professional and reputable agency will, at the very least, have a business LinkedIn profile that contains essential information about who they are and what they do, and it will reveal how they interact with customers, potential customers and the public in general.
Partnering up with a digital marketing agency and working collaboratively with them can free up valuable resources within your business, leaving you to do what you do best. This collaboration can catapult your business by exposing you to a targeted audience across multiple platforms.
