What Your Marketing Agency Wants You To Know

When you get a marketing agency on board, you are hiring a plethora of professionals in the digital marketing field.

Whether you have hired them mostly for content generation, social media management, or mailer creation & management, or even a mixture of everything, you are leaving it in their hands.

Previously, we took a look at the costs of hiring a full, in-house team vs. outsourcing it to an agency, & we thought we would expand on that a bit. We worked out that hiring an agency, especially for a new, & start-up company was much more viable than hiring a full marketing staff complement. &, just remember, you do absolutely need a full complement for the variety of skills to run the department.

So, we took the next step to unpack what the agency would need from you, as the client. We chatted to an agency who have had extensive experience in dealing with clients.

We wanted to get an idea of what they wanted clients to know, & what they wished their clients would know about digital marketing.

Let’s have a look at what we found out.

Digital Marketing is Not a Quick Fix

The first, & overwhelming response was that agencies wished that clients knew that marketing actually does take a while.

Just because you have created & gotten some social posts & a mailer out, & you haven’t received any sales, doesn’t mean the agency has failed.

We took a look in our last blog post at how long it takes to start getting some traction, & the result was around 6 months.

Now, this may sound like a long time, & disheartening if you are wanting results now.

But, the fact of the matter is, as with all good things in life, marketing takes time!

Think about it, if this is your first time on a digital platform, you won’t really have too many eyes on you.

Your followers on social media need to be brought on & built up to automatically identify you as the go-to brand in your industry.

You need to win those people over.

Now, in many cases, brands rely on the number of followers & engagement they have. But, you will actually need real, organic followers & people who are wanting to follow you because they are genuinely interested in the products or services.

Finding them, & coaxing enough to start converting does take time!

Your Content Needs to Be Continuous

In order to really start reaching those audiences, you need to be getting content out constantly.

Yes, some well-placed social posts will absolutely get the ball rolling. But, the more content you get out, the more reach you have.

The more content, the more chance you have of someone finding you & wanting to buy from you.

You might not also reach a customer & convince them with the first few posts. You may need a few posts for them to start recognizing you & associating you with your products & services.

The fact of the matter is that you actually need to build up a sense of trust & authority with your customer. So, keep that content coming.

The more content that goes out, the more eyes will be on you. & remember, your agency cannot be there at all times. So, send your agency those candid images. Send videos of events or your team at work.

If you can’t post it, let them.

They say less is more, but in a content sense, it certainly is not.

You Will Actually Need a Budget to Pay for Advertising

Yes, your agency is aware that you are budgeting for marketing by hiring them.

But, the reality is that you will need to add another subsection onto that budget for the actual marketing of your posts & campaigns.

While you are paying the agency to produce & manage content, there is more budget needed to get that content up & in front of an audience beyond your followers.

Paid ads & sponsored content on social platforms allows the agency to target a specific audience.

So, if you want to expand your current community (you do) & increase your organic conversion rate (again, you do) you will need to have a budget to do this.

Essentially, your agency will have a look at what is doing really well & getting good engagement. They will then put some money behind the post on social media, or create a paid ad for Google & target specific audiences.

Usually, you are able to have control over the budget & manage the campaign, depending on its success.

But, when you are doing your financial planning for marketing, factor this in to make everyone’s job that much easier.

Digital Marketing is Constantly Evolving

This is something that is overlooked time & time again.

What used to work two years ago, simply might not work today.

Take SEO, for example. The rules that Google lays out for SEO can change up to 500 times a year.

That’s ALMOST once a day.

Platforms & tools that worked before, might be redundant now.

Social platforms are always changing & bringing in new elements & ways to market. &, the agency needs to keep up with that at all times. There is always new data to look at, new metrics to analyse & new things to consider.

For example, five years ago, the number of followers & likes on social posts was one of the top data points being considered.

Now, because of the significant increase in bots, it is more important to keep an eye on conversions & click throughs & what happens to traffic on your site.

So, forget about some of the more outdated aspects of digital marketing, & if your agency has found a new element to focus on, it might be more profitable & effective in the long run.

The Bottom Line

In wrapping up, your agency is there to assist you to exp& your digital footprint. If you fail, so do they. Make sure that you get the right professionals on your side & give them some leeway & time to start getting your campaigns off the ground.

If you are looking for an agency to assist your marketing efforts, contact us at AOM Digital today & let us help you with your digital presence.