How to Choose Best Digital Marketing Agency for your Business

Digital Marketing is becoming increasingly important for brands and startups alike, as more and more companies are tapping the Internet and social media platforms to help their businesses grow. At BrandLoom Consulting we regularly interact with clients, who have either never used Digital Marketing as a Tool or have burned their hands trying it. We have also seen them wondering “How to Choose Best Digital Marketing Agency for their Business”.

The role of Digital Marketing agencies has been instrumental in the journey of an organisation in the world of Digital Marketing.

If you are a Brand or a Startup looking for a Digital Marketing Agency, you will surely find a similarly titled article (How to Choose Best Digital Marketing Agency for your Business) in sufficient numbers on the internet.

As a marketing professional with 20 years of experience, I have worked with several consumer goods MNC’s, I have grappled with similar questions. Therefore, I am sharing my inputs on the subject and I believe that it will help you to find the best Digital Marketing Agency for your Business.

What is Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is advertising messages delivered through online channels such as websites, mobile apps, search engines, social media and emails. It helps a brand generate interest in its products among its consumers. (source) Like any other marketing strategy the objective of Digital marketing is to:

• Promote Brands
• Build preference for your Brands
• Increase sales

Key Digital Marketing activities are search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, Social Media Optimisation, social media marketing, email marketing, display advertising, ebooks, optical disks and games, and many other forms of digital media. It also extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback and on-hold mobile ring tones.

It also extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback and on-hold mobile ring tones.

What you must pay attention to

Please note that as per the definition above, Digital Marketing is:

• Targeted, measurable, and interactive
• Marketing of products or services
• Using Digital Tools

From the above it is clear that when you look for a Digital Marketing Agency for your Business, you must look for an agency which understands:

• Your Consumer
• Your Business Model
• Marketing Strategy
• Your Brand Strategy
• Your Business Success measures
• Digital Tools and their importance.

During my 20 years career, I came across several leading Advertising and PR agencies, who have a separate arm for digital tactics (I will not use marketing word here as their teams use it only as tactics with little or no connect with Brand strategy). If you come across an agency like this, just stay away. Such agencies find it difficult to coordinate work among itself. You will end up spending time making them coordinate with each other.

Digital Ecosystem

Digital World is a perfect example of an Ecosystem.

In an ecosystem, each organism has its’ role to play. Wikipedia defines an ecosystem as a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, the parent material that forms the soil, and topography control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem

These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, the parent material that forms the soil, and topography control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem

Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, the parent material that forms the soil, and topography control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem.

In the digital world its several elements such as your website, your social media profile are the niche you play. Your competition is the element which competes for the energy available in the ecosystem. Companies like Google, Facebook are the external factor which affects the digital ecosystem, and you may not be able to do much about it except adjusting yourself to it.

Digital Ecosystem supports brands, which play an active role by playing their role by using elements available and supports the growth of the ecosystem.

Therefore it important that your Digital Marketing agency has versatile capability starting from website and mobile app designing to SEO, SMO, SEM, SMM, PPC and display advertising.

As Long as you pay attention to the above two points, you will be in very good hands. Just to make it simple, I will illustrate some of the key things you must look into while looking for best Digital marketing agency for your brand.

How to Choose Best Digital Marketing Agency

Digital Marketing Agency could be the one between your success and failure in a marketplace. Therefore it is very important to have a good digital marketing agency. Please pay attention to the following when looking for a digital marketing agency:

Does your Digital Marketing Agency Understand your Business

As a Brand, your focus is on your business, your competitor and to achieve your business objective, and therefore you are delegating your digital marketing work to an external digital marketing agency. However as the objective of engaging a digital marketing agency is to achieve your business objective, it is a must that your Digital Marketing Agency and their key personnel understand your business, competition, industry and on top of strategy.

However as the objective of engaging a digital marketing agency is to achieve your business objective, it is a must that your Digital Marketing Agency and their key personnel understand your business, competition, industry and on top of strategy.

Who will service your Account

Ask your agency who will service your account, her qualification, business experience and level in the Digital Marketing Agency. A seasoned Client Servicing personnel with a good understanding of the digital ecosystem will be quite handy, once you start to explore possible avenues to build your brand. Another benefit of having a seasoned client servicing personnel is that she is your direct representative within the

A seasoned Client Servicing personnel with a good understanding of the digital ecosystem will be quite handy, once you start to explore possible avenues to build your brand. Another benefit of having a seasoned client servicing personnel is that she is your direct representative within the

Another benefit of having a seasoned client servicing personnel is that she is your direct representative within the Agency, if she is senior enough you will get your work done faster and better. You would not like to play Chinese whispers with your client servicing team and never achieve your objectives.

Integrated Services Agency

There are a plethora of pure-play digital agencies across the country, full of techies with excellent technical understanding. I can classify these at best as digital agencies as they lack an understanding of strategic Branding. A Good Digital Marketing Agency should be able to combine the two. Play more emphasis on branding capability as it is difficult to come by.

Versatile Capability

As pointed out above that Digital world is an ecosystem, you should always consider when looking for best digital marketing agencies to work for you the nature and variety of services they offer.

A good agency should offer as many services as possible under one roof. This will save you the trouble of finding another company for services as you can easily delegate all your digital marketing needs to your Digital Marketing Agency.

Online Presence

Check out the visibility of your Digital Marketing Agency online. Do they have a website, is it responsive, do they have a blog.

These three are most important in the digital world today. A Digital Marketing Agency vying for your business should have active social media pages and a blog.

They have created these to connect with their existing or prospective customers. If they are not showing respect to their customers by being active, what chances are there that they will be respectful to you after you have handed over your account to them.

A Good digital marketing agency will share on a regular basis, and this is the way to show respect to consumers in the digital world.

Can you Connect with them

How easy it is to connect with them on their website, can you talk to them over the phone. How long does it take for them to respond? Call them up and talk to them. Find out how knowledgeable their team is.