Here are just a few stats that make the question ‘Should I invest in digital marketing’ silly and easy to answer. Number one – 80% of consumers report they are much more likely to visit a brick-and-mortar store if it lists their inventory online. Number two – almost 90% of people who Google a store visit it within a week. Number three – Google processes 3.5 billion searches daily.
The surprising thing is – 63% of businesses don’t have an explicit and well-defined digital content strategy.
So it’s a no-brainer. Online presence separates the wheat from the chaff.
You can do your research and form a content strategy by yourself. But if you want to harness the power of the internet to benefit your business, hiring a digital marketing agency greatly is the best move you can make.
Let’s delve deeper into this notion.
Digital marketing agencies use advanced marketing tools
You only need a good wrench and a bit of elbow grease to fix a leaky sink. But when it comes to fixing electrical installations, your best and safest bet is to call a professional who has all the necessary equipment and expertise.
If you’re on a tight budget or want to try things out, there are plenty of free digital marketing tools at your disposal. You can perform basic keyword research, check on your competitors, do a little social listening. You’ll probably get a lot of value from just that.
A digital marketing agency not only has subscriptions to full versions of marketing software but is also used by professionals who know how to employ it properly. There’s a reason why there are premium versions of marketing tools.
Lots of valuable data analysis, avenues of advertising, and key insights can be discovered only through skillful use of complete versions of marketing software.
A good digital marketer constantly has a finger on the internet’s pulse
Should you invest resources in video production, or is the optimal strategy to upload daily blog posts? How does the latest Google update affect your SEO status? Are people reacting positively to your social media posts, or are you making an embarrassment of your business?
This month’s fad is next month’s ‘cringe.’ An out-of-date marketing campaign can seriously damage your online presence and do actual damage to your sales.
You can’t keep up with all the latest trends when running a business. Good thing there are professional marketers whose job is to stay relevant with the ever-changing landscape of online marketing.
A digital marketer knows how to expand your online reach properly
It’s just about getting the largest number of people possible to engage with your content. It’s much more about targeting the proper audience through the appropriate platform.
A digital marketing expert knows how to tailor a campaign so that your business reaches the people who need its services. This type of audience research is indispensable for the success of a campaign and its cost as well. You can squander a large amount of money easily if you don’t focus your ads on the proper channel.
It’s not all about expanding and reaching out to new customers, though – most of the time, it’s just ensuring that you are visible for the people who actively search for your services. That means creating all the pertinent social media accounts and listings. This way, you won’t be invisible online.
Creating a plan with realistic expectations and measurable results
Digital marketing is incredibly data-driven. Used properly, the tools can provide you with incredibly detailed insights impossible just a few years ago.
This also makes measuring a campaign’s output and impact on your business very easy and accessible.
A good marketing agency will not only craft a long- or short-term plan fitting your budget, business type, and aspirations. They will back it up with clear metrics collected from trusted measuring software.
Digital marketing campaigns usually last between 6 months and a year. Anything that takes that long cannot be done without serious preparation, careful consideration and forethought, and a measurable goal.
An expert marketer can make changes to a campaign on the fly
A digital marketing campaign is never a ‘set it and forget it’ type of ordeal. Digital marketers constantly monitor the success of a campaign and introduce all types of changes.
When there’s a clearly defined goal, a marketer knows which parameters to tweak to keep a campaign steadily on course.
The evaluation process is not limited to a single campaign. After the campaign is over, all of the collected data serves as a basis for the next one. That means that over a year or two, a good digital marketer knows exactly what type of campaign suits your business best.
A digital marketing agency builds a cohesive online persona across platforms.
Sure, you may have a logo ready and a tagline that perfectly describes your business in three words. But that’s not nearly enough to build a lasting internet presence.
With the proliferation of social media platforms, a lot more goes into your brand’s personality. The type of posts you make, the artwork style you garner, and the different ways you act on other platforms, everything forms a singular identity across the board.
A good digital marketer not only knows how to make the perfect Instagram post timed at the exact right moment, but they also know how to research proper blog posts written with the appropriate tone, how long the perfect video advertisement should be, and many more aspects of marketing. These things come from experience and staying hip to internet trends.
In the world of digital marketing, consistency is key
The way you present to the public and consistency in posting habits is also crucial for any digital marketing campaign. Search algorithms love regularity and coherence. If you don’t know how to please the all-encompassing artificial intelligence, your money is better spent elsewhere.
On your own, it can be difficult to juggle all platforms at once and stay regular with posting. That’s why delegating this task to a professional ensures that your ROI for online marketing stays optimal.
Conclusion
You can argue that digital marketing is the most important part of reaching your consumers in the digital era. You can conclude this from the single fact that everything, from Google to Facebook, is funded by ad revenue. So there has to be something there.
The world of digital marketing may seem self-explanatory and straightforward from the outside. There is, however, a huge amount of knowledge and a myriad of different tools that make the difference of wasting $200 on a mismatched Facebook campaign and increasing your consumer reach by orders of magnitude.
We’ve spent a lot of real estate in this article discussing what makes a good digital marketing agency. The message we’re trying to convey here is – a good business owner knows which tasks to take on themselves and which ones to delegate.
A good business owner realizes this and hires a professional to craft their digital marketing campaigns.
