1. What techniques and strategies will you use to help me achieve my marketing goals?
First and foremost, it's best to know how the agency will help you get the results you wanted and what tools they'll use to achieve these. Most digital marketing agencies use different techniques and approaches when doing marketing projects. Some of the most common products and services offered by digital marketing agencies are:
- SEO - refers to the process of improving the quality and quantity of your website when it comes to traffic or how many people visit or click links within your website
- Web design - involves the overall layout and appearance of your website.
- Social media management and advertising - refers to how the agency will handle your business's social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
- Review monitoring - controlling online conversations about your brand (e.g., monitoring your brand mentions online)
While it's beneficial and important to know about all these, it's just the tip of the iceberg. You'll learn more if you ask about their own process. The digital marketing agency or SEO company must be able to give you clear expectations before, during, and after your online marketing campaign. To know better, ask some of these questions:
- Who will I speak to during the launch of the marketing campaign?
- What kinds of data and information will be collected (from me and from prospects/leads)?
- How is the content creation process and how long will it take?
- How much guidance can your agency provide me/us?
- Who will be my contact person in the future if ever I have questions and concerns?
2. Have you worked with other businesses within my industry?
Moving on, it's best to know if the marketing agency, for example, has already provided services for local businesses within your industry. If not, you have to rethink about getting them as your agency of choice. So make sure that the one you'll be choosing already has experience working with other businesses like yours. For example, if you're in the automotive industry, they should have enough knowledge and experience about the industry and what are the pain points of your target customers and clients.
With this, you'll ensure that they'll use the knowledge and experiences from their previous clients to help you craft a campaign that highlights your business’s strengths and uniqueness to reach the right people in the right way and at the right time. And this is very important in every marketing project you'll be doing in the future.
When they already know your target audience, it will be easy for them to use online marketing techniques, especially SEO, in creating a smooth campaign for your business. If you wanted to learn more about how we craft effective campaigns, let us know.
3. How is your content creation process?
Interestingly, 70% of consumers prefer to know more about products and services in content and articles instead of advertisements. This is why content marketing is essential to any business. It's indeed true that content is king. But to be able to have a reputable and reliable business, you should also be an authoritative figure in your industry. And this is achieved through producing "evergreen content" that shows your expertise in your own field.
So in choosing the best marketing agency, ask about the content creation process. Some questions they need to address are:
- How will you handle content creation for my campaign?
- How will ideas, drafts, and outlines be communicated, and how frequent?
- Will you outsource freelancers or contract writers and designers?
- Do you have an in-house team of content creators that will solely focus on my marketing campaign?
Here, the agency should be open to your ideas, and they should produce content that is consistent with the tone and level of professionalism of your brand. They should also create high-quality content that is action-driven and sales-driven, even with only minimal supervision from your side. In the end, it still depends on you on how hands-on or hands-off you'll be.
4. How will you leverage SEO to get my business ranking in search results?
One of the ultimate goals in SEO and online marketing is to get your website ranking on page one for the most relevant keywords and phrases in your industry. For example, if you're in the technology and gadgets industry, some possible keywords are “Best gadgets of 2021”, “Affordable Phones,” etc. And SEO can really make or break your business.
So if you're not on the first page of Google, you badly need to do more SEO techniques to get there. For local businesses, SEO is more important than ever because, over a period of two years, Google reported a 900%+ increase in mobile searches for "___ near me today/tonight."
This is why it's crucial to get a good SEO company. You'll know this if the marketing agency can clearly describe to you their SEO strategy and explain the process and techniques they'll be using to get your business's website appearing on the first page of Google (and other search engines).
Moreover, ask them these important questions:
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Who will choose the keyword phrases to optimize my website?
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How will these be chosen?
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How is the keyword analysis process?
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Is there an in-house SEO analyst to work on the optimization, or freelancers will handle it?
We understand. These questions can be a little overwhelming. Ready to get some answers? Chat with us.
5. How much will the digital marketing project cost?
You need to know what price to expect. Most digital agencies have different tiers of service wherein each tier has a different price depending on what products and services are included in each "package." Other agencies offer customized options, allowing you to add or remove specific products to your current package that can accommodate your needs and your budget.
Others offer standard packages that don't allow you to customize the products and services in your package. So here's our tip: although standard packages tend to be cheaper, this might negatively impact your marketing campaign because non-personalized services might fail to address your own unique business needs and goals, and therefore, your campaign won't succeed.
6. When will I see results?
At the start of every marketing campaign, it's essential to always set expectations. And more often than not, SEO projects and digital marketing plans take a lot of time (and patience, of course). This is because a lot of factors need to be considered. One of these is your ranking before the campaign begins. In most cases, you can already see improvements as soon as three months, although this can take much longer. But don't let this stop you!
The right digital marketing agency for you should be able to present to you a realistic timeline and explain why certain things happen. Remember that SEO is very important, especially for local businesses. Just manage your expectations well. Organic SEO takes time. But getting to the first page has lasting benefits for your brand and business.
If you're ready to talk to a marketing expert who can answer all your questions, we're here.
7. How will we know whether or not the marketing campaign is successful?
In every campaign, the results are very important! There should always be solid figures and numbers to back up the impact of the marketing or SEO project. Your digital marketing agency should let you access the data and analytics for your campaign regularly. Always know that numbers don't lie. Using those, you'll identify certain trends and determine what works and what doesn't.
Conclusion
Now that you have a better idea about the things you should consider when looking for a digital marketing agency, there's no better way but to ask those questions right away! Start checking out different agencies, and we know you'll find the best marketing partner for you and your business. Always keep in mind the questions we've enumerated and observe how these agencies will respond to these questions.
We wish you luck in finding the right agency to achieve your long-term business goals. Feel free to reach out to us to see if we would be a good fit. At the very least, we will help advise you further on what to look for in a digital agency.
