According to digital transformation experts, a brand’s digital success depends a lot on their internet marketing agency. Have the right agency to help you and the business can expect a lot of positives like consumers, reach, visibility, and revenues. Select the wrong one and you are looking at regularly missed deadlines, hidden costs and charges, and overall inefficiency.
Choosing the right agency becomes critical for small businesses, who have access to limited resources. Being constrained, they do not want to experience delays, faulty strategies, and unskilled experts ruining their chances of success.
In this article, we speak to leading digital marketing experts and ask them to help businesses select the best internet marketing agency for their needs. We do this by highlighting and pointing out five major questions, which businesses should ask an agency before hiring them.
List of 5 Questions to ask your Internet Marketing Agency before Hiring them
- What kind of Software and Tools do they use?
A lot can be deciphered about the nature and character of an agency about the software and automation tools they use. For example, a good and credible SEO agency will always use premium tools like AHREFS, Moz, and SEMrush. These are paid tools and are worth it.
Likewise, the best creative agencies use automation when it comes to social media performance. This means using tools like Buffer, Social Sprout, and even ZOHO to automate tasks like postings, gathering data, managing the CRM, and so on.
- Do they have Experience with your Industry or Niche?
You need to ask this question to understand whether they have handled industries or niches similar to yours. If they have, it will boost your confidence in knowing that they at least have that experience. Agencies learn a lot about the intricacies of the market and target audiences if they have niche experience.
For example, an internet marketing agency, which has never handled a fashion brand, might not be capable enough in understanding how the psyche of the target audiences’ work. This is why more than just experience; you need to fine-tune your question to niche experience.
- Are they Offering Timeline-based KPIs and Goals?
Most agencies will come across as non-committal when you ask them for timelines around KPIs. However, unscrupulous agencies do not want to commit because all they are interested in are monthly retainers. They might also tell you things like- ‘social media is not for sales.’
It is best to stay away from such agencies. As a business, you need to fix timelines to ensure project completions take place. Every day wasted in this regard is a strain on your finances and efforts. Make sure if the agency gives you timelines, you mention the same in the contract.
- Are they going to Outsource your Work?
You might not believe that something like this might happen, but trust us when we say that this is quite the norm. Agencies are always chasing newer clients, and if they are short-staffed, they do not hesitate to outsource your work to a lesser agency.
Sub-renting of a client’s work is the harsh reality of our times. Whatever your digital marketing platforms- website design and development, social media, PPC, or app making, you need to ask for a confirmation that the work will not be outsourced in any which way.
- Have they made their own business excel at Internet Marketing?
An agency is also a business. It also needs to use those same platforms and strategies, which it is now suggesting to you to improve its own performance. Be sure to look at the website of the agency and also study their social media pages. Check whether they are practicing what they preach.
If an agency does not have a well-designed website, with great content, or do not have a social media page of their own, it is a serious red flag. It just goes to show that they do not care about adopting strategies for themselves, which they believe will work for their clients.
The Final Word
Hiring a digital marketing agency for your business might be one of the toughest decisions you will ever have to take. It is important to do your research, assess every agency, and then proceed. By using these five questions, you will be able to understand how they work, what kind of expertise do they possess, and whether they will be able to deliver for your business or not.
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