How to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency in 2019

Looking forward to making 2019 a breakthrough year for your business? Businesses aspiring to increase revenue, build up a presence and strengthen their position often look for a digital marketing agency. These people can be beneficial for a business because they are the masters of the marketing field. They have worked with tons of clients, build numerous marketing plans and they know the tactics. But how can you decide which marketing agency is right for your business? Here or 7 practical ways to make an informed decision.

1. Set up Your Selection Criteria

To make the process of hiring the perfect digital marketing agency straightforward, you need to define certain selection criteria. You need to understand your objectives of hiring a marketing agency first. Start with the research about your potential audience and customers. What things do you want to incorporate in your brand promotion strategies? Do you want to increase your email list or do you want to gain momentum on social media? If you already know some of the points to improve you can match your goals with the features provided by different agencies and hence select the one that suits you.

2. What does their digital footprint reveal?

A good sign of a reliable digital marketing agency is there track record. If they are not able to generate traffic on their own website how can they be successful in doing that for your business? You can also consider how well they are branding themselves like if you see any paid ads about their business. While searching for them look for words like ‘fraud’ or ‘scam’ to see if there is any negative aspect associated with the company.

3. What do their clients say?

Present and past clients are the best sources of genuine information about a company. If the company drives for results you can easily find that in their testimonials. If they do not have any, it is clear that probably they are not the masters of the field. You can find a lot of information about the company’s clients through its website, social media pages, and blogs. Ask them directly to provide you with some references from the past clients so that you can contact them and get your doubts cleared.

4. Compare and Decide

Don’t just listen to what others say do some research at your own before finalizing a digital marketing agency. For example, you may scrutinize on the basis of client listings, awards and achievements, publications and the reputation of the company in the digital marketing world. Look through the portfolios of different agencies and select the ones that can match with your goals and marketing styles.

5. Quality is important than Price

You must have already pre-decided a budget around which you want to make the marketing process work for your business. Some companies do provide with flexible pricing options. However, you need to ensure that the quality won’t be compromised. Blindly spending a huge budget on a company that appears lucrative but charges you a lot can b a little risky. In other words, you can not only let the price decide whether a company is trustworthy.

6. Know their Team

It is not only the representative of the company but the whole team that is going to make things for you. Hence, an open communication right from the beginning is definitely a good sign. See how receptive they are to your queries. You should know who you would be contacting with on a regular basis, who will implement the processes and who are the pillars of the team. If the company is not willingly giving you such information there might be a loophole in their process

7. Clarify your Scope 

It is good to define your scope at the beginning itself. For instance, you can specify that you won’t be willing to spend above a certain threshold or you are quite strict with the deadlines. Be clear how often you want to communicate with them regarding the progress. For instance, you can ask them to provide you with weekly reports or monthly reports. See how frequently they are communicating via calls and emails. Those who are willing to work under your scope can be your choice for 2019.

You digital making strategy can be a game changer. Hence, it is important for you to hire a trustworthy and result oriented agency. The process of hiring is not that overwhelming if you follow these steps. Lastly, do not rush! Take your time to research thoroughly about the company and consider every aspect from their experience in the industry to the clients and past records before taking the final decision.

Guest article written by: Aditya Singhal is the co-founder of CrunchGrade, an online tutoring platform for students. It is his passion and vision to incorporate technology with education to help students not just thrive but excel through e-learning mediums and tools. He had worked with Kurt Salmon Associates, a reputed American Management Consultancy. Reach out to him on Facebook, LinkedIn here!