To answer this question it is important to first understand the importance of digital marketing, what a digital marketing agency does and what benefits and outcomes to expect.
Why digital marketing?
Digitization is increasing in every part of the world and just the last 12 months has seen a massive jump in digital change. Customers are more comfortable than ever to search, shop and engage with their favorite brands online.
Figure 1 Growth in Ecommerce
- The average adult is now spending over 6 hours per day online.
- Today, 81 percent of customers conduct online research before making a purchase decision.
- 91% of customers have visited a store because of an online experience
Businesses have to develop a digital footprint or run the risk of becoming invisible.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a multifaceted strategy aimed to target, reach out to and build relationships with customers online, across a broad range of channels, ultimately getting them to make immediate and future purchases. The role of digital marketing will only grow with the advent of the Metaverse.
Digital Marketing Strategy
Having a coherent digital marketing plan has become the first step to achieve an effective online presence. The construction of a digital marketing strategy involves a variety of different disciplines: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Web Design and Content Design.
Digital Marketing is an all-encompassing term representing different online methods of marketing and growing your business. So it can be somewhat complicated to launch a robust or large-scale campaign if your company lacks the resources, time, and expertise for such an undertaking.
WHAT SERVICES DOES DIGITAL AGENCIES OFFER?
A Digital Marketing Agency typically offer an array of services to build an online presence which are likely to include at least the following:
SKILLS REQUIRED FOR A FULL SERVICES OFFERING
Given the services provided above, the graphic below summarises the portfolio of skills required to provide a full service digital marketing capability.
The next graphic illustrates the % of agencies that employ these skills, as well as average market-related annual salaries for these experts.
Employing all these skills inhouse can become an expensive exercise, especially when you consider the comparative cost of a packaged Digital Marketing Services provided by Full Service Digital Marketing Agencies.
Digital Marketing Service
Depending on whether you are a Small business, a Mid-sized business or a Mid-sized and Growing business, you would typically consume from:
- 24hrs pm to 100hrs pm across all the various digital marketing skills
- and pay between R10,000pm to R40,000pm
as you would only be consuming that part of each specialist that would meet your business needs.
For example:
This excludes once-off projects such as development of bespoke websites or mobile apps.
4 BENEFITS OF HIRING A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY
Improved Management Focus
A digital marketing agency employs a wide variety of different tactics, strategies and online tools to help a business attain its marketing and sales goals which requires serious management attention, when the focus should be on growing your business from the inside.
Recently the concept of a Fractional CMO (Customer Management Officer) has started to take shape, whereby an experienced marketing executive plays a part-time role on the management team. Which means access to the expertise but without the fulltime cost.
With a Digital Marketing Agency, you simply agree the scope of work, and the timeframe.
Reduced Costs
Other than eliminating the recurring costs of having full-time employees, the need for expensive tools, analytics, keyword research, competitor analysis, paid search management and automation tools needed for effective digital marketing and measurement, is also eliminated.
Availability of Expertise
The availability of digital marketing expertise is a big one:
- It can be time-consuming to get to understand all the online marketing techniques, from SEO strategies and social media marketing to Web and App development.
- Working with a digital marketing agency, you can get access to a team of experienced and qualified experts who can go deeper across a broader range of areas, whereas individual freelancers tend to go deep into only one area. All of the above are delivered as a one-stop service
- Having a global and a remote team you are able to find sector specialists in a global economy, instead of looking to hire locally simply for the sake of it.
- These experts have worked on similar projects in the past and are not only experienced in your industry, but also in your competitors and the latest marketing practices in your segment, as well.
- They are also able to be a source of new ideas: new perspectives and ideas on which techniques will yield results.
Increased Scalability and Measurability
Digital Marketing Agencies are able to scale up, or down, as the need determines and to produce quantifiable results.
Key Digital Marketing Outcomes
Grow Organic Traffic To Your Website
The overall goal of any digital marketing service is to generate as much organic traffic to one’s business website. Organic traffic means a website will attract more, and better quality leads with fewer costs.
Generate Sales-Ready Leads
In any sales funnel, different marketing tactics are more appropriate depending on where leads are within the sales funnel. Depending on search intent different messages and platforms can be used to move prospective buyers along until they are sales-ready.
Expand Brand Reach
Improve online visibility through keyword research and buyer persona development, and gain additional online presence with social media marketing.
Digital Agencies are a significant departure from traditional advertising agencies, providing full service to broader range of business who would not have been able to afford this before.
Click here to find out more about Vibe Marketing East Coast, or here to speak to one of the Vibe Marketing team.