https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKrSfYdeg4IIt's no secret that partnering with a digital agency can help you expand your business. From generating leads to giving you more time to spend on your brand's core areas, handing over the marketing reins to a team of experts can dramatically boost your business's potential, its visibility, and its bottom line.
Finding the right agency, however, can be difficult. Marketing is never a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and it's important to find a partner who delivers the right results for your unique brand.
If you're struggling to find the right marketing agency partner for your business, consider assessing agencies along three major criteria: demand capture, lead generation, and brand building.
A successful marketing campaign should start with the low-hanging fruit. There are already customers who are looking for your product or your solution right now, and capturing that demand will result in some of the quickest conversions at the lowest cost for your business.
The right agency partner should have effective methods, including an optimized PPC strategy for the ever-changing world of paid search, to turn that existing demand into satisfied customers. Think about it this way: If your agency partner can't take advantage of the audience you already have, they'll never be able to help you grow it – and you'll be leaving money on the table.
For many businesses, the existing demand isn't enough. If you're in a competitive market and rely solely on paid search, you may find yourself in a "race to zero" when it comes to your margins, as a result of increasing Costs Per Click over time.
The solution? Move up the funnel. Find an agency partner who understands the value of content marketing to expand your audience and generate new leads. This may not have the immediate return on investment that you see with paid search, but it's vital for ensuring your business's survival in a saturated market. You'll need to be patient when it comes to seeing the results of this approach, but you should get clarity from your agency up-front on the steps they're taking both to generate leads and to nurture those leads throughout the customer journey.
The final way an agency partner should be helping your business is by building your brand. Again, in most competitive markets, you're going to see rising costs per lead and decreasing margins unless you find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition. A strong brand is one of the most powerful ways to do this, but it will take a marketing expert to get you there.
Partner with an agency who understands how to leverage the power of online communities to build awareness around your brand. From paid ads to organic content, social media can be one of the most effective tools a marketer has for building engagement and crafting a recognizable brand identity. It also works in tandem with the content marketing you should already be using to grow your audience: Good content is shareable and can create a buzz online, leading your potential audience back to you without having to rely on paid search.If the answer to these three questions isn't a resounding 'yes,' you're not getting what you deserve from your agency partner. From capturing existing demand to growing your audience and building a brand, an effective partnership should be driving results across the board for your business. Curious to know what some of those results could look like? Check out statistics from our own Hop Online clients and contact us to see if we may be able to help your business, too.
I help my clients achieve better business results by improving the way they think, act and communicate online.
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