For any entrepreneur, the road to success is fraught with many challenges. Digitising your company for the online world is an absolute MUST, but how do you do it quickly and effectively?

Choosing a digital marketing provider like everything in business has its risks. Luckily there are a number of things you can look out for when choosing the ‘right’ agency for you.

Check the website

An obvious suggestion but finding out whether the agency you have your eye on is reputable or even suited to your marketing plan should be step one. If you don’t like the website then it probably isn’t the company for you.

A digital agency with a bad website is like a restaurant that serves poor food.  Make sure you check for these things when making your investigation.

• References/testimonials
• A contact us/about us page
• Does the site provide the services YOU need (Digital Marketing is a broad field; a company could be strong in email marketing but weak in SEO services).

Agencies are almost certain not to list their weaknesses on their website. If it isn’t there, either make an inquiry or find a different agency.

Find out what you need

As was mentioned earlier, the realm of digital marketing is broad. Make sure you know enough about it before making any decisions. Going in and demanding all the services because you do not know any better can result in money wasted. Perhaps all you really want is search engine optimisation for your website but they end up tantalising you with additional services you do not want.

You don’t have to become a marketing expert but you need to ensure that the marketing agency can deliver what you require and that you don’t lose money on services you don’t.

Ensure they have SME focus

Many big budget agencies are simply unequipped with the means to provide a perfectly optimised solution for a small business. Economically speaking, it just is not feasible for them to provide a start-up, which pays less, with the same quality results as they might deliver to a big business, which pays more. When deciding on a provider, you need to determine whether the agency has a strong focus for SME’s.

Learn their SEO approach

For a small business, search engine optimisation is a key issue that you will almost certainly need to address. Unless you the lack the know-how or time to do it yourself, you’ll probably hire an agency to do it for you. Make sure you learn their approach to tackling SEO.

No one organisation can promise you a rank 1 spot on a google search engine but at the same time you don’t want to leave your company hidden in obscurity. Look for a well-rounded approach, a balance of links, multimedia and keywords.

Measure their success

Before engaging the services of a certain agency make sure they are equipped with fundamental analytic tools. Look for Key Point Indicators or KPI’s in their reports and make sure you are confident these avenues can be exceeded. Examples of some KPI’s include

• Sales
• Leads
• Traffic

Checking out testimonials is also a good point of reference.

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