5 reasons why you should hire a digital marketing agency (and when)
Key takeaways
Digital marketing agencies might seem like the expensive way to go, but that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, while saving you time, they often save you a lot of money, too.
They can give you immediate access to the market, a whole team of specialists at your disposal, and a polished tech stack with minimal investment and maximum output.
If you don’t have the resources to set up your own marketing team, or the expertise in-house to smash your marketing goals, now could be the best time to hire a digital marketing agency.
A quarter of marketers say that maximising their digital campaigns is their biggest challenge.
But it’s a critical aspect of business success nowadays.
Here’s why:
There are over 5 billion people online and almost 80% look for businesses online before visiting physical stores.
Digital ads can increase brand awareness by more than 80%.
Organic search and content marketing are among the top ROI generators, according to surveys.
PPC can return 200%+ ROI and email marketing $36 for every $1 invested.
So they’re pretty big reasons to invest in digital marketing.
And fortunately, there is help available.
In this guide to why you should hire a digital marketing agency:
What do digital marketing agencies do?
8 tell-tale signs that it’s time to hire a digital agency
5 reasons why you should hire a digital marketing agency
How do you choose the right one?
Where to get honest advice
What do digital marketing agencies do?
“Digital marketing” is an umbrella term for a number of different marketing activities.
In other words, it’s marketing that takes place online. Or on screens. Simple.
Some digital marketing agencies offer a full suite of services (otherwise known as full service, or generalists). Others are specialists in one area. And some are a combination of both.
Succeeding in digital marketing is all about maximising the best combination of these activities to suit your business and its audience.
Find some examples of this in our case studies.
The overarching goals of digital marketing are:
To generate more leads
To convert more customers
To make more profit per customer
To produce brand advocates
It achieves this by:
Boosting brand awareness
Increasing website traffic
Promoting products or services online
Nurturing and improving the customer experience
Finding new markets for your offerings
Hiring a digital marketing agency offloads as much of the strategy, planning, and execution as you need to maximise the output of your team.
By partnering with an agency, you get immediate access to experts, markets, and tools that can generate proven results.
And you might be surprised to hear that it’s often more cost-effective than hiring a new employee to look after your marketing…
But more on that later.
8 tell-tale signs that it’s time to hire a digital marketing agency
Unsure whether now is the right time to hire a digital marketing agency?
Here are some signs to look out for:
You’re not getting enough sales or quality leads.
Your brand isn’t resonating with or attracting its target audience.
You want to reach new audiences and you’re unsure how.
Your marketing team is stretched too thin, or you don’t have one and recognise the urgent need for more digital marketing output.
You want to invest in digital marketing but you don’t know where to start.
You don’t have the time, budget, or expertise required to build a marketing team.
You’re one of the 48% of organisations that don’t have a clearly-defined digital marketing strategy and you know that needs to change.
You want to focus on what you do best and outsource marketing to the experts.
5 reasons why you should hire a digital marketing agency
If you’re considering whether hiring a digital marketing agency is right for your business, these top benefits should help you decide.
It saves time
Good agencies are experts at what they do.
If you’ve hired the right one, they should have done what you’re asking for many times before.
And they should be able to deliver it in a fraction of the time it would take you to hire or train someone new. Probably to a higher standard too.
By outsourcing your digital marketing, you can focus your time on other areas of your business - safe in the knowledge that skilled specialists are on the job.
Time is money.
Speaking of money…
2. It saves money
Yeah, seriously.
By hiring a digital marketing agency, you only pay for what you need, when you need it.
There’s no recruitment and onboarding to consider; no training, holiday pay, or sick pay. You get access to an entire team with just one contract and one invoice.
And you should be able to scale your investment up and down as needs change.
What’s not to love?
3. It helps you to make more informed decisions
Digital marketing is data-driven.
In fact, it’s probably what sets this type of marketing apart from others. And from other aspects of business in general.
We have so many metrics about performance that can be used to make calculated decisions.
CPC, CRO, CTR, SQLs, MQLs, ROI, ROAS…
That’s great and all, but how do you know which KPIs to pay attention to?
Oftentimes, businesses only need to focus on a handful of metrics. And agencies will know exactly which combination is best to track for your needs, and how to improve them to generate the desired results.
We regularly update our clients on the performance of our work. We do this by tracking and interpreting particular metrics for them that make sense for each campaign.
This way, they can see where every dollar of their marketing spend has gone, and make decisions accordingly.
Are you confused by all the marketing jargon that gets bounced around online? We’ve got you covered. Bookmark our marketing jargon dictionary.
4. Leverage industry expertise without learning it all yourself
Digital marketing evolves as quickly as the technology that powers it.
Google alone updates its algorithm thousands of times every year. And the new kid on the block, AI, is making quite a splash too.
This often impacts SEO strategy and performance, triggering a mild panic in content marketing managers across the globe.
But those “in the know”, like digital marketing agencies, are on the pulse and ready to adapt to these shifts.
They’ve lived through a few and they’ve learned what’s going on in the back-end.
Their work is more robust, their experience hard-earned, and it’s available to you on a silver platter when you partner with them.
5. Get the smallest tech stack with the greatest return
You could automate almost every aspect of your marketing. But it’ll come at a cost.
Agencies have in-depth knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the relevant tools available, and they can implement the right tech stack for you.
Depending on your agreement with them, it might even be included in their fees, and you won’t have to learn how to use them.
Either way, not a cent is wasted on excessive software, and you’ll know you’re using the best tools available for the job.
How do you choose the agency that’s right for you?
It’s all about asking the right questions and finding an agency with values that align with yours.
In fact, we’ve created a list of the crucial questions to ask when hiring a content marketing agency.
Before you search, make sure you have an idea of why you’re looking for one and the types of outcomes you want to achieve by partnering up.
This will make any discussions with candidates much more productive.
(We have a blog on this too, check it out here).
Get honest advice on your business’ marketing needs
You may have noticed that we’re in the digital marketing space.
One of our values is transparency. Hiring a digital marketing agency comes with some downsides, and it’s not right for every business.
Depending on your needs in the short and long-term, another arrangement might work better. And we’re always here for an honest chat about what that could be.
Whether it’s with us, or someone else.
Let’s chat.
