Wanting to understand what marketing agencies do? We take a look in this article what they do, and how best to find the best marketing agency for your business.
Finding a marketing agency is difficult, but let's take it back a step - what actually is a digital marketing agency, let alone what is a marketing agency?
The market has flooded the past 6 years, of good agencies, bad agencies, large agencies, small agencies, and they all come in different niches, specialisms and styles of working, in this article, we take it back to basics - what they are, how they can help your business, and whether it is right to start looking for one.
A marketing agency, in essence is just a team of marketers & various teams, who work together to help clients attract customers and enhance the client's customer experience through various media.
If you’re struggling to attract potential customers through your current advertising strategies, it might be time to hire a dedicated marketing agency to take a look at your business, holistically, to understand where there are gaps in your marketing strategy.
Traditionally, some of the most common media for advertising included print and television, which encompass commercials, billboards, magazine ads, newspaper ads, and other print advertisements. However, where a digital marketing agency differs is they'll usually help your business in the modern world, which includes;
It depends on what you're looking for, if you're looking for an advert in the local paper, an advert on television, or a more traditional form of media, you might be looking for a traditional marketing agency.
However, if you want to stay ahead in the digital side of things, and feel your traditional marketing strategy is covered, you might be looking for a comprehensive digital marketing agency.
There's a common checklist when searching for a marketing agency, which is understanding the basics of what you're looking for, and setting down a clear defined scope.
Here at MEEDEA, we love it the most when a client comes to us knowing their problems, because as the marketing agency, it's our job to find the solutions. You don't need to find a marketing agency with a bias to a particular medium for your marketing, do not stress about searching through all the pages of a marketing agency, wondering which service you're going to have to pick.
Your marketing strategy is not a menu in a restaurant, instead, you want the tasting menu.
Every client, will need a different strategy, for instance, if you're operating a B2B fintech, you need a regulated solution to your marketing strategy, and your clients aren't probably scrolling Facebook, so Facebook Ads is probably a waste of money. Whereas, for the startup jewelry business with capital to spend, Facebook Ads is perfect.
So do not stress, book a discovery call with an agency, and let them pitch to you how they will solve your problems.
If you have a marketing function already, a marketing agency is perfect to fill the gaps that you know you don't want to hire in-house for. Let me give an example. You are a successful business, with a marketing team of 5-15 employees, you have traditional media locked down, leaflet drops and local advertising is working perfect.
But let's say you want to explore Google PPC, but you aren't 100% certain if it commands a full time role with the costs of hiring in-house and committing to a full time pay-per-click specialist. This is the perfect time for your Marketing Manager to reach out to a marketing agency, because although the in-house knowledge won't command a perfect Google Ads campaign first time around, a marketing agency with PPC specialists likely can.
It goes without saying, if you're without a marketing team, or you can't afford a marketing team, a marketing agency on an ad-hoc basis is the perfect solution.
Commonly, on our side as the marketing agency, we find our larger clients (100-1000 employees) will hire us for a one-off project, whereas our smaller clients (10-100) will be on a more longer term relationship basis, as they require more consistent ad-hoc support rather than hiring in-house. Either relationship is absolutely perfect, and it's absolutely fine which relationship you opt for.
When you're attending a marketing agency discovery call, you have to treat it like you're interviewing the agency, ask the questions, and let the marketing agency pitch back their solutions to your problems.
The difference here, is you're not judging the individual on the Teams call, you're judging the business as an overall, their performance, their case studies, their recommended solutions to your problems. Ideally, you can then solidify the decision with a stack of 3-4 proposals at least, to make an informed decision on which agency comes in at a good price.
A digital marketing agency charges anywhere as little as £50/mo for some basic web support, all the way to similar or more to hiring in-house the amount of employees you're looking to fill. For instance, a retainer for what would usually take 4 employees to deliver a content plan, might work out to £20,000pcm, but hiring 4 specialist SEO locally may cost a similar price to the business for that experience.
To find out exactly how much a marketing agency charges, you need to collect proposals after presenting your problems, you'll find marketing agencies differ in pricing massively dependent on their experience, case studies and specialisms.
There are a few places you can look for marketing agencies, some via a simple Google Search, some via platforms like Upwork, some via recommendations. Search for your problems, whether that's leads, an inefficent website or funnel, a poor performing ad campaign and agencies will show up.
If you've stumbled on this article, and are looking for a free 30 minute online presence audit, you can book one with MEEDEA, a leading digital marketing agency.