7 Signs that you Need to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

Hiring a digital marketing agency isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. Let’s face it, engaging with a decent agency isn’t going to be cheap, and it’s very, very tempting to try to “do” digital by yourself.

But there comes a time when you realise that you need some help, and you need to outsource some, or all, of the work in order to maximise your results.  

Here are seven common signs that the time is right to be looking for some assistance.

You simply don’t know enough

You are an expert in you field and there’s no-one that knows your industry better than you.

However, you can’t know everything about everything. The digital marketing space is massive, involving so many different disciplines, strategies, tools and platforms - you can’t possibly master them all! Even digital marketers, who have a broad knowledge and are proficient in most areas, recognise that they can’t conquer every avenue, and they’ll tend to specialise in one or two fields.  

Working with a digital marketing agency that have a number of specialists in each field enables you to make an impression in every aspect of digital marketing.

There isn’t enough time in the day

You’ve got your own job to do!  You could be running your own business, organising sales, delivery, marketing, staff, accounts and everything else that is dumped on your desk.  So optimising your PPC campaign or finalising your content calendar for your social media posts, just isn’t going to happen.  

Using a digital marketing company means that you’ll have a contract for services in place and you can make sure that any service levels are met consistently.

It’s not a priority

Similar to the previous point, there’s always something else that you could be doing that you consider more important. For example, a deadline for a client proposal might be pressing, taking precedence over your digital marketing goals.

DIgital marketing agencies live and breathe digital marketing. It’s their bread and butter and as their client, you are the number one priority. You agree what needs to be done and your agency delivers.

There’s only so many grumpy cat pictures that you can post

Social media is not just about posting pictures of a cantankerous feline and then expecting tons of people to come flooding to your Facebook page.  

You need to publish content that is relevant to your target audience and be of interest to them, but constantly coming up with new ideas is hard. You’re engrossed in your business and live it day to day, but sometimes it’s hard to see the wood for the trees, and it’s difficult to think about new creative all the time.

Digital marketing agencies are experts in this field and can look at your business from an outsider point of view.  This fresh perspective can make it a lot easier to create fresh content ideas that relates to your target audience.

Your competitors seem to be dominating online

Everytime you go on Facebook you see their posts and ads about the latest thing in your industry; their website looks great and is constantly updated, and you receive a well written email from them every couple of days (you have signed up to their email lists, haven’t you?).

When your competitors are enjoying success online it’s often a wake up call as to how much potential business they’re stealing from you, while it is a sure sign that they ‘get’ how digital can accelerate their business and are investing heavily into it.  The only way to combat this is to be as good... no, better, than them in your digital marketing.

You don’t know how to measure the results

The beauty of internet marketing is that almost everything is trackable. With the right systems in place you can track every visitor right the way from their initial click all the way through to purchase. This allows you to see which channels are producing the higher value sales and invest more time into developing these, while spending less time on the strategies that aren’t producing the results.

You’d rather bury your head in the sand

Like the proverbial ostrich, you’d rather bury your head in the sand than deal with your digital marketing. Hopefully the internet will break soon and you can go back to good old paper advertising. Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen.  

If you’re in business or it’s your job to promote the business that you’re working in, then you have to accept that people turn to the internet in order to research and buy products or services. If you want to win that business, you not only need to be on the internet, but you need to embrace all the channels, tools and tactics that a digital marketing strategy requires.

If you’re not able to do this yourself, but you still want to take part, then engaging with a professional digital marketing agency may be the answer.