Are You Getting the Best Experience With Your Digital Marketing Agency?

13 May 2022 7 min read

By Blank Theory

It’s your passion, dedication and commitment that has taken your brand this far. But to reach new heights and achieve your business’ full potential, you need the help of experts. This is why many businesses turn to a digital marketing agency to take their brand to the next level.

With a full service digital agency, it’s fair to expect to see movement towards your goals — or even knocking them out of the park — as well as your brand vision being respected. However, not every digital agency in Australia is created equal.

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency That Meets Your Needs & Expectations

As a business owner, you understand the importance of quality and transparency when selling a product or service. Brands that fudge the truth or are inconsistent often fail. The same applies to digital agencies, except they can take you with them too. That’s why you need to be savvy when it comes to trusting your brand with a digital agency.

There are two parts to this. Firstly, understanding your needs and expectations, and exploring which digital agencies meet these.

Part 1: What Are Your Needs & Expectations for a Digital Agency?

What Are Your Digital Marketing Goals?

Understanding why you’re choosing to hire a digital marketing agency is the foundation for finding the perfect agency. What do you want to get out of any digital marketing strategies? These goals don’t necessarily have to be detailed or large scale. You may want to generally grow brand awareness, or you may want to increase your regular visitors by 50 a month. When it comes to your business, you are the expert. You know the vision and where you want to go. But taking a moment to articulate these goals — even writing them down — will be greatly beneficial for both finding an agency and getting the most out of them, including setting clear expectations that can be monitored.

Do You Need a Full Service Digital Agency in Melbourne or Even Australia?

The services you’re wanting from your digital agency depend on your own understanding of how to do digital marketing and what your goals are for your business. If you have experience in digital marketing or website design and development, you may only want to connect with an agency for a few services, like PPC ads or SEO. This could also be the case if you’re looking to meet particular goals, like increase brand awareness or clicks, or even just have a tight budget. Therefore, the agency you’re after may not need to offer a full range of services. Indeed, you may want to look for significant specialisation from your digital agency to best complement your own team’s skill sets.

Alternatively, if the fundamentals of what is a digital marketing strategy aren’t your forte, you may need a full service digital agency to ensure you are able to fully explore all digital marketing opportunities and channels open to your business.

Also, we’re getting specific about the locations here because while the world has never been more connected, a digital agency on home turf has its advantages. This includes networking benefits, as the agency may have contacts with relevant brands or businesses in your area; a local’s understanding of the industry, from certain turns of phrase to pain points and major, current issues; and the option to meet face to face to discuss your brand and digital marketing strategies. While the latter can be achieved somewhat with a purely online relationship with a digital agency, sometimes the best meetings are those over a cup of coffee and without the crackle of an unstable Internet connection.

How Much Are You Willing to Invest in Digital Marketing?

As with any investment, having a set budget in mind helps you immediately narrow the field and speed up your search. However, it also helps you understand the reality of what can be achieved with your budget. This has two benefits. Firstly, you’ll quickly learn whose prices are too good to be true — or unreasonably above the average. Secondly, it assists with setting those expectations for a better agency fit. You may need to take a step back and revisit your goals and how you intend to reach them. This could just be as simple as breaking them down further into more achievable short-term steps and scheduling a time to revisit your agency budget in the future and explore additional options.

But investment isn’t just about money. It’s also your time and effort. Do you want to be hands-on in the digital marketing process? Are you wanting regular updates and to approve everything before it goes live? Or, are you happy for the agency to keep the wheels turning and to check in whenever you get the chance? Different agencies have different approaches — you need to find what works best for you.

When it comes to your business, you are the expert.

Part 2: Which Digital Agencies Will Meet Your Needs?

Are They a Significantly Experienced Digital Agency?

While we all love enthusiasm, it’s experience that gets consistent results. You ideally want an agency that is experienced in your industry and the services you want, whether you’re after a full service digital agency or not. With industry experience, the agency is likely to understand the best strategies for your likely target market and what your competitors are doing. Similarly, an agency that has experience with the services you want, like branding or website development, will be able to offer you better quality results. They are also likely to be more efficient and have more accurate quotes.

Are They a Data Driven Agency?

Numbers don’t lie. An agency that closely monitors and records the impact of their strategies is more likely to have success. This is because they have proof as to what works. Similarly, they can build new strategies on a strong foundation of evidence to increase the possibility and scale of success, rather than throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. A quality digital agency will provide you with detailed and thorough reports explaining what has been done and what the results were, allowing you to make informed decisions around your next moves.

Are They an Award-Winning Agency?

An agency with awards and accolades to its name is next level. Their work has been judged by peers and the industry as exceptional. You can reasonably expect them to deliver on their promises to you and help you reach those goals and well beyond. However, take a moment to investigate the awards for yourself — even take a look at the award-winning work yourself. Some awards are more prestigious or hotly contested than others, lending more credibility to the agency. At the same time, the agency may only have won awards in areas that you aren’t interested in. 

Are They Innovative & Current?

Along with their awards, make sure to look at any case studies or work available. This is key to discovering if the digital agency is constantly looking for new opportunities and avenues, as well as utilising the latest trends and technology. Set-and-forget strategies quickly fail. Your business will be indistinguishable from the crowd. But if your agency is always striving to change the digital marketing landscape — particularly with data evidence backing their decisions — your brand will stand out.

Which Digital Agency Is Right for You?

There’s no one-size-fits-all in the digital marketing industry. Instead, it’s about discovering your perfect match. This may take some time, but the benefits of a strong and long-lasting relationship with a digital agency are priceless.

Who Is BLANK THEORY?

BLANK THEORY is an award-winning Australian digital agency that delivers impactful tailored digital marketing strategies that connect brands with customers and drive growth. Our full range of services includes performance marketing, website design and development, and branding. We are driven to seek new ways of creating, connecting and optimising to meet your brand’s goals, using substantial data evidence to guide our decisions. Reach out to us today to take your business to the next level.