How to choose an Online Marketing Agency
When choosing an online marketing agency one needs to think beyond how the agency will increase your Facebook fans, Twitter followers or banner clicks.
Instead you need to ask yourself how the agency will contribute to and show Return on Marketing Investment.
Your bottom line is the most important consideration and your online marketing agency should prioritise this consideration.
An online marketing agency that focuses on Return on Marketing Investment will develop a strategy which:
- Increases traffic to your website and also
- Converts that traffic into leads
Consider this acronym when assessing potential online marketing agencies - 'COPCA':
C : Content
Online, potential customers come to you; you don’t go to them, so you need to give them a reason to visit your site. Great content is the best way of driving traffic repeatedly to your website. Make sure this is the foundation of the agency's approach.
O : Optimise
Why go through the hassle of creating great content if nobody can find it? The online marketing agency you choose must be skilled at Search Marketing so that your content is easily found on the World Wide Web by your prospective customers.
P : Promote
The agency must be able to detail how they are going to promote the content to drive traffic to your website. Social media and email are two options which, when used effectively, as part of a process, are highly effective.
C : Convert
High online traffic volume on its own is a means to an end, not the end in itself. A potential online marketing agency should outline their strategy for converting traffic into leads and opportunities for your sales team.
A: Analyse
Success or lack thereof can only be determined if a strategy measurable. Choose an online marketing agency that measures and analyses results consistently. This way, the agency can make changes in real time, and do more of what's working and less of what's not.
In summary, if when questioning a potential agency, you are satisfied with the responses to these key questions, you can rest assured they are a good bet:
- What is your content creation strategy?
- How will you go about optimising the content?
- How and where will the content be promoted?
- What is your strategy to convert online traffic into leads?
- How do you measure and analyse results?
