Most small businesses start their digital marketing in complete earnest. Maybe a business owner knows they โshould be on Instagramโ or knows that โwe need SEO for our websiteโ and will dabble in it themselves. But at a certain point, most owners realize the importance and potential of digital marketing and start to get serious. Now comes a crossroads: do you keep all your digital marketing in-house, possibly hiring someone to handle all the hard work for you, or do you contract with a digital marketing company?
Digital marketing companies are set up to be one-stop-shops for your digital marketing needs. Typically, they can handle website updates (and SEO), digital advertising (on Google/Facebook/etc), social media content creation and scheduling, data tracking, and general digital marketing strategizing. Theyโll work with you to understand your target audience and come up with the best plan of action to help your business succeed. So is it worth it to work with a digital marketing company? We think so, and hereโs why.
How do you get strong digital marketing results? Go to the experts
It may not seem like a big deal to update your website or take a few minutes to toss up some social media posts each day, but once you ask yourself why youโre doing this (answer: to grow your business), you end up with more questions: your website looks great, but is it search engine optimized? Your social pics seem on-point, but theyโre getting no reach. Why? Once you start falling down this rabbit hole, you realize how much work digital marketing really takes.
Digital and social media marketing require expertise in so many areas: you have to know SEO tricks, keep up with social media algorithm changes, hone your skills in creative fields like photography/videography/copywriting/graphic design, and more. Rather than trying to become a jack-of-all-trades (and probably master of none) in all these skills yourself, a digital marketing company will have true experts in every position to make sure that the end result is a digital marketing strategy that maximizes the growth potential for your business.ย
A digital marketing company lets you focus on running (and growing) your business
Ahhh, โTime is Moneyโฆโ truly, one of the oldest clichรฉs in the book. But this idiom has continued to live on for a reason–itโs true! Especially as a small business owner, you know that at a certain point you simply have no more time to give. And make no mistake, proper digital marketing is a time investment.ย
With a digital marketing company, you can focus on your expertise: your business. Making the best products, serving the best food, offering the best customer service, etc; this is what you know best. So consider leaving your digital marketing to the experts who can use what they know best to get you the results youโre looking for while you save time, money, and stress.
A digital marketing company can help you save money
One of the biggest misconceptions about contracting a digital marketing company is that itโll necessarily cost you more than doing all the work in-house. Itโs easy to assume that working with a big professional firm (or even a more boutique agency) is expensive, but business owners often find that when they add up all the costs of doing digital marketing themselves, hiring an outside company makes the most financial sense. Why is that?
- Fewer up-front & hidden costs: Digital marketing–when done right–can pay off for just about any business, but even with that being true, there are a lot of costs to doing it yourself. Paying up-front or subscription costs for various digital marketing tools, paying a salary for someone to handle the work (or paying existing employees for additional hours), the cost of learning materials to become an expert… these all add up. A digital marketing agency already has all of these expenses covered!
- Hit the ground running: Along similar lines, using a digital marketing company allows you to jump right into your digital marketing plan. Youโre not wasting your time and labor costs learning the various tools, growing your knowledge base, and keeping up with the latest algorithm changes–a digital marketing company will have all that expertise and can save you money by getting right into the work that will help grow your business.
- Increased Scalability: When doing digital marketing in-house, youโll likely have hired a โmarketing personโ with a set salary–if your business grows past the limits of their schedule, youโll need to shell out money to hire another person. Or, if–worse comes to worst–your business shrinks, youโll need to make the decision to fire someone or cut their hours dramatically. A digital marketing agency usually has the labor flexibility to scale alongside your business needs and devote as much or as little time to your business as you need.
A digital marketing company helps track your investment
One of the most under-rated areas of expertise that comes with a digital marketing company is the knowledge of how to track results. The ROI of marketing dollars has been historically difficult to track, and recent digital marketing tools have given businesses the opportunity to really see where their money is going better than ever before–but only if you know what to look for. A good digital marketing company will know the KPIs and help you make the wisest decisions with your marketing budget. By utilizing expert knowledge, you can stop throwing money into the aether and have confidence in your marketing strategy (and the numbers to prove it).
Digital marketing is huge work–it wouldnโt be its own industry if it wasnโt! So rather than stretching yourself even more thinly trying to learn a whole new skill set, consider saving yourself stress and money by contracting with a digital marketing agency like Skol Marketing. If youโd like to discuss how our assistance can help create the most effective digital marketing strategy for your business, please donโt hesitate to contact the local digital marketing experts at Skol Marketing.
