How to work with Digital Marketing Agency/Partners (Magical People they are)

(Keeping it short, if people show interest .. shall put in more details later .. Purpose of this post: Understand Digital Agencies/Partners … Be an aware client … helps both the parties)

Few points:

•  It is more than just short term results, by contracting with a good digital marketing agency will add another dimension to your work. Digital Marketing team adds innovation, ideas and execution-optimization from the latest digital perspective. See if this team can add value in terms of ideas, discussions, consulting, training.
• (Will add later)

Metrics:

1. Get the metrics for tracking 
2. Choose the metrics you are interested in and also understand the metrics you are not interested in before rejecting it
3. Look at 2 metrics: Efforts & Results

Fees/Budgets

1. Option #1: You can fix up a budget and then the team can put up an approx estimation for each of the metrics (See the long term and short term) [This is preferred but keep increasing the budget if you see positive movement, there is no point in moving slow in the industry when you can move fast]
2. Option #2: You can fix up the target you want to achieve and then agency can put up a budget. (No agencies can 

Media budget (Don’t ignore):

1. Don’t ignore this part, every campaign, every work requires some push, organic growth takes time, so you need media budget for it. Example: You are running a campaign on social media but the initial crowd shall be brought using paid campaigns (and if the campaigns is good then it will go viral thereafter). Another example: For SEO you want link, instead of asking links to each webmaster, try and run campaigns, promote it (using ads), bring in links (Dove, Dell all doing it in India now, using the bloggers network to build link)

What’s a good budget:

• There is nothing like a good budget but generally the costing is per hour basis. The costing varies from Rs 250 to Rs 750 (to even few thousands for some tasks). Average is $10-$15 per hour. For any budget you put in (Agency fees), they commit a minimum hour (Efforts metrics) and try to bring in the results (Result metrics)

Be careful in choosing a company but once selected and once you have made your mind that ok, I am going to spend X amount of money for next 1 year, work with the company on a regular basic, weekly updates/discussions/understanding-on-what-is-done-why/discuss-the-monthly-plan etc. Both agency and the company should consider each other as their partners and work for success. After working for few months, a variable structure can also be thought of.

Digital Marketing agencies are no magicians, they are people who are passionate about Digital marketing and working hard to create value for every client/association. If the relationship is developed properly, it can work out really good for both the parties. Regular interactions are thus very important.

What does a website needs to become successful apart from good product:
(It is a full list, just the base) 

• Different proportion at different levels. https://www.slideshare.net/ajinimc/iimc-talk-on-digital-marketing-by-aji-issac-ceo-techshucom slide 9 onwards.
• End of the day, its about: Introduction, helping in recall/positioning, convincing people about best possible ROI. Every channel works towards it. SEO/PPC helps in introduction at the time of want, Ads introduces it even before they think about such a service, Social Media helps in introduction + brand recall + convincing about ROI, landing pages does about convincing about ROI etc.

Different Type of Agencies/Companies (in India)

• Old age companies that were catering to US/UK/AUS, they have a fix package (X pages optimized, Y links, Z social media updates etc) … you won’t find strategy, discussion as a part of their package. These are good if you want to outsource a certain part of your work (You need to be control of the overall strategy then)
• Digital Agencies where creative is the strength: I see a lot of new companies that have come from Creative background (Ad agencies etc), they are good in designs, ideas, viral concepts (non-technical generally) etc. These agencies should be hired if you already have a marketing team working on the basics.
• Very specialized agencies like SEO, PPC, Affiliate marketing, Social Media Marketing .. use them when you know what you want to achieve from them
• Overall strategy: These companies are a little rare to find, people claim they have these expertise but very tough to get it.
• Consultants/friends: Use them to understand what you might be requiring.
• Only Advice: Look at the overall picture for the best results.

May be we can do a collective marketing strategy mix for some of the rodinhood sites to help everyone understand. We have some good digital marketing minds here, we all can have our own marketing mix suggestions. 

Thanks,

Aji Issac