Why You Need A Digital Marketing Agency

Small to mid-sized business owners often ask why should they hire a digital marketing agency. After all, everyone knows how to do social media, right? Wrong. While social media is pretty much second nature to most of us on a personal level, developing a social media strategy that works hand in hand with your overall digital marketing initiatives and your business goals are two very different things.

Social media is just part of the brand puzzle. A digital marketing strategy requires a variety of cohesive marketing tactics to be effective. That means hiring one or maybe even several people who understand how to apply their area of expertise to your business goals.

A digital marketing strategy may include:

• Overall planning and strategy
• Content development
• Social media management
• Paid social media advertising
• Video creation
• E-mail marketing
• Graphic design
• Reputation management
• SEO/keyword research
• PPC campaigns
• Metrics and analytics
• Website development
• Marketing automation

And…all of the knowledge, expertise, experience and costs that accompany those responsibilities.

So the real question to ask is whether you can afford to hire all of those people.

Many businesses don’t realize that hiring a digital marketing agency can be more cost-effective than hiring a marketing staff. For starters, you’re not paying health insurance and other employee benefits. Companies that hire in-house often struggle with finding one person to handle all of their digital marketing efforts, as most marketers tend to work within a niche. One person may be great at creating content or managing social media but not so good with paid advertising and SEO. That means hiring more than one person. Can you afford two or more full-time salaries, plus benefits, dedicated to marketing?

With a marketing agency, you have an entire team of people collaborating on your account to help you stand out from your competitors. Each team member may have a specific area where they shine, and together here is a depth of experience that casts a much wider net than one employee can. When you have one person wearing all the hats – social media content creation and community management across multiple channels, content writing, SEO, PPC account management, paid advertising and email marketing – that employee is often so busy completing all of their tasks that they don’t have time to stay up to date with emerging trends. Digital marketing changes by the second and it’s important to keep current with best practices that include continuing education, online trainings and attending industry conferences. Sure, your single employee could do that, but who is going to do the daily tasks while they are busy learning?

This sounds complicated. I’ll just do it myself.

If you own a start-up or a small to medium-sized business, you could spend all day trying to create and implement a marketing strategy. Sure, you may know your business best, but you started your business because you were passionate about your service or product, not because you love marketing.

Digital marketers DO love marketing. And when you have five sets of eyes on your account, you end up with more creativity, better strategy, and a team of people who become as familiar with your company over time as you are.

Brehm Media is a digital marketing agency that specifically focuses on social media as a sales funnel for small to mid-sized businesses in the health & wellness, real estate, and service industries. We do digital marketing. You do you. Contact us for a free marketing planning session.