Choosing The Best Digital Marketing Agency For Small Businesses
Despite the small business marketing assistance that an outside agency can provide, many businesses choose to stay at home and small business advertising statistics paint a very clear picture of what this means for small businesses. Whether due to choice or lack of funding nearly a third of small businesses spend less than $10,000 on digital marketing indicating little or no budget – these businesses are not performing as optimally as they could if they did a Google search “digital marketing agencies near me“.
Finally, in-house help is the most common digital marketing resource (63%), but industry leaders say small businesses trying to do their best are overstretched. So how do you choose a digital marketing agency in Brooklyn?
For a small business or start-up, running a profitable marketing department is not easy, and deciding what to manage in-house and what from small business marketing companies in New York makes it much more difficult.
That’s why we at Prospered.Digital wants to make things easier for you. So, whether you’re leading your small business marketing decisions through a team of in-house experts or a local business marketing agency and thinking of shifting more of the burden from your shoulders to theirs, here are a few guidelines and marketing strategies for small businesses.
So, whether you manage your marketing through our team of experts, whether you use it in-house or through another agency, here are a few guidelines and strategies that can tip the scales in your favor for a successful digital marketing strategy in Brooklyn New York.
Pros and Cons
Digital marketing is a broad service category that is used to describe any campaign in various media published or broadcast through digital platforms such as the Internet, television, social media, etc. (Count everything that is not intended for printing).
Depending on your industry and target goals, there are some pros and cons of doing different projects in-house or through an agency.
PROS
- Various levels of experience
- The direction to achieve KPIs
- Targeted demographic research
- Result-oriented strategy
- Resources and connections
- Best media quality
- Project management
- Proven success stories
- Informed about the latest trends
Cons
- Large initial investment
- Limited immediate turnover
- Not located on-site
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. Yes, hiring a digital marketing agency for a small business will be an expense that needs some attention. Not all small businesses can afford such a leap.
With limited budgets, marketing is often the first department to lose money, and spending non-existent “extra” money on marketing is often seen as cheating. But consider, this is the most logical option. Marketing has a bad reputation for not showing direct returns compared to investments, and therefore managers are often hesitant to commit.
According to the collected data, 77% of small businesses use social media to increase brand awareness, facilitate customer service and increase profits. With social media marketing, you can spread information about your business in a fast and cost-effective way and potentially reach millions of people with your message.
If this sounds familiar to your business, consider safer investments like SEO, SMM, or PPC advertising and explain your goals to your marketing department or agency as well as yourself. You can save pennies by doing this on your own, but there are a few factors that can go unnoticed without consulting an expert.
An experienced digital marketing agency for small and medium-sized companies will not only be able to meet your marketing needs but will also be able to guide you to the best course of action according to your budget and specific goals.
Some of the best SMB KPIs right now are concerned with such as incoming calls, website traffic, search engine ranking, store traffic, and inquiries.
One of the undoubted conditions when choosing a digital marketing agency is the advantage of working with excellent industry professionals. Sure, you’ve hired an amazing college graphic designer who can also manage social media and some banner ads, but without years of experience under their belt, they’ll learn some lessons the hard way. Worst part? These lessons are just out of your pocket.
Another reason is the execution time. While the digital marketing agency is likely to provide a top-quality product, it takes time to create media according to best practices. To achieve the best results, it is necessary to plan and strategize before execution.
By partnering with a well-known digital marketing agency in Brooklyn New York, you can also get projects from several individuals who are skilled in specialized tasks. If you are working on a campaign that includes multiple channels (social, web, video, etc.), partnering with a digital marketing agency will save you money by bundling these services and channeling them through the people best suited to achieve outstanding results.
What Does A Digital Marketing Agency Do?
Here is an overview of the various small business digital marketing solutions an agency can offer your business:
Define, develop, and implement effective marketing strategies: Digital marketing agencies partner with their clients to develop and implement the best marketing strategies for their business and deliver the highest return on investment (ROI).
Track campaign progress and provide complete reporting: Digital advertising agencies will track the progress and success of your marketing campaigns and provide full custom reports to keep you up to date.
Analyze results: Digital marketing agencies will also analyze the results of marketing strategies and campaigns to determine which strategies bring the best profit for your business.
Attracting potential customers and sales: In general, the main goal of digital advertising agencies is to attract web traffic and potential customers, as well as increase sales of your business through new marketing strategies.
How Does Digital Marketing Help Small Businesses?
When a business starts, its main goal is to collect customers. Small business owners find it difficult to find their customers. When it comes to creating a marketing plan, many small business owners don’t understand and can’t adopt an effective business plan.
Being a small business, the marketing budget is limited and the owners work hard to get good results. The only way to get more customers and make a profit is to sell your services to your customers.
Digital marketing will help you win more customers if you create an effective marketing strategy and choose the right method to promote your products and services. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, digital marketing allows you to target an audience that will be interested in your business. Here are a few ways digital marketing companies in NY can help small businesses.
Your Customers Are Online
Different small business owners may find different reasons to avoid digital marketing, but in the end, you have to accept that your customers have moved online.
Reaching Internet Users
If you expect your customers to come to you without any sales process, you are following a dumb process. Today, when someone is interested in your business, the first thing they will do is search the internet and see what they can find about you. For example, if someone searches “SEO services in Brooklyn New York” that means they need SEO services. They expect you to be online with a website and good social media content.
Your Competitors Are Already Online
To be a successful business, you must always focus on what your competitors are doing and always use better methods than what they are using. When you look at what your competitors are doing, you will see what works for you, because what works for your competitors will work for you.
Know Your Audience
By keeping in touch with your customers online, you get them to buy your products and services. It will also help you build relationships with your customers and get them to stay in your business for a long time.
Digital marketing is the most lucrative form of marketing as it allows you to sell your products to those you consider to be your future customers. This adds value to your brand and increases its credibility on the Internet.
What To Look For In The Agency Of Digital Marketing As A Small Business?
Regardless of whether you are a small or large business, take into account these 5 factors when you look for “how to choose a digital marketing agency”.
Experience
Internet marketing covers many areas of activity. Some companies provide a full range of services; they offer everything from Website Design & Development, SEO (search engine optimization), SMM (social media marketing), PPC (pay-per-click), Content Writing, and Graphic Designing. Other companies are focused on specific areas of services, for example, PPC Management.
Therefore, when choosing a digital marketing company, it is crucial to understand the services offered by the company. Are their proposals working on your goals?
Knowing Your Business
In addition to the necessary knowledge and services, the digital marketing agency should understand your business and having experience in the industry is a plus. By working with other companies in your region, they will learn the unique challenges and geography of your company. They can also add functions to your business that worked for others in the industry.
Good Communication
Another factor that should be taken into account when choosing a digital media company is connection. As in any working relationship, communication is important. If you want to quickly start a new path or solve a rapidly emerging problem, you need a partner company that is susceptible and ready to work with you to find the solution.
Reviews
When you think about how to choose a digital marketing or digital advertising agency, reviews and testimonials are useful tools.
The number of checks for each company depends on its size, the duration of its existence, and other factors. However, the content of the research is of the greatest value.
- Are they usually good?
- Are customers satisfied?
- What details are included, and what can help distinguish the company?
However, keep in mind that a five-star rating does not mean that the company is the best for your business. Therefore, you must not rely only on research and take into account other factors too while making a decision.
Smart Expectations
When deciding which agency of content marketing for small businesses to hire, remember their expectations. Leading companies will set clear expectations. They will be transparent about things such as the price, volume of work, terms, and results. In addition, they must determine the results you can expect from their work. Be careful with companies who promise too much or promise results that seem too good to be true.
Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Digital Marketing Agency
Now you understand the pros and cons of hiring small business marketing firms, the next step is to choose! There are hundreds of agencies that have their unique style, voice, and marketing perspective. With so many options to choose from it may seem difficult, but the real challenge is choosing the right small digital marketing agency to accurately represent your brand.
During production, this agency will work directly with your team and in essence will be a functioning part of your business. Similar to interviewing a candidate for an internal position, you need to ask a few questions to determine if an agency is a good fit or not. Below are five of the most frequently asked small business creative agency questions:
Below Are The Most Frequently Asked Questions To Small Business Creative Agencies:
- Have you worked with a small business before? When it comes to small business marketing, the needs are not quite the same as those of a large company. Your digital marketing agency needs to understand the limitations of working with a smaller business and know how to navigate them.
- Can you show us some examples of small business strategies with the best-written content? Leading small business digital marketing agencies usually offer copywriting as one of their services to help improve SEO. One way to determine if their writing style suits your brand is to ask for a sample of their best posts.
- Who are your previous clients? It is important to see whom they have worked with as well as what they have done. But in some cases, reaching out to previous clients will help paint a better picture of what they can do for your business.
- What information do you need from me? Often brands don’t understand what information is required or how they can help their digital marketing campaign. Asking this question helps both parties to understand clearly what is expected.
- How does your team optimize your content for search engines? By asking this question, your goal is to get the small business SEO company to start talking about its process and how its team approaches search engine optimization.
- What platforms do you recommend? Does the agency think beyond the standard social media channels everyone is trying to expose? How their approach to content sharing is different? This will help you determine if the agency is capable of thinking on its feet, or if it’s sticking to the cookie-cutter model.
- What metrics does the team track? Even a newer start-up digital marketing agency needs to be able to explain metrics like bounce rates, CPC, Conversions, and ROI to their clients. If the agency you’re interviewing doesn’t know how to explain these terms, or if they don’t report on the performance of your PPC campaigns. that’s a red flag!
- How do you measure success? Or does the agency set and track realistic goals, and if so, does it share information with you throughout the process? The last thing you want to do is spend money on a project that doesn’t bring real value.
- When can I see the results? One of the downsides of SEO or PPC for small businesses is that agencies can’t give you an exact date for when you’ll be able to see results. These campaigns take time, but you can usually see results within 6-12 months.
Hopefully, these questions to ask a digital marketing agency will help you dig a little deeper into the inner workings of each potential agency your team is considering. If you have questions about the agency, their pre-production, the collaboration process, or anything else, feel free to ask!
No question is “stupid”, especially when you’re thinking about where to spend your marketing budget. Remember that the agency you hire will be an extension of your business, so it’s important to get to know each team as best as you can when hiring.
Digital Marketing Services For Small Business
As a small business, your strategies are probably somewhat different from those of Fortune 500 companies with decades of experience. For example, while both are likely to do basic things like social media marketing and PPC (paid advertising), each may have different goals. You can use your social channels as a way to promote your products to direct users of your site so they can make a purchase, but they can just use it as a social listening tool to always know what’s going on with their audience.
The point is, as a small business, the strategies you need are about you and those in similar situations. In other words, if you want to succeed and stay ahead of the competition, you will need to tailor your strategies to benefit you, the small business. To this end, getting to know the most popular marketing services that small businesses ask for will be a great help in building your strategy. In addition, you will also get an idea of what you can ask for if you decide to contact a digital agency.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Research shows that one in three consumers research a company online before purchasing from it. A big mistake small companies make is not investing in SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) allows new potential consumers to discover small businesses and can exponentially increase traffic and sales.
Prospered.Digital offers a unique Healthy SEO holistic lifestyle approach to help businesses achieve consistent first-page search results through a consistent strategy built on proven success.
Three Important Components of SEO: Authority, Relevance, and Trust
Mobile SEO
One of the biggest advantages of a small business is that it is small! It’s a bakery down the street or a barber store down the block. As a small business owner, one of the biggest challenges you face is losing your unique identity, which is why you feel tempted to find a start-up marketing agency that will protect and enhance the integrity of your brand.
If you’re not looking to dive into the big leagues of search engine optimization just yet, you can start by contacting a digital marketing agency to help your business with mobile optimization, which will help optimize your brand to show up locally more often in local web searches. This is a great way to get your feet wet without getting submerged in water.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC advertising is one of the most sought-after digital marketing services as brands can directly see their ROI. If your brand finds it difficult to get customers to your website and encourages those users to go down the sales funnel, PPC advertising is one of the best ways to solve this problem.
Many small business advertising agencies would recommend this service as it delivers the immediate results that early-stage marketing start-ups are looking for and sets your brand up for future success with increased brand awareness.
Web Design and Development
A web page often creates the first impression of your brand or company. Make sure it resonates deeply with them. Many small businesses choose template-based platforms that have the advantage of low cost and minimal maintenance. However, flexibility is limited, so be prepared not to compromise with this option.
To fully customize a website with the latest trends and digital advancements, some tweaking is required if not building from scratch. If your business offers multiple products or services, needs a personalized experience for your management team or consumer, or simply requires the latest customization, choose Web Design & Development through a digital agency in Brooklyn, New York.
If a template-based platform like Shopify or WordPress meets your needs, you might also want to consider a service-through-agency app that can help you with attractive graphics and user-friendly sales promotion.
Brand Identity
Another big challenge small business owners face is defining their brand for a larger audience. What started as just a hobby has suddenly become a business and now you need to think about branding. When did your Sunday afternoon cookie-baking sessions turn into a full-blown cookie business?
If you’re feeling this kind of pressure, we’re here to let you know that it’s okay and you’re not alone! Many small business owners face growing challenges when it comes to scaling and branding. A digital marketing agency can help you identify and define your niche, and audience, and create a solid branding plan that applies to every aspect of your company.
Content Marketing Plan
Content is paramount for small businesses as it is what encourages customers to actively engage with your brand before making a purchase. Plus, content marketing generates three times as many leads as original marketing, and at half the cost. If you’re on a tight budget and need to reach customers, content marketing is the way to go.
Advertising on Social Networks
While 67% of small businesses use social media for digital marketing purposes, many do not invest beyond their service, avoiding the services of SMM – which can be a big mistake.
10 years ago, only 7% of the US population used social media. This number has since risen to 4.7 billion in 2022 and continues to rise daily.
Social media is no longer a fast app. Social media has a receptive, waiting audience. Grab their attention by reaching out to them where they already are. An agency can help you promote your channels, products, and services by targeting ads that reach people who are most likely looking for someone just like you.
AI In Small Business Marketing
As you understand, supporting and developing a small business is not easy. Luckily, all the strategies and services we just covered will make things much easier for you in the coming years. In 2022 you won’t be a small business. Why? Because you have something else at your disposal that companies of the past did not have: artificial intelligence (AI).
Although artificial intelligence has been in use for decades, its use in marketing has not spread that far, and its widespread use has only recently occurred. For example, did you know that you can use AI marketing tools in areas like personalization and content creation? And what about customer service, did you know that you can use artificial intelligence to automate this so that your users are always covered? Well, it’s true. There are many AI-based tools that you can use as a small business, and using them will become a much-needed advantage. For example, in addition to Google Analytics, similar tools provided by Google will become your AI MVP, here are some of them and what they offer:
- BloomReach provides algorithms and advanced merchandising tools so you can optimize each visitor’s search, browsing, and landing page experience.
- Wordsmith is a natural language generation (NLG) platform that uses a template to transform data into compelling stories.
- Aivo will become the backbone of customer support by providing you with a chatbot that helps you respond in real-time and even understands each channel’s rules so it can automatically adapt and respond.
Now that you know what’s out there, feel free to search the web until you find the batch of tools that work best for you!
Digital Marketing Agencies for Small Businesses
It can be difficult to find the right marketing agency for small businesses, so to help you on the way to success, here are several sources to help you find the best marketing agencies for small businesses.
Prospered.Digital
Prospered.Digital is a digital marketing agency for small businesses. The company offers services from planning to implementation and has a team focused on achieving incredible results. This is achieved at the expense of faster work, the provision of the best services, and efficiency. The company also wants to give customers an advantage using the latest digital marketing technologies.
Find Out Why Prospered.Digital Is Ideal
- The network of digital agencies recognized the Prospered.Digital agency for digital marketing in New York, which received awards.
- Clutch.co recognized Prospered.Digital is the best agency for digital marketing.
And The Most Important Thing
If you decide to manage a part or all of your marketing through an agency, choose the one that confirms the business’s success to guarantee that your dollars will be spent with benefit and aimed at the highest profit.
Although we can be somewhat biased, we Prospered.Digital has just been included in the list of the best digital marketing agencies in New York and proves that marketing services for small businesses controlled by the results are not just our mission, this is our passion. And we are proud that we continue to provide digital marketing solutions for small, medium, and corporate businesses in New York and beyond. View our portfolio to find some of our favorite success stories.
