The digital marketing space is highly competitive, with many agencies fighting for your project, whether that be building a website or running a new campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Meta, Google, LinkedIn or email. You can be sure that as soon as you drop your email or phone number, you will be swarmed.
There are a number key considerations in determining what is the right digital marketing agency for you. What is your budget, timing, what is the cost of not generating new business, and what is their reputation?
Budget
Working with an agency in Sydney or even anywhere in Australia is going to have a cost you would expect to be up there, wages here are high and it’s very competitive to get the right marketers to work in an agency.
If you are looking to build a website, expect the floor amount to be $3,500 +GST and any paid advertising activity to start from $1,000 per month +GST in management and $1,000+ per month in advertising spend.
Timing
Most of the time, you will be squeezed in, and timing is going to be spoken about in general terms. Agencies know that their clients take a long time to get back to them and will take on projects with timelines knowing they don’t have capacity. However, they usually have a core team of people, and if there is overflow work, there is a network of trusted freelancers helping out.
Building a website can be done in a month if the client delivers everything that is asked for very quickly, yet its often the case that it will run into 3 to 6 months or some cases a year. If you want that website built, you have to listen to your account manager and get the stuff ready quickly.
A marketing project is variable depending on what creative is required to activate it and the strategy behind it. You should expect the first month to be centered on building creative materials and the ongoing after that is running the ads, reviewing performance and reading the nice reports.
Cost of not generating business
Key to any marketing activity you do is to think about what will it cost you if you don’t generate that sale or lead, and what the business requires to be profitable. Are you picking an agency purely on price or track record?
Agency repuation
All agencies have reputations depending on how they work, there is a few things you should look out for:
- Are there lock in contracts? If they back their work, why do they need to lock you in?
- High pressure sales tactics and emotional selling methods. If any agency is trying this on you, its not the agency for you.
- Not all negative reviews or experiences an agency had is bad for you. People most of the time exhibit human behaviour, and that can be emotional and/or dysfunctional. All agencies have had a poor client who doesn’t turn up to meetings, don’t do what their account manager recommends, and when it all goes south they blame the agency and not themselves. You can be better than that, so be super diligent.
Final note is you get out what you put in, only you know your business more than anyone else and the closer you work with your agnecy the more successful your project is going to be.
