Since the Coronavirus phenomenon, there has been a massive jump in the number of digital agencies.
It can be hard to figure out who to choose for your businesses project. This is just a small guide to explain the different types of digital agency you may come across and advise on how to decide for your specific needs.
Why Are There So Many Digital Agencies Now?
Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, a lot of people have lost their jobs or have been furloughed. The UK government have been advising people out of work to retrain for new careers, you may have seen the advert. People are going online to learn new skills, especially skills which allow remote work like website design or digital marketing.
This is commendable of course, however, there are videos like this on Youtube which teach people with zero experience how to start an agency. It shows how to buy prebuilt mobile apps and websites and basically sell them for more.
The problem with this is that the people who follow these videos have no real commercial experience or qualifications. If the client wants something custom or there is a problem with their service the agency would have no control or even know how to help. On the flip side, there are many new people genuinely interested in developing the skills to run effective agencies and because they are inexperienced can be very affordable for small business projects.
Choosing the Right Team
In my opinion, when choosing a digital agency the team are the most important factor. You should look for a team who specifically have experts in the service you require. Take for example a small business who are looking for a basic affordable website.
There are shed loads of digital agencies who provide this service. You would be better choosing an agency who specialises in website design, these are sometimes referred to as website design agencies. If you are looking to run an ad campaign to grow your businesses clientele then a digital marketing agency is what you need.
The Digital Agency Network makes it easy to find the right digital marketing agency by allowing the searching for the specific service you require. Below is a list of various agency services:
- Website design agency – website design, website development and SEO
- Digital marketing agency – ad campaign management
- Social media agency – business social media account management
- SEO agency – search engine optimisation services
- Content marketing agency – content creation for blogs and social media,
- Email marketing agency – email campaigns, newsletter type marketing
- SEM specialists – SEO and search engine advertising
Some agencies provide tens of services and have staff who are good at many things but are not always experts in anything in particular. Most digital agencies have a section on their website which describes their team members and skills, you should pay close attention to relevant degrees and years of experience. See the website of Outible for an example of this.
Be sure to always check out the portfolio section of any digital agencies website. This should give you an idea of what to expect when you purchase a service from them.
For a service like website design, you may be able to click through to the live version of a website they have worked on. Pay particular attention to the small details. Check out the website on a desktop computer and a mobile to see how they scale. The same goes for other services like ads, make sure to read case studies and testimonies to ensure its suitability for your requirements.
Do You Need a Digital Agency?
Web Design
There are countless methods and technologies for developing web sites in 2020. Some of the most popular include wix.com, foursquare, WordPress, Google business websites, GoDaddy site generator, the list goes on and on. Why is this important? Well, it depends on what you want to achieve with your website.
If have a low budget, you don’t mind putting in the hours, and you are tech-savvy enough to manage the domain, hosting and supporting a website then a website generator might be ideal. If however, you do not want this then a digital agency would be the way to go, you also get the advantage of having professional help. You might be surprised how little professional digital agency website could cost.
Ads
Managing ad campaigns manually can be difficult to do effectively but there are plenty of resources out there for the learning. The problem I found was that there is plenty of experimenting needed at first when learning and it can get costly. Also, there are many different platforms to learn like Google Adwords, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook Ads, etc.
If you need any help with your business project you can get in touch with Outible.
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