7 Marketing Questions to Ask Your Digital Agency Before Hiring Them

Small Business

There are many digital marketing agencies that are clamoring for your business. They may inundate you with emails and offers to boost your search engine optimization or drive leads to your website. How can you tell if they do what they say they do? And how can you tell if they are the right company for you? Digital marketers can throw around a lot of jargon which can be hard to understand, especially if your business is not in the technology industry. How can you get to the bottom of what they have to offer?

Here are a few marketing questions to ask any digital agency you may be considering.

1. How Do You Measure Your Success?

All the digital marketing tactics in the world are not worth a penny if they do not deliver results. You want a digital agency that can show you what they can do to improve your business, and how they do it.

A good agency will work with you to define success, then develop metrics to enable you to track their performance. So, if you want to increase online sales by 40% this year, that will be the benchmark against which you can measure them.

When you interview a marketing company, ask how they track their performance and report it to their clients. You want someone who will tell you how you are doing on a regular basis. You also want someone who will correct the course if the results are not going in the right direction.

2. Do You Handle Everything In-house?

Digital marketing agencies may offer many services. Some will redesign your website. Some will buy online ads. Others will design an integrated campaign.

Big marketing agencies may have all kinds of professionals in-house. Others may outsource functions like coding or graphic design.

Ask how the agency handles outside contractors. This may affect timelines and prices of services.

3. Do You Offer Social Media Strategy?

It seems like every company is on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Most digital marketing firms will offer to create your social media for you.

It's important that your presence on social media serves your overall purpose. If you want to reach an audience for youth-focused products, you will need a different social media strategy than you would if you are aiming for the over 70 demographic.

When you interview your prospective agency, ask how they develop a social media strategy for their clients. You do not want an agency that treats everyone the same! Social media is not a cookie-cutter process.

Social media can also be very labor-intensive. It can take a lot of time if your marketer is plastering many platforms with your messages. Without careful planning, it can spiral out of control.

A focused strategic plan can be more effective than volume when it comes to social media posts.

4. How Can You Boost My SEO?

marketing questions

Most businesses know that they need to rank high in search engines, but they may not know how to accomplish that. That's why you hire a digital marketing expert!

Many companies will promise to get you on page one of Google. You need to know how they plan to do that.

Anyone who promises immediate results in this area is misleading you. Understanding the algorithms and getting to the top of searches is a science. It takes time and concentrated effort.

Ask how they have accomplished this feat for other clients. Case studies of clients like you can give you a real-life example of how this agency works.

5. Do You Work With Clients Like Me?

Often, different industries have different expectations and needs. If you run a florist shop, you have a different sales approach than a law firm or a dentist's office.

Agencies may work with a wide range of clients across many industries. However, they need to understand your audience, your product, and your challenges. What works for one marketing challenge may not work for another.

Ask others in their industry whom they recommend. Ask the agency if they have worked with others like you and if you can talk to them. Personal recommendations are a key way of finding out if this agency is right for you.

6. How Do You Bill?

Different agencies may charge in different ways for their efforts. You do not want to run up huge bills without knowing what you are paying for.

Web design companies may charge by the project or by the hour. They may hire subcontractors for special tasks, and pass the cost on to you. They may also add markups to the costs they incur from other contractors.

You need to have an open discussion with any potential marketing agency you plan to retain. Tell them how much money you have to work with. Ask what happens when projects go over budget.

Some agencies require payment upfront, especially on a big project like a web site design.

What is Website Design?

Website design is the process of building a website that is appealing to visitors. While website design may include the use of technical elements and software, its purpose is to target the visual appearance of a website versus its background support structure. Therefore, you need to ensure that your website development team includes or is willing to hire a website designer that can conceptualize and then create a website that meets your brand vision.

How Long Does It Take to Design a Website?

There are many different variables that affect how long it takes for a website to leave the planning stages and go live. Three to five months is generally a reasonable timeframe if you hire a professional website designer, but there is not an industry standard. Therefore, if time is an issue, you need to be clear about your expectations while searching for a website designer near me to ensure you hire a web designer that is capable of delivering what you need.

What is the Role of a Web Designer?

A great way to understand the role of a professional website designer is by viewing them as a bridge between your brand vision and your website. Most likely, you already have a clear vision of your brand and what you want your website to convey, but you lack the tools to turn your ideas into a sleek and optimized website. This is why you need to hire a website designer.

Like the bridge, your website designer or any local web designer near me should be willing to sit down and discuss your ideas. They will then use them to create a storyboard that will eventually breathe life into your website design, layout, content, and graphics. Most web designers routinely work on creating new websites and updating existing websites to optimize them or make them more user-friendly.

Why Hire a Web Designer for Your Business?

While web design is a highly creative job, it requires thorough knowledge of coding and backend architecture. Words and graphics do not just appear on the screen, and most website design is not simple plug-and-play. If you want your website to go above and beyond, you need to hire a website designer with the knowledge to take it there.

As one of the top web designers near me, Noble Webworks is willing to deliver the website you have envisioned for your local brand. Our web designers understand the importance of communication and take the time to sit down and thoroughly listen to your needs. In addition, they dig deep into your brand and competitors and do their own investigative research to ensure your new website design is high-quality and extremely competitive within your niche.

7. How Will You Work With Me to Deliver What I Want?

Your relationship with your digital agency can make all the difference in the success or failure of your company. If you can collaborate effectively, you can expand your reach and sell more products or services than you ever imagined!

On the other hand, if you do not have clear communication, you may end up spending a lot of money on tactics that are not effective towards your ultimate goal.

Ask your potential agency how exactly they will deliver what you need for your business to be a success. You need to develop trust with each other. You need to have confidence that you can rely on each other.

How to Hire a Good Web Designer

Did you know that one in every two Americans can tell you the color of their favorite website before they can tell you the color of a close friend or family member’s eyes? The number jumps even higher to 71% when you exclude the data to only include Millennials. The same survey revealed that around 60% of both Gen Z and Millennials believe that your online presence is more important than your real-life presence.

With that in mind, it is vital to the success of your business that your web design is memorable, but this is only possible if you hire the right web designer. When looking at options it is best to hire a web designer that is easy to communicate with, offers you a full portfolio to browse, understands the needs of your local audience, and is willing to go the extra mile for their customers. Noble Webworks checks every single one of those boxes and more, by bringing two decades of local Bradenton web design experience to the table for those who require web designers near me.

Where to Hire a Web Designer

While website design is something that can be outsourced, there are many benefits in choosing to work with web designers near me. Local website designers have exclusive knowledge of the local market and can help you cater to your target audience because we know them too. At Noble Webworks our team is deeply entrenched in the Sarasota lifestyle and demands, which makes us uniquely qualified to deliver personalized web design.

Sarasota Web Designer

We are a premier Sarasota web design team because we know what it feels like to be a small business starting out in the Sarasota marketplace. Over the last two decades, we built our company from the ground up in Sarasota, and we want to help you do the same. That is just one of the many reasons why we are the best local web designers near me.

Bradenton Web Designer

Web design utilizes technical elements in order to create seamless and simple interfaces that attract customers. It's not enough to be creative in the world of web design, you need to have the technical training to bring the customers' ideas to life. As a leading Bradenton web designer, we combine technical skills with creative skills to create web designs with a "WOW" factor.

Lakewood Ranch Web Designer

It doesn't have to be difficult to hire a professional website designer in Lakewood Ranch if you go for the best from the start. Noble Webworks offers potential clients a free consultation and a look at our comprehensive portfolio so you can see our innovative web design solutions for yourself. We don't need to tell you about our excellent web design team, because we find it's more effective to show you their brilliant work for other Lakewood Ranch businesses just like your own.

Why Choose Noble Webworks as a Best Website Designer?

Due to the 2020 pandemic, the average customer workload shifted into the digital space with over 80% of businesses reporting they found their customers online. This number isn't changing much as the world starts to reopen, but one thing has shifted, now 66% of customers expect companies to already know their needs and wants and another 76% want a consistent browsing experience. So what does this have to do with choosing to hire a website designer?

It means that if you want your business to survive in the ever-growing competitive digital market space you need a professional website designer who has evolved with the times and is ready to deliver customized solutions to your target audience. Noble Webworks is your best choice because we have watched the digital market grow over the last 20 years and are uniquely positioned to deliver time-tested results integrated with modern solutions.

Do You Have Marketing Questions? You Need Answers

When you make an investment in a digital marketing agency, you place your trust in them that they will understand your needs and provide effective, measurable tactics to deliver what you need to grow your business.

Ask as many marketing questions as you need in order to establish that comfort level.  If you find it, you may have a relationship that will grow with your company and last for many fruitful years.

For more answers to your questions on digital marketing, contact us.

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