How To Choose Best Digital Marketing Agency – Answers By CMO Axis For Small Business

DIGITAL MARKETING is term targeted for interactive marketing of products and services using digital technologies to reach targeted consumers. The key objective is to promote brands through various digital marketing techniques.

You are responsible for your ONLINE DIGITAL MARKETING in your company. You are not sure whether you should hire a digital marketing agency, learn to do the entire work yourself, or put together an in-house team to handle it. Your organization’s online success depends on getting the right decision. What will you do?

There are lots of DIGITAL MARKETING COMPANIES, offering comprehensive DIGITAL MARKETING services that can help you implement effective digital marketing strategies that will increase your sales and grow your business.

WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?

DIGITAL MARKETING is an engine that drives today’s business small or big. It encompasses things like SEO, banner advertising, PPC, Content management, ONLINE MARKETING etc. It centers around the Internet, which has become a communication vehicle and a powerful marketing medium that offers great exposure to the brands, products and services on the Internet.

Everybody tells me SEO is dead?
 
We cannot write off SEO yet. However, it is true that people are finding information through social and apps which is still a very minuscule volume. Traditional search still accounts for most of the traffic to sites. What is changing however is that most of the search volume is moving from PCs and laptops to mobile devices and Google is coming up with new tools that offer search based on relevancy and ‘micro moments’ or short activity bursts that are typical to mobile user behavior. For example, let’s say you are going on a trip and would like to book a hotel in a traditional format; you would search from your office or home and make the booking. In the new age, you are more likely to do this using your mobile devices while you are at the airport lounge or your car and possibly using an app. If you are a digital marketer thinking next gen SEO – this is what you should worry about.
  
How much does a Search Engine Optimization cost?
 

SEO is less about cost than about relevance. It is about being found at the right time and at the right ‘moment of truth’ – this requires investments in the right content and in the right distribution channels that places you on top contextually. So the best investment you can possibly make is in the right partner who understands the medium and the business context to be able to improve your business results from search – it is not enough to get improved search volumes that don’t have a business impact.
 
 
When should I give Google Ads?

In my opinion, Google ads should be used as a strategic DIGITAL MARKETING TOOL, and conjunction with your organic search strategy. You can use it to improve visibility in a highly competitive search environment where you can’t afford to go down the page by even a few rows – for example, travel websites. You can also use ads when your organic search results are not very good and you need to supplement them. Another situation to use ads is when you have new service offerings that your site is not optimized for yet. 

 
Which is a good option, In-house Vs. Outsourcing DIGITAL MARKETING services?

We are the pioneers in marketing process OUTSOURCING and the most common question we get asked is this – should I build my In-house team or should I outsource and more importantly, when should I outsource. 

In our experience of working with some of the top technology and consumer brands as well as several start-ups and emerging companies in India and globally, we have calibrated that outsourcing of your digital marketing is not a binary decision. It is a more complex decision that should take into account the following factors:

1. Do you have all the competence to build and maintain your digital presence? You need to understand is that long term management of your digital presence is a more complicated and requires more than one competence set in your team – Ongoing CMS management, content updates, on and off-page SEO, landing pages, blog management…the list goes on and the key aspect to consider is that you can’t hire all these competencies in-house and keep them engaged full time unless you have a whole bunch of digital properties to manage. 

2. Will your team be on the cutting edge of technology? Not likely, unless this is a core business for you. Most in-house managed digital properties use outdated technology and tools starting with their CMS to digital monitoring and marketing automation tools. 

3. What is your total cost of digital management? Many companies that I know have a digital marketing manager or two in-house to oversee the process, but also work with a clutch of agencies in the back end. They have a web agency, a content agency, a SEO agency and probably one more for campaign management. It doesn’t require your CFO to calculate your total cost of running this function – does it?

4. Forward thinking companies are today moving away from an agency supported in-house model to a managed service model or a process outsourcing model, as we call it, where the digital process is managed from strategy through execution and backed up by strong outcome based metrics. We believe that this model presents better accountability, scalability and reduced TCO or total cost of outsourcing and whether you are thinking of building an in-house team or considering growing your team, this will perhaps help you make a more informed decision.

How much will you charge for Search Engine Marketing?

 We believe that the right search DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY should include an integrated approach that focuses on getting the desired business results – do we need more visitors or more visitors filling in inquiry forms? Do we need visibility or engagement? Our approach is to build process desks that create and run programs that meet clear business objectives. Our typical pricing for process desks start at INR 50,000 per month.

About CMO Axis  

CMO Axis marketing outsourcing partnership model backed by an expert team of marketing professionals with significant expertise in global marketing offers you a range of ‘marketing in a box’ and ‘marketing on demand’ outsourcing options that include full function outsourcing, of specific projects and programs and execution.

Vinod Harith is the founder and director of CMO Axis. His specialties are branding, advertising, marketing communications, product management, analyst and investor relations.