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What’s A Digital Marketing Agency?

A digital marketing agency is a company that specializes in helping its clients promote their products and services online.

Digital marketing agencies typically offer the following services:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay per Click (PPC)
• Social Media Marketing
• Web Design and Development
• Content Marketing
• Email marketing
• Guest posting services
• Link building services
• Online advertising
• Conversion Rate Optimization

If any of this sounds familiar, then perhaps you should consider looking for a digital marketing agency to help you market your business online. That is especially true if you don’t have the time or resources to do your own digital marketing.

What are the Advantages of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency?

There are several advantages to working with a digital marketing agency.

The first advantage is that a digital marketing agency can access the latest tools, tactics, and marketing strategies.

That ensures that your digital marketing campaigns will be as effective as possible. Their fingers will always be at the pulse of what’s new in the world of marketing.

The second advantage is that they’re not experimenting with their strategies. They have enough experience and expertise to know which strategies work and which don’t. 

Working with an agency also ensures that your business, marketing goals, and objectives are all aligned. They will work together to decide what short-term and long-term goals you should be working towards, as well as how to get there.

What’s more, an agency has access to the best resources in the industry. Some of these resources are super-expensive, almost out of reach for small business owners like you.

Agencies have access to these resources because they buy them at bulk rates. That ensures that your business can take advantage of the same resources as the big companies out there.

When Should You Hire an Agency?

One of the most common questions we get asked is, when should my business hire a digital marketing agency?

The answer to this question depends on a few factors.

• How much experience do you have in digital marketing?

If this is your first rodeo, you might want to consider hiring an agency. This way, you can focus on running your business while the agency helps it grow online.

• How big is your budget?

Working with an agency typically requires an enormous upfront investment: some agencies ask for a monthly retainer. Others charge per hour or project. That can vary depending on how many hours they pump in per month.

• When launching a new product or service?

If your business is launching a new product or service, you’ll want to get the word out. Working with an agency is often the best way to do this. They will be able to build your website, design your ad campaigns and get them out there for you.

• If you’re looking at outsourcing some of your work?

Many businesses have a hard time scaling. That’s because they only have so many hours in a day for their full-time employees to do everything that needs to be done. If you’re looking to inject more growth into your business, hiring an agency is the way to go.

Types of Digital Marketing Agencies

There are three main types of digital marketing agencies out there. These are full-service, single, service, and multi-channel agencies.

Full-service agencies

That is the “do it all” type of agency. They will typically take care of everything digital marketing-related, from website creation to strategy and implementation. Their services might include: Website Design, SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing Content Creation, and Management

These agencies tend to be bigger, with a more diverse range of services on offer. It might sound like a dream come true, but unless you do some research, it might be your worst nightmare. That is because they might offer services that you don’t actually need, or worse still – can’t afford.

Advantages:

• They have access to the best resources in the industry.
• Because they’re more experienced, you can expect better results
• It’s a one-stop shop. Everything is in one place, making it easy to manage.

Disadvantages:

• Some of their services might not be suitable or relevant to your business. You’ll have to do a lot of filtering to find the right fit for you and your business.
• Some full-time agencies don’t have in-depth expertise in each service they offer. That means their quality of service is compromised in a way.

The Single Channel Marketing Agency

This type of agency is big on specialization. They typically only offer one service — such as SEO, for instance. But they do it really well.

You can expect these guys to be experts in their field. No questions asked.

Advantages:

• They’re experts in what they do, which means you’ll get top-notch results.
• They’re easier to manage since their services are limited.
• Great for a business with a smaller budget, looking to work with an agency on a per-project basis
• Perfect if you’re looking for an agency to boost only one aspect of your marketing strategy, like search engine visibility

Disadvantages:

• You might have to look in different places if you want to grow other areas of your business.
• Not good if you’re looking to outsource your entire digital marketing efforts or want an agency that can help you develop an overall digital marketing strategy.

The Multi-Channel Marketing Agency

The multi-channel marketing agency is the most flexible of all. They typically offer a broad spectrum of digital marketing services, including web design, creative development, content writing, and management.

They tend to be more strategical than tactical, which means they’re good at developing marketing plans and working with their clients to put them into action.

Although these agencies focus on multiple channels, they’re specialists within each area. That means they can adapt to your unique business needs.

Advantages:

• They offer a wider range of services, making them good for businesses looking for all-rounded digital solutions.
• They tend to be innovative, transparent, strategical, and result-driven. A multi-channel digital agency can easily develop an integrated marketing strategy for you, giving your business an edge over the competition.

Disadvantages:

• They cost more than single-channel agencies, but this is expected since they cover several aspects of digital marketing.
• They’re not a good fit for a business that wants a heavy hand in the digital marketing process. A multi-channel agency knows their stuff, so it’s best to let them do their thing as you wait for results.

Why Outsource Digital Marketing Services

Outsourcing allows you to focus on the core aspects of your business while still improving results. That means that you can maximize profits without burning out or hiring new staff, allowing you to scale up easily.

Outsourcing also frees up internal resources so they can be focused more strategically, ultimately helping your company work more efficiently and effectively.

Add the need to stay up-to-date with digital marketing trends, and there’s no question as to why it can be beneficial for your business.

Also, depending on what stage you’re at as a business, you might need some help to get to where you want to be. It’s not easy balancing multiple roles or having the time to keep up with the latest trends, strategies, and techniques.

Outsourcing can help you grow your business steadily without making major sacrifices in terms of expertise or resources. The perfect digital agency will have the tools, skillset, expertise, and creativity to propel your business forward, no matter your level of growth.

The Key to Choosing the Right Agency

Google’s head of marketing, Lorraine Twohill, said it best: “The perfect agency for one business might be imperfect for another.”

Agency size and location don’t really matter as much as what they can do for your business. You want to look for an agency that has the skills, expertise, and creativity to help your business grow at a steady pace.

Look for an agency that can help you with every aspect of digital marketing but also one that’s invested in results. You want them to be transparent about what they offer and how much it will cost you, so you can make an informed decision before signing any contracts.

It’s also important to think about your goals for the year and how you can achieve them. That will help you find an agency that’s truly invested in ensuring your business succeeds, even if they’re not located near you.

10 Most Important Questions You Should Ask Before Engaging A Digital Marketing Agency

There are tens or perhaps of digital marketing companies in Singapore, all of which come in different sizes. Digital marketing itself is a critical venture that you must get right or risk losing a lot of money. Of course, it will only take the best digital marketing agency to produce the best results. It is quite easy to select the best agency from the pack – sometimes all you need to do is to ask the agencies’ representatives a few questions about various aspects of their agencies. Here are ten essential questions you need to ask when evaluating if the agency is competent for the job:

Q1 – What Is Your Agency’s Marketing Process in Helping My Brand Achieve Its Marketing Goals?

Rather than asking the agency to outline how they will help your brand achieve the goals you’ve set, begin by asking for the process, they will employ. You’ll get more insights from an outline of the process itself than how the agency will help you achieve your goals. If an agency can’t cant outline the process in clear detail, then it could be unqualified to work on your project.

Q2 – Would You Please Provide Me with Your Track Records, Including the Testimonials you’re most proud of?

Most agencies begin by outlining what they have for you and what they are capable of delivering – excellent SEO, PPC, etc. – and, for these reasons, you should consider buying their services. What an agency already delivered to previous client matters more than what it is capable of delivering. If the agency can provide records of previous projects and a list of a few satisfied clients, it means the team is skilled enough to deliver satisfactory results for you.

Q3 – What Industry Are You Proficient With?

cieMany digital marketing agency are generalists. That’s advantageous and disadvantageous at the same time. But hiring a specialist is better because such agencies tend to come with immense industry-specific experience. Specialist agencies are also flexible and good at targeting the audience.

Q4 – Will You Work with My Company’s Team and If So, To What Extent?

The digital marketing agency should be able and willing to communicate with your team about the details of what needs to be done. Furthermore, it should be able and willing to train your team on how to run the system. It doesn’t end there; the agency should be able to support your team during the entire time your marketing campaign will be running.

Q5 – What marketing strategies did you employ for your brand?

An agency would implement the best digital marketing strategies for itself. You can be a little intrusive and ask them to show them to you because, after all, you want the best for your company as well. Ask them:

• How they came to settle on a given strategy
• If they keep up with the industry trends
• How successful the strategy has been

An excellent digital marketing agency would practice what it preaches, and if it does that it so, it would be the best agency for you.

Q6 – How Much Will You Charge Me? What’s the Budget?

Ask the agency about the overall cost of implementing the marketing campaigns. While cheaper might sound good, it doesn’t always mean better results. Remember to dig a little deeper and ask the agency to provide you with an estimate of the ROI of the campaign. Ask for the estimated duration of the contract will take, the deliverables to expect, and what would happen if you terminate the contract.

Q 7 – How Will You Make The Measurements To Determine The Success Of My Campaign?

Digital marketing is both an art and a science – once you’ve set everything as required, you’ll need to measure the success of your campaign. Setting up the best call-to-actions on an impressively looking landing is nothing if the agency can’t collect the relevant data and use it to measure the performance of your campaign.

Let the agency’s experts elaborate on the marketing jargon in the simplest language you understand. Also, ask about what parameters are subject to measurements, how often you should expect the reports, and what adjustments would be necessary if the campaign failed to deliver.

Q8 – When Should I Expect The Results?

A marketing agency worth its credentials won’t promise substantial immediately or a short time after the start of the campaign. Most digital marketing strategies, especially those based on inbound methodologies, take longer to yield the desired results.

A competent agency would tell you to consider it your long-term investment whose compound interests are realisable after sustained efforts over a long period. Suppose everything is set as it’s supposed to, an average digital marketing campaign would take between 6 to 8 months to show positive results. To get substantial growth in traffic, you’ll need to wait for 12 to 24 months.

Q9 – Do The Analytics Cost Extra To Produce?

Some agencies can charge you extra to crunch the analytics for you. You don’t want to get caught off-guard with extra costs. It is not recommendable to hire an agency that would break the project into tiny segments that would be charged separately. Such tactics can make you pay a lot of money on something that would have been cheaper had it been charged as a whole.

Q10 – Do You Offer Free Consultation?

You’re probably on a tight budget, so you are eager to know what you could get for free from the table after paying for everything else – or if there is any free service you can get before committing to the program. Asking your agency if they offer free consultation allows you and their team of experts to mix ideas, evaluate the relationship and see if it will work, and get a firsthand feel of how the agency’s team works. Any agency eager to work on your campaign would offer a free consultation, but that’s not always the case.

Top Digital Strategy Agencies in Singapore

A familiar tale of woes making rounds is that of big companies felled by digital disruption – think Kodak, Xerox, and Blockbuster.

Another similar story that receives far less attention is that of traditional incumbents that instead emerged even stronger.

Incumbents have huge advantages – global scale, customer relationships, and unlimited resources — which, when combined with the right digital strategy, gives them an edge over their smaller rivals. 

The problem is that there’s so much going on in the digital world — call it the “digital chaos.”

Companies are busy creating content, dabbling in new social channels, and developing emails hoping that people will open and read. 

The problem is that they’re doing all this on a humble, with no strategy or method to drive any positive results.

The let’ s-throw-stuff-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach might yield some positive results. But are the results sustainable, measurable, and connected to your core objectives?

Enter digital strategy. 

Digital Strategy in a Nutshell – What’s it?

There’s no particular right way to slice and dice your digital strategy. But it must serve as a roadmap, a blueprint, or a framework that drives your company to your core objectives. 

Your digital strategy must be structured enough to keep you on track when your email numbers begin to grow. At the same time, you want it to be flexible enough to pivot just in case your TikTok or Snapchat campaign flops.

Much of what businesses do to improve their digital presence happen in the heat of the moment.

Digital strategy tries to keep things calm and steady in the hopes that it will help you achieve your business goals through digital transformation. 

It refers to the strategic implementation of digital capabilities (new and existing ones) and software systems, thus allowing for a scaled maximisation of your business operations and core objectives. 

It demands that you apply new technologies to your existing business activities so as to enhance your supply chain efficiency, customer experience, product fulfilment, internal alignment, and relationship nurturing and management. 

Key Components of An Effective Digital Strategy

An effective digital strategy involves a series of key components. These include:

• Optimized, wide-ranging cloud services
• Accurate, fact-based prediction of consumer behaviour, driven by data
• Web analytics to help you understand your company strength and weaknesses
• A CRM for storing your current and potential customer data, improve customer retention, and track interactions
• Integration of different platform and communication devices, like web, social media, and mobile
• Insight based KPIs to monitor your progress and results
• An internal HRM system for tracking and optimising onboarding, recruitment, and employee performance and records

Top Digital Strategy Agencies in Singapore

Why is Digital Strategy So Important to Businesses Today?

Why is a digital strategy so important to businesses in the modern age? Here are some of the reasons a digital strategy is no longer an option but a priority and an increasingly popular topic in business.

Ecosystem Expectations

Going digital has graduated from a “best practice” to a standard procedure of launching a successful business strategy and organisational alignment. Tangibly, digital transformation is affecting the economic underpinnings of businesses in Singapore.

Almost every business in the country requires a well-thought-out digital strategy, conflated with innovative software that accommodates the needs to scale and remain agile as the digital landscape continues to change. 

Avoid Long Shortcuts

It’s time you learned how to make calculated moves.

The manual fixes and shortcuts may have an immediate effect, but you have to think long-term. 

You can only delay the inevitable by dragging your feet. But eventually, it’s still going to catch up with you, putting you at a serious and potentially incorrigible market disadvantage. 

Streamlined Internal Operations

Digital strategy begins with your internal operations. Properly adopted software tools will help you clear a good chunk of your internal bloat. 

You can use technology to assign tasks to different departments and staff members. They can also help you conduct optimised training and onboarding, streamlining collaborative projects, and cross-company communications, thus leaving your employees with enough time to focus on their core tasks.

User-experience 

The digital landscape can only get better with time. That means better online experiences for your customers.

This is what your customers expect from you, perfection – or what they term as standards. 

They expect better connectivity, intuitive design, and so on. 

If any of these is flawed or missing, they’ll be the first to notice, and their reaction to it will surely affect your bottom line. 

Eliminate Missed Opportunities

While working on your digital strategy, you’ll be required to identify the key areas to focus on, as well as the areas to optimise. 

In doing so, you should be able to identify any potential opportunities so you can plan for them beforehand. 

Reach Your Audience

Things have changed. 

People don’t have to connect physically, but via their smartphones, desktops, laptops, and other technological items. In other words, it’s a digital world.

And when people spend much of their time online, then online is where you should be. 

Your digital strategy should help you identify the exact online hanging spots for your target audience. But that’s not where it ends. 

You have to figure out how to target them best. It’s simple: if you’re not meeting your targeting audience right where they are, you can bet another company will. 

Digital Differentiation

You don’t want to be like any other random company online. 

Your digital strategy should help you discover the sound ways to differentiate your company from the rest of the companies within your industries.

Your goal should be to create a cohesive experience for generating leads and nurturing existing ones. 

You need a clear digital strategy to create this experience and carve your own digital path.

Provide Direction

Everything should feel connected.

Your digital strategy acts like an outline or a map that carves a clear path leading to your strategic goals. 

It’s to help you identify the benchmarks to hit and which tactics guarantee the most success. 

Your digital strategy will first define your digital success and help you develop a proper plan to get there best.

Key Elements of Digital Strategy

• Choose a Leader: You have to elect someone to spearhead the whole operation. The person you choose for this role will depend on your company structure, culture, and priorities. 

Whether it’s the company’s CEO or an appointed Chief Technology Officer or Chief Digital Officer, the leader’s influence must match the scope of your digital strategy. 

• Attach Vs. Defend: You can do much better as a company by categorising your opportunities and potential threats, after which you have to compare everything against your own purpose as a business. 

This will help you clarify whether your business initiative needs to be guided by a more defensive or proactive stance.

• A Measured Approach: Your digital strategy must incorporate a process for assessing whether a new digital approach or technology complements your business or if it has helped it grow.

Remember, your digital strategy shouldn’t be reactive, but well-planned and calculated, and in line with your current digital strategy. When you take a measured approach, you avoid wasting your business resources on initiatives that do not align with your existing business needs and priorities. 

• Future Proof: With every digital strategy you lay down, you’re creating an appropriate business foundation. You’re creating an organisation that will continue reinventing itself and keeping up with customer expectations and new technological inventions. 

Your digital strategy must be visionary enough to carry your company through the changes occurring in the digital landscape in a way that gives your business a competitive advantage.

How to Define Your Digital Strategy in 7 Easy Steps

Step 1: Define Your Why

This is where it all starts.

You have to begin by answering the question, “why does your business or organisation exist in the first place?” 

What’s your bigger purpose? 

It’s a simple question, but one that requires you to take not just a 10 000 feet view of your brand, but a more in-depth view ( think 100 000 feet deeper). 

What drives your organisation, or what’s the meaning behind everything it does?

Step 2: Define Your Brand Story

Different studies suggest that consumers encounter about 20 000 brands every day, but only 12 of these brands are likely to leave an impression. 

You have to develop a brand story that resonates best with your target audience to be among the 12. As it turns out, 73% of consumers are interested in a brand story that matters to them.

Whether you’re a non-profit, for-profit, or for-purpose, you need a compelling brand story (not a sales pitch) to cut through all the noise that you’re up against. 

Think of your brand story as a promise you make to your target audience – the statement you make that identify what to expect from the experiences generated by your organisation. 

Step 3: Define Your Goals

You need goals – not just goals, but well-defined, achievable goals. 

Your goals should be measurable, both in the short run and long term.

If you’re running a non-profit – then you would plan to increase your donation by 25%. 

Do you need to grow your email list? If so, by what count.

Needless to say, you need SMART goals. 

Write down your top three goals and keep repeating them until they sink in completely.

They should help to guide your digital strategy. 

Step 4: Understand Your Current Business Context and Standpoint

There’s no point in developing your digital strategy within a vacuum. You first have to understand your company and everything it stands for.

Make sure you’re focusing on the right stage. For example, make sure you’re done with the basics before proceeding to the innovation stage or any other thing. 

You need a strategy with a sound plan. But unless you’re innovative enough to outpace and challenge your competition, that still doesn’t guarantee success. 

You have to understand your company’s context. You have to understand its current shape to be able to boost its performance and help it grow. 

Step 5: Map Micro and Macro Trends

Technology trends can be broadly classified into Micro and Macro.

Microtrends last between 3 to 5 years, while macro trends are more long-lasting. 

Think of trends as water currents flowing through your industries. It’s much easier to swim in currents than against them. 

Google’s success was goaded by the two types of trends, Micro and Macro.

Their micro-trend was that online advertising was beginning to take shape. And there were issues with it that Google could identify early on and spend a good chunk of their time trying to understand it. 

The macro trend was with the rise of the internet. They could envision that the internet would eventually be a big thing, so they worked to position themselves right. 

You can take a cue from Google. That means your digital strategy must be informed by both micro and macro trends. 

You’re simply planning for the years ahead, both in the short term and long term.

We suggest that you pay attention to the following three forces:

• Your customer needs: You have to identify their current needs, shifting ones, and any emerging behaviour. 
• Prevalent technologies and emerging ones: You’re to also understand the dominant and emerging technologies that will be shaping your industry’s future over the next three to five years. 
• Your competition: You’re to analyse your competition, not just the direct ones but including the ones you suspect will be making an entry into the industry in the foreseeable future. 

Step 6: Analyse Your Data

Having already built up your data points, the next thing you want to do is analyse everything. 

You have to carefully look into everything and give it deep thought. 

Go ahead and build your data points. 

Here are the questions to ask during this stage: 

Questions About ‘the Now’

• What does the data tell you? 
• What are the challenges and opportunities that are present today?
• What’s the deeper truth in the information that you’ve collected?
• What’re your major revenue/profit centres? And how are these revenue sources bound to change in the future?

Questions About “What Could Be’

• • Where will your action create further growth or more profits and revenue?
  • What can you do to magnify your returns?
  • Is there any area where you feel unusually weak, threatened, or compromised? Without taking any action, do these areas pose an even greater risk?

• There should be a lot of “if this or not this, then that” questions. 

For example,

• If this trend happens or happens earlier or later than we had planned for, then here’s what we will do. 
• If competitor C enters the market faster than we had anticipated, then here’s what we will do. 
• If we leveraged this particular technology trend and it ends up succeeding, then this is what it will do to our business. 

What you’re basically doing is building assumptions about the future. Many marketers and business owners have yet to realise that these assumptions can be developed either through hypothesized scenarios or real-life experiences. 

Step 7: Clarify Your Main Themes for the Following Two to Three Years

With all the information you’ve collected, now it’s time to put everything into perspective. You have to clarify your major digital strategic themes for the next two to three years – not longer.

While longer timeframes may be useful for context, most digital plans tend to have a digital shelf-life of between 6 and 18 months. 

You should at least have five major strategic themes (seven at most) to prioritise. 

Steve Jobs as an Example

You can learn from Steve Jobs in 1997 when he was re-appointed as the interim CEO of Apple. The first thing he did upon stepping into office was to simplify his strategy. 

He would start by reducing the company’s core products from 350 to ten. He would also announce a direct company-to-consumer sales model and reinvent the company’s computer offering, iMac. 

The clear priorities allowed them to experiment with things that other Silicon Valley companies had failed to do. They were able to clear all disruptions and set a clear pathway for their iPhone, iPod, and iPad. 

Well-articulated priorities and clear focus spearheaded their digital strategies. 

Bottom line

One last thing, do not forget to ask the agency about the overall time it will take to complete the contract. You could be guaranteed impressive results but, what if the contract takes three years to complete? Such a long time could make the team forget what it was doing at the beginning. You also don’t want to be kept waiting. The contract should take the utmost one year with a room for an extension that could last one or two months.

Get in touch with us today at +65 6789 9852.