Marketing Agencies Near Me: How To Choose the Right Marketing Agency
Since 90% of consumers will pay more money to work with a brand they trust, making a name for yourself should be a top priority for your business. It won’t just get you higher traffic and more conversions. It will also make a real economic impact on your organization.
Googling “marketing agencies near me” is a good place to start your search for professional help. After all, it did lead you to this article. However, it’s far from the only step in the process of choosing a marketing company to work with you.
Read on to learn what else you need to do.
Choose the Right Type of “Marketing Agencies Near Me”
Many business owners don’t know that a “marketing agency” is a category of service. It’s an umbrella term for multiple types of agencies.
Business needs are not one-size-fits-all, so you’ll need to choose the right type of marketing professional when looking to hire a marketing agency.
Advertising Agencies
An advertising agency commits to leaving a lasting impression on those who find your business. They conceptualize and plan marketing campaigns to work across multiple channels such as social media, print content, and web content like articles and videos.
Creative Agencies
Creative agencies understand and harness the power of web design. This is critical because a Stanford Web Credibility Research study found that 3 in 4 people judge a business’s credibility based on their website. Creative agencies make your site look modern and memorable to position you as a market leader.
Media Agencies
A media agency helps you to specifically create and launch multimedia content for your business. This includes video and infographic content. They often also create campaigns for programmatic buys and media-based social media marketing.
Digital Marketing Agencies
Digital marketing agencies specialize in all of these marketing types and more. They make optimize your website, ad campaign, and media outreach to boost your visibility. This means pay-per-click ads and SEO strategies that drive organic content.
The goal is to grow your brand name while simultaneously helping you get profits and results.
At 46Mile, we offer a wide range of services. We’re big on advertising, but we also are a creative agency that specializes in web design and development. Our digital and performance marketing experts specialize in both SEO content and multimedia so you can have a well-rounded campaign.
In short, we can help you achieve a balance of multiple marketing types. This is a great idea for people looking to boost their business on multiple fronts and make a name for themselves.
Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Now that you’ve identified the best marketing agency type for your needs, it’s time to determine what KPIs you want to measure. A KPI is a quantifiable metric that you can use to measure your performance over time. When you meet KPIs, you meet business objectives.
KPIs must fall under the SMART framework. Objectives must be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant to your business
- Time-based (falling into a pre-defined timeframe)
So, while your goal may be “boost sales,” this isn’t a KPI. The KPI is the measurement of how you attained this goal. A good example would be “Increase profits by 10% over this quarter from the specific amount made in the last 3 months.”
Instead of the generic objective of “finding new customers,” you might say “nurture 200 new leads into conversions over the next 2 months.”
Whatever your KPIs are, you need to prioritize finding a marketing agency that can help you meet them. Check out the website of any prospective hires to learn more about case studies. You can see if the agency has helped other clients meet their individual objectives (and how).
You also will want to tell every agency that you contact about your objectives and KPIs. This will help them determine whether their services are a good fit for you.
Find Someone Who Will Use Analytics
Meeting KPIs necessitates the ability to measure metrics. You also will need to track analytics and data in order to create relevant and attainable KPIs. It’s a two-way street.
Measuring analytics also gives you relevant information about your target market. You can see the demographics of those who make the most purchases from you. You can also see what channels most frequently lead them to your website (organic web search, links from other websites, social media inbound links, PPC ads, etc).
Plus, you can see website analytics with real-time data. You’ll know which pages people linger on and which have the highest bounce rates. You’ll learn which pages lead to the most conversions so you can emulate what you’re doing right on other areas of your website.
Because of their prevalence in multiple facets of marketing, finding a marketing agency that tracks and uses real data needs to be a top priority.
Every good marketing campaign begins with research, and it needs to be good. A top-notch agency won’t just settle for Google Analytics free insights. They will leverage millions of dollars worth of research technology to get you the best possible information… at an affordable price.
Make sure that your hire leverages research from industry-grade tools. PRIZM Premier, Comscore, and Scarborough are great examples. You’ll get actionable insights on consumer demographics, habits, and behavior that will lead you through a great campaign.
Establish a Budget
Once you have marketing goals, measurable KPIs, and a well-identified target audience, it’s time to set a budget for your marketing campaign. You don’t want to drive yourself into the ground financially. However, you also don’t want to get something cheap and low-quality.
This delicate balancing act may sound like a challenge. Luckily, though, there are only a few remaining steps to budget-setting once you’ve identified your objectives. They are:
- Creating a rough marketing plan for the year
- Calculate expenses for that rough plan
- Calculate your anticipated ROI
- Subtract expenses from your ROI to make the most of your budget
- Calculate how much to spend to meet your financial goals based on pre-established KPIs
- Allocate these funds to the correct places with the help of a professional
After this initial assessment, you will need to refine your strategy over time. You can do this as you track metrics for campaigns over time alongside experts.
Go for Quality
However, note that you should not shirk quality for a lower price.
Before making a decision, look into:
- How much experience a marketing agency has
- What real metrics they can show to prove their results
- Whether they have worked with any businesses in your industry
- Their success in those specific case studies
- The educational background of those working at the organization
- Whether the marketing agency has won any awards and accolades
Make sure that your chosen organization has all relevant experience and credentials before paying them any money. Buying something for the lowest possible price may sound like a good idea, but you’re going to need to pay even more to fix it up before launching your campaign. It’s a waste of money and won’t get you the results you need.
Look at Online Reviews
There’s a reason that 91% of younger consumers trust online reviews as much as personalized recommendations. They show users what other previous clients thought of a business. They highlight the pros and cons of working with that business.
Marketing agencies are no exception. You can read reviews to get a feel of which companies will best suit your specific needs.
While we know that 46Mile can handle most needs, we also understand the importance of being more confident in your decision. Reviews let you experience that confidence by providing you with all relevant information.
Between both positive reviews and the negative reviews that almost every business has, you’ll get a well-rounded picture of what to expect when you hire a marketing agency.
Look Into Case Studies and Real Figures
In addition to reviews, looking into your chosen agency’s results will give you a feel for what to anticipate. Most credible marketing agencies will talk about their results and successful cases on their website. Look at them and understand how much success you’ll likely see when you work with them.
Data and analytics are critical when creating a good marketing strategy, so why not use them to choose an agency, too? There’s nothing more irrefutable than actual metrics that measure success.
Plus, if an agency is good at tracking its own progress and success, it will likely be good at tracking yours, too.
Get Started With 46Mile
Choosing the right marketing professionals can be a challenge. However, simply Googling “marketing agencies near me” isn’t going to give you the top results. 46Mile has data-driven services that other industry leaders can’t replicate.
We use professional tools to track analytics and metrics to create the best possible marketing strategy for your business. We will work with you to come up with a way to meet your individual needs. We’re excited to help, so reach out to us to begin working on your next campaign.
