The digital marketing industry has witnessed a massive surge in the past five years and is expected to expand threefold by 2024. A recent study noted that marketers ranked data and analytics as the top skill required to succeed in this field, even above creativity and written communication skills.
With such an exponential demand for well-trained professionals in this domain, there is significant scope for young and fresh graduates (and even experienced individuals) who aspire to kick start their career here or venture out on their own via launching a digital agency.
What is Digital Marketing?
In the term’s broadest sense, “digital marketing” refers to advertising delivered electronically via email, social media, mobile apps, or websites. In practice, however, “digital marketing” can be used specifically to refer to:
- Paid digital ads served consumers on desktop computers and laptops (“PC-based”).
- Paid digital ads served to consumers on smartphones and tablets (“smartphone/tablet-based”).
- Free digital ads (or “organic,” in industry parlance) shown on desktop computer and laptop screens (“PC-based organic display ad impressions).
- Free digital ads shown on smartphone and tablet screens (“smartphone/tablet-based organic display ad impressions).
- Paid or unpaid digital ads displayed on smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, laptops, and other internet-connected screens (“multi-channel” including “offline ads,” which are primarily non-paid print, television, and radio advertising that complement the “paid” online search marketing industry).
What is a Digital Marketing Agency?
A digital marketing agency is a business that helps companies promote their products and services using digital marketing channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), social media, email marketing, display advertising, and many more.
They usually offer traditional marketing like TV and radio ads, but it’s not what they’re known for. Depending on the company’s size, some agencies will also do design work. Some link-up marketers with specialized designers in-house or freelance to create graphic designs for websites, presentations, leaflets, etc.
Some agencies provide lead generation strategies for B2B companies, while others focus on helping SaaS businesses gain traction through targeted content marketing campaigns and blogger outreach. In general, a digital marketing agency is a company that focuses on driving traffic and leads through digital means.
Must Have Tools for Managing Your Digital Marketing Agency
Email Marketing: Email has taken over social media platforms like Facebook to become one of the most effective means of customer interaction and acquisition among new-age businesses, especially with the rise of mobile devices and their users.
Email campaigns have higher conversion rates than other digital marketing channels like social media posts or paid advertising.
Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) & SEO: SEO remains one of the most effective tools to drive traffic to your website and increase brand visibility across search engines. Businesses that take advantage of organic search via SERPs tend to receive 34% more clicks than non-organic listings on page 1 alone!
There’s also an additional cost advantage – it’s almost always much cheaper to pay for advertisements on Google than traditional advertising channels like print media or television ads.
Of course, this comes with its own set of challenges. You’d need time and patience to build links, content and optimize your website for specific keywords that drive conversions.
Full-Stack Marketing Automation: Marketing automation is a tool that simplifies the complex process of managing multiple marketing tools like email list growth strategies, campaign management, and multi-channel activations (e.g., SEO & social media) to improve both B2B lead generation as well as increase brand awareness.
Tools like HubSpot help you automate all aspects of your marketing strategy with easy-to-use interfaces for users across roles like marketers, project managers, or account executives. The absence of any technology (e.g., SEO) could severely impact the effectiveness of other channels.
Take an agency approach towards digital marketing by acquiring tools like Mailchimp, HubSpot, or Marketo that enable you to connect with your audience across multiple platforms and devices.
Graphic Design: Graphic design is an integral part of any digital marketing agency. Companies rely on the visual appeal of their websites, ad campaigns (especially for B2B), and social media pages. Visualizing messaging into attractive and effective designs has become a core skill requirement in today’s candidate market.
This explains why most agencies prefer hiring candidates to execute creative and technical tasks (e.g., HTML5, CSS3 tags). Even Snapchat filters are based on simple graphic designs!
Project Management: Project management tools help track actions related to digital marketing projects, including multi-channel activations, website optimization & email campaigns.
A good project management tool helps you monitor the progress of various initiatives via relevant data like the number of leads generated or top-performing posts on social media profiles.
This is especially helpful for agencies with multiple clients to manage; made-to-order tools give you complete control over your business processes and growth strategies.
B2B Lead Generation: Business to Business (B2B) lead generation involves selling products or services to key decision-makers in large companies through cold calls/emails rather than building relationships over time as traditional retail businesses do.
The primary motivation behind this strategy is to increase conversions for revenue – since these organizations tend to buy more than individuals, this strategy typically works better for businesses. Tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator help you identify the right contacts within companies and push your message through to them.
Social Media Marketing: Social media plays a vital role in digital marketing by helping you connect with your audience over multiple channels. Modern social media portals like Facebook, Twitter & Instagram also act as powerful tools for driving traffic to your website.
They enable users to share posts directly onto their profiles (called ‘social sharing’), leading to increased publicity and awareness of brands! You could even create branded accounts on these networks specializing in promotions.
If done right, you can establish yourself as a thought leader across various communities, eventually leading to the steady growth of your customer base.
Social media can also be used for effective crisis management since you can communicate directly with essential stakeholders (like customers or investors) across networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Conclusion
These are some essential tools necessary to run an effective digital marketing agency – performing well in the market requires more than just having these technologies, i.e., strategy implementation!
Nonetheless, they form a solid foundation to build all aspects of your business processes, including B2C lead generation, graphic design, and social media marketing. Marketing is constantly evolving. One must keep updating and upgrading their skills to remain relevant in this fast-paced world driven by technology!
