SMB owners, entrepreneurs, startup founders, and small marketing teams all have one thing in common – they could use more hands and more heads to help them drive their digital marketing efforts. Whether in a B2B or B2C industry, small and mid-size businesses are often operating with limited time and budgets. And that can lead to feeling like you are missing out on the full potential that digital marketing has to grow your business.
Digital marketing [1] encompasses a huge array of items these days, including social media marketing, email marketing, web design and development, SEO, PPC, content marketing, and much more. And while your business probably has some very capable and knowledgeable digital marketing people on staff, it’s impossible for a small team to understand and execute in every area of digital marketing. [2]
That’s why we’re taking a look here at just what digital marketing agencies can bring to your business, the types of digital marketing agencies that exist, and the services they can offer to an organization such as yours. We’ll also look at the benefits that come from partnering with a digital marketing agency, and how you can begin reviewing the options and select a great firm that fits your specific business needs.
What do digital agencies do?
First up, let’s take a look at just what exactly a digital agency does. As you can tell from the list above, there are a lot of options. Many agencies have some areas of specialization, or a combination of services where they have the most knowledge and experience.
Digital agencies, on the whole, are service providers who offer strategy, implementation, execution, and reporting/analysis of their digital marketing efforts. This can include firms specializing in SEO or PPC, agencies that deal primarily with social media marketing and influencer marketing, email marketing firms, and so on.
Some digital agencies, however, are full-service agencies, meaning that they can offer the complete range of digital marketing services, and can offer a combination of services that is most appropriate for your goals and your budget. Full-service digital agencies may be able to provide everything from web design and development to video production, custom animations, and much more. While often pricier than smaller, more specialized providers, the full-service agency can be very helpful as business needs and budgets grow.
Different types of digital agencies
Depending on your current business needs, you may want to focus specifically on a digital agency that provides very specialized service. For example, if you do not already have an email marketing system in place, then you might choose an email marketing agency as your starting point for hiring outside assistance. Here we’ll break down some of the specific agency types for digital marketing efforts so that you can get a better sense of which options will prove most useful for your company and your current needs.
Social media marketing agencies
Social media marketing agencies [3] are agencies that have extensive experience and documented results in social media marketing. And because they are specialized in this area, they also keep up with the constant shifts and changes in the social media landscape in order to provide effective services.
Social media marketing agencies will, broadly speaking, be able to handle or provide a variety of social media services, including static digital ads, paid and organic social content, graphics, imagery, and in many cases even video production.
Social media marketing agencies often have content teams as well, and may have experience in hiring and utilizing influencers for campaigns where it makes the most sense.
Email marketing agencies
Email marketing agencies [4], as you can probably guess, handle email marketing. But there is a lot more to it than simply designing pretty emails and pushing “send.”
Email marketing agencies generally have experts on staff who are well versed in multiple email service providers, such as Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and more. And as the roles of customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing become more and more intertwined, you can bet that these agencies have expertise in the full range of customer communication.
Additionally, email marketing agencies will have expertise in analysis of campaigns, A-B testing of effective subject lines, design professionals, and much more. Their goal is to make email the most powerful and effective marketing tool it can be, as well as a direct line of communication with your customers.
Content marketing agencies
Content marketing agencies combine both the strategy and the creation of content marketing materials, offering services for small businesses and startups that do not have the staffing to take on these roles themselves. Content marketing nowadays encompasses a lot of areas, from blogs and articles to Q&As with subject matter experts, video interviews, podcasts, how-to articles, and so on. Because of the amount of content and the many options available, content marketing agencies are a great choice for small and mid-size businesses.
Content marketing [5] agencies often have some overlap with SEO marketing agencies, since the goals and mechanisms for both can be similar or the same. They may also have resources in house for podcasting, video production, and more, depending on their structure and specialization.
SEO agencies
SEO agencies [6] are devoted to helping businesses improve their search ranking and their placement among search results. As with a social media agency, a big part of an SEO agency’s work involves staying on top of changes to the major search engines, their ranking process, best practices, and the types of content and formats that produce the best results.
SEO agencies are especially helpful for businesses in several sectors, including ecommerce, food and beverage, service providers, and more. But every business can benefit from the increased brand visibility, trustworthiness, and traffic that come from improved search engine rankings.
Web design and development agencies
Web design and development agencies offer website design services, of course, but they also offer much more than this. Many of the best agencies will provide everything from front-end and back-end functionality and programming to design services, UX/UI services, web video and graphics integration, content development, and more.
You will also find that many web development agencies can offer ecommerce development for your site, whether utilizing an external plugin (Shopify, for example) or a custom solution.
PPC advertising agencies
PPC advertising agencies handle the pay-per-click advertising for their clients. This is another fairly specialized digital advertising area, and one where SMBs and startups often don’t have experts on staff.
PPC agencies have a complete understanding of not only the Google Ad space and others, but also of the optimization of ads, analysis of click through rates, recommendations for landing pages and customer flow from the ads, and how to integrate PPC advertising into larger digital marketing efforts.
Full service digital agencies
As mentioned before, full-service digital advertising agencies combine many or even all of these various specialities under one roof. By offering the full gamut of solutions for business owners, full service agencies are an attractive choice as a one-stop shop.
Full service digital agencies may also subcontract some of the services they offer to trusted agency partners with specializations in some areas (video, web development, etc.), but they ensure that all of the work is in line with your campaign goals and overall messaging.
Find your perfect digital advertising partner
Considering the many different types of digital marketing and advertising that exist, and the way that all of them connect to one another to become more effective, it is no surprise that business owners and marketing directors look to digital agencies for help. Considering the expertise, experience, and capabilities that a specialized ad agency offers, it makes sense for most companies to consider finding resources outside their walls in order to amplify their digital marketing efforts.
Fortunately, it is fairly easy to get started on the search for a digital agency partner. First, you will want to get together with your team and figure out which areas of digital marketing can provide your business with the most benefit. This can vary from business to business and campaign to campaign, but examining your current marketing efforts and gaps in coverage, you can narrow down your search.
From there, you can explore highly rated and well-trusted digital marketing providers found here in the UpCity network. Depending on your specific needs, you may narrow your search further to PPC providers, email marketing providers, SEO experts, web design agencies, or social media marketing experts.
At each of those links, you’ll find numerous digital marketing and advertising service providers who have been hired and reviewed by small business owners like yourself, and who have provided excellent results that accomplished or even exceeded the goals and needs of their clients.
Sources
- Online Marketing: The Who, What, Why, & How of Digital Marketing, Hubspot –
- 15 Types of Digital Marketing: The Marketer’s Toolkit for 2024, Simplilearn
- Social Media Marketing (SMM): What It Is, How It Works, Pros and Cons, Investopedia
- What Does an Email Marketing Agency Actually Do?, Creative Marketing
- What Is Content Marketing?, Content Marketing Institute
- What Does an SEO Company Do? (And How to Choose One), SEO.com