Digital Marketing Guide + Agency Question Checklist
Table of Contents
Introduction to Digital Marketing
Importance of Digital Marketing
Types of Digital Marketing Strategies
How to Develop a Marketing Strategy
The Future of Digital Marketing
What Do Digital Marketing Agencies Do?
Pros and Cons of In-House Digital Marketing vs. Digital Marketing Agencies
How to Decide What Agency to Work With
Agency Evaluation Checklist: Key Questions to Ask
Conclusion
Introduction to Digital Marketing
Digital marketing refers to the use of online channels and technologies to promote products or services, engage with customers, and drive business growth. It encompasses a wide range of tactics and platforms, allowing businesses to reach and connect with their target audiences effectively.
Digital marketing channels can include:
Search engines such as Google and Microsoft
Online advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok
Email
Websites and SEO
Mobile apps
Programmatic
Video channels such as YouTube
Affiliate Marketing
TV
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) marketing
Importance of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is important for businesses in today's technology-driven world because it enables them to reach a larger audience across multiple platforms. Unlike traditional marketing methods, which often limit exposure to local or regional audiences, digital marketing allows for a wider reach. This accessibility means businesses can engage with potential customers anytime and anywhere, regardless of where they are in the buying process, increasing their brand visibility and potential customer base.
Digital marketing offers the ability to target your advertisements (ads) effectively. Businesses can customize their campaigns to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, ensuring messages resonate with the right audience at the right time. This level of personalization not only enhances user engagement but also improves conversion rates, making marketing efforts more efficient and cost-effective.
Additionally, the measurable nature of digital marketing provides businesses with valuable insights into their campaigns' performance. By leveraging analytics tools such as Google Analytics, companies can track important metrics such as website traffic, engagement rates, and overall, return on investment (ROI). This data-driven approach allows for real-time adjustments and optimizations, ensuring that marketing strategies remain aligned with business goals and market trends.
The increasing trend in digital ad spending underscores the growing significance of digital marketing in the business landscape. In a study provided by Oberlo, projections indicate that digital ad spending is set to reach $965.6 billion by 2028, a large increase from the estimated $740.3 billion expected in 2024.
This upward trajectory highlights the shift in marketing budgets from traditional channels to digital platforms as businesses recognize the effectiveness of reaching target audiences online. As more consumers engage with digital content across various devices and platforms, companies are prioritizing digital marketing strategies to enhance brand visibility, drive customer engagement, and ultimately achieve better returns on their marketing investments.
Types of Digital Marketing Strategies
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important strategy within your digital marketing efforts, aimed at improving organic visibility in search engines like Google and Bing. A well-structured SEO strategy encompasses robust keyword research, the creation of quality content aligned with E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) guidelines, and effective on-page optimization. Additionally, enhancing technical SEO elements, such as site speed and mobile-friendliness, and focusing on local SEO for businesses with a physical presence are key components.
It’s important to remember that SEO takes time; achieving improvements in organic performance requires ongoing effort and commitment. By consistently refining and optimizing your strategies, you can enhance your online presence and drive sustainable traffic growth over the long term.
Paid Media
Paid media advertising involves promoting your business across various channels where you can pay for visibility and reach targeted audiences. This includes platforms such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and programmatic advertising networks, as well as social media sites like Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Pinterest. By leveraging these paid channels, businesses can effectively increase their brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, and drive sales.
A particularly popular strategy within paid media is Google Paid Search, which is favored for its lower-funnel nature, allowing businesses to target users actively searching for specific products or services. Paid search complements organic search by providing immediate visibility in search results while a longer-term SEO strategy gains momentum. It also offers valuable data points that can be leveraged to enhance organic strategies, such as updating metadata or generating new content based on paid search query data. By analyzing performance metrics from paid search campaigns, businesses can identify trends and insights that inform their overall digital marketing approach, ultimately driving better results across both paid and organic channels.
While we focused primarily on paid media here, it's important to consider the organic side of social media marketing as well. Organic social media marketing involves creating and sharing content on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter without paid promotions. This approach helps build brand awareness, foster community engagement, and establish a genuine connection with audiences. According to Sprout Social, it is estimated that there are 5.17 billion social media users worldwide, with the average person using 6.17 different social media networks per month – this is a large portion of a potential audience!
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a strategic approach that attracts and engages audiences through the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant content. This encompasses various formats, including blog posts, eBooks, guides, newsletters, articles, videos, infographics, and podcasts, all designed to inform, entertain, or educate a targeted audience. By prioritizing high-quality content that addresses the needs, pain points, and interests of consumers, businesses can build trust and establish authority within their industry. An effective content marketing strategy not only helps drive traffic and improve SEO but also fosters deeper connections with customers, promotes brand awareness, and ultimately drives conversions.
HubSpot is a great example of a company that excels in content marketing by leveraging a diverse mix of blog posts, newsletters, videos, podcasts, and valuable resources such as eBooks, templates, kits, and tools.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending targeted messages to a defined audience through email. Typically, email marketing engages with consumers who have already expressed interest in the business or a product. This approach enables businesses to nurture leads, engage with customers, and promote products or services directly to their inboxes. Effective email marketing campaigns utilize personalized content, segmentation, and automation to deliver relevant messages at the right time.
By focusing on building a quality email list and crafting compelling content, businesses can increase open rates, foster customer loyalty, and ultimately drive conversions.
Popular email marketing platforms include Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Campaigner, and Salesforce Account Engagement (formerly known as Pardot).
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where businesses partner with third-party affiliates to promote their products or services in exchange for a commission. This approach allows companies to expand their reach by leveraging the influence and networks of affiliates, which can include bloggers, social media influencers, and content creators. By providing affiliates with unique tracking links and promotional materials, businesses can effectively monitor performance and ROI.
Amazon Associates offers a robust affiliate marketing program that enables individuals and businesses to earn commissions by promoting Amazon’s range of products. Participants in the program can create unique tracking links to share through their websites, blogs, or social media channels.
GearLab is a great example of capitalizing on affiliate programs across various networks, including Amazon.
TV and Digital Out of Home DOOH
Both TV advertising and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) formats, like digital billboards, have evolved with the continual rise of programmatic advertising. According to Statista, ad spend in Programmatic is set to surpass $700 billion by 2026, a 27% increase from $558 billion in 2023.
Programmatic enables advertisers to target audiences more effectively on Connected TV (CTV) platforms, such as Hulu and Disney+. Meanwhile, DOOH advertising offers opportunities to engage consumers in high-traffic locations like gas stations, bus stops, and airports, often featuring more dynamic, interactive content tailored to the setting.
Analytics
All these strategies would not be possible without the critical role of analytics in digital marketing. Analytics involves the collection, measurement, and analysis of data from various marketing channels to understand user behavior and campaign performance. By utilizing tools such as Google Analytics, businesses can gain valuable insights into website traffic, conversion rates, and user engagement. This in return allows marketers to make more informed decisions about their marketing investments.
How to Develop a Marketing Strategy
Developing a successful marketing strategy involves understanding your business goals, target audience, and the competitive landscape. Here are important steps to consider when developing a marketing strategy:
Define your goals: Clearly outline your marketing objectives. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales, or enhance customer loyalty? Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals will guide your strategy.
Understand your target audience: Conduct thorough research to identify your target market. Understand their demographics, preferences, behaviors, and pain points. Creating buyer personas can help visualize and customize your marketing efforts to meet their needs.
Analyze the competition: Assess your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Identify gaps in the market that your business can fill and determine how to differentiate your offerings from theirs. Performing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a great analysis to conduct at this stage.
Choose your marketing channels: Based on your audience and goals, decide which marketing channels to leverage. Consider a mix of digital channels such as paid search, display, SEO, and social media marketing to reach your target audience where they are.
Allocate resources and budget: Determine the resources, tools, and budget you will need to implement your strategy. Consider both human resources and technology investments.
Implement and monitor: Execute your marketing strategy while continuously monitoring its performance through analytics. I like to leverage Google Looker Studio and Funnel.io to aggregate all the data in a single source of truth to more effectively understand performance across channels.
- Evaluate and optimize: After implementing your strategy, regularly evaluate its effectiveness. Gather feedback, analyze results, and refine your approach to ensure ongoing improvement and alignment with your business goals.
This is where it gets fun! A/B test messaging, target audiences, landing page design, creative assets, and more. Document your results to be able to look back on to understand what works and doesn’t work. Here’s an article that outlines a couple of tests we ran on LinkedIn to better optimize our campaigns.
HubSpot offers a great marketing plan template, which can be found here. This template will outline all the necessary details when crafting your marketing strategy.
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The Future of Digital Marketing
As the digital marketing space continues to advance, the future of digital marketing holds opportunities and challenges for businesses. Emerging technologies, shifting consumer behaviors, and increasing expectations for personalized experiences are driving significant changes in how companies engage with their customers.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation
You’re likely no stranger to the advancements that artificial intelligence (AI) has brought to digital marketing. From generating content outlines to analyzing results at lightning speed, AI is revolutionizing how marketers operate. With the ability to process vast amounts of data and derive actionable insights quickly, AI tools can enhance decision-making, optimize campaigns, and personalize customer experiences. Automation, powered by AI, streamlines repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and ad management, allowing marketing teams to focus on strategic initiatives and creative problem-solving.
Voice Search and Conversational Marketing
With the rise of voice-activated devices, optimizing for voice search is becoming more important for digital marketers. As consumers increasingly use voice commands, businesses need to adapt their content strategies to incorporate natural language and long-tail keywords. Additionally, conversational marketing through chatbots and messaging apps is also gaining traction, allowing for real-time interactions that enhance customer engagement. Optimizing for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is key, as it focuses on creating content that answers user queries in a conversational tone. As the digital landscape evolves, conversational marketing will become increasingly important for building personal connections with customers. I have more information on GEO located in this blog post, if you’re interested!
Video Marketing
The popularity of video content continues to rise, making it an important component of any digital marketing strategy. Live streaming and short-form videos (e.g., TikTok, Instagram Reels, etc.) will continue to play a significant role. Haven’t tried short-form content before? There are tools out there to make it easier for you to do! Try testing out video platforms such as Flexclip to generate short video clips to give some motion to your messaging.
Now that you have a clearer understanding of how to build and optimize a digital marketing strategy for improved performance, let’s explore the advantages of building an in-house team versus outsourcing your marketing efforts to a digital marketing agency.
What Do Digital Marketing Agencies Do?
A digital marketing agency plays an important role in helping businesses develop and execute effective marketing strategies that align with business goals and objectives. Marketing agencies bring together a team of experts skilled in various aspects of digital marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, content creation, paid media, and analytics. By conducting thorough market research, analyzing consumer trends and behaviors, and consulting with business leaders, agencies can identify target audiences and customize campaigns that resonate with them.
Moreover, digital marketing agencies provide ongoing support and optimization to ensure that marketing efforts remain agile and responsive to shifts in the market. At the heart of this process is data and analytics, which enable agencies to measure the success of campaigns and make necessary adjustments to maximize return on investment (ROI). Whether the goal is to build brand awareness, drive traffic to a website, generate leads, or drive more sales, digital marketing agencies offer the expertise and resources needed for businesses to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape.
At Workshop Digital, we employ a proven process known as “The Workshop Way.” We view this as a framework rather than a rigid checklist. Our approach ensures a deep understanding of your industry, business, target audience, and competitors, allowing us to customize a marketing strategy designed to deliver results. We recognize that effective marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor; instead, we commit to testing, learning, optimizing, and growing alongside our clients throughout the process.
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Pros and Cons of In-house Digital Marketing vs. Digital Marketing Agencies
In-House Digital Marketing:
Pros:
Brand familiarity: In-house teams have a deep understanding of the company’s brand, culture, and values.
Accessibility: Having a dedicated team on-site ensures that communication is streamlined and collaborative with other departments, such as sales or product development, to be more efficient.
Control: In-house teams allow for greater control over branding, messaging, and overall marketing strategy, ensuring that everything aligns closely with company goals.
Cons:
Limited expertise: In-house teams may lack specialized skills in certain areas of digital marketing, which can limit the effectiveness of campaigns.
Resource constraints: Hiring and retaining a diverse team of experts can be costly, and smaller companies may struggle to allocate sufficient resources to their in-house marketing efforts.
Talent recruitment and employee turnover: Recruiting and retaining skilled talent can be challenging and costly. High turnover rates may disrupt team dynamics and lead to a loss of institutional knowledge, affecting the continuity and effectiveness of marketing efforts.
Digital Marketing Agencies:
Pros:
Specialized expertise: Agencies often employ a range of specialists with diverse skills and experiences, providing comprehensive solutions that cover various aspects of digital marketing.
Scalability: Marketing agencies can quickly scale their services up or down based on the changing needs of a business, making them a flexible option for growth.
Access to software and tools: Digital marketing agencies typically have access to advanced tools and software such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, and others. This access allows them to conduct in-depth research and analysis across both paid media and SEO strategies, without you having to pay for the tools yourself.
Fresh Perspectives: Marketing agencies bring outside experience and new ideas from working with various clients across different industries, which can lead to innovative marketing strategies.
Cons:
- Higher costs: Hiring an agency can be more experienced than maintaining an in-house team, especially for ongoing projects or campaigns.
Tip: When searching for a digital marketing agency, it's important to conduct thorough research, as many agencies offer differing prices and services tailored to various business needs. For instance, at Workshop Digital, we customize our services to cater to both small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and larger enterprises. This flexibility allows us to address the unique challenges and goals of each client, ensuring that our marketing strategies align with their specific objectives. By evaluating multiple agencies and understanding their offerings, you can find the right partner that fits your budget and meets your digital marketing requirements.
Less brand familiarity: External agencies may take more time to fully understand a brand’s unique nuances.
Less Immediate Availability: Agencies may not always be as accessible as an in-house team, which can lead to delays in communication or responsiveness, especially during urgent situations.
How to Decide What Agency To Work With
When selecting a digital marketing agency, there are several things to consider. Here are some factors to help guide your decision:
Cultural Fit
Assess the agency’s culture and core values to ensure they align with your business. A strong cultural fit fosters better collaboration and communication, leading to more effective outcomes. We believe that partnerships should be mutually beneficial, allowing both parties to thrive and achieve their goals together.
Budget
Consider your marketing budget for the year, quarter, or month. Determining your marketing budget will allow you to understand how much you’re willing to invest in a digital marketing partner. Remember that if paid media is desired, there will be agency fees on top of ad spend to consider. However, investing in the RIGHT partner will ensure you get the ROI from your marketing investment.
Business Goals and Objectives
This factor is crucial! Understanding your digital marketing goals is essential for identifying the right type of agency to meet your needs. If your objective is to drive leads and sales, seek out an agency that specializes in performance-based marketing. Conversely, if you're aiming to enhance brand awareness, consider agencies that focus on branding and public relations marketing. Clearly defining your goals will help you select an agency that aligns with your specific objectives and can deliver the results you’re looking for.
Expertise
Evaluate the agency's expertise to determine if it aligns with your needs. Some agencies may specialize solely in SEO, while others offer a full suite of digital marketing services, including Paid Media, Analytics, and more. Your channel investment will heavily depend on your specific goals and objectives. Engaging in conversations with multiple agencies can provide valuable insights and help clarify what you truly need. Additionally, many agencies collaborate with other complementary service providers and can refer you to the right agency that will help you achieve your objectives.
Experience and Portfolio
Everyone loves a good case study! By examining an agency's case studies, you can gain valuable insights into the industries they specialize in, the real outcomes they’ve achieved, and the strategies they employ to reach those results. Additionally, it’s a bonus to see if the agency has received any awards, as these accolades typically highlight case studies recognized by industry experts. This can further assure you of their credibility and expertise in delivering effective digital marketing solutions.
Communication and Reporting
Consider how the agency communicates with clients and the frequency of their reporting. It’s essential that they provide clear and transparent updates on campaign performance and remain responsive to your inquiries. Additionally, ask whether you can own your accounts (e.g., Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, etc.). In my experience in business development, I've encountered situations where agencies retain ownership of accounts, making it difficult to transfer them later, and preventing you from seeing your own business insights. This can result in a loss of historical data, campaign structure, and valuable insights gained from testing.
Agency vs. Freelancer
Many smaller businesses often struggle to afford the fees associated with hiring a digital marketing agency, and this is a common challenge. As an alternative, consider using sourcing websites like Upwork to find freelancers who specialize in specific areas of focus. Freelancers can offer flexibility and expertise at a potentially lower cost, allowing businesses to access the skills they need without the commitment of a full-service agency. However, it’s important to carefully vet freelancers to ensure they have the necessary experience and reliability to meet your marketing goals.
Customer Service
You can learn a great deal from the initial conversations with a sales or business development representative. Their responsiveness, willingness to answer questions, and overall communication style can provide valuable insights into the agency's customer service philosophy. A strong focus on customer service from the outset often indicates how the agency will handle your account and address any challenges that may arise throughout your partnership.
Evaluating a Digital Marketing Agency? Download Our Question Checklist!
To streamline your search for the right digital marketing partner, we’ve compiled a list of essential questions to ask during your evaluation process. While not comprehensive, this guide will help facilitate meaningful conversations and provide a consistent framework for comparing agencies side by side.
Conclusion
Choosing the right digital marketing agency is an important decision that can significantly impact your business's success, especially if you’re locked into longer-term agreements. By carefully evaluating your goals, understanding the various types of agencies, and asking the right questions during the vetting process, you can find a digital marketing partner that aligns with your vision and can help you achieve your objectives.
If you’re ready to take the next step in enhancing your marketing strategy, reach out to us at Workshop Digital. Let’s discuss how we can help you achieve your goals and drive results for your business.