Finding a true digital marketing expert has become a difficult task. It is no secret that the sector is booming, as the situation generated by COVID-19 has only accelerated the (already existing) need for any business to have an online presence in order to survive. Thus, Marketing Week magazine states that, in 2020, disciplines such as Paid Social Media or Ad Serving, increased their demand by 116.4% and 84.6%, respectively.
The huge growth in demand has also generated an increase in the number of people interested in offering these types of services. However, beware, not everything (and not everyone) counts in the world of digital marketing. Many of Cronuts Digital’s clients come to us after having had a negative experience with a professional or agency that claimed to be able to offer this type of service and that, finally, ended up disappointing their clients.
In order to prevent you from also being cheated when it comes to contracting the creation of your website or the deployment of your ads on social networks, here are a series of aspects that can give you clues about the professionalism of your digital marketing providers. In other words, if the person who manages your brand does not comply with these points, think about tightening the screws or, better yet, start looking for a new partner.
It all starts with objectives.
Whether we’re talking about marketing, sales or going for a run every morning, everything we do, especially if it’s related to our business, must have objectives. There is no point in launching a campaign on Instagram Stories if our goal is to reach a senior audience.
So, the first question your digital marketing provider should ask you should be aimed at knowing the business objectives you are pursuing: Are you looking to generate notoriety? Attract people to your website? Convert through Instagram Shopping? Whatever it is, make sure that the strategy proposed by a digital marketing expert is always aligned with it.
Let’s not forget about KPIs.
But how can you make sure that the strategy is really pursuing your goals? This is where KPIs come in. KPIs are the indicators that will allow us to evaluate whether the marketing actions we carry out have been successful in achieving your objectives. For example, if we aim to increase the engagement of our audience on the Facebook platform, the different KPIs that we will assign to this project could be some such as the number of likes per post or the percentage of positive comments with respect to the total of our posts.
In short, the KPIs are the meter that will show whether our efforts are going in the right direction. If a digital marketing expert talks about objectives, but does not translate them into KPIs… there’s a catch.
The previous work is taken into account.
From the moment a business starts, it begins to generate a perception by people. Whether it is its naming, corporate colour or the products or services it offers, every project has a history, and a true digital marketing expert has to know it and know how to take advantage of it. In addition to a company’s past, when working with a client, a good marketing expert will know that it is essential to have a thorough knowledge of the competition.
Stick with the one that asks for context.
It is very common to come across marketing agencies that, because they do not learn about their clients’ past, make proposals that repeat past strategies. Clients have often told us: “I’m looking for an agency because the previous one only proposed things that I had already done” or “Well, don’t come and present me with the same strategy that my competitors are following”.
To avoid death by repetition, a true digital marketing expert will insist on soaking up the context of their clients.
Formats and platforms with justification.
It is also quite common to find professionals who offer their clients their famous “jack, horse and king”, i.e. they simply recommend positioning on the two platforms they know how to handle, regardless of whether, for example, the target audience is on it or not. A digital marketing expert will offer solid arguments as to why to position oneself on one side or the other or why to use one format and not the other, and will not be afraid to listen to other points of view in order for their client to achieve better results.
Topical proposals. Yes, thank you.
In the same way that an agency must be up to date with all the legal developments that affect its clients, a digital marketing professional must always keep an eye on the trends and developments that affect the world of digital communication. But that’s not all! In addition to being up to date, a true marketing consultant must dive into any new tool in order to, in addition to knowing it, be able to implement it for their clients, all with full knowledge of the facts.
In a world like marketing, where everything is constantly changing, the ability to keep up with current events and know how to make your clients deal with them is perhaps one of the keys to guaranteeing that you are a good marketing professional.
(To lead by example, here are some articles we have written on cool topics such as Core Web Vitals or the possibility of advertising on TikTok).
Always improving.
All good professionals should always seek to improve the performance of their projects. Remember when we talked about KPIs? Well, it is not enough just to define them, but to review them periodically to see how they evolve and to be able to propose actions to help improve their performance. For example, if in our goal to improve the engagement of our audience on Facebook we observe how the KPI related to the number of positive comments evolves correctly, but the one related to the number of likes per post is stagnant, thanks to having reviewed these, we can change our strategy and test if this change generates that our audience starts to give us more thumbs up.
As a gift, some next steps.
Finally, a digital marketing expert knows that a project always ends by proposing next steps to the client. Not doing so is like pushing the bike of someone who doesn’t know how to ride and not telling them how to move their feet. Make sure you ask your marketing provider what next actions you can implement on the website you have just created or regarding the ad campaign you are running.
To sum up…
The world of digital marketing is growing all the time, and with it, the number of people who offer related services but who may not be up to the standards of their clients. What differentiates a true digital marketing expert, is that they will always start a project by defining objectives and, let’s not forget, their KPIs; they will be interested in the history of your business as well as the competition to beat; they will not limit their proposals to a couple of platforms they control, but will always propose new tools and strategies and, finally, they will never miss an opportunity to improve your results and those of your company.
If you are looking for a team of digital business experts who meet these points, here is our contact form.
For more information on this topic and many more, you can consult other articles in our current affairs blog.
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