What Does a Digital Marketing Agency Do?

Digital transformation is no longer something we need to prepare for. It is upon us and, to put it bluntly, it is up to businesses to simply adapt or fall by the wayside. 

Shopify eCommerce stores are one of the most successful online business formats globally, with Shopify’s consistent year-over-year growth and over 1 million active websites worldwide. 

As we learn how to navigate a rapidly changing market amid COVID-19 restrictions and adaptations, many successful small to medium enterprises are finding their niche selling online services and goods. Much of their success is largely due to the boost in traffic, and therefore revenue, that Paid Ads and a powerful online presence can provide. 

The importance of having a digital marketing agency as part of your extended team is now widely accepted as essential.

We’ll explore the benefits of hiring a professional agency in this article but, foundationally, it is also imperative to understand the basics of what does a digital marketing agency do at its core and what its primary functions are in terms of both growing your top line and increasing that all-important bottom line.

When people hear the word ‘digital marketing agency’, they tend to conflate a range of different service providers. In reality, digital marketing consists of a variety of specializations, with different professional entities focusing on their own piece of the puzzle.

Let’s explore the different types of digital marketing agencies out there so that you can understand where each one fits into the spectrum of resources available to accelerate and maintain your business’s growth. As a small to medium ecommerce store, the odds are that you will require the services of one or more of the agencies mentioned below depending on your brand’s aims, goals, desired growth rate, budget and time constraints. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Companies

Goal: Improve your ranking on the Search

A company that specializes in SEO, will mainly focus on optimizing their client’s website content. The aim here is to ensure that your site ranks on the first page of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) so that you can gain the competitive edge.. 

SEO experts will audit your website, ensuring that the on-page SEO elements such as  metatags and site structure are optimized.

They often place your business in local directories, which are local business listings organized by industry or niche and build a base of online customer reviews for your business in order to improve your search ranking. Examples of these directories are Google My Business, Yelp, Bing, and others. An SEO specialist will perform advanced keyword research and use this to optimize your blog’s written and visual content to position you as an expert in your field and provide content that your audience is actively interested in.

They will also perform backlink audits and build links to your site. Using a range of analytics tools such as Google Analytics and the like, they will base their strategy on data-driven insights to create a perfectly optimized site for your specific audience.

They then manage your ongoing SEO needs so that you can maintain and continue to improve in your ranking as your business grows.

Social Media Management Agency

Goal: Create optimized social media posts to grow your audience and maintain your online presence

With 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, it’s no wonder that many businesses invest in getting their social media platforms in tip-top shape. This is where a social media management agency comes in. 

A Social Media Management Agency will assist with:

1. Developing a posting strategy for your social platforms
2. Managing engagement with your community
3. Outreach to high-value people
   

In order to produce high-quality, regular content, businesses often turn to the experts to assess their target audience, devise a powerful social media strategy, create or curate dynamic content, schedule the content for reliable posting and implement the strategy with expert precision.

Social media managers will sometimes take on the role of community managers, handling all of your communications with your audience across your chosen platforms. They engage a range of different paid and organic tactics to accelerate your follower growth and brand awareness.

Exceptional social media managers will be actively reaching out to high-value audience members to build connections and create a powerful social network for your brand.

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Website Developers

Goal: Build a fully-functional site that attracts buyers to your online store

A web developer is a technical expert who will either work within an agency with a team of creative and strategic personnel or as a freelancer who can be called upon when needed. Web developers look at your site holistically and create a functional, aesthetically pleasing website that is tailored to your business’s specific needs. 

Web developers help your business in the following areas:

1. Technical set up of your site
2. Building your site using a template
3. Tracking and goal setup
4. Connecting your site to other sources like CRMs
5. Connecting complex apps to your site
   

Web developers have an in-depth understanding of how users behave on websites and are able to custom-build your site for a seamless visitor experience. They will take care of all of the technical aspects of your site, possibly building from a proven template, and will put measures in place so that you are able to set goals and track your metrics, which is important for monitoring your success and gaining valuable audience insights. Web developers become especially useful when working with ecommerce stores that require advanced set up and a range of functionalities such as optimizing your Shopify storefront. They can link your Shopify site to your CRM systems and connect complex apps to your site that will make the buyer journey more enjoyable for your customer.

Creative Agency (Production Company)

Goal: Design creative digital content to be used on your site, social platforms, paid ads and other marketing platforms

Creative agencies focus on your branding and provide compelling content for your business such as promotional videos, professional photography and a stellar brand identity. 

A creative agency will focus on:

1. Building your brand identity
2. Creating content such as illustrations, images and videos
3. Developing the design elements of your brand
   

Creative agencies l focus on producing creative assets for your marketing and advertising efforts and will guide you through the process of refining your visual branding, creating your advertising content and designing your logo, color palette, typography and brand guides. These agencies will often have an in-house production team to produce you high-quality advertising content, which you can then take to a Paid Ad agency, social media manager or web developer to use on your platforms.

Content Agency

Goal: Create a range of engaging visual and written content for your platforms

Once a business has a general marketing strategy in place, a content agency will step in to manage consistency and quality of your content across your online presence. 

Content agencies can help your business with creating high-converting:

1. Website and blog copy
2. Social media content and ad copy
3. Case studies and reports
4. Email content
   

Your digital content can include a range of assets including images, videos, audio, writing, social media posts, newsletters, white papers, blog articles and website content. High-converting and engaging content delivered in regular intervals is crucial for ecommerce companies that want to filter ongoing traffic to your store. A content agency will either work with a social media agency or independently to generate high-quality content for your platforms and communications. They will examine your brand identity and work with your core goals to create content that will grow your audience, increase your traffic, boost your sales and, ultimately, make you more revenue.

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Paid Ad Agency

Goal: Use paid ads to essentially buy traffic and convert more sales

When it comes to Paid Ads, a specialist agency to guide you through the process is of the utmost importance. Paid ads are, naturally, a direct monetary investment into the growth of your business and can have a fast and highly effective impact on your site traffic and conversion rates, especially in the case of an online store. 

A Paid Ad agency focuses on helping your business in the following ways:

1. Helping select the right platform (Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc.)
2. Targeting the right people
3. Utilizing the most effective ad copy and creative
4. Putting in place the proper tracking and reporting
5. Finding opportunities in the funnel to optimize conversion with A/B testing
6. Ensuring a profitable return on ad spend (ROAS)
7. Providing insightful reporting and interpretation of the data

In simple terms, paid ads can equal exponentially more sales. But the reality is, you need to know what you’re doing otherwise you run the risk of wasting valuable time and, of course, money. 

The art of paid ads has long been lauded as one of the fastest and most reliable ways to increase your bottom line, which is why ecommerce businesses spend billions of dollars a year on their Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, SnapChat and Quora ads. 

LeadSmith Digital Marketing falls into this category. As a fast-growing, professional Paid Ad agency, we focus on making sure that every dollar you spend gets you a 3 to 9 times return.

Our specialist team is versed in every aspect of the field and have a deep understanding of the nuances of each platform, the psychology behind a successful ad and we know exactly how to strategize and implement a high-converting, creative and targeted campaign that is sure to see your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) skyrocket.

We are experts in the latest tools and know exactly how to obtain data and extract useful insights to help you to optimize your campaigns. We ensure that your Paid Ads are targeted to the most suitable audiences and develop ads with copy and creative elements that will resonate with your potential customers. We also focus on the entire funnel, developing a landing page that will boost traffic and convert customers.

A Paid Ad agency like us performs regular testing to make sure that your ads are performing at their highest potential and then extract data to provide reports that will guide us to consistent growth.

To Learn More about how a Paid Ad agency works and the benefits that Paid Ad specialists can offer you, read our article on What Does a Paid Ad Agency Do?

If you have questions about digital marketing agencies, reach out to us and we’d be happy to provide insight and guidance, free of charge.