10 Things to keep in mind before choosing your digital marketing agency.

When it comes to digital marketing in gurgaon in the current context, the first thing that comes to mind for most of the business owners is : sure , why not, i think we are ready for it and let’s go for it. Acceptance for digital marketing has increased multiple folds within the business community. While most of them have accepted it, some have tried and tested it with little success, some are leveraging the medium very well and some of them are still stuck with the big question mark: should i go ahead and risk my investment with a new medium ? If you are in the last category, i would request you to please go through my last article on the need of digital marketing in the current context.

Table of Content

1. First and foremost, Make it very apparent in your mind, what is the business objective at hand currently 2. Develop a clear understanding of what goals the different marketing channels may achieve for you and in what time frame 3. Digital marketing is a holistic affair, what should be your digital strategy 4. Creation of mental timeframes and financial comfort zones are very important 5. The Search, the enquiry and the outreach 6. Approach is the king 7. Outcomes and testimonials do speak for themselves 8. Willingness of the company to work in sync with your expectations 9. The world of KPIs 10. The right marriage of expectation setting and the initial grind If everything is settled, let’s move on with the next task at hand: how to choose your digital marketing agency in gurgaon? The primary question that comes to our mind generally is about our lack of expertise in the field and absence of important criteria to decide which digital marketing company in gurgaon is good for us. WIth this article, we would go step by step to highlight things to be kept in mind before choosing your digital marketing company.

First and foremost, Make it very apparent in your mind, what is the business objective at hand currently

The most important thing that should be sorted out first would be, what are my current business objectives and which one of them am I willing to take digital. The bigger motivation of any business is to grow its topline and bottom line, but at the starting point, we need to sort out the KPIs first. Do i need to acquire more customers, do i need to roll out new products or services in the market, do i need to launch a new innovation in the market or do i just need to increase my outreach and establish my brand? There could be multiple objectives linked with our digital marketing expectations, we need to prioritize them and then start creating a business plan around the same. One needs to chalk out their business expectations at least for the next 18 months and should have a conservative outlook on major outcome KPIs. It’s always smarter to set the bar low initially and keep scaling with experience. Just like mutual funds and the stock market, patience and perseverance pay dividends in digital marketing as well. Setting wrong expectations in digital marketing may lead to a short journey in your digital marketing extravaganza.

Develop a clear understanding of what goals the different marketing channels may achieve for you and in what time frame

Now as we are settled with the expectations and the objectives part, it is very important to understand the power game of the different social media channels and how they could benefit you over a period of time. Current status of your business, general digital trends for your industry, the demographics and interests of the targeted customer, alignment of industry with the persona of the social media channel and the sales funnel coverage of the social media channel; a clear understanding on all these factors to be developed before deciding the digital marketing channels as a part of your digital marketing strategy. Let’s discuss it through two small cases. If the business utility of the industry in digital space is very well proven and there is significant organic search volume on various search engines, then your digital strategy should be created around Search Engine Optimization, Online Reputation Management, youtube marketing and Search Ads. If the business utility of the industry is in the growing phase and most of the users are passive search wise, the digital strategy to be deployed should increase our outreach to all social media channels where our targeted customer audience is present; the channels for the same would be facebook marketing, instagram marketing, display ads, social media ads, email marketing and messenger marketing. While social media handles could be used for generating business and brand both, the tipping point and effectiveness of social media channels remain different. A credible digital marketing agency in gurgaon would run you through this process for all the social media channels so that it may help you understand the nitty gritty of the functioning of the complete system before you even start thinking about your digital strategy

Digital marketing is a holistic affair, what should be your digital strategy

The best way to get optimum outcomes from your digital marketing in gurgaon is by focussing on the same brand meaning and communications across all the channels. A multi-channel strategy is essential to create a powerful sales funnel activation for both active and passive users. While the brand meaning should remain the same, the communication pillars may change as per the persona most attracted by the social media channel. To chart a simple consumer behaviour, let’s assume that the consumer came across your brand through your brand page or a social media ad. He liked the offering and decided that he needed the offering. At this stage, he may do two things, either he may search more about your brand or directly go to a search engine and look for the product category in a defined geographical area. If he is searching for your brand and observes a very strong digital presence across multiple organic and inorganic channels, then his intention to buy your product increases. Let’s look into the second case, where a “want” for the category was induced and the customer started searching for the brand on a search engine. If he could see your brand featured in the search engine ranking positions, his trust and belief in the brand would increase multifold which would lead to increased intention to buy. As we observe in both the cases, presence on multiple channels ensured higher intention to buy for the consumer. Thus it is very important for a business owner to focus on multiple channel marketing strategy to ensure better outcomes.

The creation of mental timeframes and financial comfort zones are very important

As we have already discussed above in this article, digital marketing may take some time to start showing outcomes. Some channels start showing results faster but no assets are getting created in that scenario. Some channels take time to start showing outcomes but they have an ever improving return on investment. Again, the size of investment needed, either activity based or promotional , depends on the channel in use. Every channel, as mentioned before, has a tipping effect and does generally have some activity or investment threshold before it starts giving optimum outcomes. Inorganic channels, local channels, push based marketing channels etc may start getting business traffic immediately depending on the value at offer and the relevance of the target audience. So,depending upon our objectives, we need to create mental timeframes and financial comfort zones to allow our digital marketing to perform, such that we could create the perfect digital marketing mix for our business. Commitment of time and money is crucial to the performance of your digital marketing strategy. Digital consultants and social media marketing companies in gurgaon really do spend significant time and efforts to ensure that their clients do understand the importance of these comfort zones and commit to a long term strategy, rather than a small term investment.

The Search, the enquiry and the outreach

The objectives are set, the channels are set, the strategy is set and the expectations are set: Now, what next. We are ready to start looking for our digital marketing company in gurgaon. The first thing that you need to do is to start looking out for options and referrals for a digital marketing company. First thing first, do reach out to your peers and business colleagues for any reference; they may refer some of the digital marketing companies in gurgaon they have worked with. You may also look for more options on social media platforms and search engines. As it’s a very important activity, you need to create a decent pool of companies which you could evaluate as per your requirements. While the world is going digital and there is no need for a look out for a local company, if you are more comfortable with that proposition you may look out for the best digital marketing companies in gurgaon. While the norms of digital marketing remain the same, you may also look out for experienced providers for your industry. Once the shortlisting is done, now you need a checklist to evaluate the options in hand.

Fair playing ground for effective reach

The most beautiful thing about social media is that it provides a fair playing ground for everybody. If you are in an industry where there is no significant digital acceptance, then, in that case, it is completely up to you, how do you want to work on this digital landscape and create an identification of your own. If you are working in an industry where significant offline and online acceptance has been created and leveraged well by the existing brands, then in that scenario, your entry is not limited by their first-mover advantage, especially in the digital landscape. Ofcourse , it takes time to create digital assets and there is a value of time for these digital assets as well but at the same time, your entry gets the leverage of the active user base familiarity with the industry; especially if you are entering an ecommerce industry and do try to leverage presence on prominent marketplaces. If we talk about the passive user base, especially the ones on various social media platforms, the outcomes get reflected in the profoundness of the targeting and the value you indicate to the target audience. If you know your audience, if you reach out to them and they like your offering,  even the presence of legacy brands and their experience in the ecosystem does not limit the performance of your brand. If you are not sure about your current industry user base behavior, you may consult digital marketing companies in Gurgaon, who would help you with the right advice on consumer behavior and their buying pattern in your industry.

Easy coverage for the complete sales funnel

One of the most endearing facts about digital marketing channels is that here you know your customer and its customer behavior. For effective and efficient marketing, it is very important for us to understand what is the current phase of the customer on the sales funnel. Is it in the awareness phase? Is he/she considering some options and evaluating them? have they already shortlisted a few options and are comparing them? or whether they have already chosen a brand and now looking for quality and price efficient vendors for the same? Knowing the current phase of the customer on the sales funnel would allow us to target them differently with different value propositions so that they could move easily in the sales funnel. While a holistic strategy to use different digital channels to target different phases could be created, the most ideal strategy is to create a sales funnel strategy separately for each channel; remarketing and automation really helps to achieve the objective at hand. Your digital footprints, especially your social media channels, your websites and your affiliate presence, should have tools to track the customer journey. Once you are able to track the customer journey, you would be able to retarget your audience with custom communications and offers that would help to maximize your marketing outcomes. Automation and remarketing not only ensures that your lead conversion and engagement rates are increased but also helps in creating brand resonance and stronger brand meaning for your company. You need to reach out to social media marketing companies in Gurgaon, who have expertise in building these strategies especially related to automation and remarketing in your industry. Personal Marketing and Remarketing in multiple industries are limited as per social media platforms guidelines. You need to have a clear understanding of these guidelines before starting to invest time and money on both.

Going global: International, national and local spread with digital

Would it not be fantastic, if our scale up story does not follow a traditional route. With retail and offline marketing , geographical scale up is limited by the ability to invest into infrastructure which is mandatory to scale up operations in multiple geographies. Not only this, the risk is not only financial; a significant amount of research time and resources is needed to test a new market for your brand offerings. With digital, going global is no longer impossible, even for a new brand in the market. While the outreach is not limited by geography barriers , the specificity of the target audience at interests level and demographic level, make the complete marketing very cost effective. With the growth of third party logistics, your customers have come very close to you. While the geographical boundaries are shrinking, it does not mean that digital marketing is not effective in the local markets. Digital marketing for the local businesses is one of the most sought after digital marketing services, as the competition is becoming more fierce in a localized market. Whether you want to make a business model hyperlocal or you want to leverage economies of scale, digital marketing companies in Gurgaon through their multiple channels and strategies make it possible for you.

The need to beat the competitor

The biggest objective for any business is to stay ahead in the game in comparison to your competitors. While as a business, you need to work internally to ensure a competitive offering and alluring USPs, it is very important to communicate the sustainable core proposition to the masses across multiple channels. Every business is looking for new channels to market their business and if your competitor is already leveraging the digital channels, it’s time for you to be present in the digital arena to represent a strong digital branding. Again , if we look at it from the utility perspective, different personas in the digital space, choose a brand in an industry only for its specific attributes and value propositions. We may target different user personas with different communications powered through different value propositions and stand a chance to be chosen way ahead of our competitors.

Working on the Customer Lifetime Value

Now we are going to discuss the most important point for any business: The ability to evoke customer loyalty into your current base of customers. This loyalty is measured through two major KPIs for a business, retention number and customer lifetime value. While retention refers to returning buyers, Customer lifetime value refers to the buying frequency and the customer basket value of different customer personas. Every business should focus on maximizing outcomes on both these important KPIs to grow their business profitability. Not only your current customers become your retained users but they also become the centre of business referral and word of mouth, which over a period of time becomes the most important source of business for any business across the globe. Digital comes across as one of the most powerful channels to evoke customer loyalty in your current customers. With targeted and automated notifications through different channels, we ensure repeat buy or subscription with our customers. A loyalty program could be completed automated depending upon their last interaction with the brand on social media or digital assets. Newsletter, offers updates and customer relationship management automation ensures a periodic connection with the customer and helps in optimizing their interactions with the brand both directly or through referrals. Wallets and referral benefits also induce periodic usage of the facilities of the brands. A smart customer relationship management plan really creates a powerful ecosystem to ensure ever-improving profitability from the same pool of retained customers. Special focus on customer relationship management and loyalty programs should be provided and regular monitoring of customer lifetime value and retained users to be done. This comes across as a very specialized skill and some of the prominent digital marketing agencies in Gurgaon would be able to support you with a strategy.

Take Away

In this article, we have covered all the major reasons why a business should use digital as a new and potent channel for marketing. Not only it provides you a new business channel but helps build strong branding and outreach in the local, national and international markets. It helps you stand out with regards to your competitors and create a customer lifetime value like never before. The story that your brand tells in the digital arena resonates strongly amongst your target customers and makes the business outreach easier and effective for you.