Most businesses can benefit from some sort of online presence. Ranging from sassy social media posts to economical e-commerce sites, the internet has limitless possibilities for your business. But you already know that, or you wouldn’t be here. You’ve realized that you’re not taking full advantage of the opportunities to grow your business digitally, and you’re looking for guidance about how to take those next steps. It can be a messy, muddled field to try to wade through, but look no further: Here at Beanstalk, we’re happy to answer all of your questions about digital marketing in St. Louis.
You can poke around the rest of our site to learn more about our work as a digital marketing agency in St. Louis, so we won’t go too much into our own credentials here. Just know that we’re confident in our ability to check every box on this list, and we’re a great option if you get to the bottom of this piece and realize your current digital marketing company doesn’t quite cut it.
The Why
Before we even get into all the criteria you should use to vet a digital marketing agency in STL, let’s explore why you would want to go through that process in the first place. Maybe you think you can do digital marketing in St. Louis yourself, or you’re leaning toward hiring an internal team to handle all your digital marketing needs. Those solutions might sound good at first, but read on for all the things a digital marketing agency in St. Louis can do for you that sets them apart.
Time
Like we said, it’s important in this day and age to have a robust online presence for your business, and you’re probably already aware of that and working on it to some extent. But have you ever thought about how much better you could be spending your time? Unless you, too, are a digital marketing agency in STL, you’re probably not an expert in the field, and you have other expertise. Consider all the other things you could be spending your time on if you got a team of experts to run your digital marketing for you.
There’s also the option of hiring your own internal team of digital marketers, but that will include finding them, training them, and managing them, which is no small task. A digital marketing agency in St. Louis can prevent all those headaches, and it might be cheaper in the long run.
Tools
Digital marketing campaigns require a lot of specialized tools. These often come with a hefty subscription fee that might be a tough pill to swallow for you on your own, but a good digital marketing agency in St. Louis will have access to all the top-of-the-line tools from the jump. That’s another reason why hiring a digital marketing agency in STL can be more cost-effective than hiring an internal team — not only are you avoiding salaries, benefits, and payroll taxes, but you also don’t have to pay for the tools yourself.
Even if you did go ahead and drop a pretty penny on all the best digital marketing tools, you wouldn’t know how to best utilize all those shiny services right away. A digital marketing agency in St. Louis would have you covered there.
Flexibility
The right agreement with the right digital marketing agency in STL will provide you with the perfect level of flexibility for your business. Hopefully, the agency’s efforts will be so effective that you’ll eventually want them to scale up the campaigns, and they’ll be able to do that. If you’re relying on an in-house team, however, you might not have the resources to beef up your efforts at any given time.
The other part of flexibility is shifting strategies based on results. Digital marketing in St. Louis is an ever-evolving field, and you need a flexible partner who can identify when something’s not working.
Insight
Sometimes an outside perspective can work wonders for your business. A digital marketing agency in St. Louis can offer important insight about best practices for your specific area, and they’ll offer that insight on a recurring basis. You’ll get periodic reports from them about how the campaigns they’re running for you are doing, and that will help them refine their efforts on a rolling basis. You’ll get to see how they’re using their resources and what kind of returns you’re seeing, as well. Keep in mind that you’re probably not going to get this level of insight if you try to go it alone.
What’s more is that the digital marketing world moves quickly, and it might be too big a drain on your time to try to keep up with best practices as algorithms get updated and new platforms gain prominence. A digital marketing agency in STL would take care of that completely.
Effectiveness
In many circumstances, a digital marketing agency in St. Louis can manage your budget more effectively than you could yourself. Since that’s one of their main focuses and potentially just a side project to you, it makes sense that an agency could do it better. This point combines a lot of the other ones, which makes it a good one to end on — with all of their insight, tools, flexibility, and focus, agencies can get a better result with your ad budget, which makes looking into them a no brainer.
The How
Now that you’re completely sold on hiring a digital marketing agency in St. Louis (we hope), you need some tips on what to look for. Digital marketing in St. Louis can seem like a crowded field, but there are some warning signs to look out for that can help you narrow down your options. Read on for the criteria to keep in mind.
Credibility
First, you’ll want to do your due diligence about any digital marketing agency in STL that you’re looking at. Are they reputable? Have they won any prestigious awards? Do they have good reviews and rankings? Obviously these are not the be-all-end-all when it comes to determining whether a company is worth doing business with, but they’re good places to start.
Once you’ve contacted them, be wary of overpromising. If the agency promises you the world for a shoestring budget, it’s probably not going to work out. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have aggressive goals or to be confident in their techniques, but do be at least a tad skeptical if the digital marketing agency in St. Louis is acting like any of their stretch goals are guarantees. They should be totally upfront with you about how realistic their goals are.
Can they cater to you?
You’ll also want to really examine your own needs before you contact a digital marketing agency in St. Louis. It’s important to know the size of the services you’re interested in. If you want a digital marketing agency in STL to run a big show for you with the whole works, that’s not going to come cheap. And conversely, if you only want one small service, well, it might not be worth the agency’s time. Do your own research first and then look for agencies that are the right size for you.
Different agencies also specialize in different aspects of digital marketing, so be clear on what your priorities are for a digital marketing agency in St. Louis. Many offer a wide variety of services but only specialize in a few key areas, so don’t lose sight of what’s important to you. A digital marketing agency in St. Louis can also help you figure out what your priorities should be and can show you where their specialties and your specific needs intersect.
Knowledge
You want to make sure you’re dealing with a company that knows what they’re doing and is committed to staying up to date on all the best digital marketing practices. It might be hard to ask the right questions here if you’re not in the know, but just listen to how they describe their work, and if you need any clarification on terms, they should be happy to explain. We’re sure you want to understand what your money is going toward, and a good digital marketing agency in STL will be happy to break it down for you. However, it’s also a good idea to go into meetings having done a little baseline research so you have a place to start.
You’ll also want to ask questions about the work they’ve done for other companies. They might be able to show you case studies of their previous work, or that might be confidential, but it’s worth asking about. A digital marketing agency in STL should be able to talk generally and vaguely about the work they’ve done in the past at the very least, and if they won’t even go there, that’s a potential red flag. If, on the other hand, they can show you good results they’ve gotten in the past, that’s a good sign that it’s an effective digital marketing agency in St. Louis.
Presentation
We all know the old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that isn’t completely true of digital marketing in St. Louis. You should do at least a little judging by the look of the company’s online presence.
Does the digital marketing agency in STL have a really slick blog with awesome, helpful posts like this one? (At least, we hope you consider this a really awesome, helpful post). Or is their site pretty lackluster, riddled with errors, and nothing but a mess? It’s pretty obvious, but if a digital marketing agency in St. Louis is not marketing themselves very well, chances are they won’t market you very well, either.
You don’t have to be super snobby about it, but you should definitely peruse their site and see what’s up. Take note of what information is included and what tidbits are missing. Glance at their social media accounts, if they have them (and they should). If it looks appealing, the agency might be worth reaching out to. And if not, there’s no shame in narrowing down your list.
Communication
Making sure you and the digital marketing agency in STL you want to hire are on the same page is a crucial step to determining which company to go with. This point goes along with several others we’ve already mentioned, but it deserves its own section, too. If the company can’t satisfactorily explain what they want to do with your digital marketing, it’s probably not a good fit for you.
This is also a good place to highlight the specific benefits of hiring a local digital marketing agency. A company that understands your location is a great asset, and they can provide you with specialized service a big, faraway firm just couldn’t. Face-to-face meetings (or perhaps mask-to-mask meetings in this day and age) can be incredibly helpful, and that’s a lot more feasible when you and your digital marketing agency live in the same city. All this makes local digital marketing in St. Louis a great option for your business.
Conclusion
Digital marketing in St. Louis can be a great tool to add to your business-growing toolkit. The benefits are wide-ranging — hiring an agency can be a cost-effective and flexible way to provide greater insight into the process. You’ll get access to the best tools on the market, and you won’t spend your valuable time getting into the weeds on the specifics of campaigns day-to-day. All this can mean your digital advertising budget is being used more effectively.
Once you’ve decided you’re going to hire a digital marketing agency in St. Louis, you’ve got to pay attention to a few key elements to make sure you’re choosing the right firm for you. Can they answer all the questions you ask satisfactorily? Are they the size you need? Do they specialize in an area you’re interested in? Do they have a proven track record? These are all questions you should address.
If you’re struggling to find a digital marketing agency in STL that embodies all of these characteristics, you don’t have to look any further. At Beanstalk, we strive to excel in all of these areas and more. We would be thrilled to come up with a digital marketing plan tailored to your needs — contact us today to get started.