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For small firms, is a digital marketing agency worthwhile?
Hello, my best friend and I run an online shoe store, and we were wondering if it would be a good idea to hire a social media manager or marketing firm right now. We were considering whether now is a good time or if we should wait a little longer because we currently have more important things to do than concentrate on expanding our social networks, which are the ones that give us the highest percentage of sales per month.
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1 Reply
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It wouldn’t be a bad idea to concentrate on social media while looking for other strategies to advertise your website if you know that it is currently giving you the most sales. If you want a recommendation, I’d say the guys at Ascend Viral’s organic growth service did a good job on my account.
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Fuck no. Your first hire should be an email marketer. Focus on one traffic source until you hit $1 million a year in revenue. You and your friend should be focused on that traffic source. Any marketing agency is going to eat up all your profits until you get higher
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You say you have more important things to focus on besides expanding social networks, but that’s one of the most important aspects of marketing! Social media isn’t going away and can only be used as an advantage to grow your audience. I would recommend hiring a freelance social media manager because going through an agency you will likely be given way higher rates. I have a degree in marketing and also work in social media content creation and say go ahead and work on your social media marketing and give it a few months to see results because it’s def not just instant results! You can check out UpWork for freelance social media mangers and establish a strategy that will work for you. Fashion is the niche I focus on across all my social media and have experience managing the TikTok account for an influencer agency, so I’d love to help if you need!
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Hey! Recently started a boutique social media agency based out of Hoboken, NJ. Would love to have a chat! @arugamimedia
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This is the right way from small business to a big business
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Without knowing much, it’s hard to say. I’ve worked in a marketing agency. I think you’re money might be better served by doing a smaller engagement with an SEO consultant, or just read as much content put out by AHREFS as you can for a little while.
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I definitely think in-house is better than agency. Someone who is installed within your business will have a much better understanding of your business objectives, your tone of voice and your product/service
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I would love to help give you some insight. I’m a marketing strategist that’s been in the industry for over a decade. Let me know if you want to chat – [email protected]
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I’d always be for adding more marketing through new social media you have yet to try. With the fickle nature of consumers channels that were working go dead.
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I’d say focus on SEO and search ads before focusing on social media too much.
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1. SEO
2. Community
3. Email
4. Social (Influencer)
5. Social (PPC)considering you have yet to build healthy cashflow.
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I have a small marketing agency and social media is our #1 referred business. Some thoughts:
Search and social function for two different consumer behaviors. Search is people who are pretty sure they want to buy your type of product and are looking for the best retailer/price. Social is about building name recognition, why they want to shop with you, and keep existing clients engaged.
Social is pay to play. Yes, if you hop on a newer feature you will see more organic reach at first. The social media platforms want to get you addicted to them and then charge you to see the same kind of reach again. If you don’t have much budget, having someone in-house perform lots of tasks including running ads makes the most sense, since most agencies charge a % of ad spend. I’m the exception and will just run ads and roll it into my retainer or hourly.
Now that I’m busier than ever, I don’t think I want to work with small businesses moving forward. The biggest mistake I see small businesses make is expect marketing to be a magic bullet, when sales trajectory is heavily tied to their business model. If you see 1,000 clicks from your target audience to your site and not many sales, it’s probably barriers like higher prices, unfavorable shipping charges/lead times, or insufficient inventory.
I mention this because if your expectation is that you’ll shoot to the moon in 1-3 months, you will likely be disappointed. Where marketing can help is publishing digital touch points daily so your business stays top of mind with existing customers, run ads/boost posts to get in front of new customers, email out promotions or new in-stock styles, set up an influencer discount/gift program so you can leverage their audience (and use their content for posts too), and track where people are landing and exiting your site in Analytics so you know what is and what isn’t working.
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Talking about the shoe store, it depends upon what you are looking for in specific. For sales or to get awareness first. Because people buy something when they know about it. A simple rule of making sales is to win the trust, otherwise, you must have seen a lot of shoe accounts on multiple social media platforms.
I personally had worked with a couple of clothing and shoe brands n have a good knowledge of this industry. And I focus on organic strategies which mean no need to spend money on ads. If you are interested in it, I would like to have a chat with you about this.
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Social media is but one traffic source. If you’re under 1-2 mil revenue – joint ventures with affiliate or partner traffic is usually a better bang for your buck. Same goes for paid ads (search and social) vs organic social outreach unless you’ve got a real expert doing it.
Just do the math behind it.
Take into account your cost to acquire the client, their average order value and your margins.Paying $100, and selling $100 but operating at 30% margins means you lost $70 in the first go round. If you’re able to get that customer to return, then do the math for lifetime value and see if it’s still worth it. Note that this for EVERY traffic source regardless if it’s SEO, PPC, Social, organic, or paid.
I’m not putting down social as it’s one of my favourite channels, but I wanted to bring some real talk to the table from a marketer and business consultant without the pitch that generally comes alongside it :).
Best of luck to you and your store.
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Let’s be clear, social media is a very small
part of digital marketing and does not directly drive sales. So first, be clear as to what you are trying to achieve by bringing on board an agency. Once you’re clear, it’s easier to pick the right kind of agency to suit both your pocket and purpose.
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