Make no mistake: Businesses need to promote their services or products to stay in the game. No business has ever grown to its full potential without the help of proper digital marketing.

Also, marketing is not what it used to be. Not too long ago, there were very few mediums and methods to promote one’s brand. Today, with the ever-growing internet, marketing is more focused towards masses and has more channels to connect with your potential audience.

How a Digital Marketing Agency Can Help Your Small Business
Online marketing is a vast and complex field, and multifaceted organizations need to be hired to deal with it. These professionals are what we call digital marketing agencies. A digital marketing agency provides modern marketing solutions, including app and website design, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, content creation and other marketing services via video production, email, etc.

But it’s only natural to ask: Are all these marketing methods beneficial and should a small business hire a digital marketing agency? Here’s a brief discussion:

Digital Marketing: Cheap & Effective
While marketing has always been vital to all companies, several years ago it was only confined to the upper echelons of brands. This was because of the high expenses of even the most basic of promotional methods. A small business owner would need to contemplate a decision to post a simple ad in a local paper — an ad that likely would get seen by only a few people in that area.

The situation has changed drastically since the adoption of the internet. Now there are so many tools and platforms to propagate your message that advertising isn’t even an option. Where you previously had to pay a newspaper to publish your ad, you can now create a Facebook or Twitter page for your company and post whenever you want and for free. Many other digital marketing methods can also be used by small business owners if they have the know-how.

However, while certain aspects of online marketing are simple to grasp and implement yourself, many of them are challenging. Thus, for a thorough job, it is best to hire a digital marketing agency. Even though you need to spend more money in this case, the cost-per-lead is cheaper than any traditional method of marketing, and your return on investment is worth it.

Persona Development
If you ask a layman about marketing, they will probably equate it to an advertisement. This is equivalent to calling the tip of an iceberg the entire thing. Research and data collection are a large part of marketing. Knowing your consumers and what appeals to them is a mystery companies annually spend billions to solve. Only once this is understood can an effective marketing strategy be put into place.

Yes, as you would expect, the internet has made such data collection very easy by means of tallying website visits, social media follows, etc. Another great resource is online reviews, which can be read and managed to come up with practical feedback to implement. But to decipher all this data and present it in a usable form is something only an experienced digital marketing agency can do.

Thus, for a small business looking to improve from the ground up, a digital marketing agency can help facilitate the process and set the course the company will take for years to come.

Brand Building
Imagine you have two tennis shoes placed in front of you. Both look and feel precisely the same. However, while one has no logo on it, the other one has the iconic Air Jordan mark on it. If you were told to pick one for yourself, chances are you would likely pick the Air Jordan shoe. This simple example illustrates branding and its importance in the marketplace. All small businesses hope to one day gain mass brand loyalty, such as those companies like Apple have.

While that task may seem too steep to achieve, remember that all brands started somewhere. Besides, with all the resources available today, building a brand is half of what it used to be. Digital marketing agencies can significantly expedite the process. Digital agencies not only market your brand but also help it improve, adapt to the expectations and grow. With the solid foundation laid by these companies, your business could soon be on its way to becoming a household name.

The Online World
The logic for hiring a digital marketing agency extends beyond cost. The fact is, traditional marketing is all but obsolete. The number of people who read newspapers or listen to the radio is dwindling quickly. The number of people who watch cable TV is also diminishing. All these are getting replaced by online counterparts, such as streaming services (like Netflix), social media, podcasts, etc. So even if a business were to try traditional marketing today, it would fail to reach the masses now on the internet.

But also it’s important in business to vary in market trends and keep a close eye on the competition. If the rival companies in your field are using online marketing and you are only sticking to conventional methods, you are going to fall way behind. How can you expect to compete? Digital marketing agencies can adapt using examples from your rivals, explore their weaknesses and help your company find its niche in what is a crowded marketplace today. Without such help, your business will never be able to sieve its way through the competition.

Most small businesses prefer digital marketing over conventional methods, and 95% of them will increase their spending on it in 2019. Indeed, online marketing is the undeniable future, and digital marketing agencies are the experts of that field. Those who wish to lead a successful and sustainable business in this day and age will eventually find themselves needing the assistance of these companies. In most cases, the sooner that assistance comes, the better.