Digital Marketing Agencies vs Freelancers
Image by DCStudio on Freepik Media Production Home Brand Marketing Marketing Search Engine Optimization Email Marketing Websites Digital Marketing X Digital Marketing Agencies vs Freelancers Choosing Between Marketing Agencies And Freelancers It’s a heated tug of war between the two, and it’s become a big question for general businesses that seek to hire marketing services, should I hire an agency and pay the heightened prices or just hire a freelancer? Well, that’s what I want to help you with. In this article I’m going to break down the pros and cons of hiring either a marketing agency or a freelancer. The big difference between a marketing agency and a freelancer is nothing more their pricing structure. The prices of an agency come with accountability, assurance, and security, but a freelancer is more flexible in terms of prices but does not come with the accountability of an entire business. A business cannot disappear into nowhere, but a freelancer can. An Agency has staff to pay, premises, taxes, etc and you always know where to find them. Hiring a freelancer is more safer when done through an agency that hosts and provides service seekers with freelancers, who then add a markup on their system. Which means though the freelancer may come at an affordable rate, the agency that hosts the freelancer will add a service fee, and usually these service fees are found in the rates you would pay the freelancer. But if you opt to cut out the middle-man and hire freelancers randomly, then you have a bigger risk of losing your investment without any form of accountability. Ultimately, agencies are trustworthy because they are actual businesses, with traceable record, service history, and references. Whether you are hiring a marketing agency or hiring a freelancer, you’d still need the security that comes with an agency. Advantages Of Marketing Agencies They work faster because they are a team working systematically, each team member playing a separate role. You should expect quicker turnaround times with a marketing agency than with a freelancer (at least most of the time). Marketing Agencies offer value for money, meaning they hire experts and qualified practitioners and are able to hire freelancers on a collaboration basis. So you are sure to expect expert services from a Marketing Agency. You can hire a marketing agency locally and work on a hybrid setup. With a marketing agency you are able to select from a pool of available agencies in your local area that you are able to easily drive to and have regular meetings. Interaction always gives you a clearer idea of what to expect from the people you are hiring. Marketing agencies provide reporting, for example, time stamps, performance data, etc, the reason they are able to do this is that they host a team, each playing a separate role, and each is expected to account for their work and as a result they perform well with high goals to meet. Disadvantages Of A Marketing Agency Marketing Agencies come at a high cost. Service prices are high, and what makes this a disadvantage is that they have very little choice in changing this due to the running of their business. A business has more costs than an individual freelancer, employees to pay, rentals, etc. Marketing agencies are not as bendable as individual freelancers in terms of their policies and rules. It’s much easier to work with a freelancer if you are someone who is particular with how things must be done. Some marketing agencies may come with rigid policies and place more value-added cost on changing their policies. Some of these policies are subject to the constitution of the country in which the marketing agency is operating and may not be able to assist you differently Advantages Of A Freelancer A freelancer can be a specialist of anything, especially someone who is not hosted by a freelance agency, so you have more like an errand master. Freelancers are usually multiskilled and can assist in many ways at low cost. As mentioned, freelancers can be much more affordable than marketing agencies and this is an advantage when you find a reliable freelancer. Previous Post How Can We Assist You? Give Us A Call
Does Paid Advertising Work In South Africa?
Media Production Home Brand Marketing Marketing Search Engine Optimization Email Marketing Websites Digital Marketing X Can Paid Advertising Scale My Business In South Africa 2023? Does Paid Advertising Work In South Africa? Over the 8 years I’ve provided marketing and advertising services to businesses of different sizes in South Africa, and over this period I’ve recorded many incidents whereby business owners and budget teams come to me with a very discouraged perspective to paid advertising. They practically reach livid stages having invested thousands to hundreds of thousands into paid advertising with minimal ROI. Because of this, they lose trust or confidence in online advertising, which is even more costly. In this article, you will learn what are the things you need to look out for when hiring an advertising agency to manage your paid advertising. A lot of the companies I’ve worked with skipped very important stages of the hiring process before signing advertising deals with agencies, as a result, they lost fortunes to search engines and social media platforms without any sustainable publicity or traceable ROI. Online advertising works, there is no doubt about it! As a business owner you have to fix your mind on this fact, that most of your prospective, I mean over 70% of your new customers are online and they estimate remains constant. No matter how much you sell, you still have a massive chunk of sales that are not yet closed. This is not speculative, it’s actually statistical, in 2022, post the covid pandemic, more than 2 thirds of the world’s population is adapted to processing things online, whether it’s applying for permits, shopping for clothing, or groceries, the internet is the go-to place to get things done in the most convenient manner. So, no matter what the experience you’ve had with advertising agencies, the fact still remains, online advertising is the best option for advertising. So what’s wrong then? Why is it with so much money put to it, I still don’t make any sales? The answer is very simple, and I’ll be very blunt about it, the person/agency you hire to manage your advertising will determine the outcome. If you hire well, you sell well. With the explosion of digital marketing, many people have become freelancers and others have started marketing agencies, even the unskilled and unlearned have the courage to sell marketing and advertising services online. It’s not yet established what the proper way is to find an authentic marketing agency because all this may be fairly new at this stage, so I don’t blame businesses for hiring incorrectly. So, here goes: 1. Contactable References If there is someone who cannot lie to you it’s my previous customers. An unhappy customer will always have very few mutters concerning our services. The confidence of what my previous customer is saying about our services is what you look out for. Also listen for authenticity, in as much as unhappy customer having very little to say, fake reviews are full of it. One of the identifiers for fake or solicited feedback is a lot of good statements. Authentic positive feedback is usually highlights of a main KPI that has made them happy. 2. Request data for previous work. I’ve always believed in providing my prospective with data, but at the same time, I’m very protective of my existing clients. I wouldn’t want to give out my client’s data to a stranger, neither to a competitor who could possibly be phishing for information. So as you request for previous work, understand that an advertising agency can only provide you with pictorial data of the work they’ve done and this is private and confidential information. That being said, its important to know when to ask for the data, you must be happy with all other publicly available verifiers before requesting for sensitive information, because at this stage you are happy with the agency, and you are almost hiring them. This way, the agency is allowed to give you NDAs to sign for the disclosure of this information. 3. Verify certification. This is a very reasonable proof of capability and capacity to deliver results. Someone doing the work in the organization must be trained and certified for the work. With free certifications available on various platforms, it’s a clear sign of lack of enthusiasm and excellence to find an agency with workers that are not certified and trained for the job. So, to know that this agency is passionate about what they are offering there must be eagerness to learn. 4. Request for goal-oriented strategy. This is very important, find out what strategy they are selling you. There is absolutely no ways that I can price a service if I cannot explain what I will be doing and what you should expect out of it. DO NOT GO FOR THE CHEAPEST, go for the most profitable, and how do you know this is profitable? It’s strategy! A marketing agency sells strategy more than anything else, if that is not the case with the agency you are hiring then you in for un-predictable results. How Can We Assist You? Give Us A Call
How To Find A Good Digital Marketing Agency In South Africa
Image by DCStudio on Freepik Media Production Home Brand Marketing Marketing Search Engine Optimization Email Marketing Websites Digital Marketing X Finding A Good Digital Marketing Agency Digital Marketing Agency Sourcing Process Sourcing a reliable marketing agency should never be a daunting task, but with the swarm of freelancers and agencies in 2022, it requires extra scrutiny, extra valuation, and clear goals with accountability attached to it. But how do you achieve this before investing large amounts of money into it? How do you source and verify a legit marketing agency in 2022? I’m excited to be answering these questions in this article. Between 2021/2022 alone, I’ve come across over 4 major prospective clients who would naturally fall in love with our work, and our presentations, and though they have all their pre-hiring questions answered, they still remained skeptical, as though some important question is not answered, well, maybe not even asked. When we did further probing, we discovered that immediately before the client sought for a service provider, or immediately before the client found us, they had been offered the same services by another agency, with the same requirements but with a bad experience, outcome, and a loss of investment. This is the question the client does not realize they have, and they do not know how to ask, “…how do we know your marketing agency will not do what the previous one did?” 1. Look For Mastery How To Look For Mastery – Ask For Referrals In the good old days, presentations were everything when pitching for a project, marketing agencies would invest the most (time, accountants, money, expertise, etc) into the presentation and a little less into the delivery of the actual services, the reason is that they were authentic, agencies would provide their services and would work from their mastery. They did not promise more than they could deliver, and they mostly delivered more than they would have promised, and the simple reason is that they invested a lot in mastering their craft prior to offering their services. When we come across this question, particularly with clients that have had a terrible experience, we’ve understood that the client is not looking for another presentation, but rather referrals, legit referrals that have been prepared to provide a relevant testimony concerning our services. Prepared I’m not implying soliciting positive reviews, but rather after providing excellent services, we then indirectly train our happy clients on what KPIs they can touch on when giving us a review or a response to a referral. You can read a snippet of this article, on “How To Prepare Your Satisfied Clients For A Great Review” or hit this link to purchase the full article. How To Look For Mastery – Data Analytics Skills Before the explosion of the internet, companies would pitch for projects from the level of resources they already had and were able to easily account for their work, and this made the part of convincing prospective clients the only remaining hard work. It’s a lot different in this current business generation, most of these services can be offered by anyone, even individuals without any skill, experience, or acumen. The best way to identify an expert is by listening to the detail of their critic, listening to their recommendations, and most importantly, looking out for facts and data. It’s a huge risk to take on a service provider who does not have the ability to harness data. Data is what accurately tells a professional what the current position of your business is, and without this information there is absolutely no way that he/she can offer any productive recommendations. Having been in this field for almost 8 years, I know that agencies have their secret strategies, and they don’t want to lose that to anyone, which is true to our practice. Based on this fact, agencies will then hide behind the notion of not giving out their marketing strategies, this way they fell they don’t have to provide any basic report or interpretation of the available data. It’s important that you insist on getting even if it’s a summary of what they are able to retrieve concerning their market status. How To Look For Mastery – Distinguish Between Presentation And Results The digital marketing space is swarmed with freelancers and agencies that are not able to deliver most of what they promise, but they have presentations that promise they are. The internet, the worldwide web, social media, search engines, these are platforms that provide us with tools that can easily distort a client’s ability to discern authentic service providers from novices. Beautiful readymade artistic presentations (templates), editing software that requires almost no skill or training at all (Canva, Photoshop 2022, etc.), copy writer software, and the likes. Many agencies and freelancer are using these tools to create presentations that are better than what they really are and what they are really able to deliver. YouTube is another platform that provides novices with basic knowledge of the craft, and this is what convinces some of the novices that they can actually start selling the services. So it’s very important that you are able to discern or distinguish between a good presentation and an ability to deliver results. This is very easy when you are intentionally and consciously do it. Always ask the client for campaign goals and objectives, what do they at the least guarantee to deliver. As an agency we can set our goals high and this is absolutely fine, but it’s also important that we are realistic and transparent with our clients, and this is what you should observe in a freelancer or a marketing agency. A professional should be able to explicitly tell you that your expectations are possible but it will take a little more investment, usually desperate service providers will take anything you offer as a client for the expectations you are looking for, but because of expertise and experience,
Does SMS Marketing Really Work?
Does SMS Marketing Really Work? SMS Marketing remains among the most effective methods for creating new as well as maintaining existing relationships with your customers. SMS Marketing is a perfect choice for brand strategy. By maintaining a connection with your customers through follow up messages will ultimately engrave your promise and your new products in their minds. Contact A Consultant Our Services Home Brand Marketing Marketing Email Marketing Bulk SMS Marketing Websites Business Guide Home Brand Marketing Marketing Email Marketing Bulk SMS Marketing Websites Business Guide Does SMS Marketing Really Work? My expert answer is, absolutely YES! There is not a chance that your brand can easily be forgotten when you show your customers some extra care. On the parallel side, there is always an increase in sales when you inform your existing customers of your new products and promos. This can be done through SMS Marketing. Most business owners are skeptical about SMS Marketing, and a common reasons is that they’ve been customers elsewhere and have had bad experiences with often too many messages coming through too many times in a short space of time. The thought of putting their own customers through that experience has a negative expectation. Honestly, I cannot agree with them more. It can get really annoying to get too many SMS messages from the same source with the same intention. SMS Marketing has lost some credibility due to this type of implementation. There are strategies that actually do work and obtain the best results. Let’s talk a little about that. An Ideal Method For Product SMS Marketing If you are selling products, and you are producing new products frequently, you probably want to setup an option that allows you to update your existing customers concerning each new product. That’s absolutely okay. But do your customers courtesy, show them that you care about them more than you do about getting your products to them, this is what creates a personal connection between your brand and your customers. You certainly do want to get your products out there, but how do you do it in such a way that you still maintain that connection with your customers? Give your existing customers subscription options, this is usually done using email settings. It’s not a good idea to send your general mailing list products update emails, you’d rather give them the option to opt in. Here are 4 steps to follow when establishing a SMS Marketing system for product updates: Create an exciting email template that makes anyone want to know about your new products. Apply color psychology and make it more enticing. Add some incentives, especially for referrals. Create offers that are only for these specific subscribers. With the above in order, create a perfectly put together copy and send this email to your general mailing list. Your general mailing list should opt in for products updates, they should not automatically receive product updates. Finally, for the customers that have opted in, create a schedule that allows them to forget about each SMS before sending another one. Psychologically, this allows each product to settle in their sub-conscious minds; this will also reduce the amount of annoyance they would normally get with frequent messaging. You get to see how super effective SMS Marketing still is when it is implemented correctly. Its rather unfortunate that many abusive implementations have created a bad reputation for SMS Marketing. However, with proper care for customers, and well communicated intentions, customers begin to regain their confidence in getting information through SMSs. SMS Marketing Strategy For Service Providers It’s more difficult for service providers to create SMS Marketing strategies or SMS campaigns that still get the needed attention of their customers. If you are a service provider, it’s very important that you hire an expert service provider, who understand the psychology as well. There are a number of elements to consider when putting together a strategy for SMS Marketing, and one of the major elements is knowing your customers. Getting to know your customers, both new and existing customers, is very important. The effort you put into it and how you go about it can make your customers feel important and wanted, this begins the process of creating an emotional connection with your customers. Whether as an agency or as a business owner, it’s very important to invest resources towards knowing your customers, what type of market are you servicing, what is their response to technology, their demographics, such as age groups that are dominant, ethic groups, and many other very important data. It’s also important that you do a marketing research for your services. If your services are not so much needed in a certain geographical area then you’d want to tailor your SMS campaigns for educational purposes. It’s also very important that you maintain a moderate amount of Marekting SMS messages a week, this reduces the amount of annoyance among your clients and prospective. This article is for the purpose of basic information and expertise, I have, however, reserved strategies that we implement to achieve excellent results for our clients. You can reach out to us here to book a consultation with me, Stephen Mahanaim. I’d be very happy to help your business build a connect with it’s customers. Read More Articles
