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Why Digital Marketing Trends May Require You To Hire A Digital Marketing Agency

This article is more than 8 years old.

The digital marketing world is ever fluid, always dynamic and never dull, especially to the ever growing need to grow that CMO constantly faces. This is in part due to the emergence of new trends that are fundamentally changing the way marketers and brands reach out to potential customers. This changing landscape is essentially urging all players to step outside their comfort zone in order to attract high quality leads.

Outside of their comfort zone, traditional digital marketers are faced with a series of challenging tasks. From understanding the need to market across cross-platform devices and channels, to running customer-segmentation based messaging campaigns, these and other digital marketing trends are defining the future of marketing.

While there are plenty of growth hacking techniques available to CMOs and other marketing leaders, it might make sense to rely on an occasional helping hand.

Indeed, to help make sense of marketing trends and to capitalize on what they may mean for your business, consider hiring a third-party digital marketing agency to meet the demands and deadlines of your digital marketing to-do list.

But why would a CMO need to use an external digital marketing agency? The following points should give you some insights.

1. Stay Industry-Relevant

For starters, digital marketing agencies must follow the latest developments across digital marketing trends on a regular basis. It is part of their job description. If certain agencies fail to grasp what is happening, changing or unfolding in their industry, they will cease to be relevant. This is especially important, as current digital trends indicate that effective marketing requires brands to reach their target audience while adopting advanced omnichannel strategies. While your eye is understandably on your company and the product, digital marketing agencies are committed to keeping you abreast of all the latest developments in marketing.

2. Better Industry Storytellers

While your marketing team may be working really hard to promote your product offering, digital marketing agencies are made up of experienced professionals that can provide tangible value in defining and spreading your brand’s appeal across leading industry players. This focus can help bring about real results that can be very beneficial to your company. For instance, if your chosen agency succeeds in creatively generating positive PR about your brand’s ability to meet trend-related demands, this will improve your company’s image and naturally, help you capitalize on many marketing opportunities.

Hank Ostholthoff, the CEO of digital marketing agency Mabbly, agrees. "Unless you have a massive overhead budget, it's almost impossible to hire effectively the skillsets needed to capitalize on many digital marketing opportunities. The capable talent to execute the digital strategies is an inherent part of agency culture, one that needs to be stimulated by daily deep, creative exercises. Also, today in the competitive digital landscape, brands need to limit risk, reduce human resource efforts, and purchase results by an accountable agency."

3. Emphasis On Native Ads Requires Professionalism

Marketers today focus heavily on learning about the inner workings of native advertising. The ability for brands to organically display ads across leading social media channels can have major implications on the customer buying process. This is another consideration for delegating this responsibility to professional digital marketing agencies. After all, determining the placement and distribution plan of action are arduous tasks that often require professional, data-based decision-making and significant experience.

According to Brian Magnosi, owner of Magnosi Web Marketing, native advertising and data-based decision making stand out among significant digital marketing trends. “There has been a fundamental shift in consumer behavior online over the last several years away from things like traditional digitally consumed media such as banner advertisements due to factors such as banner blindness. Native advertising has helped pave the way for more promising returns for marketers by introducing more intuitive and somewhat less obtrusive media that their audiences interact with more naturally, creating a more robust user experience and better ROI for the advertisers.”

4. Shorten The Customer Journey Process Via Programmatic Buying

The notion of programmatic buying, or advertising that “… helps automate the decision-making process of media buying by targeting specific audiences and demographics.” This form of advertising is based on real-time bidding (RTB) across various mobile, online and video platforms. This form of advertising requires highly skillful personnel that are data-driven, as bidding takes into account customer segmentation and specific characteristics. Therefore, outsourcing these tasks to digital marketing agencies can be a smart move.

But how do you pick your ideal digital marketing agency?

With the growth of the digital marketing industry, there has been a rise in the number of reputable agencies. In order to identify the best company for your specific marketing needs, do your research to find out the main specialties and limitations of a number of digital marketing agencies that you find interesting. To shorten this scouting process, ask for warm referrals from colleagues in your industry.

Once you have a shortlist of talented agencies, find out what their specific strategies are, what main industries they cover, what their take is on new digital marketing trends, and of course, examine some of their past success stories. While not an easy task, recruiting a quality digital marketing agency can go a long way in meeting your marketing goals, reducing unnecessary or costly hires, and staying ahead of competitors.

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