Digital Marketing Client FAQs

Marketers hear it all, seriously. No matter how random or off-topic you think your question might sound, we’ve likely heard it before. And if we haven’t, we will probably congratulate you before answering your question as well as possible. We have compiled a list of 10 common questions clients ask digital marketers and answered them below in hopes of helping to clear up any confusion.

Is digital marketing more or less important than traditional marketing?

We know this answer isn’t a favorite, but it really depends on your needs. Traditional marketing media tends to be more expensive, tangible, and harder to quantify campaign results. Digital marketing media tends to be less costly to begin, assets are digital and easy to copy, but campaign results are easier to track through web properties. What we find works best for our clients is a mix of traditional and digital tactics. Keep your door hangers, billboards, and print materials and reach new audiences that fit your ideal market, boosting your all-around marketing efforts.

Can you guarantee results?

No, and any agency that tells you otherwise is trying to pull a fast one on you. However, we do guarantee that you will see progress toward your goal. Depending on how much money you want to invest in your digital efforts each month, this progress can be faster or slower, but it will trend in a positive direction over time. With our ongoing services, even when the markets take a hit and one month is the lowest you’ve ever had, our team won’t rest until we have a plan in place to adapt and pivot for success.

Aren’t all marketing agencies able to do the same things?

While countless agencies in St. Louis alone offer digital marketing services, they will all tell you the same thing – we are not the same. Some agencies excel at branding, some at PR, some at content creation, and any other marketing service you can imagine. Our marketing team is certified in all the major PPC, SEO, and analytics platforms you’d expect from a big-name agency. Still, our team is small enough to take the time to dig deeper into your unique marketing challenges and find not only the root of the problem but also create an action plan for overcoming it. Plus, our marketing team is backed by in-house web designers, web developers, custom software developers, and IT support experts, so there is always someone ready to help.

How much should we be spending on marketing or advertising?

Back to the answer, no one likes to hear – it really depends. Some clients allocate a specific percentage of their annual budget for marketing and advertising, while others only use funds as needed. The good thing about digital marketing is that your ad spend is entirely up to you. If you want to run search campaigns using cost-per-click budgeting, you can pay as little as $0.10 a click, or over $100 per click, depending on your targeted keywords. If you want to run a video campaign focused on getting the most impressions, you can cap the entire campaign for around $100 if you’d like. Campaigns can fluctuate significantly in the amount spent, but that can also be optimized by your digital marketing team working with a strategy focused on your ROI. According to WebFX, the average cost for marketing services in 2020 ranged from $2,500-$12,000 per month for SMBs. However, there are plenty of a la carte services available for lower price points as well.

If business is slow, doesn’t that mean we should slow advertising efforts? 

In 2020, many businesses quickly responded to keep their businesses afloat in turbulent times, and many decided an excellent way to save money was to cut their marketing budget. Call us biased, but there is data to back up the claim that cutting marketing spending is bad for business in the long run. The correlation between investing in advertising is not varied across industries. Still, research shows that companies that have bounced back strongest after recessions typically did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases, they actually increased it. When the rest of the market is running off, there are ample opportunities to gain a competitive advantage in your vertical.

If my website was already optimized for SEO, do I need to do it again?

Every marketing agency should tell you yes. Always continue to invest in SEO services. Search algorithms change from month to month, and by the time most consumers even notice, websites have already lost ground on search engine results pages (SERPs). Although SEO services can seem costly and relatively “invisible” to a regular viewer, the number of technical optimizations made on-page and for local listings can create an immense amount of website traffic and potentially more revenue as a result. Even if you don’t want to invest in SEO every month, we recommend that our clients minimally run an SEO audit each quarter to ensure they stay up-to-date with industry practices.

Do I need to focus on creating content before SEO or advertising?

Plenty of marketers will tell you that content is king, but that’s only half the story. No matter how great a piece of content you publish to your website, without the proper SEO optimizations or PPC campaigns directing users to that landing page, it can easily get lost with all the other content on the internet. We recommend creating cornerstone pages or evergreen content that focuses on core keywords and related terminology so the content has the highest chance of ranking organically. But, once traffic to those pieces tapers off naturally, a targeted PPC campaign to audiences that have not visited that content can not only boost your web traffic but provide a valuable audience for remarketing campaigns.

Is our customers’ data protected?

When working with digital marketing clients, our team follows GDPR, section 508, and best practices to ensure the safety and privacy of customer data. No customer data used by our team is kept; instead, it is only used directly in the digital marketing platform accounts of which you have full ownership. No customer data is collected without consent, no data is ever resold, and every user always has the option to opt-out of marketing communications. For more information on our practices, you can view our Privacy Policy online.  

If we have in-house marketers, why would we look at consulting?

Having an in-house marketing team is a blessing, but even though we wonder if they have superpowers at times, they also need a helping hand occasionally. Partnering with a digital agency provides additional eyes on creative work and brings completely new perspectives into the conversation. You know your marketing so well that you may be missing blind spots you never knew existed. A great digital marketing partner can serve as an extension of your in-house team, taking the technical SEO or PPC maintenance off their plate so they can spend more time where you need it most.

What, really, does digital marketing do for our business?

One of our favorite sayings in digital marketing is, “the internet does what the internet wants.” Digital marketing professionals are essentially translators between the internet and your business goals. While it is possible to create a solid digital presence for your brand without digital marketing expertise, it’s not very likely. Organic success takes years to develop and is not exactly maintenance-free. Digital marketing strategies are a way to create a mix of traditional and digital marketing tactics that allows us to build a bridge between your company and your customers. We ensure you are there for your customers 24/7, get them the answers they’re searching for, make the content compliant for users of all abilities, and continue to support your business goals, no matter what the next years bring.

If you have a question not listed here, reach out and let us know. We’d be happy to answer privately or even add your question to this list to help others too!