What Digital Marketing Companies in Dubai Do
Digital marketing companies in Dubai claim to offer a variety of services. In fact if you ask any agency what they do, they will often come back with a list as long as your arm of services.
Most of the time they will fall under the major category of social media, SEO, PPC, email marketing and web development. This is all well and good, but that isn’t what a digital marketing agency does. Those are simply the tools that digital marketing companies in Dubai use.
Some agencies will have some rather more in-depth services that they offer, such as:
- Conversion rate optimisation
- Growth driven design
- Marketing automation
The list is endless of advanced services that can be offered and usually they are there to make the agency look good. Seldomly do they really offer those services and the other side of this is that clients, just like you reading this now, have no idea what those are or how they can help your business.
Whilst the three services listed above are much more in the direct of what digital marketing companies in Dubai actually do, it’s still not all that clear. So, what should a digital agency do for you?
This question is quite extensive so we will do our best here to break it down as quickly and as easily as possible.
Digital marketing agencies don’t all have to do the same thing, however they should all be doing something that focuses on resolving the pain points a client has. An example may be:
“We help businesses with large Instagram followings to leverage their fans and convert them into paying customers.”
Another could also be:
“We help subscription businesses to convert more of their organic web traffic into leads and nurture them into members for their courses.”
Do you see how those examples explain what a digital agency does? They give and indication as to what channels and platforms they use and the results they get from doing so (These are both things we help our clients with by the way).
In terms of what digital marketing companies in Dubai can and should be doing for you, they should be focusing on helping to resolve your pain points as a business and generating revenue through new marketing activities.
Want to skip to another section? Check out our contents and click to the one you want:
What digital marketing companies do
Selecting a digital marketing company
Understanding the relationship
The Different Types Of Agency
You’d be forgiven for thinking that all digital marketing companies in Dubai are the same. They aren’t. There are really six different types of digital agency. There are, of course, other types of agency too, but these don’t fall into the digital realm so we won’t be covering them here.
It can be difficult to understand the differences between them all, so we will be breaking down what each one does. You may also find that there are digital marketing companies that specialise in different industries, so don’t mistake this for different services. They may do things slightly differently depending on the industry they are in, but by and large they will fall into the following categories.
Web Development Agency:
A web development agency is exactly that. They build websites. Usually they will have their preferred platform and methodology which they will try and sell to all clients. They will, however, be completely competent in all other platforms and coding languages.
A web dev agency will also be able to help with other areas within digital marketing, but will not really be able to help your business in the way you would expect. These types of agencies will largely work on a project basis, but you may also find that some operate on a growth driven design aspect.
This is where the client is put on a retainer and the website developed and improved at different stages over the course of the contract. You can learn everything you need to know about getting a website built in our guide here.
SEO Agency:
An SEO agency is a company that will help you to improve the amount of organic traffic you receive to your website, as well as increase the ranking of your pages for certain keywords. This is done through on-page optimisation, internal linking and off-page SEO work.
SEO agencies are a separate entity unto themselves and have polarising facets. They can often be a victim of their clients own misunderstanding of what they actually help businesses to do. They also can give decent SEO agencies a bad reputation through poor practices and corner cutting.
An SEO agency is not designed to help you get more clients, convert more leads or bring you more sales. They are simply there to improve the volume of traffic and rankings of your site. If you are expecting them to help you do these other things, then you may be disappointed.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Agency:
A PPC agency will help you with your paid advertising. Normally this means only helping you with you Google Ads. This will usually include both search and display, but it depends on what you are looking to achieve from your ads.
Google Ads are a complex and vast system to use, so you may only be offered the basic element of things, such as search. Display advertising does require good graphic design and a PPC agency may not have those resources available to them. With the advent of video advertising on platforms like YouTube, the opportunity to expand PPC advertising has increased. You will want to speak with them about all levels of service and what they offer.
Seeing as the system is quite large and time consuming, it is unlikely that a PPC agency will offer any other types of marketing service.
Social Media Agency:
Social media agencies have undergone rapid changes over the years. Initially, a social media agency would have handled your social media platforms. They would have incorporated several additional services such as graphic design and copywriting.
This is still something that is offered, but now a social media agency will try and be incredibly agile and grow your following for you as well. Influencer marketing is a huge focus for these types of agencies.
They may well offer social media advertising as part of their services. This would generally be advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat and LinkedIn, depending on your requirements.
Social Media Ads Agency:
A social media ad agency will, by and large, focus on one platform; Facebook. They may be known by the other common name of a Facebook ad agency. These guys will do one thing for you and one thing only. They will manage your paid advertising campaigns on the Facebook and Instagram ad platforms.
They are likely to be quite expensive as the volume of ads and split testing they will need to undertake is large. They will also be writing copy and designing ads for you. If you have a desire for video, then they may be able to undertake this for you too, but it is likely to cost extra.
Funnel Marketing Agency:
The newest development in the world of agencies. A funnel marketing agency will help to design and execute marketing funnels for you, normally with the help of a marketing automation platform, such as Click Funnels.
A funnel agency will provide a very agile and stripped down version of your marketing campaign. Usually it will focus on only one aspect of your business and help to improve this. E.g. driving traffic to generate you more leads. They will use a variety of tools in order to help you achieve your goals and maximise the assets you already have. For example, if you have a large email database then they will look to leverage this with email automation.
A funnel marketing agency is quite similar to that of a full service agency, but the difference is that the focus is more on the short to medium aspect of your business. You may even find that this type of agency will only provide you the tools in order to set the funnel up. They may not run it for you. If they do offer this as a service, then they will charge an additional service fee.
Full Service Agency:
Full service agencies are your one-stop-shop for digital marketing. This type of agency will manage every aspect of your marketing for you. They will likely be a larger organisation and subsequently cost a great deal more than the others.
A full service agency will look at a much longer term view of your marketing and you should expect results to be delivered over a longer period of time. Normally you would look at a timeline of 90-days’ before you really start to see the impact of your marketing efforts.
A full service agency will help you to grow all of you marketing channels and focus on several different business objectives. This type of agency is becoming more and more specialised in terms of who they work with, so you should look for an agency that helps your industry specifically.
Why You Should Hire An Agency
The biggest benefit of hiring digital marketing companies in Dubai is that you no longer have to focus on marketing, which may not be your main strength. With an agency taking care of it, you will be able to focus on the things you are good at. You will now have more time to meet investors, bring in new business, form new strategic partnerships and define the vision for your long term success.
Ultimately, you will be able to look at the big picture and not get weighed down with the finer details of learning how to use new platforms and develop campaigns. You can identify that a platform or channel needs to be developed without having to do it yourself.
Hiring an agency means that you mitigate traditional business risks within this section of your business. The biggest direct waste of money businesses spend is on poor hires. Especially in a place like Dubai, where the cost of visas adds spectacularly to the price of hiring a new team member. This makes it all the more of a gamble for companies.
Hiring one person may mean that you are able to have daily insights into what is happening (you could have that with digital marketing companies in Dubai too, should you so want it), but it is unlikely that the person you hire is going to be an expert across all the disciplines required for your business. If they are, then you can expect to be paying that person a salary of at least AED30k+ per month.
Another issue that businesses may face by hiring marketing individuals in-house is that if they aren’t the right fit, they will have to go through the entire process of hiring again, further adding to the cost. Not only this, but any forward marketing plans will be severely delayed and potentially mean you may have to get involved again where you really would rather not.
The stats don’t lie. The average ROI from making a bid hire is -298%. In a recent survey of U.S. employers found that a bad hire cost them up to $50,000 (AED182,500). That’s just over AED15k per month for an entire year. One bad hire could basically blow your yearly marketing budget.
Should you hire one of the many digital marketing companies in Dubai, you should expect to pay on a monthly basis between AED7,300-37,000 per month (The range might be quite large, but depending on what you want, those are very reasonable figures. If you think you could and should be getting marketing services cheaper, then check out our article on the cost of cheap SEO packages).
For example, INCYCLE Marketing helped one of our clients, J.K. Poulsen, to build a funnel that helped potential clients to understand more about their business, the process, costs involved and timeframe for their citizenship to be completed all through a series of articles, email automation and ebooks.
Not only this, but we integrated a CRM system to the website we built for them that tracked every interaction potential leads had on their website. Our SEO team optimised the website and the content in order to show up for the keywords and searches the client wanted which helped them to generate over 200 leads per month. These kinds of lead numbers in a highly competitive and expensive industry simply wouldn’t have been possible for a single person to manage in a short time frame.
A lot of companies will look to hire interns or junior level employees as opposed to paying highly qualified professionals at an agency. The issue you have here is that as you scale you whether have to train them or pay more for a better qualified individual to manage the greater demands. You run the risk of never being able to scale if your junior employees aren’t able to deliver what is required.
One of the biggest issues businesses have with hiring digital marketing companies in Dubai is the ROI that they deliver. A lot of the time, businesses have their budget tied up in salaries and other required expenses. This means the money available for marketing is often restricted. If you hire an agency that focuses on, and has a track record of delivering ROI, then you can rest assured that your marketing spend will be returned with interest.
Selecting Digital Marketing Companies In Dubai
You should have some idea by now of what you are looking for. If not, take a look at the different types of digital marketing companies in Dubai section to see which option best suits your needs.
Once you have established that you are actually going to hire an agency instead of run the risk of in-house hiring, there are several things that you will need to think about before you make a decision. We will break down what those steps should be so you can make the right choice. You can read our in-depth article about how to hire a digital marketing agency here.
Know Your Company Marketing Needs
The amount of businesses that we speak to at INCYCLE who have no idea what they are looking for in terms of marketing is quite staggering. Most come to us with the aim of brand awareness or some other intangible marketing objective. Before you reach out to an agency, you really need to know what your pain points are. This means asking yourself the questions of what you want to achieve and how much am I willing to spend to achieve it. This will help you enormously before sifting through the multitude of digital marketing companies in Dubai.
Once you know what you are looking for, then you can begin your search. This will make the process so much easier for everyone involved. Knowing what you want will mean the difference between being exhausted by speaking to agencies who just don’t seem to understand what you’re after and the long term partner who will help you grow and scale your business.
Asking The Right Questions:
If you are new to the world of digital marketing, then it may seem like a bit of a tsunami of information coming at you. This can also be quite dangerous as more unscrupulous agencies could use jargon and blindside you with data to fool you into thinking you have signed the right agency.
There are some key questions that you should ask the agency as part of your investigation.
Can I see some campaign examples? An agency should be able to quickly and easily show you case studies of work they have done, hopefully with similar businesses. - What sort of time frame can I expect results and what milestones will we put in place? Depending on the goals you have set, you should be able to work these out with the agency. Their process should indicate definitive steps within a 3-month period.
- Do you have packages? Most agencies should have some sort of base level package for your requirements, as well as more custom solutions. Be careful here as the more custom you want a solution to be, the pricier it becomes.
- Who will be managing my account? You should have a dedicated individual who will be in charge of the day to day communication. At least every month you should be able to sit down and cover your report.
There are lots more you should be asking, and you can find our complete guide to hiring an agency here for more information.
The process here should very much be getting to know the agency and its capabilities. If something doesn’t seem right to you, then don’t go any further.
Agency Pricing Models:
Digital marketing companies in Dubai will have a variety of pricing models. This depends on the type of agency it is. If they are a PPC type agency, then you can expect a percentage of your budget to be claimed as agency fee. Usually anywhere from 8-15%. This would mean if your advertising budget is AED10,000 then anywhere from AED800-1500 would be claimed by the agency as their service fee.
What you have to be mindful of here is that if you are spending, say, AED10,000 then the agency fee isn’t all that much. The team responsible for your ads may not be as concerned about the result as you are, as their fee is not very high.
The more common method for agencies to charge fees is the retainer model. This is where you will be provided with agreed upon services and volumes of work for an agreed set fee every month. This may or may not include the advertising spend, so you will have to clarify this with your agency of choice.
INCYCLE always includes the advertising spend as part of its retainers. Other agencies end up hiking up the price with addition adspend, so be careful of this.
The retainer fee model generally tends to be the best option all round. However, both agency and client can get themselves into some difficult situations when the following occurs.
Service Lists:
It is quite prevalent still for digital marketing companies in Dubai to offer a service list. This is where an agency will set fixed prices for their services. E.g. AED2000 per month for graphic design.
When a budget is proposed by the agency for a client, the client may decide they want to save some money here and there (never a good idea) and simply select the services they think are the ones they need and will help them achieve their goals.
Hint: 99.99% of the time, the client is wrong. Think about it this way. Asa client you are looking to hire an agency, a team of professionals who can help you achieve your business goals and objectives. When they tell you how much it is going to cost, you suddenly decide you know best. As an agency, we have never seen this scenario turn out successfully. Typically what happens is the results don’t come because the client cut corners, the agency gets blamed and the relationship falls apart.
Picking and choosing services from a service list is always a bad idea. Don’t be offended if the agency tells you that they do not price services individually. They are trying to create a cost effective package for you that will help you to achieve your goals.
Requests For Proposal (RFP’s):
Businesses love to send these out to digital marketing companies in Dubai. Whilst it might seem like an efficient way for your business to get in a bunch of proposals, they really don’t help you in understanding which agency is right for you, or whether or not they can actually help.
The trouble with an RFP is that there’s a lack of interaction between the two parties making it very difficult to understand what is required. Just because you say you need social media management, that doesn’t actually mean it’s what you need.
Imagine emailing a doctor for a quote on surgery without having them consult you first. I’d be super wary of a doctor who came back to me with a quote. The same rings true for your business.
RFP’s perpetuate the bad relationship that digital marketing companies in Dubai have with clients. The client asks for things they think they want, an agency gets back to them with a price for those services. The cheapest option is selected, as according to the client, all services are the same across all agencies. The agency inevitably does a bad job and doesn’t meet expectations as no clear understanding of what the client wanted was gathered. The agency is fired and the process starts again.
If you really want to avoid all the issues with agencies, make the effort to meet them and help them to understand what your goals are, so they can advise you properly.
Signing Off On A Marketing Contract:
If you are trying to negotiate price and services, then you may not be ready for a digital marketing agency. Most likely, the issue will be that you simply haven’t found the right one for you. You will also feel like that you aren’t 100% convinced that they can do the job for you so are trying to reduce your risk if all things go wrong.
It’s always better to be completely sure you have the right marketing partner than to try and make it work with what is in front of you. It will save a lot of heartache in the long run for both parties. This really is the first step in being able to get real business results from digital marketing companies in Dubai.
Onboarding:
Having found your agency of choice, this is not where you part ways and wait for magic to happen. This is really only the beginning of the relationship. Like all good relationships, communication is key. An agency should have a process that they undertake to fully immerse themselves in your brand, as well as bringing you up to speed with what you will need to do and provide for a successful partnership.
Normally what will happen is one or more members of the agency team will come and speak with the concerned persons within your company. This is very much a meet and greet to establish roles and who will be doing what.
The agency may have already sent you over a list of items they will require to integrate your marketing systems in a cohesive structure. Now is not the time to hold back information or make it difficult to access things. Make the agency sign an NDA if you are concerned, but the quickest way to get up and running is to be cooperative.
As part of this process, your agency should be setting milestones on a weekly and monthly basis for communication and completion of work, prior to launch. If you are required to provide something for the agency, make sure it is a priority.
I’ve seen so many good accounts fall by the wayside which get blamed on the agency because the client team weren’t prepared to deliver on their side of the bargain. At the end of the day, nobody looks good making someone else look bad. The whole point of the partnership is to be successful, so a willing team is always more likely to be that than one who has an agenda.
Several documents should have been exchanged by this point, which means that the strategising can begin.
Creating A Strategy:
Much in the same way that the onboarding process needs to be collaborative, the strategy should also have input from both sides. Yes, the agency should, by now, really understand what the key goals and objectives are, but this doesn’t mean that the strategy should be create by them alone.
Again, businesses love to ask digital marketing companies in Dubai to come back with them with an all encompassing strategy. Often times they are expecting something incredibly innovative, unique and groundbreaking. This generally isn’t the case. A strategy is a broad overview of the way in which the company marketing will be rolled out. What tools will be used and in what way. The strategy should focus on the direction and how everything is going to be aimed at it.
Strategies, of course, should not be identical from business to business. Other companies will want to go in different directions so input from the client is essential to helping the agency put all the right pieces in the right places.
Often a disconnect will happen when the agency puts a strategy together that is not inline with the client’s objectives. Don’t forget that a strategy is subject to change. It isn’t a cast-ron document that cannot be edited. If you find that one or more aspects of the strategy aren’t working, long-term, then you should sit with the agency and see what you can change within it.
The First 90-Days:
Assuming that you have signed up with a full service digital marketing agency, you will be looking at a long term marketing campaign. The first 90-days are the most important. Unfortunately, what is seen a lot with marketing partnerships, is that the client is only willing to give 90-days before they terminate the contract.
This is a 50/50 split in terms of who is at fault here. The agency should have set clearly defined timelines and expectations, well before it gets to this. The client should also be aware that miracles don’t happen in such a short space of time (unless you have a fortune to spend).
So, what should be happening in the first three months of the contract? At INCYCLE we like to layout what will be delivered in the onboarding stage. Here we clearly define that the first 4-weeks are dedicated to research, planning, strategy, development and creation of marketing assets.
Some businesses may feel like this time is too long or unnecessary, and it cuts into actual marketing time. However, without the proper foundations then the marketing will simply collapse rendering the whole process futile. It also gives an insight into the timelines that businesses should be looking at for a considerate change in their marketing. 3-months is simply not enough time to produce the kind of impact that will grow a business. A minimum of 12-months must be looked at as a realistic timeframe for business change.
Month 3 is when you should realistically start to see the impact of the work you and your agency have been doing. Month 1 is dedicated to setup and preparation. Month two is where the campaigns are rolled out and data is gathered. Month three is where that data can be analysed and changes can be affected to the existing plan.
Timelines And Deadlines:
These are critical. Your timelines and deadlines should be adhered to as though they were sacred. This also means by the client too. In an ideal world, both the client and the agency should have a chart with dates crossed off on them for when things are going to be delivered.
The first 4 weeks should be clearly defined by the agency. In fact, the whole timeline should be defined by the agency, but the client may require some things before others, meaning timelines and deadlines should be set together.
Try not to set unrealistic deadlines. An agency will likely say yes because they want to keep the client happy. This may result in sub-par work and frayed tensions.
You will want to map expected results onto timelines as well. I.e. at the end of month 1, we should be able to go live with the marketing campaigns. Depending on the strategy you have both agreed on, then what those milestones should be are up to you.
Managing Expectations:
The biggest challenge that digital marketing companies in Dubai face is managing expectations of the client. It can be very hard for an account manager to say no to the client but sometimes it needs to be done. Now, we don’t mean flat out refuse to do something requested by a client, but rather highlighting the priorities and remaining focused on them.
Similarly, the best way to get work done and build a great relationship with an agency is to manage your own expectations. Your agency partner is on hand to help you, answer your questions, brainstorm and deliver on their end of the bargain.
They aren’t there to be on call, provide minute by minute updates and drop everything so that something new can be worked on for you. We see the client agency relationship as a partnership like any other. This means that being realistic in what is expected from the relationship is important to it being successful.
If you have set your milestones, timelines and deadlines then actually there isn’t much to manage. The issue comes when these things are ignored and impatience sets in. Again, if you have hired a full service agency, then your mindset should be on a long term plan. If you are hoping to see long term results in a short term period then your expectations for achievements will have to be adjusted.
Often we see that digital marketing companies in Dubai are their own worst enemies. They fail to set and manage their client expectations from the very start. It’s not uncommon for agencies to massively over promise then catastrophically underdeliver. An agency is there to guide the client on what is realistic in terms of their goals and budget. So many issues would be avoided if during the sales process an agency was prepared to be honest with the client.
At INCYCLE, we have often had to turn clients down because their expectations weren’t inline with their marketing budget and desired results. It’s simply not worth the headache for either party. Good marketing is not cheap. Getting great results takes time. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. An open mind from both sides will ensure that all expectations are managed properly.
Understanding The Relationship:
For some reason, businesses seem to think that once they have signed one of the digital marketing companies in Dubai, they are indebted to them. It can often feel as though it is a master-servant relationship, where the agency is told what to do by the client.
This is quite an odd way of looking at things as the client has hired the agency to do the things the client can’t. We list out some ways in which the relationship between agency and client should be managed here.
Be Transparent:
This links to the management of expectations. Realistically, businesses simply want to do good work, deliver results and be paid fairly for what they do. Being clear about your objectives and unafraid to voice opinions about certain aspects of the campaign will help to keep everyone on the same page.
The minute that personal or political agendas come into play, then it makes the relationship that much harder to maintain. If you as a client have concerns about a particular aspect of the work being done, highlight it.
Don’t undermine the work being done. If you feel the agency is ignoring what you are requesting and not giving you the platform to speak about it, bring this up with your account manager. Your relationship should not be an us vs them scenario.
Realise Limitations:
Your agency should be fluent in your industry. They should also understand the nuances of your sector, but they will never truly understand your business in the way that you do. This means if your agency asks for help with something, it shouldn’t be seen as a negative.
Your job then is to give them as much help as they can so that they can upgrade their knowledge of your business and translate that into marketing performance. Digital marketing companies in Dubai also realise that not everyone of their clients has the same level of knowledge.
Sometimes this can make things confusing for clients as their level of knowledge is not the same as the agency team. In this situation, the agency needs to realise and help educate on the limitations of the client.
Accountability:
As a client, you expect the agency working with you to turn around high-quality work in the shortest possible time. Whilst the agency requests won’t be as often and more usually higher in frequency at the start of the relationship, you should also offer the same reliability to the agency.
If they require some info, documents or other marketing materials, then it should be a priority from your side to get it to them on the timescale they request. The biggest challenge digital marketing companies in Dubai have when it comes to completing projects is approvals and information coming back from clients.
It’s not unknown to have projects delayed by months because the client doesn’t consider the matter urgent enough to deliver the required info on time to the agency. A scenario we have seen at INCYCLE is where a client doesn’t deliver the required documents, is not responsive of requests and then complains to the agency when their project is delayed.
Just because a client is paying an agency to do work for them, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t partly responsible for the success of the campaign.
Constructive Criticism:
There is nothing wrong with being critical of work done. You can only improve upon what you are doing by measuring and comparing. Open and honest feedback will make the relationship better and the work go much smoother.
Something that we have found to work well is implementing a report card that both sides fill out. This provides an avenue for regular feedback and any issues that arise to be addressed properly. All too often digital marketing companies in Dubai simply get berated for something the client doesn’t like, rather than addressing it and dealing with it in the right way.
A great way to improve things you don’t like is to create and follow a process that allows for the issue to be brought up, the respective people to be involved and a framework put in place for things to be resolved. In doing so, the agency builds up a better idea of what the client wants and how to further improve upon what they are already delivering.
Committing To The Plan:
We live in a society where we are able to communicate and interact with things at lightning speed. We are also used to be able to change things at the same pace. Commitment to the plan to make significant changes in they way you market your business is one of the biggest ways in which you can see success working with your digital marketing agency.
Unfortunately, businesses who don’t heed the previous sections in terms of accountability and partnership get cold feet when their expectations aren’t met.
It’s the same as if you were trying to get in shape and started going to the gym. Initially the change will be hard and slow and within the first week or month you are very unlikely to see dramatic changes. However, over time and with consistency the results you were hoping to see will be clearly visible.
It’s the same with marketing. It’s easy to be blindsided by all the tools and technology but the reality is if you don’t commit to the plan and really give it everything it requires, then you are unlikely to see results. Businesses change digital marketing companies in Dubai at the drop of a hat and yet continue to hire similar agencies to do the same thing for them and expect different results.
Starting from scratch every three months is not the way to be able to see significant changes in your marketing.
Commit to the right agency. Commit to the plan and commit to the process. It may take a little while to get things up to speed and for you to see the ROI, but assuming you have the right people around you, then you will see results.
Long Term Marketing:
We’ve already seen that changing digital marketing companies in Dubai every three months is no good for your business. In fact, it perpetuates the bad reputation cycle and makes businesses wary of hiring agencies at all. You may have actually hired the right agency for you, but expectations not being managed means that they weren’t given the time to perform for you the way they could have.
A long term marketing view is one that looks at results past a certain time frame. Usually 12-months or more. It is understandable when companies stop working with an agency after 3-months if they haven’t achieved their goals as it is highly likely the stepping stones, or KPI’s, weren’t laid down to indicate progress.
The realisation that ROI won’t make itself visible until post 12-months means that the KPI’s you are measuring need to match up to the effort you and your agency are putting in. For example, if your organic website traffic is only 500 visitors per month, you may want to increase this to 5,000 per month.
That’s a 10x increase. Nothing wrong with this, but if you are expecting an SEO agency to achieve this for you in 3-months on a budget of AED2000, then you are going to get a shock.
A better idea would be to invest in content as part of your SEO plan that will see a 10% month on month growth. Within 12 months, assuming you have generated the MOM growth, then your traffic numbers will be more likely to reflect your goal. Your investment is in the future, not the immediate result.
The likelihood of you starting to generate more leads over this time is high, which will mean your ROI will start to become clear. Not only this, but it will increase over the course of the campaign.
Committing To Tactics:
Everyone seems to have a different opinion on what the best marketing tactics are to use. It seems as though there are guru’s everywhere talking about that silver bullet marketing tool or system they have that will guarantee you success.
Whilst they may have found a tool or system that works for them, that doesn’t mean that it’s right for you or will work. Again, if you are to spend some money on paid advertising, commit a substantial budget to it. Make sure you are commiting to enough time to see results.
Paid advertising can take a while to bring the cost down, target the right people and find the right mix of copy and imagery that will convert people. Normally this can take several weeks until perfected. Seeing out the course will eventually deliver you the results you are after, provided that you are working in the right way, as highlighted above.
It can be easy to chop and change tactics, Especially if you begin to see better results in another channel. Consistency is the key to success in your marketing tactics and campaigns. Try out all eventualities within the channel to really make sure that you have maximised its potential. If it really isn’t working for you by that point, then speak with the agency to see how something can be changed.
Measuring The Right Things:
Making sure you are measuring the right thing is essential to getting the most our of working with digital marketing companies in Dubai. There is a mountain of data that can be read but really only a fraction of it is important to you at any one time.
At INCYCLE we like to keep it as simple as we can to start with. We look at measuring the big three of KPI’s.
- Traffic
- Leads
- Conversions/Sales
We always start with monitoring those as they represent the easiest items to measure, to gauge the immediate impact of the campaigns we run with our clients. Is your website traffic increase? Yes? Good. we are on the right path. Have we seen an increase in leads coming in? No? Okay, why not? You get the picture.
Once you are able to ascertain that the work you are doing across one or more channels is increasing one or more of these key metrics, then you are able to break that down even further. Which channels are working better than others? What do we need to do to improve the ones that aren’t as good.
Working with your agency will help you focus on the things that really matter to the end result of the campaign. All too often businesses are obsessed with soft or secondary metrics such as; likes, shares, engagement and followers.
Now, that’s not to say that in the right context these metrics aren’t important or that they don’t contribute to the ROI. The point here is to not get bogged down in the data and metrics that aren’t important to the end goal of the campaign.
We were once asked by a client to help them grow their organic traffic and lead generation, but making sure that their social media followers were dramatically increasing every week too. There was a huge disconnect between what the client wanted to achieve and what the client wanted. An increase of followers doesn’t equate to an increase in traffic and leads.
Making Intelligent Changes:
You should be sitting down with your marketing agency every month to cover the marketing report. You should be focusing on the key metrics that indicate successful growth, as well as the highlights of the campaign so far.
At this point you will be able to dive into the numbers a little bit more to see where tweaks and improvements can be made. You really don’t want to be making wholesale changes to anything here. Let the data guide you. If you have questions about something you see in the report then consult your agency account manager. They will be able to give you insight into what this means and what this do for your campaign.
Now, this is an ideal scenario. It doesn’t always work like this and something the numbers in the reports are not what we would like to see. This is where intelligent decision making comes into play as well. A knee jerk reaction here could scupper all the hard work that you and your agency have put in thus far. Keeping calm and discussing things in a reasonable manner, instead of pointing fingers and laying blame will help to resolve any issues that may arise.
Of course, if this has been going on for months and months, then another intelligent decision may need to be made in terms of replacing you existing marketing agency.
Conclusion:
Working with digital marketing companies in Dubai can be hit and miss, especially if you don’t know what it is you are looking to achieve and how to find those most capable to do it.
The key takeaway from this guide is that a marketing agency is only as good as the information it is given to work with. As with all relationships, if only one side is putting in the effort, then it is doomed to fail. To get the very best out of a marketing partnership, communication, commitment and trust will all be needed to deliver a successful long-term campaign.
If you’re tired of trawling through the hundreds of digital marketing companies in Dubai, then retrace your steps in terms of how you went about looking for one in the first place. It’s likely that your approach was slightly wrong which meant you were looking in the wrong places.
Have you had a bad experience with a digital agency, or perhaps a good one? Let us know in the comments below.
