How to Choose The Best Digital Agency.pdf

YourOnlinePresence
HOWTO CHOOSE
The Best
Digital Is Your Business
Agency
FLYNAUT
presents
Selecting a digital company can be a tricky.
You can never go wrong with this “Go-To” guide.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST DIGITAL AGENCY
Internet has become one with humanity. By the end of 2016, the number of
Internet users will surpass 3 billion that is over 43% of world’s population.
For a business to flourish, what do you need?
• A great product or service. Agreed. But is it enough?
• Are you covered for leveraging the online space? After all that’s
where most of your customers are waiting to be explored and
tapped.
Your brand should be able to boast of strong online presence by
one or more of these:
• High visibility and frequent mentions on various social platforms
• Increased traffic of new clients and prospects on your website
• Successful conversion of leads into customers
• Improved revenue through direct sales via e-commerce
• Better productivity and communication with respect to people
and processes
A great digital agency will help you achieve all this and more. But
this is where the things get interesting. The sheer number and
types of agencies that have cropped up in the market make it
difficult to decide what agency to trust your money with.
Misjudgments in finding the
right agency can lead to
disastrous partnerships causing
a blow to your finances and
brand image.

If you are determined to not lose your customers to competition, your business
needs to make a unique mark in the digital space
A right digital agency would help you to do both – be unique and
be awesome. However, before you jump the gun consider these
subtle yet strong realities of working with a digital agency:
• Be clear that the agency and its members cannot be treated as
outsiders. This streamlines the hiring process where you choose
them for specific skills and expect them to deliver value. Just
like a regular employee!
• Agency cannot work as a standalone boxed up team. They need
to work closely with the in-house marketing team and
coordinate on routine basis for the online efforts to make sense.
• Do not get swayed by the agency strengths and assume they are
right for you. Explore their limitations too. If those shortcomings
can have an impact on your online marketing drive, maybe it’s
safe to search other options.
Favor agencies that can offer industry specific experience and
success stories rather than creativity and entertainment.
A right digital agency can produce a positive chain reaction:
GOOD BUSINESS OFFERINGS +
ENGAGING & TARGETED
ONLINE CONTENT = LOYAL CUSTOMERS

The search for ideal digital agency is a logical sequence of events. If you fast-forward or
keep backtracking on the online strategy, it can do more harm than good.
The journey to find a digital agency that is perfect for your business can be broken into 3 important phases.
INTERNAL FINE TUNING
PHASE1
This means getting your organizational game right. You need
to be sure the internal parts are in tandem before scouting for
agency in the outside world. Checklist of things you need to
consider during this phase include:
• Is your objective to hire digital agency clearly spelled out?
(Is it for branding, generating leads, traffic, increasing sales,
boosting the ranking or user activity?)
• Are your marketing requirements chalked out?
(What you want the agency to be involved in – Website
design, SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media Marketing, Ads,
etc.?)

• Have you got other relevant departments
onboard?
(Sales & marketing, IT, Service, Communications –
Their needs and how they plan to coordinate efforts
with agency)
• Is buy-in of important stakeholders available?
(The business leaders, CMO, CIO and other brand
managers should give go-ahead to a specific single
marketing strategy to avoid different versions and
confusion)
• Is scoring criteria decided for agency selection?
(In case of multiple agency pitches, it is good to have
a uniform scorecard where terms of scoring and
weight-ages are clear to everyone)
PHASE1
In case of multiple agency pitches, it is good to have a uniform scorecard where terms of
scoring and weightage are clear to everyone

SEARCHING & INVITING AGENCIES
PHASE2
Once the internal inputs are streamlined, the next phase is to do market research and get the agencies excited
to work with your company. Checklist of things you need to consider during this phase include:
• Have you decided on the type of agency to search/approach?
(This includes choosing between the different permutations and combinations to narrow your search.
Categories include Large/Boutique Agency, Global/Local Agency, Creative/Industry specific Agency, and
General/Specialized Agency)

• Have you done budget analysis?
(This involves studying the way these
agencies price their offerings and
comparing the proposed expenditure
with budget at hand. Also letting the
agencies know upfront about budget
helps to filter the choices)
PHASE2

• Have you studied recommendations,
case studies and samples?
(Creativity and talent are good things
to have in an agency. But so are
timeliness, openness, flexibility, and
fair pricing. Client testimonials and
examples of previous work provide
great insight and narrow down the
search)
PHASE2

• Have you planned your briefing sessions with
agencies?
(Right from discussing your requirements to company
culture, fueling the thought process of agency members
works wonders through these sessions. When they know
the highlights of your product/service, timing schedule
and do’s/don’ts’s in advance, you get refined agency
proposals specific to your needs)
PHASE2
Quick Tip: If you are looking for novel
perspectives from agency, always build your Request
for Proposals (RFP) based on the business problem
you want to address through online initiatives, rather
than preparing RFP around the solutions that you
wish to implement.

EVALUATE & FINALIZE
PHASE3
This requires digging deeper into their agency credentials and
qualifications to deliver expected output during the
professional association. Here you put all the pieces of puzzle
together to visualize final picture before making that crucial
call. The checklist at this juncture consists of the following
questions:
• Have you verified the agency’s capabilities?
(This covers understanding related to how they leverage
technology, available certifications and marketing stack,
support for analytics and disposition to digital landscape/
trends/best practices)

PHASE3
• Have you discussed the project management details with
agency?
(A very critical step to success of agency-organization
partnership, project management involves clarity on timeframes,
delegation of roles, review/approvals, feedback, task
prioritization & allocation, client management and project
execution)
• Have you done the final SWOT of working with a particular
agency?
(Identifying what sets the agency apart from competition, value
creation for clients, commitment to fair pricing, retention and
repeat projects, reliance on systems/automation tools, episodes
of failure and reasons, maturity/culture of the agency)
EVALUATE & FINALIZE

• Has there been an exchange over deliverables?
(Apart from the final online output, will the agency give you
customized reports, analytics to improve the strategy, matrix to
measure success of activities, time allocation for your project,
response time, post delivery service, etc.)
PHASE3
The chances to find the right digital agency are directly
proportional to your abilities to question, negotiate and
shop around

How to Choose The Best Digital Agency.pdf

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