Nowadays, every modern business has a major goal: to excel in its online presence. With the significant increase in the cost of traditional communication channels coupled with the growing penetration of the internet, businesses in Morocco have turned to social media for its affordability and effectiveness in interacting with prospects. The exponential increase in customers making their brand and product choices online has understandably increased the demand for a reliable and effective digital marketing strategy.
Some figures on digital in Morocco
In January 2021, a report titled “Digital 2021” was released by “We are Social” in collaboration with “Hootsuite”. The document outlines the Moroccan digital landscape compared to the global level and reveals the trends shaping it. As of January 2021, the number of internet users in Morocco stands at 27.62 million – equivalent to 74.4% of the total population. This marks an increase of 9.1% compared to the same period last year. Regarding mobile connections, they exceed the estimated Moroccan population of 37.13 million to reach 43.47 million. Social media users are approximately 22 million, an increase of 22.2% from 2020.
Handling digital marketing internally or using an agency?
Today, businesses face several decisive choices for their digital success. A key question arises: outsource their digital operations to a specialized agency or manage them internally? This question is more common among small to medium-sized enterprises but is also relevant for large brands.
To make the right decision, it’s crucial to first understand what it takes to effectively manage digital marketing.
- Understanding customer behavior
Before launching a successful marketing campaign, you must have a deep understanding or mastery of your customers’ behaviors. Otherwise, your messages may come across as too generic and lead to less satisfactory results simply because you may not have taken the time to truly understand your customers and the problems they need solving.
- Establishing processes
Executing any marketing operation requires proper documentation of processes and workflows involved in completing a specific task. This means having a formalized and structured document to meticulously follow when executing any task. Teams must adhere to and strictly follow it to ensure work continuity and seamless execution.
- Mastery of tools
Successfully conducting digital marketing campaigns requires the use of a variety of tools for team communication like Slack, email dispatching such as MailChimp or Mailjet, or analyzing data and results, for example, Google Analytics or Ubersuggest, etc. Mastering these tools helps you execute tasks more easily and efficiently to achieve set goals.
- Patience and consistency
If you want to succeed in your marketing operations, key assets include patience. Generally, noticeable results do not appear overnight. You should continue to conduct marketing operations consistently by monitoring performance indicators without expecting extraordinary results immediately. Gradually, your efforts will start to pay off! Some of the most successful companies have continued to make efforts over many years to see their expectations materialize.
- Ensuring quality
Today, it seems like everyone has become a digital marketer. But what about perceived quality? In this field, the quality of your campaigns makes all the difference. It is crucial to undertake well-thought-out actions, perfectly implemented and strictly controlled.
- Having experience
Even if you have deep knowledge of digital and keep up with trends, unfortunately, that’s never enough! Without experience, excelling in digital, a field full of tricks and new tactics, is difficult. Gaining experience in a specific digital area is the result of regular practice fueled by passion, research, and perseverance. Otherwise, you risk making mistakes, sometimes fatal ones that can harm your company’s image.
We understand that meeting all these criteria requires a lot of time and effort. Undoubtedly, creating high-quality content appreciated by customers every time or creating solid processes to keep your team on track is not easy. Using an agency is an alternative to reduce costs related to training and monitoring your team, as well as avoiding being distracted from other important tasks.
By opting for a specialized agency, you will have access to a team of experts dedicated to enhancing your image and protecting your reputation. You won’t have to worry about assembling your own team, training them, and monitoring them. This will help you accelerate your results.
However, the drawback – or not – is that you won’t be able to supervise every detail and how it’s worked on. You only comment on and approve the result.
So, if you feel incapable of maintaining such distance from assigned tasks, it’s likely that the relationship won’t work. What’s important to know, above all, is that good specialized agencies are experts in their field and therefore must work independently to achieve the best results – while respecting your needs, your budget, and considering your feedback. That’s why it’s important to choose your digital agency wisely and, above all, trust them.
Furthermore, if you think the costs associated with hiring an agency are excessive and represent a disadvantage, it would be wise to consider the costs required to hire and train an in-house team capable of meeting your needs.
First step before choosing your digital agency
Have you already decided to use a specialized digital agency? Great, which one then? This is one of the most delicate choices, and we are aware of it.
One of the most crucial steps in this choice is to know yourself as a company or brand. Do you know your goals? Could you clearly formulate the desired outcomes? Consistent answers would make a good start.
Knowing these elements helps you communicate your expectations for this collaboration and your requirements. Define the marketing operations you need: website design, email campaigns, SEO, sponsorship, etc. If you already have an internal marketing team, specify which marketing actions they already have the skills for and which ones need to be outsourced. These are the kinds of questions that will guide you on what you can delegate to an agency to achieve more effective results.
Furthermore, one of the roles of a digital agency is to recommend useful marketing tactics for your success.
Generally, a good agency should be able to offer services in almost all aspects of digital marketing. Social media is a great way to engage customers, but it’s not the only way. For instance, a significant portion of internet searches occurs through search engines. If you choose an agency that only handles part of digital marketing, you may need another agency for the rest – if necessary.
What is the best digital agency for you?
Now that you know your goals and desired outcomes, it’s time to discover the features that make a digital agency the best fit for you.
These criteria will help you evaluate providers capable of delivering satisfaction and success.
1) Check feedback and client results
Digital agencies often take pride in the accounts they manage and the work they accomplish. They usually showcase their partnerships and results for marketing purposes.
Sometimes, certain types of services are not easy to display, such as SEO, emailing, specific types of content, etc. Thus, agencies may not be able to showcase their work in a portfolio.
Despite this, client feedback can be one of the best ways to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and overall experience. Testimonials and previous client reviews can provide insights into what it’s like to work with the agency.
2) Choose a specialized and experienced team
Regardless of the services you seek, it’s crucial to ensure that the agency you hire has teams suited to your project.
You can browse their employee list on their website or LinkedIn to get a sense of the team’s profile. It’s also possible to request a meeting with the team before starting work.
3) Prioritize agencies with similar values
Take a moment to revisit your company’s core values and culture, as well as those of the agency in question.
Working with a digital agency that shares similar values can prevent conflicts stemming from the incompatibility of the two entities. This ensures they integrate well and work effectively together.
Ultimately, the outsourcing agency is an external entity closely linked to your business. Choosing the right values and culture that align with your company’s is as important as considering the quality of work to be done. The last thing you want is the stress of working with a team that doesn’t share the same principles or act in the same way in certain situations. Pay attention to the words and expressions an agency uses to describe its work. Do they align with your core values and expected outcomes?
4) Assess how the agency manages its own projects
One of the best indicators of what an agency can do for your business is the results it achieves for its own projects. If the agency doesn’t handle its internal projects well, don’t expect them to deliver better results for yours.
For example, the website is one of the most critical portals for a digital agency as it falls within its core domain – and top digital experts leverage this. This is particularly true if they claim to offer website development or design services. So, if you’re considering hiring an agency for blog management, check how they manage their own blog. If you’re looking to hire them for social media management, start by reviewing their accounts. Regarding SEO, how do they rank in search engines for certain keywords? You can verify this information yourself and ask the agency.
5) Be wary of unrealistic promises
The type of results promised by an agency on its website is a good indication of its integrity and understanding of the industry.
For example, anyone who claims to accelerate your path to the top of Google in record time doesn’t understand that SEO is both a short-term and long-term strategy, requiring continuous work to maintain. This is probably not someone you should hire to help optimize your website.
Pay special attention to the claims and promises an agency makes. Ensure they align with what you know about the industry and what is realistically possible.
Stick with digital agencies that prioritize transparency and offer realistic promises. You can filter out such agencies by asking simple questions about what sets them apart and how they plan to achieve those promised results.
6) Opt for agencies that are easy to contact
The best digital agencies make it as easy as possible for potential clients to get in touch. Navigating their website shouldn’t feel like navigating a maze.
Their contact information should be no more than a click away, no matter which page you’re on. And they provide a clear call to action, so you know what to do next. This also gives you an idea of their responsiveness and how they handle communication, a cornerstone in this field.
You should be able to understand if they want to schedule a consultation or if you’re supposed to fill out a contact form for more information or a personalized quote.
If it’s not as straightforward and you’re struggling to understand how things work, consider choosing another agency that simplifies the process. Also, their demonstrations should be straightforward and to the point.
7) Ask about their performance indicators
Many agencies measure irrelevant indicators with numbers and percentages that may seem significant but have no real correlation with the profits generated for the business. These indicators should be perfectly aligned with your company’s objectives.
So, don’t forget to ask the agency how they will measure your success?
8) Consider quality versus price
Take a realistic and pragmatic approach. If you find an agency that charges low prices, chances are they will also produce standard to mediocre quality services.
From an agency’s perspective, if the price is too low, the agency is more likely to do the minimum for your business, as there isn’t much incentive. On the other hand, agencies that charge fair prices are more responsive, listen to their clients more, and are proactive because they can afford to. Therefore, it’s crucial to always reason with the quality/price ratio.
Digital marketing takes time. It’s a process that needs continuous improvement to generate desired results. In this regard, try to develop a strategic partnership with the digital agency of your choice to build a long-term relationship that benefits both parties. It’s not healthy for your digital marketing to frequently change agencies or maintain a tense relationship.
