If you want to hire a digital marketing agency and do some research, you will notice various packages and prices. Your budget will determine the quality of the services that you will get for your business. In this post, we will analyze pricing in three important services.
1. SEO
Many small and medium businesses want more exposure on search engines, whether they need local or online customers. SEO can bring tons of targeted traffic that has many chances to bring sales.
The cheapest SEO packages cost from $100 – $200, but the trusted agencies and the pros can request between $2000 – $5000 or more, which would be reasonable for a quality SEO service. SEO has many elements that you should combine, so we will talk about each one of them:
Keyword Research and Placement
Search engines work with keywords that your potential customers use to find information in your niche. A cheap digital marketing agency will focus on generic and competitive keywords because they lack the skills and tools to dig deeper. Also, the right placement of these keywords is critical, but too many freelancers and agencies don’t provide a great job in this part.
A professional digital marketing agency will go the extra mile and find more opportunities for your business. They have teams of SEO experts that know how to use your keywords and get the maximum on each case.
Quality Content
It’s unlikely to get ranked on the first page of Google without quality content. It means that you need helpful content for your existing and potential customers.
The cheap agencies use many tricks to provide content, but these tricks do not work in 2021. For example, they use duplicate content, content for tools that is not readable, or low-quality content from cheap freelancers. Many even use Artificial Intelligence robots in order to churn out content quicker and cheaper. When it comes to your content, quality is always better than quantity.
A professional agency will make sure that your content is unique, interesting, readable, and valuable for your customers. A great piece of content can get organic traffic for years before getting outranked by the competition. Sometimes, this can be referred to as a type of “Evergreen” content.
Technical SEO
This part of SEO includes all the technical parts of a website. If you have an online store or a business website, you need to have a great design, fast pages, a mobile version, a sitemap, etc.
The difference between a cheap digital marketing service and a quality service is obvious in some technical parts. For example, you can easily figure out when a website is too slow. Cheap agencies don’t have the skills or the tools to optimize a website and ensure the best performance.
Backlinks
All the top websites in any niche have quality backlinks. The problem is that digital marketing agencies have many ways to trick their customers and offer solutions that do not work. In many cases, they don’t even know that their practices don’t work.
Professional SEO agencies will ensure that you will get backlinks from high-authority websites relevant to your niche. These are the only links that matter and can help your site. In many cases, cheap services use spam backlinks that can harm your website. Getting quality backlinks is known as a white hat SEO strategy, while spam backlinks are part of a black hat and grey hat SEO strategy, and can get you flagged by Google. A manual penalty from Google will have a major adverse effect on your domains ranking and authority.
Owning Your Own Assets
When you own a domain name, website and content, they are assets that can be worth a considerable amount of money depending on your traffic and other factors. If you choose a professional digital marketing service, your domain name and website will be fully yours.
Many cheap agencies and freelancers use subdomains or third-party sites to provide you traffic. In these cases, you can’t build a long-term strategy, but they send you traffic for a specific time. Usually, you stop having results when the paid package is completed. Sometimes, this can be referred to as “Private Blog Networks” or “PBN’s”.
2. Paid Ads
Digital marketing agencies that offer paid ads services cost from $250 per month to $5000 per month. There is a big difference in these prices, so you can assume that you get what you pay for. A cheap paid ads agency will not put the same effort into your ads and will not generate a good ROI. A quality agency will use the best resources and strategies to bring results for your business. Here are three critical elements of a paid ads campaign.
Design Of A Landing Page
A great landing page needs great design and engaging copy. The design of a paid ads service is quite similar to the design that you need for a website on technical SEO services. However, landing pages focus on getting conversions instead of getting ranked on the search engines.
Great design will generate more conversions for your advertising campaigns. We can use images, videos, calls to action, popups, email forms, and much more. A cheap agency will include these elements on a page, but the quality will be much lower.
Copy
The words that you use on your landing pages will affect the conversion rates. Many top agencies hire copywriters to create the copy for each campaign and trigger the right actions on the visitors. The goal of a landing page is to get conversions, and the copy motivates your visitors to move on to the next step.
If you don’t invest in a professional agency, you will get low-quality and generic content. Many low budget providers use “spun” or even plagiarized content in order to save time and money. When the creator of a landing page does not put the effort to research your niche and connect with potential customers, you can’t expect great results.
Ad Creation
The ad itself requires some extra effort and skills from the people who manage them. Creating the right ad sets requires copywriting skills and great targeting.
If you advertise on Google Ads, you must target the right keywords, choose the best possible demographics, and have compelling titles and descriptions. The more money you invest in a paid ads agency, the better results you can expect.
Retargeting
These ads appear to people who have visited your website without completing a conversion. It’s a completely different category of ads that you can place in most top advertising campaigns.
Professional agencies can create great copy and design for your ads to get your visitors back. Then, they will come back to your site to complete signup or a sale. Retargeting ads have the best conversion rates, so you need quality work to avoid any loss of income.
3. Email Marketing
Email marketing campaigns can cost anywhere from $500-$2000 per month, depending on the quality of the work and the customer’s subscribers. Email marketing requires some unique skills, so a top agency or a great freelancer is essential to get results. Here are some services that you will need:
Email Copywriting
Each type of writing needs a different expert. For example, SEO services need writers that know how to get ranked on the first page of Google. So, an email copywriter must know how to use the right words to generate sales. Most people need an exciting title to open your email and then be persuaded before taking action.
Low-priced agencies will provide average or generic emails that they’ve used for multiple clients. The conversion rates are not great and could be a problem if you have the same contacts with a competitor who uses similar services. Professional agencies will hire copywriters who will focus on your products and get the best conversion rates.
Custom Templates
Email templates allow you to build your brand while you send your emails and make sales. You can include:
- Your logo.
- A message.
- The colors of your business.
- Any other element that helps people to remember your brand.
A top email marketing agency will improve the quality of your templates, so you will be able to build your brand properly. Low-quality and less thought out templates can have the opposite results.
Email Management
Email managers will put your subscribers in different lists based on their actions and preferences. These options will allow you to get the maximum from each subscriber and send personalized emails. Next, they can track and analyze the results.
Top email managers work in all the parts of your email marketing campaigns, so they will suggest improvements and take the right actions. Low-budget agencies and freelancers tend to focus on a specific part or don’t manage your lists in-depth.
Split Testing
Split testing or “A/B Testing” is a process where you create two versions of an email or two versions of your templates and send emails to a part of your subscribers. Then, you will analyze the results and send the email with the best results to the rest of your subscribers.
Split testing ensures that you will get the best conversion rates. Email experts will use the right tools, create various versions of your campaigns, and analyze the results properly. Low-priced agencies put less effort into split testing, while some of them don’t offer this service at all.
Digital Marketing is an investment, not an expense. It takes time, effort and a proper budget to maximize your ROI. You must choose the right agency based on your budget but keep in mind that you get what you pay for. If you don’t get results after a few tests, you probably need a better service for your business.
