Very few start-ups usually have the funds they need to launch a full-scale marketing and branding campaign, but without those two, a new company simply doesn’t exist! How will people know that you are making amazing things if they don’t even know that you or those amazing things exist?
This is why a marketing budget, small as it may be in the beginning, is still essential for start-ups. The real question is, how will you know that your entire marketing budget is not being wasted by an incompetent agency?
What are Their Plans and Strategies?
If you are hiring a marketing partner, then you are doing it because they are supposed to use planned strategies to promote your company. No digital marketing or branding campaign can be successful in this fiercely competitive and somewhat volatile UK market, without there being a prominent structure to guide that effort.
Unfortunately, most digital marketing agencies and especially the large ones will likely fit your company in a generic marketing model, which is not how it should be. This is why you should visit someone who will customise their marketing approach to your business. An example of this can be seen through caffeinemarketing.co.uk, who create target driven marketing strategies and comprehensive services that are ideal for start-ups who do not have the funds to waste. Instead of generic models, every step in the campaign, from SEO to web design is specifically tailored to serve the client’s immediate and long-term goals, which is precisely what a start-up should expect from their marketing partners, be they a professional web design agency or a full service agency.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The importance of SEO cannot be overstated in online marketing because, once again, if the target audience is unable to find the business on the internet, they are not even going to know the company exists. It is imperative that your digital marketing partner is focusing on bringing your company up higher on relevant Google or Bing SERPs.
A Comprehensive Marketing Partner Favours Small Ventures
Digital marketing is no longer about one or two services only; it’s a combination of everything related to it and how that combination is implemented which decides how well a campaign will do.
This is not to say that marketing agencies which focus on a few sections of creating brand awareness and demand are not capable of delivering results. If anything, specialisation can only lead to good results!
Then again, when one company is designing the web, another is taking care of the SEO and a third is producing the content you need, there will definitely be a chance of the campaign being disproportionate in some areas.
On the other hand, when all major aspects of your start-up’s marketing aspirations are being handled by a single marketing partner, the campaign will naturally become seamless and speedier than it would be otherwise.
It basically benefits from some of the rules which direct lean management as well. When everything is being completed by a single agency, unnecessary steps and delays are removed and frequent communication in between the various departments is no longer a problem, which automatically means that better results are more likely.
Now that we have discussed some of the essential points, the only last thing you should be looking for is reputation. If they have a reputation and history of successfully working with start-ups in the UK, you are probably in good hands.
