In today’s online marketing world, marketers and agencies need to do more than just stay on top of the latest trends and technologies. They need to have a clear understanding of how each spoke in the online marketing wheel is connected to the other. If they fail to recognize this connection, they’re bound to make mistakes that will cost the client or the agency considerable time and money.
I recently had a discussion with a fellow online marketer that demonstrates this point perfectly. My colleague’s new client had already engaged a digital agency to design and build an e-commerce website for a new over-the-counter product with national distribution. This was an e-commerce site, so the client was relying heavily on the website to sell product which means significant search engine marketing and optimization was necessary. The agency that was hired to design the website created a visually stunning site that was very easy to interact with and beautifully designed. However they made one critical error; the entire site was done in Flash. They would soon find out why this was a problem.
When the site was finished the client engaged a search firm to handle search engine optimization. The search firm quickly pointed out it is very challenging if not impossible to optimize a Flash website due to the lack of quality content that can be indexed by the search engines. So the search firm and the design agency were forced to go back to the drawing board to design an HTML based website with Flash headers. The new site combined the desired visual impact of Flash with the practical search-friendly HTML content required to optimize the site. Needless to say, this put the entire project over budget and behind schedule. All of this could have been avoided if the search firm was brought in from the start as part of the team to make sure the designers were considering search engine optimization elements.
Often times it’s easy for an agency or vendor who has been hired to handle a particular piece of a campaign to put their head down, perform their work in a vacuum, then move on to the next project. And if you’re outsourcing a particular function such as programming, you don’t necessarily need the programmer to know what your campaign goals and key performance indicators are. However, the example above demonstrates how somebody needs to be at the helm of the entire online marketing plan to make sure each component is consistent with the stated objectives and working in unison.
That person is a digital media specialist. A digital media specialist is the online marketing equivalent to the traditional agency account executive. They are responsible for defining, managing and executing the online marketing and media strategy. This individual should be well versed in all online marketing channels including online media planning and buying, email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and affiliate marketing.
A good digital media specialist brings more than just an understanding of the various online marketing channels. Perhaps their most important role is building strong relationships with clients based on frequent and open communication. Online marketing is highly measurable but it is easy to get lost in the mountains of data. It is the job of the digital media specialist to interpret the data and present it to the client in a manner that is both useful and insightful. Anyone can produce data but the truly great agencies know how to derive valuable insights from that data, learn from it, and apply what they’ve learned going forward.
Too often I see companies taking a scattershot approach to online marketing without a cohesive plan and clear direction. They have web design here, search engine marketing there, and email marketing somewhere else, yet no one is overseeing the collective effort to make sure each component of their online marketing is working effectively towards a common goal. Hiring an online marketing agency with the ability to make sense of it all will help you avoid the pitfalls and get the most out of your online marketing efforts.
