What is a Digital Agency?

The key word in the phrase ‘Digital Agency’ is the first one, digital.

The point of difference between a digital agency and a regular agency is the weight placed upon digital and online channels. Digital agencies tend to work across a broad range of online channels with the aim of achieving their partnering businesses goals through these channels.

“That’s great and all, but how do I know which is better for my business?”

It all comes down to your goals, your industry, and your consumers.

Working solely in a digital capacity often translates to:

• Greater ability to segment and target audiences.
• Designing and curating content for specific channels and audiences.
• Gaining data that is transparent and leaves little room for uncertainty. 

In short, you will be able to reach your target audience effectively, with messaging you have designed, whilst gaining clear data on how they interacted with your brand online.

For your business, the services a digital agency offers could reflect the likes of digital marketing, web development, graphic design, digital strategy, or a mix of all the aforementioned.

The Importance of Digital in Modern Business

The quickest way to understand the impact and scale of digital in the business environment is to look at the competition you face as a business. How has it evolved or grown in the last decade? With access to the world now readily available through the phones in our pocket, the competition businesses face is now greater than ever. Unfortunately, this means it’s often harder to stand out as a brand. 

As marketing and advertising budgets have grown, consumer targeting has shrunk. Long gone are the days of putting up billboards and expecting the phones to ring off the hook. Businesses are now personalising down to a tee to reach their desired consumer.

Digital acts as the perfect vessel, from running a website and using targeted keywords and phrases, to highly engaging social media channels and targeted display ads, businesses can position themselves as the go-to player in their industry, being ever and omni-present in the mind of the consumer.

What Does a Digital Agency do?

Digital Agencies, such as Kings Digital, partner with and support businesses by being their digital team, either in a partial, or full capacity. Once again, there’s no perfect solution, just the one that’s perfect for your business.

Most digital agencies offer one or more of the following services.

Digital Strategy

Digital strategy comes in many forms. For us, it acts as the foundation for achieving success. In short, the result of developing a digital strategy for a business is to have a clear roadmap on what will be achieved, why, and how.

Creating a digital strategy is multi-faceted, often starting with a research component, on both a macro and micro level, in addition to multiple collaborative workshops. We believe this is an integral first step to success as it establishes a clear foundation. The result from this can include defined metrics of success, the selection of proposed digital channels, and the start of a clear reporting structure. This is followed by the development of a strategy based on prior research, often taking the shape of a detailed 6–12-month plan that you feel confident about executing (or we can help you).

Like any great plan, the results come from execution. A good digital agency will work with you to launch and then refine this plan in an ongoing capacity.

You can learn more about Digital Strategy here.

Digital Marketing

Perhaps the broadest offering a digital agency can offer is digital marketing services. With a clear strategy already in place, digital marketing often acts as a major part of the executional piece. This component of work can take the shape of many services, and will ultimately depend on your budget, digital appetite, industry, and target audience.

For most businesses, we tend to find a mix of digital marketing channels lead to the best results. An example of this in action could be a business with a SEO optimised website that has been created with consumer conversion in mind, that is supported by a mix of targeted keyword traffic through paid search channels. Additionally, the example business has a clear understanding of their target audience’s behaviour, and as such, creates content that they engage with across their respective social media channels. A supportive layer of paid social media ads is rolled out in some capacity to increase the brands overall awareness and generate leads.  

Although the above scenario might not be the perfect formula for your business, it acts as an indicator for the breadth of potential digital marketing can have for your business.You can learn more about Digital Marketing here.

Design and Branding

A key part of a business’s identity is its brand. Digital design as a service acts as the brands face and personality across the digital spectrum, taking many forms.

Creating an effective and engaging brand look and feel is a great way to help your business stand out. From the way your website is set up, to the elements you include within your social media posts, establishing a clear brand and design is essential.

A differentiating factor between digital versus traditional design is the attention placed towards user experience and interface in relation to a brand. You can learn more about Digital Design here.

Web Development and Maintenance

At the heart of most digital campaigns is a solid website, so it’s no surprise that web development and maintenance are one of the key services that a digital agency should offer. 

Depending on the size of the agency and their relevant skill set, the level of web development may vary from off-the-shelf designs, all the way to fully customised websites.

An effective digital agency partner should consider what your website needs to strategically achieve, look at your audiences, your goals, and then determine how to make the website really perform for your business.

At Kings Digital, we take building websites very seriously, and as such we ensure we develop all websites in-house, rather than outsourcing. From a business owner’s perspective, that means you’ll be talking to the people who actually made your website, meaning you have a team who are agile and available to support it and improve it over time.

You can learn more about Web Development and Maintenance here.

4 Signs of a High-Quality Digital Agency

With so many respectable digital agencies readily available within Hobart, let alone the broader Australian market, here are a 4 signs you should look out for to identify a high-quality digital agency.  

Proven track record with case studies and testimonials

Check out the digital agency’s recent work, and the feedback their clients give, it’s potentially a great indicator of what’s to come.

Transparency in reporting and communication

Open and honest conversations are essential for any relationship, but when there’s money involved, you want to know exactly what’s being spent, where, and why. What does your digital agencies reporting structure look like?

Industry-specific expertise

Do they have experience in your industry, or local knowledge? Or, have they worked with businesses that have similar goals and pain points that you possess?

Customised strategies instead of one-size-fits-all solutions

Every business is different, therefore every strategy should be too. Finding the right fit for your business is essential in order to achieve success.

If you’ve gotten this far, we hope you’re a bit more informed about what it takes to choose the right digital agency partner.

If you’d like to learn more about our expertise and how we may be able to support your business goals, feel free to reach out.