Choosing a digital marketing agency is one of the most critical decisions a business makes. A digital marketing agency offers tailored solutions designed to enhance online presence and drive measurable results.
Partnering with a digital marketing agency is more than just access to its services. It is a strategic partnership designed to achieve the brand’s core business objectives by leveraging the expertise, experience, and tools needed to keep pace with the constantly evolving digital marketing landscape.
In this guide, we will cover the questions businesses should answer before searching for an agency, a framework for choosing the right agency, and onboarding expectations to help you choose the right digital marketing agency in Nigeria for your brand.
Phase 1: Internal Assessment – Questions to Answer Before You Begin Your Search
Before you begin the search for a digital marketing firm, there are questions every brand should have the answer to. These answers help streamline the selection of agencies that align with your brand’s goals.
Q1: What Are Our Specific, Measurable Business Objectives?
Effective SMART goals can help you clarify objectives and identify areas for improvement. Avoid setting vague goals like “more online presence” or “generate more leads”. Instead, set concrete and well-defined goals, for example, “increase qualified leads by 30% in 6 months,” or “achieve a 20% growth in e-commerce sales”.
Q2: What is Our Realistic Budget?
Once goals and objectives are defined, the next step is to determine your budget, as it directly affects the range and depth of services you can access. Do you need help with social media campaigns only, or a complete digital marketing overhaul and a new marketing strategy?
Additionally, do you intend to adopt the monthly retainer or the pay-as-you-go model with the agency partner? Answering these questions helps you filter agencies by these criteria and set realistic expectations from the outset.
Q3: Is an Agency the Right Model for Us?
Once you’re clear on your objectives and budget, the next question is whether to partner with an agency, hire freelancers, or build an in-house marketing team.
- In-house Team: With an in-house team, firms typically have more control over the work the team does. An in-house marketing team would be more immersed in the company culture and more aggressively integrate brand values in their marketing efforts. The limitations of this choice are that overhead costs are high, acquiring new talent might be challenging, and you might have fewer specialists on your team.
- Freelancers: Digital marketing freelancers are usually specialists hired to perform specific tasks or take on short-term projects. As freelancers are not permanent employees, they may struggle to integrate into your team and manage marketing demands and time constraints with multiple clients.
- Marketing Agency: Outsourcing digital marketing to agencies is another option for companies seeking comprehensive expertise without the struggles of creating an in-house team. Agencies bring together specialists across digital channels and offer you immediate access to skills that are costly and difficult to build in-house. Additionally, agencies have the resources to tweak and optimise your campaign as often as needed to ensure optimal performance.
Phase 2: The Selection Process – A Step-by-Step Framework for Choosing Your Agency
Choosing the right agency significantly impacts your brand, and a thorough hiring process reduces the risk of costly mistakes and helps you secure long-term partnerships. Below are some steps to guide you through this process:
Step 1: Define Your Agency Requirements
Use a tiered priority system to assign different levels of importance to your company’s requirements. By categorising these priorities into tiers, you can ensure that agencies at the top level receive the highest consideration. Here are some guides to help:
- Must-Haves (Non-negotiable): These are the features or boxes an agency must tick to qualify to be selected. For example, proven experience in the Nigerian market, expertise in B2B lead generation, SEO expertise, Social Media Marketing and proficiency with specific marketing automation software. These must-have features vary by business. Think deeply about the must-haves for your industry/business and note them.
- Should-Haves (High Priority): These are the features or boxes an agency should tick to qualify to be selected. You can still choose an agency without these, but agencies with these are preferred. e.g., experience in your specific industry (FinTech, FMCG), case studies with similar-sized companies.
- Nice-to-Haves (Low Priority): These are the “Cherry on top” features, for example, an office in Lagos, experience with a secondary marketing channel we may explore later.
Nice-to-have features are essentially “tie-breakers.” If, for example, two agencies have the must and should have features and there’s a fix choosing one, the nice to have features come in to influence the decision.
Step 2: Create a Shortlist of Potential Agencies
After clearly articulating and outlining your “must-have”, “should-have” and “nice-to-have” agency requirements, the next step is to create a shortlist of agencies that fit the outlined requirements. You can find digital marketing agencies in Nigeria by;
- Searching on Google, Clutch or LinkedIn
- Using industry referrals and professional networks
- Search on LLMs & answer engines.
- Analysing the digital presence of potential agencies
Read Also: https://kresteldigital.com/lists/top-10-digital-marketing-agencies-in-nigeria
Step 3: Conduct Structured Interviews
Once you have a shortlist, contact the agencies and schedule a meeting. It’s important to include the necessary stakeholders in the first meeting to gather relevant feedback. This prevents entire pivots due to stakeholder objections, further into the selection process. Have all the required questions ready before the meeting. It’s important to value the agency’s time and ask only relevant questions; below are examples of pertinent questions to ask and those to avoid.
- Crucial Questions to Ask: “Can you walk us through a case study of a Nigerian client with similar goals?” “How do you measure and report on success?” “Describe your client communication and project management process.” “Who will be the day-to-day contact on our account, and what is their experience?”
- Superficial Questions to Avoid: “How many employees do you have?” “What awards have you won?” This allows you to focus on questions relevant to your business and not performance indicators that appear impressive but don’t reflect real business success.
Step 4: Set Clear Performance Expectations
Once you have decided to hire an agency, it’s important to align on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) before signing a contract. Setting clear expectations in contracts helps prevent disputes and ensures smoother business operations. This step is crucial to inform decision-making throughout the contract lifecycle.
To make this process easier, define success for the first 30, 60, and 90 days at the start of a project. Additionally, be transparent about what your expectations are to avoid future disputes and misalignment.
Phase 3: The Onboarding Process – Setting the Partnership Up for Success
The agency selection process does not end with a signed contract; comprehensive onboarding is necessary to prevent wasted time, misconceptions, and ensure a successful partnership. A proper onboarding process should include the following;
Establish Clear Communication Channels
Decide on the primary communication tools and the protocols to be followed. Does your company use Slack, emails or other project management software? What is the expected response time? Are interactions limited to team leads only?
Designate an Internal Point of Contact
Once communication channels are clear, designate a single, empowered person within your organisation as the primary point of contact. This is to streamline communication and decision-making between the various teams working together.
Agree on Meeting and Reporting Cadence
Set a cadence for weekly/bi-weekly check-ins and monthly/quarterly reviews. This way, you stay in the loop on the project’s progress and monitor milestones. It is also necessary to define the format and key metrics for performance reports to avoid multiple edit requests on marketing reports.
Ensure Seamless Handover of Assets
Assets such as ”social media logins, admin access to meta tools eg. ad manager, business suite and pages”, website or cpanel login, CRM tool login, admin access to google tag manager and google analytics, google ads account etc” That are necessary for effective project execution by the agency should all be provided during the onboarding, You should also get written confirmation via email, the access were received and confirmed to work as intended.
Conclusion: Make the Decisive Choice for Growth with Krestel Digital
In this article, we have reviewed the key phases and processes to help you choose the right digital marketing agency for your brand in Nigeria: internal assessment, candidate selection, and onboarding.
At Krestel Digital, our team of professionals uses strategic, data-driven methods to deliver bottom-line-focused solutions. Our deep knowledge of the Nigerian market has helped other brands succeed in digital marketing. Schedule a consultation today to begin your strategic growth journey.
