How to Avoid the Biggest Digital Marketing Headaches

4) They focus too much on people-pleasing.

A good marketing agency is a business partner in an on-going venture. They understand the mutualistic value of working together and the growth opportunity that presents. Integrity and vision are necessary for success here. Your digital marketing partners must come to understand your brand, its possible futures, and the steps on the road ahead. Not only that, but they have to be able to help you understand the shifting realities of digital marketing. Beware any company that promises incredible results in a short or even medium timeframe.

There is no magic to be had in this space. Campaigns take time, adjustment, and careful attention to detail. PPC has to learn, designers usually have to restructure the website, creatives need to spend time producing content, and the SEO needs to ensure it’s all optimized. Neither paid nor organic marketing are instantaneous. It’s never wise to aim for short-term booms at the cost of long-term growth. 

5) They Aren’t Exclusive in Your Industry

 Due to the fast-paced nature of the industry, trends shift and new strategies dominate. Those dominant strategies become popular until they become cookie-cutter, then they become ubiquitous. Their ubiquity leads to dilution in effectiveness. Then a new set of strategies rise or return. This can drive up prices and labor-hours required to keep up. 

This is why it’s important that a digital marketing company doesn’t over-employ any standard or template. 

If a marketing firm works with too many companies in the same sector, or copies their competitors’ marketing solutions, they are effectively competing with themselves and undermining client success. A firm should balance their priorities between results-oriented thinking and people-pleasing, striving for efficiency without sacrificing a creative, personal touch. A custom plan, tailored to your business, is the best way to avoid wasting time, effort, and money. 

6) The Agency Said it Would Do Something and Didn’t,

or Was Late, or Did it Wrong … or Poorly. 

Unexpected or unavoidable delays happen in every job in every industry, as do mistakes. We’re only human. There can be any number of reasons, but if it happens consistently, something has to change. Agencies should be structured so they can hit deliverable deadlines. Unfortunately, it’s a common issue in digital marketing and development.

To avoid errors and delays, good communication is key. Clear expectations, the parameters that define them, and consequences for failing to meet them need to be understood by everyone involved. This can’t be achieved sustainably with a list of demands or periodic agency reports. It needs to be a conversation, and both sides need to be responsive. Goals might be unrealistic, especially at first, and that can lead to burnout, mistakes, and communication breakdown.

Of course, clients can’t know that if agencies don’t communicate their availability and capability readily. This is true both internally and externally. Every team member needs to weigh in and efforts need to be coordinated, it only takes one error in judgment to gum up the works. This is where organizational task-management software is critical to agency and client success.