What is a Digital Agency and why hire one?

What is a Digital Agency?

Design, development, software engineering, digital marketing, and digital communications are all areas where a digital agency can help. From start-ups, SaaS companies, entrepreneurs, and local small businesses to large international corporations, B2C or B2B brands, a digital agency can work for any type and scale of business. A digital agency can specialize in several areas or offer a full range of services.

What services do digital agencies provide?

A standard list of common digital agency services usually includes, but not limited to:

• Digital marketing
• Web design and development
• App design and development
• Software development
• Branding and reputation management

A full-service digital agency will typically provide end-to-end services for your online business presence, including everything from branding to web design, software development to SEO, PPC advertising to email marketing, and more.

Let’s look at how a digital agency differs from the most common types of other agencies on the market.

Digital Agency vs. Digital Marketing Agency

The primary focus of digital marketing agency are digital marketing channels, such as search engine marketing, social media advertising, influencer marketing, email marketing, PPC display ads, PR activities, content marketing.

A digital marketing agency will usually help you develop a marketing strategy and define your buyer personas, create buyer journeys, and launch campaigns for each stage of the conversion funnel. This can also include a data-driven analysis of ROIs, KPIs, and overall campaign outcomes.

A digital agency, on the other hand, sees digital marketing as part of a larger picture that includes other digital channels such as the company’s website, apps, and even internal software systems. A digital agency’s services can include brand strategy, social media branding, conversion optimization, search engine optimization (both technical SEO and link-building), web design and development, and software development, in addition to digital marketing.

Digital Agency vs. Web Design Agency

A web design agency focuses on the design and development of your website, or digital platform. Whether you need an online portfolio, a simple web presentation or an eCommerce solution with thousands of product pages and various functionalities, a web design agency will work upon your brief to create and launch your website.

A digital agency can provide a lot more. Aside from web design and development, a digital agency can help you build your brand and grow your business by providing branding, social media management, paid online advertising, lead generation strategies, and other services.

Digital Agency vs. Creative Agency

A creative agency typically employs a team of graphic designers, illustrators, animators, photographers, and audio/video producers – a group of experts who can assist you in developing your brand’s visual identity in both print and digital formats.

A creative agency can also create graphics and visuals for your social media posts, advertisements, website custom illustrations and animations, promotional videos or content for your YouTube channel, online courses, webinars, podcasts, and more to help you maintain a consistent brand image.

A digital agency won’t create print materials for you, but it can work with graphic and web designers, illustrators, and animators to help you build your brand and establish an authentic online presence.

What are the benefits of collaboration with a Digital Agency?

The benefits of hiring a digital agency include:

• Cost-cutting by outsourcing activities to a specialized agency rather than hiring an in-house team.
• Expertise from a wide range of professionals, including strategists, managers, designers, developers, copywriters, marketers, SEO experts, and others.
• Long-term reliable partnership with a vendor who understands your industry specifics and can assist you in achieving your objectives.
• Expanding your company by attracting more qualified leads, acquiring new customers, increasing sales, and entering new markets.

You should consider hiring a digital agency if you don’t have time to promote and grow your brand by yourself; you need help with design, software and app development; you lack resources to grow your sales; you don’t have in-house creatives; you are not sure where to start with digital marketing.

How To Choose A Digital Agency?

Choosing the right digital agency for your projects is highly dependent on your requirements, preferences, and the scope of services you want the agency to provide.

What you should know about a potential vendor before deciding to collaborate:

• The range of services they offer
• Whether an agency operates locally or globally and where it is located
• Portfolio and case studies to see previous work
• Testimonials on the website to learn about previous clients’ experiences
• Ratings and client reviews on credible rating platforms
• Price range and the scope of projects the agency typically works on

When reviewing an agency’s portfolio and case studies, look for projects in your industry to see if the agency has prior experience in your field. If it does, and you are pleased with the results, it may be a good fit for your company.

Summing up

Hiring a digital agency can be a cost-effective solution, whether you are just starting out or have a well-established company that wants to expand its impact.

A digital agency’s experts can assist you with a wide range of services, from branding and digital marketing to web design and development, app development, and software engineering.

When you select a digital agency that matches your company’s values and expectations, it can become an extension of your team – an external partner – that will help you grow your brand, drive more traffic, and increase revenue on an ongoing basis.