When you choose a company partner, you want to get to know them before signing on. You want to understand who they are, how they operate, what makes them tick—ultimately, why you should work with them. Evaluating a future business partner isn’t rooted in service capabilities as much as it is to see whether the two companies and individuals involved will be a good match.
If two companies are true partners, it becomes a symbiotic relationship. Both teams should look forward to meetings together.
An agency should not just be in it to further their bottom line. Instead, for the best chances of real success, both sides must make sure it’s right for them.
Vetting company fit is essential during the initial assessments and meetings, and knowing when to politely step away if either determines it’s not quite right is critical for long term success.
In fact, there would be shame only in not doing so and then realizing down the line that it’s not going to work out.
Like any great mutually beneficial relationship, each side needs to care about the other.
Especially when it comes to marketing and sales, you need a partner that you’d be thrilled to stay with for the long run and trust. Marketing and Sales are often the lifeblood of a business.
So you surely don’t want just any marketing agency. And since every agency out there is going to advocate for themselves as being nothing short of fantastic, how can you possibly know which is the best for your company?
In this article, we’ll answer the questions, “Why hire a digital marketing agency,” and precisely “What is Uhuru,” so you have the details to make an informed and powerful decision that can transform your company. If you want to learn more about the technical aspects as to what a digital marketing agency does read, What Does a Digital Marketing Agency Do?
Article Contents
Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: Bandwidth and Resource Constraints
The real reason why companies need to hire a digital marketing agency is that they don’t have the bandwidth to complete all of the necessary work in-house. Or, perhaps they don’t have the necessary experts or capabilities to correctly execute the business growth tactics.
For instance, we have clients that have the bandwidth to do a lot of work in house, but they lack channel experts in PPC, specific content marketing expertise such as keyword research, and a strategist to oversee activity success. Other clients lack both resources and bandwidth, so we step in to assist them with all-things-marketing as an outsourced marketing department.
Different companies will have different needs, and we make sure to fill in the gaps.
We feel a customized experience is always best, and although we have many specific processes in place, there should be no cookie-cutter jobs.
Clients can get a combination of services or just the ones they need, depending on the strategic program they go with.
Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: Hyper-communication and Organization
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The way we’re organized has a lot to do with our success, and our clients’ success, by extension.
We’re talking both about the infrastructure of how we organize what we call the “hive” as well as the way each team member stays organized on an individual basis while working. While some people who don’t know much about today’s ever-growing remote working landscape still believe teams cannot possibly be as collaborative as those spending time together physically in an office—we have evidence to the contrary.
We utilize proven best practices and technologies that make our team feel close—perhaps even closer and more in-touch and communicative than if they were sitting in an office together. With daily “huddles” where each team member gets to update the rest of the crew on what they’re working on, they are empowered to ask the right questions and feel that they always know where to turn if they need help.
It also helps others that may be working on a different piece of the production process for the same project to know when their part is ready for them so they can plan according to schedule. Deadlines simply aren’t missed this way.
Our Uhuru “scrum” setup allows us to be “agile”—it makes it so everything is broken down into bite-sized pieces and tasks can be planned ahead of time, while also leaving room for anything that pops up.
Work gets done faster, more precisely, and with more flexibility with agile marketing. Hive teams also enable us to allow clients to know the team members they’ll be working with. These relationships don’t constantly change and companies can truly view the hive as their very own marketing department.
They enjoy being able to reach out and talk directly to anyone on the hive, whether it is for design, copy, strategy or PPC needs.
Multiple sets of eyes within this group see each piece of content, art, or code that gets churned out for ultimate quality control. It’s a real group effort and partnership, between the client and the hive. We first see the big picture and think high-level—for a birds’ eye view strategy—then whittle everything down into tactics. This solves any potential cracks there could have been in the system or work.
A “Transparent” Team and Processes
Everyone can always see everyone else’s calendar, live—just as they can see the actual files being worked on live, as changes are made. Progress and status updates are never kept in the dark so everyone knows what’s going on at all times. We use apps that enable us to file share, screen share, share fun facts of life, leave typed comments, leave emojis, audio call, video call, and beyond.
We host retreats for our teams so they can meet each other in person, but they have reported that by the time they physically meet, they already feel they know one another. And we’re proud of this, as it is known that teams that get along and don’t burnout generate the best work. We prefer to move as one cohesive unit more so than a distributed team made up of a collection of professionals that span all over the world.
It hardly feels distributed at all sometimes because of our careful, tested, and constantly improved processes. We even have our “sprints,” essentially a week in our scrum framework, start and end on Wednesdays instead of looking at it as Monday to Friday, to avoid a “case of the Mondays.”
Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: Top-notch Transparency, Both Internally and for You
When we say The Hive, we’re talking about a group of people that comes from not just various physical, geographic locations, but from all different types of backgrounds and experiences.
Everyone is adept in the field of marketing, but each of our team members specializes in a particular area. We come from all walks of life: from content strategists to graphic designers and web developers.
Even if you just take our writers for instance, when you look beneath the surface of the general category label, they’re actually skilled in all sorts of different types within that one area. Our writers have been cultivated from editor roles at publishing companies, copywriting positions at advertising agencies, and more. You always know which team member to get in touch with about a particular matter.
Remember, you have an all-access pass at our agency.
Experience from Every Angle
And when you zoom back out and look at the collective industry knowledge at Uhuru, we have experience working with businesses from over a dozen different industries between us. We’ve dabbled in the following and beyond, with tech being one of our absolute favorites:
- SaaS & Software
- SEO/Digital Marketing
- Sports & Fitness
- Legal
- Finance
- Health & Wellness
- Insurance
- Medical
- Real Estate
- Manufacturing
- E-commerce
- Non-profit
- Fashion/Apparel
- and more as the agency expands via acquisition.
When you’re thinking, “why hire a digital marketing agency,” especially one like Uhuru, go with a collection of multifaceted talent that works together to drive success.
Your best bet is choosing a team that is able to help because they’ve worked in your realm before—not one that is going to use you as a guinea pig and see whether they can figure it out, on your dime. They should already be experts (although we are big believers that one should never stop learning).
We are huge proponents of keeping our clients in the loop. They should be able to see into the effort behind our work, status, and virtually anything else they want. Again, our clients are our partners in the process and we feel they have as much a right to be involved as our teams do. After all, it’s your money, so why shouldn’t you feel as though you’re in the driver’s seat? We may be seasoned consultants and are here to steer you with the right guidance but ultimately you’re in control of projects being done for you.
For this reason, we take advantage of live, cloud-based collaboration tools such as Google Suite. We can’t get enough of the way they’ve brilliantly enabled everyone to seamlessly yet securely work together on the same files all at once—and how they make responsibility and teamwork possible, simultaneously. It paves the way to give each member of our team as well as our clients’ teams a key seat at the table. It provides that all-important window into the latest happenings and progress.
Consistently Keeping in Touch
We also utilize a client-facing dashboard called RedBooth where workflows, checklists, and feedback are on display for everyone granted access. And because we have people in different time zones, someone is bound to always be available to answer your question there. It’s an added benefit of our remote company. But it’s not just about the technology we use. To ensure our clients feel they’re an important part of the process and that we understand communication goes two ways, we also like to keep our clients regularly on our calendar.
When wondering, “why hire a digital marketing agency,” consider this.
Hosting weekly or bi-weekly meetings with each of our client partners helps us further solidify the ever-crucial feelings of trust. Scheduling frequent check-ins gives anyone on either side an opportunity to raise flags with one another to address concerns, to bring new ideas to light, and to get clarification if needed.
Clients appreciate being kept up-to-date on workflow and being given the opportunity to ask whatever questions may have come to mind that they’d rather address “in person” (virtually) than typing them out. Just because we’re remote doesn’t mean it’s not feasible to hear each others’ voices as often as we’d like. It also makes sure things still have a personal touch while remaining a group of virtual telecommuters.
Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency: Cultivating and Maintaining the Best Talent for the Best Work
Another way we ensure we have the highest quality talent to be able to produce the best work for our clients is by perfecting our hiring and onboarding approach. Since we’re distributed, we can hand-select the cream of the crop from a global talent pool rather than being limited to what’s in our backyard as traditional workplaces must do. We don’t need to restrain our thirst for great employees due to geographical factors.
No one needs to make sure they live close enough to an office to commute. They simply need to work in a place with a reliable internet connection and which they deem to be the most comfortable and most productive for them. As such, the possibilities are endless. When hiring, we simply have to look for skilled professionals that are a culture fit and in whom we see their potential.
Our careful recruitment process sends each candidate through multiple rounds of interviews with different representatives of the current management team as well as testing.
Ongoing Development and Coaching
However, they still don’t need to already be quite at an “expert at all things” level because our detailed, thorough 90-day onboarding, continuing education, and Olympic-level training programs help them grow further even after that time.
We don’t expect our people to know everything there is to know. We expect them to be hungry to grow and develop all the time once they start with us.
We provide opportunities for them to keep themselves updated on the latest trends through readings, certifications, and even sending them to conferences they feel would be beneficial. The learning never really stops. “Expert” status isn’t quite good enough for us. You might say we’re insatiable when it comes to our knowledge base and always striving to be greater than we are. We aim to stick by our motto of “leave people better than you found them,” and for that to ring true internally—and, in turn, for the client.
We also like to teach clients, not just new members of Uhuru. In other words, like the old adage “teach a person to fish and they’ll never go hungry,” we don’t just do—we teach.
One-off projects aren’t our thing. We don’t want to merely do the work and have that be the end of it. We make sure to explain best practices for marketing so that clients fully understand the “why” behind how things work. Why are you getting the number you’re getting, why something might have worked for you and it does not anymore, etc.
So, Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency—Specifically Uhuru?
You may be an expert in your field, but we want you to grow to be experts in all-things-digital during this digital age, too—so you can run with our best tricks and continue to do your own great work, even if our engagement does end someday for any reason.
We’re results-oriented, and if you’ve taken a look at some of the ROI we’ve helped our clients achieve, you’ll see it for yourself. As you learned, our workflows are designed with a long-term strategy in mind, not for quick, temporary solutions. We don’t do little band-aids. Our approach is proactive and can even be seen as preventative maintenance. Other companies might not look at the big picture but then they must try to put out fires as things come to light that was missed.
Uhuru is an all-encompassing plan for success, throughout the life of the business.
Why hire a digital marketing agency at all, but especially one like ours?
Well, if you want to stick with a business partner that’s going to stick with you, you’ve probably got a pretty good sense by now of who should be at the top of your list of agencies to be considered.
Think about it.
Pick a group that is known to understand the client’s needs on a deeper level, loves teaching regardless of whether it evidently benefits them or not and sincerely gets excited at the thought of your future success boost—even if they’re not directly involved! The decision is yours.
You now know the kinds of things to look for to see to it that you’ve chosen what’s best for your company and your team, for years to come.
If you’re ready to work with a team whose reputation is off the charts for multiplying productivity, smashing goals you never thought you could reach, and being a trusted resource, get in touch.
Or, if you’re still not sure whether working with a digital agency is right for you, you can find out by scheduling a complimentary strategy session with a Business Results Specialist. We’ll come prepared with an audit of your online marketing and sales efforts.
You’ll get one-on-one time reviewing your current strategies and methods, and we’ll share tested and proven solutions that you can implement immediately to see a positive impact on marketing and sales.
