As a small business owner, you may not know when it’s time to hire a digital marketing agency. You also may not be ready to allow a third party into your business to help you run things. But this could stagnate the growth of your business. Sometimes you need to allow experts in their field to impart knowledge on innovative ideas to take your business to new heights.

Here’s how you’ll know that it’s time to hire a digital marketing agency for your business:

1. You run all aspects of your business – wearing different hats

This is common in small businesses, however; it can be draining. It can also lead to you dropping the ball in other areas of your business. One does not need to be an expert in running every division of your business. That’s why we have digital agencies. They’re passionate about digital marketing and they’ll strive to achieve next level's results for your business.

2. You’re seeing a decline in your sales

This is an obvious reason to hire a digital marketing agency. A drop in sales is detrimental for any small business and not having a digital marketing agency means that your marketing efforts are not reaching your key customers where they are (online). By partnering with a digital agency, you’ll ensure that your sales strategy is well integrated with your marketing strategy to gain your business enough leads to convert into paying customers.

3. Your business is growing but you need to enhance your reputation

You’ve built your business from the ground up and now that it’s growing rapidly, you’re struggling to keep up with its growth. It’s a good problem to have, but this is a clear sign that you need external help from experts, who know how to creatively bring your brand to life by creating and maintaining its unique voice. While you focus on managing operations and the finance of your business, a digital agency will ensure that you have a winning digital marketing strategy.

4. You last updated your website 2/more years ago and your content is outdated causing a decline in traffic to your online platforms

If your digital platforms are unresponsive to the vast change in technology, then you’ll lose out on attracting potential customers to your sites. You’ll also be ranked unfavourably by Google algorithms. Having a digital agency will ensure that your sites are easily accessible on any device used by your tech-savvy customers. You’ll have a team dedicated to creating relevant content that will improve your Google ranking and improve the rate engagement with your brand on all online platforms.

5. You don’t have a digital marketing team

Not having a team dedicated to running the marketing and digital marketing aspects of your business means that your business needs to hire a digital agency. The cost of hiring a digital agency is much lower than the cost of maintaining an in-house marketing department. That’s because you only pay for the services rendered by the agency unlike having to pay monthly salaries, maintenance, taxes, etc.

6. Not tracking results

If you’re not tracking the performance of your campaigns, you’ll end up wasting resources. An agency can help you maximise your efforts, even in the smallest campaigns.

7. You’re getting leads, but they’re not good enough

Your marketing efforts may seem to be working but they may be producing bad quality leads. A good digital agency is able to analyse what you’re currently doing, highlight where you’re going wrong, then suggest improvements that need to be made in your marketing and digital marketing strategy.