What Does a Digital Agency Really Do?

Jon Hamm played Don Draper on Mad Men, drinking hard liquor that flowed through the offices of the New York ad agencies of the 1960s. Pitching the likes of Lucky Strike cigarettes and Heinz beans. Digital agencies are just like this except for the liquor.

Oh, and without Don Draper. But maybe a little bit of liquor.

And everything happens on the Internet machine. 

So, if you think that marketing is marketing, regardless of the medium used or the immediate cultural landscape … well, you would be incorrect. 

No, creating webpages does not earn you an agency label.

What is the real deal? 

A digital agency is a new kind of entity; one that is responsive to the fluidity of the digital world where brands live or die – or linger in a grim purgatory. 

But what does a digital agency actually do? 

Let’s begin with a blank slate, wiping away any ideas that are attached to marketing prior to the rise of the Internet. 

And then take this blank slate and fill it with the stuff that digital agencies actually do.  

A stipulation, right out of the gate. There is diversity among digital agencies, some of us choosing to focus on perfecting one service, like content marketing or app creation, while others provide full-service solutions. This article delves into the doings of full-service digital agencies similar to mine - Kubb&Co.

People with native digital skills that can keep pace with the changing digital landscape are not easy to find and to convince to work for one brand.

A digital agency acts as a partner to its client

77% of companies surveyed by Capgemini Consulting reported that the reason they were not transforming into the digital company they want to be, is a lack of digital skills. A digital agency steps into these organizations, if invited, and provides the missing skills necessary for its digital transformation. 

A digital agency provides concrete products

Digital marketing strategies require outstanding tactics, products like websites; apps; blogs; podcasts; video, improved search rankings and more: A digital agency provides these products, just as they would provide shoes were they a cobbler. 

A digital agency steps into these organizations, if invited, and provides the missing skills necessary for its digital transformation. 

A digital agency is plugged into the digital landscape

Will marketing automation catch up with content marketing in terms of ROI in 2017? Is Big Data morphing into a necessary tool, as opposed to a useful one. What about AI. What about predictive analyses? What's going on with Snapchat? The list is endless.

A digital agency serves as a portal into the digital world and its continual evolution for its clients, sorting through what matters now, what will matter later and what doesn’t matter at all. This is no easy task and it's probably one of the hardest things to master today because technology is moving at an incredible rate.

A digital agency is focused on costs

If, say, a manufacturer of magnetic light switch covers (yes, they exist) could save money by developing an in-house digital marketing team that rocks the web, convincing forward-thinking people everywhere that their light switches must be magnetic, why would it consider hiring a digital agency?

It wouldn’t. 

But in the real world, it would be wise to. Why?

Because it is less expensive and faster to hire a digital firm than to organically grow an in-house team. This is one of the big myths. Brands often think it's cheaper to hire and grow an internal team. But time and time again I see this isn't the case. People with native digital skills that can keep pace with the changing digital landscape are not easy to find and to convince to work for one brand.

Often these brands are also playing catch-up on the digital playing field and are behind the rest of the world. Anyone who is up to speed digitally will have a hard time fitting in with the culture and being productive. They end up leaving the company - which costs a lot of money in training, lost opportunities and employee development.

Digital agencies are developing great digital marketers, to the benefit of all.

Also, using an outside team often leads to quicker processes and the slashing of red-tape. How many internal digital projects have been ditched or slowed to a crawl because of inter-office politics and the apparent shuffling of responsibilities. And don't get me started on Committees.

Here's another myth: A digital agency knows marketing, but not business

Digital agencies are known to house wily web developers, big hair creatives and daring data analysts but you would also run into a number of senior staffers with extensive business experience were you to walk through the halls of their physical realms (aka offices). They may not be in Indochino suits but they are there and they know business better than many MBAs. 

So yeah, a digital agency knows its business, and yours. Digital agencies put on your shoes; they immerse themselves in who you are and what you want to accomplish, because it is only by doing this that they can lead you to where you want to go. 

A digital agency offers the product of fluidity 

Huh? Yes, fluidity. Most digital agencies offer you a set of services and products and walk away, hands having been shook and smiles put on faces. A company’s position in the digital landscape can shift overtime or in a sudden cracking fashion; a digital agency is focused on a company’s digital marketing goals, and shifts its tactics as necessary. 

 A digital agency puts its plans on paper. (Yes, perhaps ironically.) 

A digital agency builds a strategy designed to take its client toward their established goals, factoring in cost, required tools, data analyses, competition analyses and time: This strategy, this plan, is clearly stated and its projected ROI calculated. 

But sometimes clients just want a website. Don’t they?

Sure. And there are excellent niche agencies that focus on web design. And even a digital agency capable of providing a full partnership with a client in the digital marketing realm may take on the occasional one-off client with a specific current need. 

So, a gal wearing plush shark slippers and Pokémon sweat pants who creates pretty awesome websites out of her parent’s basement is an agency?

No, creating webpages does not earn you an agency label. An agency is able to offer its clients a menu of internet-based solutions – not to mention a cohesive digital marketing strategy. Oh, and more than one person works there. We currently only have two employees, but our third starts next month, and the fourth hopefully ASAP. If you know a Full-Stack Marketer, let me know in the comments below.

Digital agencies develop talent 

Experienced digital marketers who are easily able to cross over from, say, an email marketing campaign into a search engine marketing effort are elusive creatures. Next to money woes, the reason companies site for not investing more money in digital marketing is that they do not have the people in-house to support the move.

Digital agencies are developing great digital marketers, to the benefit of all.

Digital agencies do not design print ads, or design far-out radio campaigns

Digital agencies do many things, but they do not offer non-digital marketing tactics to those companies who still heart them, and are suffering from a kind of pre-partum angst. 

Digital agencies believe that every good marketing story begins with data (umm sort of)

Data is the fuel that runs many digital marketing strategies. It's the why behind our tactics. ExchangeWire found that almost 75% of marketers who use data as scaffolding for marketing strategies report that they would categorize their efforts as “quite” or “extremely effective.” (ExchangeWire]

Clients look to digital agencies to provide them with the kind of data that will be useful in building a marketing strategy as opposed to coming to digital agencies, big data in hand (or in briefcase). 

It is big take-away time 

When trying to understand what a digital agency does, it is important to realize that what we do is new and different than what other marketing agencies before us did. 

This may seem like an innocuous statement but it is meant to convey the idea that the Internet changed marketing in a fundamental way, in a way that has meant that old tools and thinking constructs have become obsolete. Now the mobile is doing it over again.

Digital agencies, with our skilled staff, necessary experience and understanding of the digital world are the new spaces where businesses can go to get their digital marketing strategy right and their business strategy. But beyond strategy, you need execution.