What does a Digital Marketing Agency do?

Digital Marketing Agency – a buzzword in the industry circles, a keyword in marketing, and of course a lucrative employer to many professionals today. With its ever-growing and evolving nature, certainly, it’s a topic of interest to many. So here’s your chance to hear it from the horse’s mouth. As a brief introduction, we are SySpree and we are a leading full-service digital marketing agency in Mumbai, India. And in this blog, we unravel the mystery of ‘What does a digital marketing agency do?’ with the top 22 services offered by a digital marketing agency.

Below, we have put together a guide of everything that a digital marketing agency does, and most importantly it is not because we read it somewhere, this comes out of our experience of more than half a decade and the expertise of the best digital marketing professionals in the field.

Do read up our blog on What is Digital Marketing? if you want to understand Digital Marketing better.

Let’s start with the basic overview first where we list out what a digital marketing agency does:

Top 22 services offered by digital marketing agencies

1. SEO – Search Engine Optimization
2. SEM – Search Engine Marketing, Pay per Click (PPC) or Adwords
3. Digital advertising and Direct Response
4. SMM – Social Media Marketing
5. Web Design and Web Application development
6. Email Marketing
7. Mobile Marketing and Mobile App development
8. Content Marketing
9. Influencer Marketing
10. Affiliate Marketing
11. Inbound Marketing
12. Display and video marketing
13. Infographic Marketing
14. Performance Marketing
15. Ecommerce marketing and Sales
16. Graphic Designs
17. Digital channel space management and marketing
18. Marketing Automation
19. SMS Marketing
20. Online reputation management
21. Analytics
22. In-Game advertising

Below we explain each of the top 22 services offered by digital marketing agencies to give you a complete understanding of ‘What does a digital marketing agency do?’

1. SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization aka SEO is simply the technique of listing at the top of search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. SEO focuses on the approach where changes are made to your website to ensure your website is listed among the top listings in the search engine when someone searches for a keyword. In the current world, the best way to know something is through this secret method… “Search on Google!”.

Well, not quite a secret right? And that’s how someone would know of you or your business online, come to your website or social media page, and eventually buy from you or help you make the moolah! At the time of writing this blog, Google had 3.5 billion searches daily. Click here for the latest search stats:

So in layman words, the key to success online is being on the top of Google. Easy, ain’t it? But let’s make it a bit harder by asking how do you get there?

And the answer to that is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. But what does this involve? Tricky, hard, and fun. Yes, it is hard work and tricky cause it requires technical expertise. Implementing the requirements correctly on your website and further on, getting others to prove your credibility. Now that’s where creativity helps.

As an example, one of our verticals focuses on web design and web development. But being counted amongst the best web design companies in Mumbai doesn’t suffice just as a statement by word of mouth. Out of experience, our potential customers converted into our customers because Google said so. For ourselves, amongst the various variants of the keywords that we target we saw the searches increasing for ‘Web Design company in Mumbai’. And good news! In 2 months, we were among the top 10.

2 months for 1 keyword. Indeed, the true picture. We as a digital agency ourselves need to be patient and persistent even with our listings. There are no shortcuts and if there are, they are guaranteed useless.

Rome was not built in a day and think of it, on these keywords, we are competing with highly talented folks who are experts in this domain and have probably worked on this for years. That said, Creativity and effort never fail and it’s probably a few months until we make it to the top 3!

2. SEM – Search Engine Marketing, Pay per Click (PPC) or Adwords

In digital marketing, one size does not fit all. Imagine, you have a product meant for the festive season next month. Waiting 3 months for top rankings on Google is certainly not wise. Or if the keyword is indeed competitive and your competitors have worked on it for years, you could certainly take a few months with the best digital agency to make a mark. But every cent counts in a business and the waiting period for a few months cannot be digested.

That’s when we look at Search Engine Marketing where the search engines give you an option to rank right on top as an ad. For eg. Google has its ad word program. Similarly, every search engine has its paid program.

See the word Ad in the below image to identify the advertised businesses

Search Engine Marketing involves increasing your website’s visibility on the search engine by paying them for the listing in the form of an ad.

Well, that’s easy! But costly! An average click across industries on Google AdWords would cost you $2.69. If it’s worth it, well the context is that it comes with a 4% conversion rate.

Now that’s where experienced Digital Marketing companies come into play. To ensure you get value for money by optimizing the costs and ensuring you get the best returns on your investment. Despite paying them an agency fee, you can expect a minimum of 20% more returns than the general campaign listings by Google directly.

3. Digital advertising and Direct Response

Digital advertising is the variant of the Pay per click campaigns mentioned above. While Search Engine marketing is focused on search engines, the internet offers you a lot of options to pay and advertise your products, services, content, etc. Most of the social media platforms have a major stream of revenue in the form of paid ads where businesses pay to list their ads and every platform has their specialty in advertising

Some online platforms focus on targeting algorithms where the approach is to match your product with their audience interests thus making it a very likely conversion proposition. Some platforms or channels have a niche audience already and hence a suitable place for advertising your product.

Focusing and limiting yourself to one platform or channel is not the best strategy keeping in mind the boons of diversifying ad budgets. Given the vast number of options available, a digital marketing agency is best placed to work out your digital strategy for advertising by giving you an optimal mix to spread your budget across channels.

See the screenshot below with the word ‘Sponsored’ indicating it is an ad. Better still, it will be a topic that you are interested in or a product you are exploring already

4. SMM – Social Media Marketing

Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, TikTok, Pinterest have gained popularity in the last decade as tools for effective digital marketing. These few, along with more than 20 others are the major stakeholders in the ecosystem for social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing is promoting your products, services, or content via social media.

With the increasing popularity and reach, almost all businesses are on the top few social sites. But from a business perspective, leveraging these social tools to reach your audience and potential customers to achieve your goals is certainly a proven strategy.

Similar to the options above and many more below, within social media marketing too, you are spoilt for choice or lets put it this way, they are sufficient to confuse you further right from what’s to be done and which tools are to be used from which platform and how, it is a vast topic by itself (or maybe, we can write a book on this). So let the experts do it for you. Digital marketers are professionally trained and spend a lot of effort in upgrading themselves in updating and researching the latest across platforms

As a digital marketing agency in Mumbai, we have successfully been able to demonstrate to our clients that social media marketing is not limited to listing your business on the social sites, putting up cover pages, and updating posts at regular intervals. Now that’s the popular belief to the laymen and unfortunately, most agencies also portray the service to be so. The way we look at it, this situation leaves us and our clients with a huge opportunity!

5. Web Design and Web Application development

Web design and development are an integral part of digital marketing or rather we would call it the first and basic step of digital marketing. Having a website is like having your own home on the internet or your shop which you promote using digital marketing.

While web designing to many means creating websites, the technicalities involved are much more than they appear at face value. It involves careful strategy and execution around layout, content, features, and also aesthetics.

While SEO, Social media marketing, and other strategies play key roles in promoting your brand and your website, these are thoroughly interdependent. The quality of a website can make or break your SEO campaign. Imagine you are ranking at the top of google (somehow!) and your audience clicks on your link but find nothing when they reach your domain. Though a crude example, we can guarantee that you won’t be at the top for too long

Similarly, other aspects of digital marketing are also heavily reliant on websites. With our humble beginning as a Web Design company in Mumbai, this remains a vertical that is very close to us. And well, for a successful proposition, we believe a website is a tool that sells if designed well keeping in mind the right user interface and giving the audience the best in class user experience.

Do check out some of our web design work in our portfolio

6. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the process of sending an email to promote your Business. Well, now that’s not news to any of us considering the number of email messages any of us receive on daily, and certainly, most of them relate to promotions.

And well, yes there is no rocket science about composing an email and clicking the send button. But, the results are much better when there are professionals at work!

Digital marketing agencies focus on the details ranging from the content, color, template, recipients to the time that the email has to be sent to give you the best conversion rate. Remember 2.5% of the emails sent do convert into sales if executed well.

While the above were the big rocks of digital marketing, below are supporting actors which also play a critical role in the field of digital marketing and of course, many of the overlap with the above and also among themselves too. So here’s a quick peek into the other services provided by Digital marketing agencies. But yes, as we dwell further into blogging we will be getting further details on these too. After all, there are quite a few digital agencies that focus only on either of these and are successful due to their brilliance in these services.

7. Mobile Marketing and Mobile App development

Mobile marketing is the process of having ads delivered on the consumer’s mobile. This could be a combination of one or more channels described in this blog

Just to lay out the context well, most humans now have a mobile screen time of 3.7 hours, and 90%+ shopping as of today is done within the comforts of your hand! And not for nothing 72% of the digital ad spend is always targeted to mobiles

8. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the act of creation, publishing, and distribution of content for online marketing purposes. While blogs are a popular example, product catalogs and other forms of content also fall under this form of marketing

‘Content’ is King’ as it is rightly said. But using content well to convert into sales is the forte of digital marketing agencies. At SySpree, we specialize in content marketing to create content that interests, promotes, and converts. Now, that’s our mantra to be counted among the leading content marketing companies in Mumbai

9. Influencer Marketing

The name says it all. Literally. Influencer marketing is the form of marketing where an influencer in the respective domain is engaged to endorse and promote business.

So keep an eye out when your favorite online star talks about or flashes a product or a concept in his content. He has almost convinced you to buy it. If not, you are guaranteed to recall the product for a while. That’s a true example of influencer marketing.

One example of an influencer is Brian Dean, a specialist blogger in the field of SEO. Now surely given the value he adds with his blogs, we believe most of what he says and in all probability buy the products recommended by him.

Digital marketing agencies are directly or indirectly tied up with influencers across domains to ensure they can engage the right specialists with the ability to promote and convert your product.

10. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the process of having another person, website, or business promotion on your behalf and direct traffic to your website. Based on the traffic directed, the affiliate is paid either per click or based on the sales from that traffic. This is a popular business within the e-commerce space

Want to engage other affiliate marketers or you want to explore affiliate marketing? No sweat, a digital marketing company in Mumbai is the best place to get started or to get connected.

11. Inbound Marketing

A combination of the various services mentioned here including SEO, SEM, PPC, content marketing, email marketing, etc. that brings the customer to the product rather than active selling is called inbound marketing. This works more like the pull strategies in traditional marketing.

12. Display and video marketing

Ever seen ads being displayed on Google or other platforms as an image or a video based on your preferred topics. Or better a better example is the ads that show up mid-way through during your YouTube or Facebook videos. These are typical examples of display and video marketing

13. Infographic Marketing

Visuals attract! Infographics can be an ideal prop for marketing and particularly within the SEO world where the benefits are countless. They add to domain authority, add to the traffic, boost us the interest levels, etc. From the social media perspective, this is hot content to create a buzz and also proven results to convert to leads

14. Performance Marketing

Most of the other services by a digital marketing agency involve being paid effort. Performance Marketing is the form of digital marketing that focuses on results. Performance marketing pays marketeer when the agreed goals are achieved. This form of marketing could be applied to various goals from traffic to leads to sales.

15. E-commerce marketing and Sales

E-commerce marketing is the form of marketing where digital marketing agencies ensure your product is listed and they appear at the top of the searches by users on various e-commerce platforms. E-commerce marketing also involves presenting the same product in a better form to attract customers commonly known as up-selling or disintermediate selling

As a known online behavior, users don’t scroll pages to search for their products. Mostly, the user would pick up the product that is visible in the first few scrolls or clicks and hence the product must be listed right at the top

Often the price is correlated with quality and how often have we found ourselves buying a slightly more expensive product because it is packaged well. Now, that’s the trade secret, or let’s call it the skill set of a digital marketing agency.

16. Graphic Designs

What is marketing without packaging and what is packaging without designs and graphics? The same holds in the digital universe too. Graphic designs are a key element within a lot of service offerings by digital marketing agencies and the stand strong as a service offering by themselves too.

We at SySpree take pride in our work as a graphic designing company in Mumbai which makes it a stop shop for our clients for all their digital needs.

17. Digital channel space management and marketing

The internet is filled with websites, platforms, channels, social media groups, etc. With the variety that is served on a platter, it also results in the problem of plenty. That’s where the digital marketing agencies play the role of a specialist to ensure the clients are guided in the best direction. Your budgets are well managed with the mix on the platter and not to forget the goals being achieved with this approach.

18. Marketing Automation

This is a niche offered by digital marketing agencies where the focus is on automating tasks related to marketing. The offering could vary from chatbots on social media to multi-channel handling or just ensuring the repetitive tasks are automated with a click.

So get a feel of the fresh air by getting rid of the routine mundane tasks. Contact a digital marketing agency in Mumbai today.

19. SMS Marketing

SMS Marketing refers to the promotion of business by sending messages to targeted recipients This form of marketing has seen success across industries and different types of businesses. The improvised form of SMS marketing is also Whatsapp marketing where Whatsapp is used for promotions in multiple modes like messages, videos, etc.

20. Online Reputation Management

Controlling a business or individual reputation by managing the content and distribution online. The effort ranges across various services within digital marketing from Search engines to Social media, messages, emails, and more.

21. Analytics

Marketing is a form of management and what is management without metrics. Every business prefers tangible results and the same is true in the field of digital marketing. Digital marketing service offerings are closely tied to respective analytics to ensure that effort and investment deliver results. So whenever you engage a digital marketing agency, do not forget to ensure that this critical element is addressed do that you get the best return on investment from digital marketing

22. In-Game advertising

The gaming industry currently is worth more than USD 150 billion. One of the components within the industry and digital marketing is advertising. In-game advertising includes placement of ads either within the games itself or as web banners. Well, the good news is there are a lot of takers for this form of digital marketing too

Conclusion:

Phew!!! Well now that was the guide to service offerings by a digital marketing agency, and best of all this comes from our experience as a leading digital marketing agency in Mumbai. Hope we have been able to answer your question of what does a digital marketing agency do by explaining the top 22 services offered by digital marketing agencies

In our other articles and blogs, we intend to write in more detail on each of the above so keep a close eye on this space and subscribe to our blogs today coz we promise to tell it all!

Do check out our blog on What is Digital Marketing? which also captures the History and evolution of Digital Marketing

Also, feel free to let us know and comment below on how you liked this article and let us know what you’d like to know about and we will try to address all you need in our upcoming blogs! Let’s sum it up by saying what you have read here was only the tip of the iceberg! Ciao, see you soon, and stay tuned!