So you’ve signed up for SEO, PPC, social media and a host of other services from your digital marketing agency. You’re paying a set fee each month and you’re pretty happy with the results your agency has provided so far. But as a smart business owner surely you want to get the most for your monthly marketing investment. You can get more for your agency marketing dollar without going outside scope. Follow our checklist and discover how you can expand your horizons to receive valuable additional services without paying more:

1) Have your agency customize your reports. You should be able to receive this service as part of your monthly spend without any extra expenditure. It’s okay if your digital marketing agency uses auto-updating dashboards to communicate some of the monthly data, but you’re within your rights to ask the agency to track specifics – like e-book downloads, survey responses, press release reads, etc. Feel free to ask for these extra reporting points because you can make better decisions when your reports reflect data that matters most to you.

2) Transitioning PPC keywords. Over time your organic campaign will mature and you’ll have the option of transitioning some of your higher cost PPC keywords to organic. For example, if it costs you $5 per click for a top keyword, and then within a few months your agency tells you that you rank well for the phrase organically, you can let the organic campaign carry the load for that keyword. Unless you are in an ultra-competitive space and feel that you require the extra PPC spend for that keyword, have your agency work harder on building up organic rankings for mission-critical keywords. Ask them to pay closest attention to your top 3-5 key phrases and work towards moving those out of your PPC campaign spend.

3) Ask for tips on sharing your keyword research across your campaigns. Perhaps you have retained some of your marketing in-house, such as your email marketing campaigns. Talk to your digital company about how best to use keywords in your email newsletters and offers. Let your agency help you get on the same page with email so that your organic, PPC, and email all reinforce the same keyword themes.

4) Updated keyword research. Ask your digital marketing agency to update your keyword research every 3-4 months. They may do this already on their set schedule, but you want to do a refresh of the research (especially mission-critical phrases and new long-tail opportunities) several times per year to stay competitive.

5) Competitive research. Your digital agency will usually provide this as part of the ramp up for your campaign, but go ahead and ask for additional look-ins to competitors on a regular basis. Often an agency can dig deep and discover what is making a competitor rank well in Google. And another reason to review competitors is to see if they may be using black hat tactics. If so, you may soon be able to take some solace in the fact that they will drop in the rankings when penalized.

6) Image optimization. Ask your agency if they have gone all out with image ALT tag optimization. If your site or blog lacks images, add some where relevant and have your digital company optimize them for search.

7) Content variation. To get this and stay in scope, you may have to make some compromises. For example, if your agency is currently creating 5 new web pages per month for you, ask them if they will consider mixing and matching the content types. Suggest 3 web pages and 2 press releases, or 2 web pages and 3 blog posts, etc. Fresh and varied content provides you with more ways to engage site visitors, and offers a variety of content to share on social media.

These are but a few ideas you can use to get the most from your monthly agency marketing spend. We recommend focusing on keyword research and content. Be ready to make some compromises to stay within your budget, but if the value is there and you get a good quote for additional services, consider adding those. When you work together with your agency you will have the best chance at online marketing success.

Organically offers clients in Gatlinburg, Sevierville and Knoxville, TN exceptional value for their online marketing spend. We also create search marketing campaigns for a number of national brands. Talk to us about your online marketing goals and we will design a custom campaign for you.