Choosing An Interactive Agency For Your Advertising

Choosing An Interactive Agency For Your Advertising
An interactive agency provides a wide range of solutions ranging from developing and advertising a website to conducting market research and doing competitors analysis. In other words an interactive agency develops and advertises a website and also performs the duties of a traditional marketing agency. However, with the rapid development of the internet technologies, the tasks of such businesses have greatly changed in last 10 years. If you closely have a look at some of the earliest and greatest interactive agencies such as OrganicAgency.Com, Sapient, US Web CKS, iXl Red Sky and APL Digital, you get the clear picture. Internet is not functioning the way it used to back then.

Today, an interactive agency is much more than what we think it is. While looking for one of them to promote your online presence, there are a couple of things one should look for:

Expertise and Experience: Its always advised to review a couple of Interactive agencies and enquire about their clientele, relevant experience, and the number of services provided.

Following questions will help you understand them better:

How many companies have they served so far?

Do they have digital branding capabilities?

Do they experience and expertise of conducting online research or they outsource it?

What are the tools and technologies they employ?

What certification and accreditation do they have? (You need to know this especially when the agency is new in the market)

Do they have online brand strategists?

Do they have expertise in SEO/SEM/SMM/PPC/ and banner and text advertising?

Do they employ black hat strategies or they promote ethical practices?

As an interactive agency, what are their organizational goals?

Do they have expertise in Site Building and Maintenance?

Technology

Technology is one of the most important aspects that plays a crucial role to the success of an interactive agency. While choosing one, make sure that they have the answers to the following questions:

What are their technology capabilities do they have and how frequently do they upgrade them?

Do they have expertise in targeted email marketing; how frequently do they update their database?

What Viral applications do they use?

Do they use broadband video?

What Mobile/Wireless technologies do they use?

How about on demand technologies?

Once you have shortlisted some names, make them a call and brief them up with your objectives and expectations. The conversation should be followed by sending them a detailed mail. Its always better to explicitly mention your priorities. It has been seen that some of the interactive agencies dont achieve goals because they are repeatedly misguided by their clients. You make a list of A B C and ask them to move ahead one by one.

Choosing an interactive agency may involve many moving parts; but the above points will certainly help you conclude your decision.