A recent study projected that Singapore’s Internet Penetration rate is set to grow to 97% in 2023, from 84% in 2017, with each Singaporean owning an average of 3.3 internet connected devices per person. And with a 5.67 million population (2019 stats), this means that there is a huge amount of affluent audience to market to online.
With numbers like that, it’s no wonder why “Digital Marketing” has become the huge buzzword that it is now. There is just a mad rush by companies to market their services and products to Singaporeans online. Such competition in the digital marketing space leads to a dearth of digital marketing talent (as it is a relatively new field), and companies are just blindly looking for digital marketing agencies to take up the slack.
But, before you join them and throw your money at everyone promising you the sky, here’s a quick look at the 6 different types of Digital Marketing Agencies (and find out which will be able to help you in your goal).
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Agency
- Search Engine Marketing and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Agency
- Social Media Marketing Agency
- Content Marketing Agency
- Email Marketing Agency
- Direct Response Marketing Agency
*Do note that some agencies might wear multiple hats, and do more than one type of service.
1. SEO Agency
Search Engine Optimization, at its core, is gaming the Google / Yahoo / Bing search algorithms so that your website ranks higher on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). With a higher organic (as opposed to paid) ranking, more traffic is directed to your website, and you have a chance of converting that traffic into customers.
Agencies that offer this service will usually offer to rank your website for a few keywords, which may take anywhere from 6 to 12 months.
2. Search Engine Marketing / PPC Agency
Similar to #1, a Search Engine Marketing / PPC Agency tries to give you visibility on Google / Yahoo / Bing etc. However, where they differ is how they do it, how long it takes, and how much it costs.
Let me explain. Search Engines like Google want you to use them, so that they can run ads and earn money from advertisers. Thus, it is in the interest of the Search Engine to show you good organic result so you’ll keep using them. However, to make money, they also show you ads relevant to your searches.
A SEM / PPC Agency will run those ads on your behalf. This means that you link will be shown on Google / Yahoo / Bing / etc as long as you pay to run the ads. The moment you stop paying, your link is gone. This can get costly very quickly, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.
However, results can be nearly instantaneous.
3. Social Media Marketing Agency
Look around you when you’re in a mall, or on a train. Highly likely, the people around you would be scrolling on their feed on Facebook, Instagram or other social media applications on their phones.
A Social Media Marketing Agency strives to capture the audience when they’re bored, by sharing content that engages their audience. So, the memes on the various Facebook pages, and even viral videos, are made with the intention of grabbing your attention, in hopes that you share their posts.
While you can generate your own content on social media, it takes expertise and knowledge to not just share information about your products and services, but also in a manner than engages your audience. A Social Media Marketing Agency can help you with that.
4. Content Marketing Agency
Content Marketing is similar to Social Media Marketing. In fact, there are quite a lot of crossovers, whereby a piece of content can be used for social media marketing as well. However, where Content Marketing differs from Social Media Marketing is the type of content that is generated. Social Media’s content is usually meme-based, or short write-ups, while Content Marketing is more about sharing ideas and establishing your company as an authority in your industry.
Thus, what Content Marketing Agencies can do for you is churn out articles based on your needs, to either share information with your audience in a simple manner, and draw in audience.
5. Email Marketing Agency
Email Marketing, while thought of as a dying breed of marketing (email open rates have been dropping to almost negligible open rates), it can still be useful in certain industries. A lot depends on the agency’s list of emails.
Essentially what Email Marketing Agencies do is they send EDMs out on your behalf to reach your target audience. Their effectiveness may vary from industry to industry.
6. Direct Response Marketing Agency
What is direct response marketing? Even if you ask most marketing managers, they might be hard-pressed to give you an answer. A direct response marketing agency is a combination of a Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing Agency.
