Many IT companies in Malaysia can easily claim that they are “digital marketing agency” or “online marketing agency”, but in fact, they are just a web design company, or, just a e-mail blasting service provider, or even a traditional media agency who only act as “middle man” between the clients with the real digital marketing agency. This Q and A article is for those who are looking for the real digital marketing agency in Malaysia.
The word “digital marketing” is very broad. It actually covers all the marketing activities that in digital form. Such as : web design, search engines marketing (i.e. Google Ads and SEO), e-mail marketing, mobile apps development, social network marketing (i.e. Facebook Ads), online video shooting and marketing, as well as outdoor digital billboard and more. As long as all the activities are in digital form with the main purpose to advertise and sell the products or services, it is called “digital marketing”
As far as I concern, the answer is : No. The reason is simple, each aspects of digital marketing require specialist and dedicated software/hardware. For example, for web design you need the people who know web design and have the software such as Adobe. For mobile apps you need the people who know Android/iOS App programming and the software such as Android Studio or Xcode. So it is not easy to get so many talented people and some expensive software/hardware.
If you find any companies in Malaysia claiming that they provide A to Z digital marketing services, Most probably they only offer 2-3 aspects of digital marketing, the rests are actually outsourced to 3rd parties.
So in order to choose the right digital marketing agent in Malaysia, the first question is ask yourself : What do you needs in digital marketing ?
You need to identify what is your company’s marketing needs. Are you looking for a digital marketing agency in Malaysia to build a website ? Or, are you looking for online advertising on Google ? or Facebook ? or having advertisement at outdoor digital billboard ?
As mentioned earlier, None of the digital marketing agency in Malaysia is expert in ALL aspects of digital marketing. So it is crucial to understand what you needs before you choose the best digital marketing agency in Malaysia.
After Identify what are the needs of your company in digital marketing, then you should look at what are the digital marketing agencies offer. If you are planning for advertising on Google, then just look for “Google Ads vendor Malaysia” , “SEO vendor Malaysia”. If you are planning for advertising on Facebook, then just look for “Facebook ads vendor Malaysia”. If you are planning for video marketing, then just look for “video marketing Malaysia” or “youtube video marketing Malaysia”.
The reasons to be more specify on the aspects of digital marketing rather than just search for “digital marketing agency in Malaysia” is, you need to find what is the “core service” of the digital marketing agency provide. Only the digital marketer who offer core service tends to be more professional, having in-house expert and not outsource to 3rd parties. Just imagine if you engage a company who claims to offer A-Z digital marketing services but actually outsource to 3rd parties, then not only the cost tends to be higher, but also the communication process may be delay or breakdown due to too many parties involved.
If you are engaging a digital marketing agency who specilize in advertising in Google, then you should ask the agency whether there are any similar industry / products/client they did before ? What was the result ? Does the client still engage with the digital marketing agency ? if not ? why not ? Could the digital marketing agency provides you the contact person as references etc… This could helps to know the agency’s capability.
It is important to know how the digital marketing agency measure your ads performance. You should know some digital marketing’s terms such as CTR (Click Through Rate), CPC(Cost Per Click), Conversion Rate and etc. The digital marketing agency should be able to achieve some measurable KPI for the consumer benefits.
It is important to ask the digital marketing agencies to list out all the jobs that they will implement for your campaign. This is to avoid any ‘hidden cost” that most digital marketer won’t tell you. It is not right or wrong for not telling hidden cost to you, because sometimes it is beyond the job scope of the digital marketing agency. So it is important to ask the digital marketing agency to list out in details for all the jobs that they will do for your campaign.