Digital marketing services have come to stay in Africa and there're thousands of online digital marketing agencies in Africa, all claiming to have ability to render all manner of digital marketing services.  I think there is no really bad or good digital marketing agency, what is there is your ability (budget and clear objectives) to choose internet digital marketing agency that is right for you and can accomplish your aims.

Different digital marketing or internet advertising agencies have their strengths and weaknesses for example some are holistic in their digital marketing approach e.g AdHang, while some are too narrowed.  What this means is that holistic digital marketing agency will critically and meticulously study your need and make best choices on all campaigns processes from target audience, tools, marketing components to online platformS; while narrowed agency have specific platformS (popular platformS) they use whether is best for you or not because is easiest way to go and you may like it, only because your ads are displayed in popular platform.

This forum post today is meant to detail general 6 steps to select online digital marketing agency in Africa.



1. Define the need and write down

What do you want to achieve with your internet digital marketing campaign in Africa? Write it/them down, examples of objectives of online digital marketing are:

Generate awareness of a new product
Educate an audience online
Establish company as an authority
Adding information into a form
Stimulate demand or increase sales
Attract business away from a competitor
More Customers
Remind - to maintain interest and enthusiasm for a product or service
Build or repair public opinion
Sign-up on email lists/newsletter
Post comments
Make inquiries
Perform interactions with your website etc.


2. Desk research, contact by email or phone

Start researching for African digital marketing agencies using different means such as digital online marketing directories in Africa, different search engines (not just google, as different search engines will give you different results), online Africa forums e,g cokoye.com, online marketing review websites etc. Also, remember to use different keywords when searching, for example: internet marketing company in Africa, online advertising agency in South Africa, digital marketing agencies in Africa, and online ads agencies in Nigeria and so on. Then, contact by email and phone to ensure you're reaching the right set of agencies as some agencies over optimized their websites and profile that they appear in online niches they're not really into. For example, traditional digital advertising agencies that deal on billboard might appear when you search online digital advertising agencies, when your real intent was internet not billboard.


3. formulate Shortlist

Through your contact by email and phone you will separate those agencies that are really into online digital marketing, these are agencies that know what internet marketing or internet advertising in Africa is all about, because this is what they do. With this, you can proceed to the next stage.


4. Evaluation/decide basis

You will evaluate the agencies using various criteria such as terms of services, their capacity (if your digital marketing is a complex one), and their approach, time response when you contacted them by email, payment method/rates, and location of the agency in Africa. Also, you can factor in industries the digital marketing agencies have run online campaign for, at the same time, be careful about this as some agencies are just able to attract certain industries than the other, for example AdHang.com attracted more clients from health sector, whereas, AdHang has a know-how to embark on any online digital marketing campaign and have served many clients in Africa and across the globe.


5. Narrowing the selection

Assess your evaluation; reduce the shortlist to two that best meet the criteria you're looking for. Also, in your evaluation, factor in areas of expertise of the agencies such as content marketing, social media marketing, online display, search engine marketing etc. Here also, if you're concerned about particular terms, you let the agencies know them e.g. incentive advertising vs. non incentive advertising.


6. Final selection and appointment

Pick your final agency among the two to hire/contract and appoint the agency.

Ohh, you made my day via this share, please keep it up, Good work and Thanks for this.

thanks a lot for the post. It is informative and exactly what I need right now.

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@dallasmorris
We are actually talking about how to select digital marketing agency, not how to start digital marketing agency.

In digital marketing what matters is achieving main objective of running the digital marketing campaign in the first place. However,  company can change any digital marketing agency that is not performing up to the expectations.
There are hundreds of digital marketing agencies around the world - in Nigeria, around Africa, India, USA, and all over the places. The choice is limitless.

Thanks for sharing..

Selecting a Big agency or a freelancer for digital marketing. Which one is good when I have limited budget?

@Amitgupta1001

It doesn't matter whether big agency or freelancer, what matters is what you want to achieve with your digital marketing. Meaning both big agency and freelancer are good, but I recommend agency because agency mostly has a name to protect. For example, www.AdHang.com can help you achieve your objectives and allows different marketing budgets.