The advent of our generation’s technology has greatly influenced how businesses do marketing. While TV advertising and radio commercials are still present, most marketing companies get into digital marketing to keep up with the ever-changing lifestyle of the consumers and how they do shopping.
As a result, the digital marketing industry has exponentially grown over these past few years and has encompassed most industries in the market. Many markets have been highly competitive lately due to aggressive digital campaigns. New businesses have also been looking into digital marketing because of its better reach and profitability than traditional advertising mediums.
Along with this boom in the digital marketing industry is the proliferation of many predatory agencies trying to prey on those new businesses looking to advertise what they’re all about on the internet.
If you’re a new business owner looking to venture into digital marketing, you should be prudent with partnering agencies and watch out for potential red flags such as:
Directory Listing Promises
One way to advertise your products and services to people is to put your business in directory listings. This is where people mainly look when they’re looking for a specific product or service that they need. With that in mind, if you want high visibility for your company, you would want your business to be listed in popular online directories to yield better results.
Unfortunately, these people will put your company’s details in hundreds of useless directories that will never make a difference in your bottom line. Also, some of these listings can harm your company because of the directory’s reputation.
If the marketing agency you’re partnered with promises these results, look into the directories to which they’re putting out your company’s details.
SEO Hack
Unless a digital marketer had a breakthrough with Google’s algorithm, no one could guarantee you a fast way to get to Google’s top results in search engine result pages (SERP). A good SEO company knows that SEO rankings in search engines are derived from relevant content and proactive website optimization.
If a digital marketer told you they have a hack to make your website on the top page of a Google page result, it’s most likely a black hat SEO practice or something worse. They will try to lure you in with fake conversion rates, tripled organic traffic, etc., just to get you on board with them.
Website Repair
One way to market your products and services online is to build a website about your company. With most people being glued to their phones and computers and having access to the internet 24/7, having a presence on the internet is a good way to market your business. However, not all websites are created equal, and some of them even have technical difficulties from time to time.
One trick that fake digital marketers do is to call up your business and say your website needs fixing. However, all of these are lies. They will list down everything that’s supposed to be wrong with your website and offer you their services at a high price.
If you suddenly get a call from these so-called website fixers, don’t get on board immediately. You can contact a professional first to see if your website is wrong.
Buying Social Media Followers
If you’re big on social media, you know that business is good when the audience avails of your products or services. After all, what’s the point of having massive followers if you can’t convert them into sales? But, amassing followers takes time.
That said, if a digital marketer suddenly offers to give your business a huge following on many popular social media sites in a short period, then there’s a huge possibility that they’re trying to trick you.
Yes, they can give you a huge following, but most of those will likely be bots, and of course, bots don’t buy from you. Not only will this be a loss for your company, but your audience will also think that your company is sketchy because of the number of bots you have that are following your business.
Falsified Portfolio of Past Clients
When you’re looking for a great digital marketing agency, one thing that you should consider looking into is their past clients. If they have had a legitimate roster of successful clients in the past, then it’s a guarantee that they will be a good partner to your business.
What if those portfolios are embellished? This is a common trick among some digital marketers. You can avoid this by calling up their listed past clients and talking about their past experiences with the said digital marketing agency or if they have been a past client.
Final Words
The digital marketing industry is huge nowadays because it has great potential for new and established companies in their respective fields. But unfortunately, it’s also home to many predatory digital marketers looking to trick businesses out of their money by running questionable practices. Although they are in the minority, it doesn’t mean that you should be complacent when looking for one.
