6 Benefits of Using a Local Digital Marketing Agency in Melbourne Australia

 With the power of digital marketing, organisations worldwide have been able to catapult their branding before a globalised audience. Businesses once confined to a limited geographical area can now utilise a range of online platforms to attract, engage and convert target markets of every type, pivoting rapidly to expand and share their offerings with countless customers and clients. 

This is easier said than done, which is why many organisations make the savvy decision to outsource these tasks to professionals within the digital marketing industry. 

As a global organisation, you can either have a single marketing firm monitoring your wider campaign across each individual country or region, or you can rely on local agencies to deliver a more tailored digital marketing strategy to your target market(s). 

Sure, the bigger companies may claim to offer a more comprehensive suite of services and even have experience with some remarkable clients, but do they really understand the culture and mindset of the people to whom you’re trying to speak? If not, how will that impact the efficacy of your campaigns? 

In this article, the Clearwater team explores six reasons for choosing a local digital marketing agency to undertake your campaigns in Australia. 

1. Familiarity with the Local Market & Customer Bases  

Modern consumers are repeatedly inundated with marketing materials from brands across the planet. After a while, it all seems to blend into a sea of white noise that fails to convey an engaging or memorable message. 

More often than not, this is because the team delivering the strategy fails to cater to the subset of their target market in a specific country. For example, content meant to attract a middle-aged person on the coast of America would have to be considerably different from a teenager in the heart of rural Australia. 

By working with a local agency, you will have a team living in the region you’re trying to infiltrate with your marketing, creating content, ads and branded material that adopts your audience’s language and embraces their culture. 

  

A Part of the Local Culture 

Digital marketing is increasingly focusing on serving real people in their specific needs. Search engine optimisation, social media management, paid advertising – the platforms we frequent most are gearing their algorithms to reward consistent content offering useful, entertaining and engaging material to an intended audience. 

When digital marketers target areas with which they aren’t familiar, there will always be issues with cultural authenticity compared to those native to Australia. 

For example, in Australia, Christmas isn’t snowmen, ice-skating and songs around the fire – it’s mornings at the beach, backyard cricket, and tunes around the barbie. You might try to leverage the holiday of Australia Day, but unknowingly stumble into a political mine-field from those who wish to ‘Change the Date’. What about the intricate rules of AFL? Is there really any way you can truly understand the feelings behind ‘mateship’ and ‘larrikinism’ we all hold so dear than by experiencing it firsthand? 

Living in Australia is a unique privilege, and we each have our own traditions, perspectives, struggles and ambitions. Whether you’re trying to reach a few local suburbs or appeal to households and businesses across the nation, can you expect teams who haven’t set foot on our soil to understand our subtleties and diverse characteristics? 

Only a local agency can take your goals and objectives and run with them without the need for further research and AB testing, slowing down the process. They will even be able to identify and describe your target market in Australia to you. 

  

Well-Versed with Language & Colloquialisms 

An integral part of building a successful digital marketing strategy is the ability to outline your desired tone of voice, the way you want to address your selected buyer personas, and how you convey the real solutions offered to Australians. 

In short, only Aussies know how Aussies talk. 

Sure, an overseas outfit may have the necessary technical skills, but given the growing importance of tailored communication between brands and their audiences, can your organisation afford to compromise on such a crucial element of your campaigns? 

By going local, you’re working with professionals who interact with your target audience on an everyday basis – they may even be members of your customer base, with a firsthand appreciation of the challenges to which you are offering solutions. 

As such, your audience will respond better if you authentically adopt the correct terminology, colloquialisms, and messaging within well-crafted content. 

This doesn’t mean donning a crocodile-skin hat and consistently referring to a ‘dunny’. But it does help to help to know the meaning (and significance) of phrases like ‘servo’, ‘furphy’, ‘no dramas’ and ‘flamin’ galahs!’ 

  

2. Operates Within the Same Time Zones as Your Audience  

As you expand your service area across states and national borders, you will quickly realise the impact time zones have on your campaigns. By having a local team in place, they can make timely and responsive alterations and changes to your campaigns that accommodate the needs of your given market. 

What’s more, by having a local contact, you can always rely on being able to communicate with someone to express your concerns and discuss your strategy in more detail, without having to wake up or stay up to the early hours of the morning. This is especially important if you have ongoing projects being completed by teams overseas, which can create an extra touchpoint before solutions are implemented. You will have to factor in more time for sending emails or jumping on calls to have some visibility on the work actually performed on your campaign – in other words, micromanaging. 

  

3. Establish Connections with Local Networks, Partners & Vendors for Growth 

Digital marketing offers some incredible tools that deliver you ultimate control, making it easier to forget that there are many other important considerations to a comprehensive marketing strategy. 

Public relations are still a massive element of how you spread the word on your products and services, as well as building your authority in the industry. By working with a local agency – one that has established itself as a leader in its own space – you will be able to tap into their network of potential partners, media outlets and even vendors. 

You may be presented with local news stations, sporting teams or influencers to partner with, but don’t be too quick to discredit them; often, brands that partner with locally known businesses, politicians, celebrities and news outlets find better results than if placed in a nation-wide or global magazine. This way, you’re not lost in the noise. You can sponsor a sporting team, organise a charity fundraiser, have an interview with the mayor, or simply join your business with another to offer complementary products/services. 

A local agency will know exactly which of their connections to tap on the shoulder, create an introduction, and foster a partnership to leverage an audience with an interest in their clients. While fewer people might see you, they will be the right people who see you – your potential customers. 

  

4. Focused, Individual Attention on Your Campaigns 

Speaking of getting lost, it can quickly become apparent when you sign up to a more prominent marketing firm that your business is simply an account to them, rather than a flexible, breathing campaign requiring constant attention to ensure a positive return on investment. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, given the enormous slate of other clients they must cater to. 

A local marketing agency works a little differently. Their client list is purposefully kept smaller so they can lend a more personalised approach to your strategy. You will have a dedicated account manager and a team of specialists working on building your strategy to its full potential. They are also available for – and insist upon – regular meetings to discuss progress and success. 

You will immediately notice more control with this arrangement. Yes, you don’t know how to operate the various technologies applied to your ads and social media profiles, but you are well aware of the happenings in your industry, and how the results of all marketing efforts flow through into your business. By harbouring a close relationship with your local marketing agency, you can rapidly express your concerns or aspirations and have them quickly pivot to address them. 

Quick, clean and efficient processes to muster actionable insights and achieve lasting results. 

  

5. Greater Savings & Return on Investment 

There is a common misunderstanding that the more you pay, the better the service you receive. Whether this is the talent behind your campaign, more resources made available to you, or simply an accelerated time frame for results, the notion is utterly baseless. 

After all, by choosing to work with an external marketing firm, it is an additional fee you will have to stack on top of your ad spend, content creation budget, and other associated deliverables. Partnering with the wrong agency can bloat your expenses, reducing profit margins, and making it harder to pay employees and meet other operational requirements. 

The trade-off would be to do it all yourself, but wouldn’t that cost you more money in the long run? Without the required experience, that ad budget and content production costs would likely fall flat with your target audience (if it reaches them at all), rendering it wasted. You will also have to accommodate the opportunity cost of putting your attention elsewhere, not to mention purchasing and learning how to use the required tools and software. 

Put simply, you need to be smart about where you put your money. 

Larger marketing firms often leverage their size and brand name to demand higher contracts or retainers, but provide the same deliverables as a smaller agency. A local digital marketing agency can therefore offer more significant savings in overall outlays, but with a more personalised approach that can also deliver a greater return on investment with your campaigns. 

  

6. Local Agencies Grow with You 

As we have mentioned at length above, the business model of a local digital marketing agency is a lot different to bigger, multi-national firms. A local team will favour fewer clients that they can grow into larger, more fruitful clients, whereas bigger firms are happy to get clients through the doors with fat retainers and keep the account ticking over for as long as possible. 

The reason for this is that local agencies grow on the success of their clients, not the amount paid in contracts and ad spend. Local marketers establish close working relationships geared toward the long-term, taking the time to understand the motivations and objectives behind their business and tailoring solutions to accommodate. With the growth provided through successful implementation of strategies, local agencies share in that progress, growing their refined portfolios. 

  

Learn More About How a Local Digital Marketing Agency Can Help Grow Your Organisation in Australia 

Only a handful of clients truly need to invest in larger marketing companies that span countries and regions. More often than not, taking a proactive approach with a more attentive, local digital marketing agency can actually elevate the quality of your service, rendering a far greater return on investment with attracting your target audience.Interested in learning more about how your company could benefit from local digital marketing services like SEO, social media, PPC and more? Contact us at Clearwater today for an initial consultation around your objectives, service area, industry and how best to get started.