When looking for a digital agency, one of the first things potential brands often look for (and ask about) is the price of working with the agency. This is important as it can heavily play heavily into the overall ROI (return on investment) for the brand. Let’s be honest, the marketing budget might already exist and the potential client doesn’t want to waste their time talking to an agency that doesn’t fit their budget. Let’s look at this more closely.
Most agencies don’t like to talk about price, whether it be based on a fear of scaring customers away or giving our secrets away to our competitors. We know it saves both the agency and the potential client time to be very upfront about the average amount of monthly services we provide our brands, but that amount depends entirely on the brand’s specific goals, channels, and the stage of their business.
While this range varies significantly per brand, clients at BuzzShift typically pay between $15,000-$25,000 a month for our services. For some brands, we only take on a handful of services—usually, these brands are new and just launching their digital presence, or they prefer to keep a majority of their digital marketing efforts in-house and utilize BuzzShift as a partner or extension of their team. For other brands, often those more established with a clear growth strategy, we provide a larger portfolio of services to support their digital strategy holistically.
Media spend is handled in addition to and outside of the services provided by BuzzShift and is typically put on a payment method provided by the client. We do this because transparency is very important to us and this allows brands to see exactly how and where their media spend is being spent. Our paid media team will advise a flighting plan and monitor budgets, but will never allow platforms to exceed the budget without expressed consent.
The combination of services that we provide is unique to each client. For many brands, we start out with our initial discovery session and growth strategy project. During this time, the BuzzShift team will do a deep dive into the state of your brand, the industry, and competitors, and build out a growth strategy that acts as a framework to address key strategic tactics, channels, ongoing services, and proposed spend to reach your brand’s goals. This initial one-time strategy project can cost between $10,000-$30,000 and is tailored to each brand based on their goals and identified opportunities. The recommendations can include anything from a brand refresh to paid media strategy or even a website and digital ecosystem audit. The price is based on the area of focus and stage of business. For example, a more limited project may only focus on audience, content, competitors, and paid media. The more in-depth and cohesive project can cover not just the essentials of the digital ecosystem, but also the brand strategy and brand identity and guidelines.
Other brands who may already have their brand strategy, brand identity, and growth strategy in place may partner with BuzzShift for specific services rather than a full growth strategy project. For example, a client may only need a partner for Paid Media Management and Reporting & Insights. In that case, our team would conduct an initial onboarding session with the client to gain a full understanding of the brand and strategy, take the time to orient ourselves internally and conduct any necessary light research, and begin executing the service.
Through the initial conversations with potential clients, we aim to determine the most highly recommended services that will impact your brand in the most significant ways. Even though the specific recommended services will vary by brand, we provide the following services to nearly all of our clients:
Paid Media Management
As part of our initial strategy, we determine which platforms are the best to meet brand goals. These can include Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Google Ads, TikTok, Display, etc. Once platforms are determined this service includes: campaign buildouts, activity monitoring, ongoing optimizations, and media management.
The initial Paid Media Setup is a one-time investment that includes the ad account setup or access to existing accounts, as well as the creation and segmentation of the target audience(s). The Paid Media Management is an ongoing service with an ongoing investment cadence that is executed in close collaboration with our brands and any other partners they have.
Reporting & Insights
As a baseline, BuzzShift will develop a *live reporting dashboard that will host performance data about the connected platforms and be accessible 24/7.
BuzzShift can also walk through an in-depth performance report on a monthly basis that includes a collection of measured data, strategic insight, and forward-looking recommendations. The Monthly Report could include a combination of, but not limited to the performance of Content, Website, Organic Social, Paid Media, Email, SMS, etc. The level of information included will determine the ongoing investment amount.
Account Service
Communication is a valuable tool and essential to a successful partnership. While each client has an assigned team, BuzzShift provides access to the team primarily through communication with an Account Manager. An important part of how BuzzShift will execute ongoing services is through project management. This includes the building, maintaining, and updating of timelines and tasks. When priorities change, timelines will be adjusted accordingly. Account Service is provided through an ongoing investment cadence.
Content Creation
Content creation is primarily focused on, but is not limited to, creating ads that can be used in paid media campaigns. It can also include content for websites, landing pages, organic social, or even email. Our designers can develop assets in the form of stills, GIFs, or videos and will be sized out properly for each channel or purpose. Our team is flexible and can create content using the client’s existing assets or, if needed, this service also can involve conducting photo/video shoots to capture our own content. The number of content assets, what’s needed to create the content (existing assets vs. photo/video shoot), and the platform where the content will live all contribute to the level of investment.
The services we provide on an ongoing basis are all customized based on the individual brand’s needs and goals. Some brands have all content creation handled in-house and they only need help with the content strategy and paid media management. Others look to us to handle everything listed above plus email marketing, SMS marketing, website design, or any number of the other services that we offer at BuzzShift. We are more than happy to manage your full digital ecosystem or become an extension of your team and partner in executing the growth strategy.
We are not a one-size-fits-all agency and all of our services and strategy recommendations are tailored for each specific brand. As a result, all of the brands we work with invest varying amounts depending on the projects or services needed to meet their goals. If you’re interested in learning more about the cost of working with a digital marketing agency, contact us today!
About BuzzShift
BuzzShift is a digital growth strategy agency with a focus on mid-market, scaling, purpose-driven DTC Brands. By combining the ideologies of branding, performance marketing, and retention agency, we are able to create memorable experiences with measurable results, and build long-term success for our clients with scalable, sustainable growth. Learn more about BuzzShift.
