Digital Marketing Retainers & Packages

Stop multi-tasking and pro-crastinating and start outsourcing digital retainer work to a reliable digital partner.

THE VALUE OF RETAINER SERVICES

Larger companies appoint in-house digital marketers to manage their content, SEO, pay-per-click ads, social media etc. The 2024 monthly salary for a Digital Marketing Specialist in South Africa averages about R 30 861pm. Entry-level specialists earn around R 25 000pm, while those with more experience can make up to R 201 402pm per the source Talent. (1)

Small businesses cannot afford in-house specialists, which leave them with 2 choices:

The owner can become a student again, doing full-time digital courses that last from 1-3 years (2) or part-time courses that will take years to translate into usable experience.
OR: outsource to a Digital Marketing Agency, which can become very expensive as it is rare to find affordable small business digital retainer services ; )

Quick research determined that where we currently charge about R2950pm for an integrated strategy, web maintenance, analytics, SEO & Pay per click (ads) service; our competitors charge about R18 000pm – R30 000 for the same service. When Newsletters are added on, they charge around R28 000pm; we charge only R3 850pm! (3 + 4)

Uhm…. These agencies' clients would be better off with an in-house digital marketer! Retainer costs also exclude spend to Google/Facebook, and they advise clients to spend about R30 000pm to Google / Facebook; whereas we are willing to work with much smaller budgets, though we do insist on managing it very carefully to squeeze every cent of value out of a client's budget.

While most of our competitors do, Website Silk does not require a contract; we believe if we continue to add value, you will want our services!

Where does this leave a small business?

Small businesses now have another choice:

Hourly Rate Approach

If the small business is of a nature where website content will seldom change and the website is more for reputational than marketing purposes, clients often choose the Hourly Rate Approach. Hourly billing is also adopted for well-defined ad-hoc tasks such as website inspections or minor SEO tuning. It is also useful for brand-new businesses with almost no marketing budget where overheads need to be kept low (but realise that brand recognition and income growth is also hampered by lack of marketing).

Paying an hourly rate only if and when digital work is needed, provides a client with flexibility (think of pay-as-you-go on mobile phones). However, the client pays a higher rate for the same service. This can backfire when the business suddenly requires more maintenance than expected, bringing unexpected expenses that can escalate quickly.

Our rate is currently R525ph, whereas the range for South Africa in 2024 is from R550ph - R1 500ph (5). The rate is based on business model (e.g. we focus on small business) and geographical location (e.g. smaller town with lower costs).

Affordable Digital retainer Packages are in favour if business owners and the digital agency - win-win

ADVANTAGES OF RETAINER PACKAGES

Monthly Retainer Packages

Businesses that are serious about gaining brand recognition, market share and increased profitability, are serious about digital marketing. Such businesses favour retainer packages.

A monthly retainer is a pre-determined monthly amount paid to a digital marketing agency for continuous services (think of a mobile phone contract). Such a "subscription" means that your marketing needs are consistently satisfied without fretting over escalating costs and it simplifies budgeting as amounts are known up front.

The key benefits of monthly retainers include:

Predictability of digital expenditure: a fixed amount is easier to budget for and is a known entitity.
Cost savings: Agencies typically provide rate reductions as part of the retainer compared to hourly charging. Agencies will absorb additional unplanned time spent on the client in any period, because of the nature of the relationship.
Relationship: Another key benefit is the mutual relationship formed with the agency, where the agency gets to know the business, its seasons and rhythms, and its target market, really well. The agency develops an appreciation of your product, target market, and performance metrics – all important to help leverage results.
Buy-in: The agency feels "part" of the brand and the brand's success becomes even more important to them. The agency will more freely provide exposure for the client's brand via their own marketing channels, on social media and to friends and connections.
Strategic advantage: when working closely and consistently with a client's brand, an agency will quickly pick up on search trends, target market shifts, new niche possibilities and so on and will advise the client accordingly. Hot tip: heed your agency's advice; they would not be advising something unless they felt it would really benefit your brand! If it doesn't work, you can halt it.
Proactivity: the same insights mean that clients can pivot to market shifts and digital metric insights proactively, rather than reactively. This allows a business to stay ahead of the curve.
An extention of your team: the agency becomes a part of your team and can be called on to provide an opinion on intended directions, new product development, whether there is a market for a specific service based on Google keyword research, or just to shoot the breeze and let off steam from the stresses of running a small business.
SLA: a professional agency will offer you a Service Level Agreement (SLA) e.g. when you request changes to be made to your website or ads camapign, they are addressed within 3 / 5 / 7 business days as specified.
Preferential scheduling: retainer clients, who get more "loyalty points", get first debs on available time when new work needs to be scheduled; whereas non-retainer clients necessarily will have to be last in the queue.

Entrust your ongoing digital management to a dependable, affordable digital partner!

DIGITAL RETAINERS
& PACKAGES