The Digital Lines Are Blurred
A digital agency performs the same functions as a web design company but also provides a greater set of benefits including SEO, social media and content marketing, thus allowing you to hire a one-stop-shop for all your most critical digital marketing needs. There is an important caveat here. While technically there is a difference between a digital marketing agency and a web design company the terms are used interchangeably. With each day that passes and the more digital marketing features that are introduced both digital marketing agencies and web design firms are essentially one and the same. They are both hiring the full suite of expertise as no one wants to tell a client that they can’t provide a very complementary service and that the client needs to go hire a different firm. The credibility lost in a simple statement like that is not worth the risk of hiring someone to handle an extra service.
If you want to get technical the differences lie in that actual nomenclature. Digital marketing functions fall under the marketing domain, email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, Display Ads, Lead Generation, Affiliate and, of course, Content Development. While it is necessary that a creative presence be available to design the requisite banners or newsletters it is not as technical creatively when it comes to the actual pixelation and/or resolution. These are not typically impacted in any of the marketing channels. Naturally, social media is on the web so it is web development for all intents and purposes, its intent and purpose is significantly different than graphics created on and for a website.
There are so few firms left that are distinguishable one or the other left that few even bother to explain on their websites any longer. The lines have blurred and they are one and the same. Web design firms include digital marketing and digital marketing firms include web development. In the few cases where they are still separate and distinct and prior to now, web development firms can easily find and hire digital marketing expertise as they already have the skill set in place to assist a marketer with adding banners or shifting sizes or resolution should the marketer need. On the other hand, a digital marketing firm lacks the technical underpinnings to instruct or guide a web designer as the skillsets are not the same. Web design is highly technical expertise whereas digital marketing falls under the more creative, sales and communications fields.