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As a digital marketing agency, you have to be constantly prepared for incoming and outgoing data from multiple sources. This could mean, communications and requests from your client, or reports and tasks from your white label. For some organizations, one mishap with missing or late data can result in loss of reputation, time and in some cases, clients. As a business grows, so do the demands on its equipment. This can be defined as anything, from staplers to servers, that are used daily to further progress in the company. For pretty much any business owner, the goal is the same, success…and lots of it. Yet, the question remains, is your company’s equipment ready to handle unlimited success?
While the equipment used within a business is usually one of the main things implemented at the initial stages of funding, many times, plans for maintenance and upgrading aren’t included in the plan. Usually, a trip to the nearest office supply store is all that’s needed to keep equipment up to par, however, there will be times, as the business grows, that this solution will not be feasible.
If you have a new prospective client that you are pitching and you go to print the contract, yet the printer is on the fritz again, that run to the store might not save the client. Or the phone isn’t working and while it is being fixed again, by a less than knowledgeable co-worker, quite a few client calls or customer quote calls are missed, and reputation and profits suffer. Keeping equipment well maintained and even having the right kind of equipment available is essential to any growing company, and especially for digital marketing agencies.
What Kind of Equipment is Important to a Digital Marketing Agency?
Companies dealing with digital marketing services are usually mistaken as computer-only organizations that leave no paper trails and do everything digitally. While for many companies in our current year and the future, this is becoming more of a reality, however, this is far from the truth for many digital marketing agencies.
Although ranking reports, analytics data and reporting summaries are easily shared online, everyday printers are still spewing out contracts, schedules, presentations, human resource paperwork, archived data and more. Although technology is at an all-time high, digital security is at an all-time low and many businesses depend on “paper trails” to keep sensitive data from ever being viewed by the all-decrypting eye.
However, a printer’s biggest flaw is its reliability. Printers can, and will eventually, break and malfunction. Companies that are dependent on daily printing duties can come to an ineffective stand-still when this happens. Keeping the company’s printer(s) maintained is an expensive yet high-priority necessity.
The Heart of All Digital Marketing Agencies: The Computer
A digital marketing agency without a computer is like a carpenter without tools, a chef with no kitchen or a salesman … without a product to sell. It is the most important asset to any digital marketing company and if it is not in working condition, neither is the business.
Most owners of computers understand the importance of small maintenances that a CPU requires to continue functioning properly. Keep it in a clean environment, restart every once in a while for updates, and don’t spill coffee on or in it. When the success of your business is due entirely to the health of your company’s computers, then minimum maintenance just won’t cut it. Drivers need to be constantly monitored and updated, security measures need to be put into place to protect data from employee mistakes, such as unauthorized downloads or clicking on infected links in emails, and networks must be constantly monitored for breaches and available bandwidth as the company grows.
This is no small feat, nor is it inexpensive to maintain computers, especially in large businesses. However, the consequences of losing their functionality can be disastrous to a digital marketing agency and sometimes recovery can be impossible. Any business that relies on computers heavily for the success of their company should have a maintenance plan in place for every computer on their network. Backups are a very important piece of computer maintenance and the frequency at which they are created should be part of the overall maintenance plan. Computers are invaluable tools to just about any business, but they are vital to the success of a digital marketing agency.
Breakdown in Communication Causes Breakup of Relationships
If computers are the heart of digital marketing agencies, then communication is the blood (or to sound less morbid, let’s say life-force) of the business. Even a business where everyone works in the same room needs a strong presence of effective communication channels. This can mean anything from phone calls to emails, text messages, memo boards, forums or any way your business sends information from one place to be received in another.
Whenever a channel of communication within a business is created and utilized, any malfunction within that channel will cause a breakdown of communication to those utilizing it. In digital marketing agencies, the loss of communication can be fatal to the life of the company. Missing one meeting can result in the loss of the company’s biggest client, or an important email filtered incorrectly can cause a customer to feel slighted or ignored. For digital marketing agencies, the flow of data is of the highest priority when dealing with multiple clients. A breakdown of one communication channel can simultaneously affect a number of clients and can cause irreparable damage.
While it seems simple, the maintenance of phone lines, email filters and flagging, message board monitoring and even removing junk text-messages and emails should be prioritized as very important tasks within digital marketing agencies. Neglecting to do so is an invitation to a communicative breakdown.
How Can Digital Marketing Agencies Prepare for Equipment Failure?
Asking the question ‘what to do in case equipment breaks down’ is an obvious first step to preparation. Creating backup plans is the simplest answer and also the best one. A number of scenarios should be created for all situations of important equipment malfunctions.
If computers all began to go haywire, how will you continue to get out reports? If the phone lines are down, what other channels of communication will still be available? When these situations arise, it will almost always be too late to create a plan for recovery on the spot. Yet, having these plans thought out, tested, and documented will ensure that not only will you know how to pull your digital marketing agency, or any business for that matter, out of the fire, but you will also, have an estimate of how long it will take to resume business as normal.
The equipment used within a business was purchased, installed and set up for a purpose. Consider that purpose and how business will be affected if that purpose no longer existed. That is the value of that piece of equipment and the level of priority it should require when it comes to maintenance. Remember, a carpenter without tools is just a person swinging at a wall with no productivity. For businesses, specifically a digital marketing agency, the condition of the equipment involved in the requirement for success.
Authorship: Kevin P.
