Choosing a Marketing Partner: 3 Questions to Ask Your Marketing Agency

Small business owners are always at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing. If you have the skills to do your own marketing, it’s impossible not to spread yourself too thin. You take on too much work and something’s got to give.

In most cases, it’s marketing that gets moved to the back burner because your customers always come first. If you decide to hire a marketing agency, you could find yourself paying out thousands of dollars a month without any tangible results. This does your business no good! Some business owners may go years without realizing the reason they aren’t getting as many leads as they would like has a lot to do with bad marketing.

Whether you stretch yourself too thin or bet on the wrong horse, it can be hard mustering up the energy to find a marketing partner. You either have too little time, or too little trust to find someone to manage your marketing needs. If you want consistent lead flow, you need marketing that works. Your best bet is to find a marketing partner you can trust to take the reins and come up with a marketing strategy that provides a better ROI. This takes a team that shares your drive and wants you to succeed. But does such an animal exist?

The truth of the matter is, like any service, there are good marketing agencies and bad marketing agencies. As a result, it all boils down to trust. The trick is to know what questions to ask to find the agency that will get results.

Asking the right questions helps make sure the agency is a trustworthy, strategic marketing partner with the skills and experience to bring clarity to your marketing structure. They’ll provide guidance and introduce a proven process to lighten the load, reduce headaches, and provide quantifiable results. Here are three questions to ask your marketing agency.

1. What Does Your Customer Success Map Look Like?

We use the term map here for good reason. A good agency provides a clear path to success. They know what steps your company needs to take in order to accelerate your growth and guide your time and money to the best ROI possible. They shouldn’t just provide tactics, but instead should have a strategy and base their tactics on that strategy to help meet your goals. They should also be able to tell you what marketing projects you will manage.

We have an actual marketing maturity index tool that shows you how to accelerate your growth. A good marketing agency has a customized plan, and a formula they follow to get their clients where they want to go. This is at the heart of our service and a big part of our agency culture. We take the time to understand your goals and align our map to provide a direct path to get you there.

2. Exactly What Work Gets Done Each Month, and Who Does It?

You’re paying good money for agency services, so you have a right to know how it will be spent. Agencies have all kinds of billing structures. It can be hard to understand what you’re getting for your money, what they actually do for that money and what results you see for that investment. With an understanding of value, we developed a unique points system that shows exactly where every dollar goes.

This is based on a plan we prepare, and you approve it before any work begins. Who does the work is equally as important, because you don’t want some slick CEO coming in pitching the world, who hands over the work to a junior intern trying to get enough hours to graduate from community college.

All of our work is performed by a team of highly trained, experienced experts qualified to perform the specifics of each aspect of your plan. When things will be completed is also important. We believe you have a right to know what’s going on, what results we’re getting and how your ROI is paying off. We have full-fledged account strategists who become marketing partners.

We want to see results. Because we’re result-focused, we take pride in proactively communicating and sharing our successes, since at the end of the day, they are your successes. Success is apparent through day-to-day progress that brings you closer to your growth goals. In a matter of weeks, we can achieve what you or other marketing agencies can’t achieve in years.

3. What Does Your Reporting Look Like?

We’ve touched a little on this in question #2. Progress needs to be measurable. You might come across quite a few agencies bragging about their “real-time” reports which turn out to be automated, jargon only their own team understands. How can this possibly help you make smart decisions?

You want to know what their reporting looks like. Is it data you can calculate to determine if you are seeing any real ROI? Will you recognize the statistics and numbers they provide, so it has meaning?

You want a partner who won’t just send you a report every now and again, or worse only when you ask for it. You want a team that interprets actual data you can use and advise you on how to see improvements. You should have access when you need it with a real-time dashboard, detailed reports, call tracking and reporting, and most of all real people who will walk you through the numbers, answer your questions and make recommendations based on the results we see.

A good marketing agency maps out a plan to help you reach your goals. They provide a billing structure that accounts for every minute spent and can tell you who completed the work and what they accomplished. Last but not least, the progress throughout the plan is easily reported providing measurable results that help you make informed decisions and see tangible improvements on your ROI.

If you want to find a trustworthy marketing partner who can simplify your marketing, grow your company, and produce results, then let’s talk!