How To Hire The Right Marketing Agency : 8 Point Checklist
Let’s face it. Not everybody can do everything. And as your business increases, you would want your team to focus on your core strengths than struggle to get every job done internally. This is where a marketing agency comes into the picture.
Signing up a marketing agency in some capacity or the other is a decision that almost all established and growing business make. And it makes perfect sense; a marketing agency brings with itself years of combined experience and expertise.
But identifying the right agency and signing them up can be a daunting task and of course, you don’t want to end up marrying the wrong partner.
Thus, we bring to you 8 most essential questions that will help you hire the right marketing agency:
1. What kind of relation are you looking for?
Are you looking for an agency cum consultant who can guide in terms of strategy and help you solve business problems? Or are you looking for a mere ‘vendor’ who could execute the jobs assigned? Or do you want an agency to coordinate with other agencies on your behalf? Answering this question will help you narrow down the list of the agencies and save some precious time.
2. What are your goals? / Why do you need an agency?
It is the most basic. Start by identifying the need to hire an agency? Is there a new product that you want to launch into the market? Or there is a need to undertake a rebranding and repositioning activity? Or you need more leads?
Identifying the goals gives you a clear idea of the purpose and the kind of agency you’re looking for. It helps to know your business requirement and set targets against which you can then measure the agency’s proposal and future success
3. How does the agency measure its success?
Again, this point entirely depends on how you define your goals. Once that is in place, ask the agency how they would measure success against your goals. If your objective is to generate leads from women applicants residing in the middle east by the next quarter, sharing an arbitrary number like the number of impressions generated or the number of video views won’t cut the deal.
See if they talk your language – defining KPIs, relevant metrics, measurable impact at each stage of the funnel. If they do, well, they could be ‘the one.’
4. How does the agency report?
This may not seem like the most important question in the first meeting, but trust me, it sure is. Here’s why. If a campaign worked out well, you would want to know the factors that propelled it to success so you can replicate it. If it didn’t you would still want to know why, in order to avoid such a performance.
That’s why you should ask the agency for the metrics they would track during the campaign, the kind of analytical set up required to track and monitor and how do they generally process the data.
See, reporting the data is easy, which may or may not make sense to you. But deriving insights and valuable information from such data is an art.
At Jacobsons Direct, our team of analysts crunch the data throughout the day to make it more meaningful and valuable for our clients.
5. Are they asking you the right questions?
It’s never a great idea to propose on the first date. Similarly, an agency coming in with a ‘pitch’ in the very first meeting is quite a turn off too, for this is a pitch without understanding your business goals, concerns, and challenges.
An agency ought to ask you questions (at times A LOT of questions) and show an intent to understand the nature of your business, your requirements, challenges, and timelines. Basically, an agency that aims at identifying the root of a problem before jumping in with a solution is one you would want to consider.
6. What kind of experience and skills sets is available?
The difference between a great idea and a great result is the execution. This is where the experience, skills, and talent of the executive team at the agency come into play. You would want to understand the kind of projects the agency has worked in the past, maybe even look at some of their case studies. You would want to know the experience and skills the execution team has, the projects they have worked or some renowned certifications.
The thing is, not every agency can do everything. And anyone who promises that is perhaps not being 100% truthful. Understanding about an agency’s experience and their core strength would help you determine whether they are the right fit for your requirements or not.
7. Is the agency open to the idea of a pilot campaign?
At Jacobsons Direct, we always deploy a pilot campaign before going all-in into any campaign.
Based on the nature, objective, budget and/or timeline of the project you want to hire the agency for, it is advisable to deploy a pilot campaign to test the performance of not only the proposed strategy but also the relationship with the agency.
If the agency is open to this idea and they tick all the other boxes, it perhaps is the time to get the paperwork ready.
8. What is the kind of documentation, paperwork, and legality involved?
Talking about paperwork, this may be the last point in this discussion, but just as important as the others. Because this is not a mere formality, but a means to safeguard your interests. Transparency, clarity, and adherence to legality are what you would expect from the agency, and that is what you should get.
Make sure that they have proper the paperwork in place to cover ownership, changes in scope, clarity around the process, and more.
The above checklist is something that we compiled based on our own experiences and client & prospect feedback. We hope this helps you hire the right marketing agency.
Should you have any queries, please share it with us in the comments section.