No matter how good your product or the service you offer is, you won’t build the profile you deserve unless you stand out among your competitors in the marketplace. In fact, a good marketing campaign can be so beneficial to your business that having the right marketing agency working for you can make the difference between success and failure. As such, it’s worth spending some time reviewing several agencies to select the one that best suits your business needs. To do this, it’s a good idea to determine exactly what kind of marketing you need. Here are some areas to consider:
The points above should help you identify what services you want the marketing agency to perform. Inevitably, different agencies will have different strengths and weaknesses, so pay close attention to how much experience they have in the type of marketing you want to do, and how successful they’ve been with similar campaigns in the past.
It’s always a good idea to keep an eye out for campaigns that impress you and call the company’s marketing department to ask who handled your campaign and what it was like working with them. Also, ask former clients of the marketing agencies you are particularly interested in about their experience working with the agency. Was the agency proactive and tailored the campaign to specific needs, or was there the impression that the agency provided off-the-shelf generic solutions to specific problems?
Once you’ve narrowed down your search to two or three marketing agencies, there are a number of more specific questions to consider:
1. Identify who would be in charge of your account and establish if the account manager will stay with you for the duration of the campaign or if a younger account manager will take over once the campaign is up and running. Ideally, work with the same team from start to finish.
2. Find out how often the account manager will provide you with updates on campaign progress, including costs incurred and feedback received from customers. Even before the campaign begins, make sure there are no hidden costs and that a system is in place to determine how the campaign is going.
3. It’s a good idea to ask the prospective marketing agency to set up a test campaign to determine how well you work together, what procedure the agency follows, how carefully it listens to your requirements, and how proactive it is. For example, consider how the agency would handle the possibility of handling client-specific promotions and loyalty schemes that would give your business more personality, or ask them to develop a sales strategy for one of your latest products.
Once you’ve followed the steps outlined in this article, you should have a better idea of the type of marketing agency that’s right for your type of campaign. All that’s left now is to be diligent in drafting a contract about what you’re getting and what you’re not getting and whether payment terms include performance guarantees. Best of luck, and we hope you choose a marketing agency with whom you can have a long and fruitful association.
