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Top Things to Watch for When Hiring a Marketing Agency

Questionable Tactics Choosing the right marketing agency for your business is a critical decision. Select the right one, and you may find your business reaching new heights. Pick the wrong one, and you may be living with regret for quite some time. Marketing is about more than merely a way to increase exposure, leads, and sales. The public reputation of your business is at stake. Choose poorly and, at best, you have wasted time, money, and opportunity. At worst, you may be cleaning up a giant marketing mess.

To help you avoid the nightmare of choosing the wrong firm, here are the top things to watch out for.

Limited or Poor Online Presence

Fortunately, a Google search can tell you a lot about any agency. In this digital age, an online presence is an essential part of a marketing plan. While the agency you choose doesn't necessarily need to have a massive digital footprint, they should demonstrate their marketing savvy through a modern, professional website and respectable search engine results. If you have trouble finding the agency online or the quality of their website leaves something to be desired, you may consider looking elsewhere.

Online reviews can also tell you a lot about a potential agency. Part of modern marketing is reputation management. By looking at online reviews, you can see how current and past clients have experienced the firm. You can also learn a lot by how the agency deals with the occasional negative review. Take a look at Yelp, Clutch.co, and other review sites to see how your potential hire stacks up. Otherwise, you may find yourself writing a negative review once you get yourself out of the mess your new agency has created.

One more thing to look for in your marketing agency is the availability of online content. If you are looking for a successful marketing strategy, you are looking for an agency that offers some amount of thought leadership. Whether they provide online material as a part of a content marketing strategy or simply to contribute to the ongoing conversation of best practices, great firms will offer blog posts, podcasts, white papers, or some other form of content. If you can't find anything written or produced by your potential agency, it might be worthwhile to ask why.

No Real References

Including words from happy clients on a website or in marketing materials is a smart marketing move. That kind of social proof may make you interested in learning more about an agency. However, before you sign a contract or write a check, you will want to go a bit deeper. We want to trust that all of those reviews are from real, happy customers, but that is a significant risk to take when your company's reputation is on the line. Ask for some names and contact information from real, paying customers. And then, contact them. If you are dealing with a reputable agency, they will be glad to share, and those references will be happy to sing their praises. If not, this firm might not be worth the risk.

Mystery Talent

Chances are if you are hiring a marketing agency for your business, you want to know the people who will be doing your work. More and more "agencies" are farming out the majority of their work to freelancers or overseas outsourcing firms. That's fine if that is what you are looking for, and the firm is upfront about it. But be aware that the person selling you the services may not be at all involved in delivering those services. So, ask to meet with, in person, or via video conference your actual marketing consultant, the person or people who will be working on your marketing. This will help you make a better decision. You will be able to tell if this individual or team speaks your language. There are plenty of jobs that can be done with excellence by overseas workers, but for the marketing of your company, you are likely looking for someone deeply immersed in your native language and culture.

Questionable Tactics

Beware of the firm that promises things that sound too good to be true. Some agencies will promise to get your website to the top of the search results in no time. However, when you dig a little bit, you will see that they are using "black hat" search engine optimization (SEO) strategies such as the use of hidden content, keyword stuffing, link farming, and other techniques. Sometimes these strategies can achieve fast results, but they quickly fall apart and cause more harm than good. Not only can they lead to harmful consequences, like search engines removing your site from their index and results pages, they may also demonstrate that the agency does not have the experience to get results the right way. When evaluating potential marketing firms, feel free to ask about their tactics and strategies to be sure they won't cause more harm than good.

Buzzwords

If you were already a marketing genius, you wouldn't be looking for a marketing consultant. So, when interviewing a potential marketing agency, if they are talking entirely over your head, maybe they don't know what they are talking about. Exceptional marketers know how to speak to people in a language they understand. So, while marketing buzzwords like omnichannel, CPP, CRM, SERPs, or other jargon might be helpful for internal marketing work, they can also mask a lack of depth. A great a marketing agency will skip the jargon and be sure you understand what they have to offer.

No Experience in Your Industry

There are many aspects of marketing that are true across all industries and niches. However, every type of business has its unique challenges and opportunities. If the agency you are looking at doesn't have experience with your type of business, you should ask some more questions. The right agency will either have the experience or be able to demonstrate their competency in moving into a new sector. Old dogs can learn new tricks, and great agencies can expand their knowledge base. Just be sure your agency is prepared for your specific needs.

No Questions for You

If you have a meeting with a marketing agency and they fail to ask any questions about your business, you might want to keep looking. A reputable firm will want to be sure that they are a good fit. They will not want to take on a client if they can't deliver. So, they should want to know about your company, your current marketing, and your goals. If an agency seems more interested in your money than your success, look for someone else.

Something Doesn't Feel Right

It may be a bad idea to pick an agency just based on your gut. That is why we have listed several red flags to keep in mind. However, before you sign on the dotted line, do a gut check. If something doesn't feel right, either ask more questions or keep looking. This agency is going to be partially responsible for the future success and reputation of your business. If it just doesn't feel like the right fit, it probably isn't.

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