5 Questions to Ask Your Next Marketing Agency

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Are you trying to grow your user base exponentially? Are you looking to use marketing to boost sales? If you are looking for a new marketing agency, then we have five questions that can help you evaluate marketing agencies to find the top partner.

These questions are here to help you get started, but you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve by hiring an agency. As you build your top marketing agency shortlist, here are the questions you should be ready to ask them when you set up your meetings to evaluate their team.

5 questions to ask your next marketing agency

1. Have you proven results in my industry?

This is an important first questions to ask because it gets to the point right away. You want to work with an agency that understands your company and has done great work for clients in a similar industry. It gives you and the agency a head start because there could be less hand holding and research. For example, if you are a B2B software company, a marketing agency that has worked exclusively with restaurants might not make sense.

Knowing they have tackled marketing for similar companies gives you a bit of assurance that they can help you. Plus, they may be more efficient and effective at getting to the results you want. If they have never worked in your industry, this is a great time to ask them how they plan to get results in an industry they have never worked in.

2. What marketing services are you the best at?

Now that you know this marketing agency has or hasn’t gotten results in your industry, you then need to know what kind of marketing services the agency is great at. This comes down to what kind of marketing you are actually looking for. Are you trying to revamp your marketing strategy or are you trying to dip your toe into content marketing? Know exactly what you want going in and see if they can satisfy your needs. If they start rattling off a long list, follow up by asking them to name two or three of their top marketing services.

With Agency Spotter’s Search Platform, you can search for the best marketing agencies based on core services from inbound marketing to experiential.

3. Is your creative in-house or outsourced?

This isn’t a question where you are trying to say in-house is better than freelanced work. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. If they outsource all their creative work, it could raise question marks, but an agency that does everything in-house with only two employees and 10 clients could also be questionable. This is all about balance.

Will they proactively let you know if they have a freelancer or even another agency doing work on your engagement? While many agencies do use flexible staffing solutions to stay nimble, you want to know three things here: 1) what you’re paying for, 2) how communication will be handled so the team delivering the work is fully briefed, and, 3) to make sure you get the A team.

4. What are some of the latest marketing trends that I should know about?

You are about to place trust into an agency that will handle a big part of your company. If the agency can’t stay up-to-date on the trends in their own industry, how can you trust them with your marketing. This question helps gauge the agency’s ability to tailor their answer to your industry or, even, your specific goal. There are lots of trends out there, but finding an marketing agency partner who can help cut through the clutter and deliver clear insights is golden.

5. How does your agency work with data?

This last question could seem a little off to you. You are looking for a marketing agency not a digital or research agency. This is true but in the 21st century, with so much data and analytics, creating marketing campaigns based only on assumptions and guts is obsolete. Your marketing agency should be data nerds and be able to tell you why they are doing something based on numbers and also human intuition. They should be able to measure progress and send summary reports based on the campaign.

Choosing the right agency…

If you’ve made it this far down, you are probably pretty close to reaching out to a few marketing agencies. This could be a really important decision for your company going forward and could ultimately decide the fate of your company. The questions above are here to help you get started on your agency review, but remember that the questions should be based on what your company is looking for.

You may not care if an agency has experience in your industry and could just want a fresh set of agency eyes. These are the big decisions you need to make. We hope that these questions can help you get started on your path to finding that great marketing partner to boost your business.

To see more of our 5 Questions to Ask Your Next Agency series, visit our 5Qs page.

Daniel Kim
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