Finding the right marketing agency can be a difficult and challenging task. You don’t want to get yourself into a contract that is not right for you where you pay a huge sum for over promises and underwhelming results.

 

In some instances, you can even find agencies that don’t tie you to a contract like here at Decisive Digital Marketing!

 

Although there is no such thing as the “perfect” agency, you can come close by setting expectations for your results.

 

So here are 6 questions that you must ask your agency of choice before you choose them.

 

What do you believe my business goals are?

First off, let’s just preface that you are not trying to get them to read your mind. Although that would be miraculous if they were able to, as a business owner you should see if they are trying to increase your sales or pitch a vain metric such as increase in traffic to your website to impress you. 

 

Remember that improving the number of engagements to your social media accounts is just a secondary metric, but if it does not tie back to your business objective (sales), then it might not be worth the investment for your business.

 

Moreover, this question has the unique capability to weed out whether or not an agency did their due diligence and homework on your business. From this question alone, you will be able to gauge if an agency actually cares about your company or if you are just another number to them. 

 

What kind of campaigns are you thinking about running for my business?

This question provides you insight into how the marketing agency thinks about your business and the level of creativity they possess along with their business acumen to help your company increase their bottom line.

 

The agency of choice can be the most creative; however, if they are not thinking about how that level of creativity ties back with their business acumen to generate more sales for you, sooner or later you will become dissatisfied with the results. 

 

When in doubt go ahead and ask, how does the campaign tie back to your business objectives. Think about how the agency can make a difference at the very beginning. Strategy must come with execution and results.

 

Here are some digital marketing services that your agencies can recommend for your business. You can get a breakdown of their purpose.

 

Google Ads can get you leads that are actively looking for your services and business.

Facebook Advertising leverages hyper-targeted ads for people most interested in your product or services.

Search Engine Optimization is the long game everybody must play in order to be placed at the top of google search results for free

 

How long will it take you to launch / onboard my business?

Although you should give your agency time to get things worked out and onboarded, if they have done their research on your business, your agency should be able to start sooner than later.

 

Make sure that you can provide everything necessary for your agency to be successful in order for them to be able to maximize the time they have to launch your campaigns. 

 

Most onboarding take anywhere between 1-30 days depending on the complexities of your businesses.

 

How will you report the results to me?

There are many different ways to report results, whether it is with a dashboard, a weekly or even monthly report on metrics such as clicks, impressions, costs, and conversions. Obviously this is an oversimplification of how to think about reporting, but the most important portion to understand would be “is what the agency doing directly impacting my business for the better?”

 

For instance, if you want more leads for your business, how are they getting leads to you? Are they asking you to follow up with the leads right away? Also, if you are receiving phone calls, are they being tracked, and are they showing you they are bringing in the phone calls through their efforts and campaigns?

 

Again, it is very important to know where your numbers are coming from, so you can see whether or not you can scale your business, which we will cover here in a little bit.

 

How much will it cost me?

Question number 5 about pricing is a great opportunity to figure out the cost structure of your agency and how much they will charge for the results that they provide. Make sure that the pricing corresponds to your business goals and provides a return on your investment. 

 

Here is a formula to calculate your ROI:

Also it is a great time to see if your agency of choice offers a “free paid trial” where they utilize their skills in order to show you that they can provide value for your business and you in turn give them a chance by just paying for ad spend in order to showcase whether they can give a return on your investment.

 

If I am able add more money to the campaigns, will I get more results?

If you are getting a great return on your investment, and now you want to add more money to the campaigns, how will the results be impacted? Will it grow with the money that you spend?

 

Can the agency figure out scalability? Different agencies will always want to increase the “budget” based on the pricing structure of how they will charge you; however, you can be lucky to find an agency where they charge a monthly retainer, and have you pay for any ad spend where necessary. This way you can control your budget, and be able to scale and not just pay more for services.

 

Think about the old adage of if you can trust a person with little, then you can trust them with more. You should be able to scale your business and not worry about more cost with less results, but instead make sure that there is even room to scale up and how your pricing structure aligns.

Here you must trust your agency and their research in whether or not they can meet a higher demand. Just remember to know your numbers and make sure it makes sense for you. 

 

Use these 6 questions to make sure you can find the best partnership to help your business grow.