Unless you are a marketer and an expert in your field and can spot trends and perfect advertising opportunities, the chances are you will need to outsource your marketing to a freelancer or an agency. But you need to make sure you do research and check viable options before jumping into hiring a marketing agency.
With that in mind, here are some criteria to consider.
1. What kind of marketing agency do you need?
Firstly, you need to establish what kind of marketing agency you need for your business. They can help get the word out about your business through physical marketing or just focusing on the digital aspects. It might be a social media strategy you need or an agency that will focus on growth. It could be that you are open to both organic marketing options or paid marketing options.
Here are some examples:
Strategic agency
A strategic agency specialises in data insights to create smarter strategies for your business goals. From there, these strategies can be integrated into other channels including:
- UX design
- PPC
- SEO
- Social media
- Sales and customer service
The best marketing agencies will offer a level of strategy as part of their services but if you need a bespoke solution, you might consider a specialised agency.
Multidiscipline agency
If you need an agency to cover every step of your marketing strategy, you’ll need a multidiscipline agency. These agencies offer:
- Account managers
- Strategists
- Designers
- Executives
With so many disciplines covered, a multidiscipline agency will likely be more established and come with bigger fees.
Niche agency
As the name suggests, niche agencies focus on very specific services or industries. While you won’t get the scope of a multidiscipline agency, you’ll get more of a personal touch. There’ll also be more attention to detail and quicker results when choosing a smaller niche agency.
2. What are your marketing goals?
Before employing a marketing agency, you need to decide what your goals are. They could involve things like driving more traffic to your website, which could see a marketing agency focusing on SEO and building your site visibility through it. Or you might want to focus on growth, conversions, or brand awareness.
For ideas on marketing goals, read our PPC roadmap guide.
3. Is experience important?
It is understandable that you will want to hire a marketing agency that you feel has the most experience and proven success. But sometimes going with an established agency might not necessarily be the right fit for you and your business.
A newer agency might sound like a risk but if you need to be the sole focus and require fast results, they are more likely to provide that than an established agency with hundreds of clients. Experience does count for a lot, but ensure that when you are doing your research you take time to understand their techniques and the actions that they take to meet their objectives.
4. Tools of the trade
Finding a good marketing agency means that you need to consider things such as their experts and tools of the trade. It is important that you think about things such as where their marketing expertise and skillsets lie. You also need to understand what they can offer, such as:
- PPC
- SEO
- Social media (organic and paid)
- Email marketing
- CRM
- Content creation
- Strategy
- Customer experience
- Competitor analysis
- Site migrations
- Link building
When looking for a marketing agency, it’s worth noting the types of software they use and software providers they have worked with. This can demonstrate how forward-thinking they are in terms of technology and innovation. Some tools and platforms to look out for include:
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Ads
- Microsoft Ads
- SEMrush
- Salesforce
- Buffer
- Deep Crawl
5. Costs
Cost is going to be an important factor when it comes to finding a good marketing agency and it might be that you will find the better the agency is the higher the cost.
However, knowing what you need from a marketing agency may help you to control the cost a little more. We’ve written about costs for PPC management agencies and while that covers more of a niche agency, the considerations are transferrable to all types of agencies.
6. Agency case studies
Great marketing agencies use case studies to advertise their expertise and successes and these are important to read, not least because they act as free pitches. Case studies showcase a range of different businesses and subsequently different marketing goals that each of them would have set.
The best case studies show not only the successes but also challenges and possible failures. That might sound counterintuitive, and there shouldn’t be too heavy a focus on things that didn’t work, but it’s important to see all sides of a campaign and their methodologies.
7. Are they up to date?
There is no denying that you might need to think about whether or not the marketing agency and the tools that they have are up to date. Technology and trends, especially things like social media, seem to change rapidly, and as a business you would expect your marketing agency to be up to speed with these things. Always ensure that they are covering what will work for you but are also not afraid to try new things and be unique. Some agencies may be stuck in their ways and that might not suit you as a business.
8. Expertise and creativity
Marketing is a saturated industry so agencies will do all they can to stand out. The best ways to do that are by being creative with their content, designs, and their processes.
When choosing your marketing agency make sure you seek out the different methods they utilise. From things like Facebook for themselves and how they conduct themselves online to other factors such as the case studies and the general tools they have. Take time to understand their specific skill sets and also make sure that you have a greater understanding of who you will be dealing with.
Examples of uniqueness and creativity for agencies include:
- Mailchimp’s “mispronunciation” campaign
- Anheuser-Busch move from beer to hand sanitiser
- 360i’s work with Oreo and Game of Thrones
9. Handling urgent queries
It is also important for your marketing agency to be accessible. There could be urgent enquiries that may need attention straight away, from comments and messages to specific content that hasn’t been received well. You might also want to think about how you might get in touch, with that being an online chat system, email or whether there will be a direct line. Marketing can often not be perceived in the way you imagine it would, so you need to ensure that your marketing agency is on hand to handle any fall out if there is any.
The final thoughts
Once you’ve got a better understanding of what you need, you’ll want to match up your expectations with a high-performing agency and Adzooma Marketplace can help.
Adzooma Marketplace puts you in front of the best marketing services from around the world. Simply search for the agency you’re looking for, read their dedicated agency pages to find out more, and contact them to see how you can work together.
And for marketing agencies wanting to stand out, a listing on Marketplace is the perfect solution.
- Promote your brand to clients looking for your services
- Sit amongst fellow industry leaders
- Showcase the benefits of your agency
- Offer new leads easy ways to contact you
