This Is What You Need To Ask Before You Hire A Digital Marketing Agency

Looking for a new digital marketing agency can be scary. There are tons and tons of options out there. How do you know which ones will actually produce results? How do you know which will work well with you over a long-term relationship? There can be a lot of wasted time, money, and effort if you don’t choose an agency that works well with your specific needs. Of course, you want to avoid choosing an agency that won’t work for you in any of these areas.

The most important part of deciding on a digital marketing agency to promote your business is trust. You need to be confident that the agency understands your business, how it is unique, and how you fit into your industry. You need to be confident that they will go above and beyond for you, be willing to try new things to get the most out of your account. You need to be confident that they will be transparent with you about how much is being spent and where. You need someone who will do everything they can to help your business succeed, and tell you exactly how they plan to do it.

How do you find out if the agencies you are considering have these characteristics? Here are some questions you can use to evaluate your potential candidates.

Experience Of The Agency

How experienced is this company? The longer a company has been around, the more likely it is that they know how to succeed in the business. If they have experience in a variety of different platforms, that helps if you ever want to expand into different avenues later without having to add another company or deal with being the first account that company has. Examples of questions you might ask:

-How long have you been in business?
-Are you a Google Partner?
-Do you offer services across multiple platforms? (eg Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, SEO, etc)
-What strategies do you use to market your own brand?

Industry Experience

Searching the phrase “marketing companies near me” will get you a list of agencies, but what it won’t provide is how experienced the agencies are with your niche.

Area of expertise is just as important as location. After all, if you were remodeling your home, you wouldn’t hire your landscaper to repipe your home. The same can be said for your digital marketing agency. Finding an agency that specializes in technology won’t have as much meaning if you are an injection molding manufacturer. The technology agency can implement some of the same SEO methods, but they won’t be as familiar with your audience and what they are searching for.

Agencies like Momentum who work in the same niche or industry will already have proven SEO strategies because they have worked with manufacturers like you. At Momentum we’ve been helping manufacturers in Michigan since 2010, and have created over 100 SEO campaigns. We know what it takes to help you reach the right audience.

Do You Need a Local SEO Agency?

Are you thinking about creating a local campaign over a national one? If so, you may need a local SEO.

• Is the agency experienced with local SEO campaigns in addition to national?
• What is their understanding of the local market, including what people are searching for?

Make sure the agency you hire knows the exact trends your specific city or cities experience.

Reporting & Transparency

You want the company that you work with to be transparent and honest. You want them to tell you what is going on, and you want them to do it accurately. You want to be consistently informed of how your money is being spent. The company that will be doing your marketing for you should respect that. Here are some questions you might ask:

• Will we be able to see actual spend?
• How often will you send reports on the performance of the campaigns?
• What metrics do you track?
• What goals do you recommend for this campaign and why?
• When will I see results?

Be careful of anyone who promises that you will receive results in 2 months, 3 months, etc. Marketing is a trial-and-error business, where you need to test and see what works. It will take time to see results, and it’s hard to predict how long that will take)

Relationship & Process

Each agency should assign a Campaign Manager to your account. If you have a larger agency, you may have an Account Manager and an Account Strategist working with you. You should know who is working on your account and how you will be working with them over the course of the campaign.

-Who will be working on the campaigns?
-Are they in-house or outsourced?
-How will you work with my team on an ongoing basis?
-How do you get to know my business/industry/market/customers, etc?
-What is the process like?
-What information do you need from me?
-When will I be able to give feedback?

Armed with these questions, you are now able to evaluate each candidate you are considering working with. How did they do? If you are uneasy with any of their answers, it’s worth asking yourself why that is. If it’s a red-flag for you, you might want to keep looking until you find someone you are more comfortable with. You need to be able to trust someone you will be working with closely on something that is so important to the life and growth of your business. You don’t want to compromise on that.