Seeking out a marketing partner that focuses on creating successful campaigns to engineering audiences can be a daunting task. If you’ve never worked with an agency before, you may find yourself not knowing how to vet potential partners. Or it may be the case that you’ve been burned by a negative experience in the past, and are wary of ending up in the same situation again.
Regardless of which of these might describe your dealings with marketing agencies, here are some key areas to explore to find that perfect fit agency partner for your company.
In addition to these questions, ask for the following:
“We do everything.”
Most agencies under 20 employees are not staffed to serve your every marketing need. And that is perfectly acceptable. Ask probing questions to find out what they are truly good at, and where you (or they) need to bring in specialist help.
“We will guarantee first page results on search.”
This is a warning flag that the agency is not strategically focused, and will likely look to play short-term SEO games, rather than build an authentic content strategy that yields quality leads and greater long-term results.
“We charge by the hour.”
With this model, you may have a very hard time knowing if you are going to hit your budget targets. If an agency is using an hourly rates to quote your projects, dig deep to understand how many hours things will take, and what they will do to ensure they are good stewards of your budget.
We find great fulfillment in meeting with prospective new clients. We are happy to help guide you to a solution that the best fit for your business. Sometimes the solution ends up completely different than what you first asked for, and it may or may not even be with our agency, but it is through this process that we build trust and explore a mutual fit.
Unfortunately there have been times when companies call for “free advice” or are using our time to vet out pricing against another agency that they already intend to work with. As you might imagine, these are frustrating distractions for us. Please keep in mind that most marketing agencies are small businesses, and be respectful of our time -- just as we will be with yours. For example, if you are talking to multiple agencies, that is ok! But let that agency know and be forthcoming with your intentions.
We find that this collaborative, honest approach sets us up for a successful long-term relationship, whether as partners or mutual referrers.
Continue learning tips about successfully working with an agency by reading more about our process at TREW Marketing.
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TREW is a marketing agency dedicated to reaching engineering and technical audiences through a range of marketing initiatives. Contact us today to learn more about the services we offer.