{"id":5737,"date":"2020-01-26T11:31:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T16:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/?p=5737"},"modified":"2020-01-26T11:33:09","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T16:33:09","slug":"5-things-you-should-know-before-hiring-a-marketing-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/5-things-you-should-know-before-hiring-a-marketing-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things You Should Know Before Hiring a Marketing Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In the United States alone, there are more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/topics\/3945\/advertising-agencies\/\">13,000 marketing agencies<\/a>. So with so many options to choose from, you want to make sure you&#8217;re picking a good one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this can be easier said than done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For this reason, we&#8217;ve created this guide outlining the 5 things you should know before hiring marketing firms. This way, you&#8217;ll be sure that you&#8217;re making the best choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Know Your Goals<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you start talking with any agency, start by deciding on your goals. Think about this. If you go to a realtor and say, &#8220;I want to buy a house but I have no idea about my budget, where I want to live, or if I want a condo, townhome, or stand-alone home.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When this is the case, the realtor is going to have a really hard time helping you find what you want because you&#8217;re not even sure. And it&#8217;s easy to get a bad deal when you&#8217;re not educated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, it&#8217;s best to go in with a plan. And the same philosophy applies to working with a marketing agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you want to generate more leads for your salespeople to contact? Do you want to increase brand awareness in certain markets? Are you looking to sell more products on your e-commerce website?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Start by thinking about your goals. This way, you&#8217;ll enter discussions well-prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Learn About Their Services<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, as you&#8217;re talking with marketing firms, find out about their services. Marketing is a field with lots variety. There are tons of different tactics out there, and not every agency will have expertise in every area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These areas include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>SEO<\/li><li>Content Marketing<\/li><li>Website Design<\/li><li>Print Marketing<\/li><li>PPC<\/li><li>Brand Development<\/li><li>Facebook Advertising<\/li><li>Web Development<\/li><li>Organic Social Media Marketing<\/li><li>Display Advertising<\/li><li>Affiliate Marketing<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And this is just a sampling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So as you&#8217;re looking for a marketing firm, decide if you want someone who can do it all or who specializes in a few areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In today&#8217;s ever-changing technological world, it&#8217;s often best to go with an agency who is more focused. They&#8217;ll be more up-to-date on the latest trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But also keep in mind that if an agency doesn&#8217;t specialize in one of your areas, they may have partners who do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Find out Who Will Be Doing the Work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, ask about the agency&#8217;s employees. You should find out who exactly is going to be fulfilling your requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Often,&nbsp;you&#8217;ll meet with the CEO or other senior leaders during the sales process. At the end of this, they&#8217;ll hand you off to an account manager. And then other people in the company will actually fulfill your requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you sign a contract, you should find out who exactly will be working on your account. Are they experienced? Have they worked with similar types of brands in the past?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last thing you want is for them to send your projects to low-quality temp workers who don&#8217;t have any digital marketing experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By doing some extra research, you can ensure that you&#8217;re getting great workers on your campaigns at a company like <a href=\"https:\/\/simplymarketing.com\">Simply Marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Research Their Previous Work<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When you buy something online, how do you know if you&#8217;re purchasing a high-quality product? Most people in these moments look at reviews from previous buyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These reviews can give you honest opinions from third parties who have no reason to lie. And with enough good reviews, you can feel more confident in your purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same principle applies when searching for a marketing firm to work with. However, in this case, you should examine their previous work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask them to see the work they&#8217;ve done for clients in the past. Often, their website will feature a portfolio where you can look at the work they&#8217;ve done. This is especially relevant if they&#8217;re going to be helping you with graphic design, branding, or web development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another thing you should do to vet an agency? Ask them for successful results from their past campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, if you&#8217;re wanting them to run Facebook ads for you, ask for details about previous campaigns they&#8217;ve ran and what the results were. This could include questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>What was the cost per lead?<\/li><li>What was the engagement like?<\/li><li>How much revenue was generated?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also read reviews online on sites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. This will help you get a clearer picture of their past work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Make Sure You Get Along with Them<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, as you&#8217;re looking for marketing firms, make sure you get along with their employees. Although they&#8217;re not going to be full-time employees at your business, you&#8217;re going to have to work with them a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If they&#8217;re hard to get along with, the process is not going to go smoothly. Are they super arrogant? Do they not listen well?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are red flags that you should pay attention to.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Look for people who communicate clearly, are flexible, and are generally kind. This will make the entire working relationship much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Choosing Between Marketing Firms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There you have it: the 5 things you should know when hiring marketing firms. Now that you&#8217;ve read through these ideas, it&#8217;s time to put them to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about your marketing goals and then find agencies that have expertise in those areas. Next, set up some preliminary meetings to establish relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in no time, you&#8217;ll find a firm that&#8217;s a great choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to learn more about business and marketing? Check out our blog for additional tips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the United States alone, there are more than 13,000 marketing agencies. So with so many options to choose from, you want to make sure you&#8217;re picking a good one. But this can be easier said than done. For this reason, we&#8217;ve created this guide outlining the 5 things you should know before hiring marketing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5737"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5740,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737\/revisions\/5740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}