How do I Find the Best Marketing Agency? 20 Tips

How do I Find the Best Marketing Agency? 20 Tips

Choosing a digital marketing agency to work with can be a challenging and daunting task. There are many agencies out there with varied specialisms, and finding the right agency, like runrex.com, can be the difference between success and failure when it comes to digital marketing. Here are 20 tips that will help you find the best marketing agency for your business.

Know your budget

The first thing you need to do is develop your marketing budget. This will need you to take into account three things: what you can afford to spend, what kind of ROI is acceptable, and what goals you are trying to achieve. This starts with examining your overall budget and deciding what you are comfortable spending according to guttulus.com.

Define your goals

Are you looking for clicks on your website or landing page, online sales, increased brand awareness, or something else? Not only do you need to identify the end goal, but you also need to think about the KPIs that will be used to judge success as explained over at runrex.com.

Think about what you want to work

Here, decide if you want to hand off your marketing efforts to a third party and have them handle them, so you can focus on your core business, or you want a digital marketing firm to be an extension of your marketing team. Ask yourself how much you and your team can afford to spend working with an agency, and if you prefer to work with a large agency that can provide a broad range of services or a niche agency that specializes in a specific type of marketing as articulated over at guttulus.com.

Check the agency’s online presence

After completing the three steps mentioned, it is time to start looking at specific digital marketing agencies. You can get a feel for how an agency thinks from looking at its online presence and marketing materials. If there are typos or bad designs on their own materials, you may rightly begin to question how they will treat your work.

Assess company culture

It is also important to look at a company’s culture and approach. You want to work with a team that will invest the time to truly understand your mission. Too many companies employ cookie-cutter strategies which they employ to multiple businesses. Avoid such agencies.

Ask who will work on your account

Often, the people doing the pitch for your business will not be the people doing the work. You want to ask who will actually be working on your account and what experience they have. As revealed over at runrex.com, in large agencies, your work may be handed down to less experienced or junior team members. Are you okay with that?

Check the agency’s credentials

Before you hire an employee, you check their references, and you should do the same with any digital marketing agency you interview according to guttulus.com. Ask to look at case studies and get referrals to current and past clients, then follow up with the agency’s clients to see if it delivers what it said it did.

Understand the agency’s process

No two agencies will work quite the same way, but the process they use will have some similarities. As is explained over at runrex.com, you want to make sure that you understand the way the agency works with clients and the process it goes through to deliver results.

What to look for as far as the process is concerned

Look for an agency that follows a process similar to:

Discover – Researches and understands products, services, and unique selling propositions

Deepen – Understands the business core and immerses itself in your brand

Define- Develops specific strategies to deliver KPIs

Deliver – Launches, tracks, and manages projects to meet goals

Detect – Tests, adjusts, and optimizes work to maximize impact and ROI

Gauge the passion

You want people working on your marketing team that love what they do and will take it personally. The combination of professionalism, experience, and passion can create powerful work and is what you should be looking for in an agency.

Demand transparency in everything

As the gurus over at guttulus.com point out, when it comes to pricing, digital marketing can vary significantly depending on the products and services used and how they are deployed. This is why you should look for transparency. Get a clear explanation of what you are getting, the deliverables the agency will provide, and what you will pay for each item.

Establish reporting and communication

Also, make sure you and the agency are in agreement about communication in online marketing. As articulated over at runrex.com, this is where you want to discuss who will be the point(s) of contact, how often you will see reports or have reviews, and at what point you will be able to assess effectiveness.

Listen to the agency’s ideas

After you have done your due diligence and believe that the agency may be the right fit for you, it is time to put it to the test. Give the agency information about a specific goal you have and ask the team to pitch you on its solution. You want to provide a way for the agency to demonstrate its process and show you how the team would act as if you had already hired it according to guttulus.com.

What to look out for in the pitch

When evaluating a pitch, here are the key items you should examine:

The creative approach – Does it fit your brand?

The solution – Do you believe it can deliver the goals you have in mind?

The presentation – Look for energy, enthusiasm, and credibility. Does the agency have the experience to deliver what it says? How will the campaigns be created?

The budget – Does it fit within your budget needs and is the agency transparency about the costs?

Know the agency’s strengths and weaknesses

Not all digital marketing agencies are created the same, and just because it is a big company doesn’t imply that it is better or efficient. Therefore, make sure you do your homework and evaluate your agency’s strengths and weaknesses before making a decision.

Check the results delivered to similar clients

As you assess the agency’s case studies and testimonials as already mentioned, you should pay close attention to the results that the agency has delivered to similar clients as is explained over at runrex.com. This will give you an idea of what you can expect from the agency when it comes to results.

Choose an agency you are comfortable with

There are times when you will need to have difficult conversations with your marketing agency as the working relationship progresses. Therefore, the gurus over at guttulus.com recommend that you choose the agency that you feel comfortable having difficult conversations with. In case you are undecided, choose the agency you can trust.

Plan for a long-term relationship

Digital marketing takes time and it is not like app or website development. It is a continuous process and takes time to develop a result-oriented marketing approach as outlined over at runrex.com. Therefore, when looking for a digital marketing agency, choose the one with which you feel you will work well long-term.

Industry expertise

Choose a digital marketing agency that has a good amount of experience in your field. If you are looking for a particular skillset, then take a peek at the agency’s team section to find out more regarding its talent and expertise.

Don’t be afraid to pull the plug

Finally, at the end of the day, it is your business and money we are talking about here. Therefore, regardless of how far you have gone into the negotiation process, do not be afraid to turn back and walk away if you feel like you should or things don’t seem right.

Hopefully, these tips will help you find the best marketing agency for you and your business, with the top-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com being two of the best for such services.