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Company leaders pour their blood, sweat, tears, and hard earned dollars into building brands and achieving growth.
Every step of the journey, from creating your startup to becoming an established business, requires immense focus, perseverance, and an excellent strategy for climbing to each new rung on the ladder.
At a certain point in a company’s development, however, all of the necessary growth, awareness, and sales-oriented tasks for reaching the next level will often become too much for a brand to handle on its own, and partnering with a marketing agency becomes the most logical step for world domination.
In the digital age, there is a vast kaleidoscope of agencies to choose from, each with their own compelling pitch and shiny, data-filled case studies. Every one of them may seem competent, capable, and likable. How can a brand to decide which agency is best suited to their needs when so many of them appear the same?
If you are in the market for some marketing genius, consider these 6 points of interest to help determine if an agency is right for your brand.
Constant Communication and Commitment
Great communication is the foundation to any relationship. When selecting an agency to build a business relationship with, there needs to be expedient and constant contact to ensure that a campaign runs smoothly.
When you are vetting out agencies, be mindful of which ones did not respond to your inquiry, which got back to you with a pre-made template, which got back to you too late, and those that responded quickly with a customized answer catered to your original message.
During the selection process, be aware of which agencies are remaining steadfast in their communications and displaying a genuine interest in your company. You want an agency that will be dedicated to your brand; one that will answer questions, receive calls, reply to emails, and quell any concerns. Partnering with agency is a long-term affair that needs to be beneficial and comfortable for all parties involved.
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Up-to-Date Practices
Marketing is a fast-paced and perpetually evolving discipline. If an agency is vying for your business, it is an absolute must that they are current on today’s best practices and methodologies, that they practice what they preach, and that they have the processes in place to support those exercises.
Be sure that any contenders have a mobile responsive site that is optimized for SEO alongside strong presences on social media. Establish if the agency uses any marketing automation platforms for their own efforts. Research their content to determine the frequency of posts and if they are educational, compelling, entertaining, and if it speaks to their persona well. Ask to see some examples of reports that you would be presented with at various intervals of a campaign. If you are presented with a handful of vanity metrics that do not display a clear ROI, opt out immediately.
The marketing firm your company elects should be on point with the standards of today and looking toward tomorrow’s cutting edge of innovation.
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Able to Meet All of Your Needs
There are various different kinds of marketing firms available such as full service agencies and boutique agencies. Dependent on what your company aims to accomplish, your budget, and the relationships you aim to build, your agency partner needs to be proficient in meeting a variety of needs such as inbound and outbound marketing, social media strategies, public relations, influencer marketing , video services, SEO, and other effective modalities.
Working with an agency that is capable of scaling right alongside your company is an important trait so that you do not continually have to go through the process of finding new firms to build relationships with that can produce results.
A History of Success
You need an agency that has a proven track record of achievement. The more you can uncover about the experience of past clients, the more well-informed your ultimate decision will be.
Any agency that is worth their salt should be ready and willing to provide you with a series of case studies, analytics reports from previous campaigns, and other metrics that will showcase an agency’s ability and aptitude.
Additionally, be sure to note if the firm works exclusively in a single industry. This could be an indicator that an agency is not suitable for your brand or potentially has conflicts of interest with competitors in your space.
Selecting the right marketing firm for your brand can be a lengthy and tedious process, but as long as you are willing to do your due diligence, you are far more likely to end up with a stellar firm who will get your message out to the masses.