Should Ask Questions When Hiring a Marketing Agency

How much experience do you have?

Not only do you want to know how much experience they have as an agency, but you want to know if they understand your business and trends in your industry. During initial conversations, see if they speak your industry’s language or if they can share a few stories or experiences that can give you confidence they understand your business. If they know your industry, or can draw a close similarity, they can start marketing efforts quicker.

What do I need from an agency?

Make sure you have a clear understanding of what you need a marketing agency to do. Understanding the scope of your needs is key. Do you need a full-service agency to blanket several aspects of marketing and advertising or just one specific skillset? You don’t want to hire an agency that can’t do what you need.

What’s your culture like?

It’s important to find an agency that not only works well together, but can communicate and relate to you. You want to make sure it is a good “fit” for you. Happy employees and a team that enjoys what they do will be more motivated to do great things for their clients.

Who will be managing my account and executing my work?

This falls into the “fit” as well. These are the people you will be communicating with directly.  You want to make sure they understand you and that there is an open conversation with your marketing goals. It’s important to feel confident in the experience and expertise of the people directly responsible for your success.

How do they communicate with clients?

As a client, you want to make sure that your budgeted money is going to real work. Agencies that maintain proper processes for client communication, project management, and collaboration waste much less time on operations and spend far more time actually getting your work done. Insufficient or ineffective communication is a top reason agency-client relationships go south. Ask about the conversation process upfront to be assured you will get the communication you require.

What planning and strategy exercises will be required to get up to speed?

When establishing a relationship with your agency, you’ll need to spend some time getting familiar with each other. Ask about how the agency handles acquiring a new client and ensure that employees working with your business will achieve the appropriate level of knowledge about your business, target audience, and competitors.

Are you looking for an agency to partner with and build a unique marketing strategy for your business? Let’s Chat. 

Katie Westbrooks
Art Director