Choosing an agency to work with is hard. Too many times it turns out to be a failed relationship where a company is less than satisfied with the results. We outline how to address common things that can go wrong when hiring an agency for Marketing Automation work, and how you can avoid them.
I pay upfront and they take my money and run
I don’t get the results I want
I waste my money
They don’t communicate with me
They take on too much and don’t have enough bandwidth to take my project on
As with anything to be informed helps you get out of paralysis and move forward on making a good decision.
In this blog I address what could go wrong when hiring an agency or consultant and how you can avoid it.
We’ve all heard the horror stories of hiring a contractor to come to your house to do some work on your house like build a fence or put sprinklers in the grass. They ask for half upfront, you pay them and then you never hear from them again. Everyone has heard of a story like that.
So how can you tackle it?
Any consultant that you work with should be fine breaking up payments into milestones. Where you pay based on work getting done.
Feel free to negotiate with your consultant to find terms you are both comfortable with.
A good agency will provide a money-back guarantee.
Marketers are famous for promising the world but not guaranteeing specifics. Much like politicians. Anything to make the sale right?!
Results are hard to realize. After all that’s why you are considering using a consultant to help out.
Here are some keys I’ve found to obtaining good results:
1) Understanding your customer
2) Having clear goals about what you are trying to do and how you will measure it
3) Have a long time horizon.
Most people think marketing just works. When you input X that it always equals an output Y right away. Most marketing does not work that way. Not in B2B sales anyways. You need to throw out the idea that you’ll get leads right away. If you do odds you’ll optimize for leads that won’t convert, which is what you are really after.
Marketing Automation is about facilitating the customer journey and establishing trust with your customer over time. As you do that and remain dedicated to it you’ll start to see results.
Look for an agency that puts your customers at the center of the work they will do for you. A customer focused agency will get you far more results than one that just wants to do the job without any thinking.
You are going to be spending a good amount of money. You’ll sign a contract. Have a retainer and then what? For you the results are everything. How can you make sure you get a return on your money?
As I said before a good agency won’t be afraid to offer you a money-back guarantee.
Having said that every business is different. There are a lot of pieces that need to be aligned in order for you to see results. If you just target one piece of the puzzle you may not be seeing results because of other aspects that aren’t aligned.
That’s why we recommend for every customer that they 1) be committed to understanding their customer, 2) be committed to educating their customer by answering their most asked questions openly and honestly. Like this article.
If you have those 2 things and lead with the customer in mind then you’ll get results as you consistently execute on educating your customer.
Also, you can do a trial run. Test the agency or consultant with a smaller project before tackling a bigger one.
Establish clear expectations from the beginning on how often you want to communicate and what tools are best to communicate with.
A good agency will set clear expectations and coordinate with you on how they will communicate with you regularly.
You’ll want to outline how to communicate during the project either through slack or email. Then you’ll want to decide a cadence on regular check-in calls.
One of our favorites is by using a project management tool like Asana that can keep you updated in real-time.
If you communicate your expectations from the beginning you’ll greatly decrease the risk of not being happy.
What if they produce poor quality work because they took on too many projects?
This is a challenge for consultants. Agencies will typically not have this issue. This one rests heavily on the consultant to be open with you about their availability and the hours they can give you per week.
Let them know your timeline and when you are trying to get your project done. Give the consultant a chance to be open with you so you can see if your timelines are a fit.
All of these fears really come down to trust. Do you trust the consultant or agency that you are hiring?
Looking for those that are open and honest with you will help you know you’ve found a good one. You can identify these ones by asking sincere questions.
Here is a quick outline of what to look for:
Look for an agency that answers your questions online vid educational resources. One that isn’t afraid to address the elephant in the room.
Schedule a call to go more in-depth about the project goals you are looking for. See if you are a good culture fit.
Set clear expectations for the terms of your project.
After reviewing your potential hires website, seeing reviews, and talking with them, you should have a pretty good idea and feel for if they are a fit for you or not.
If you are struggling to find a good fit feel free to review our content or talk with us. We’d be happy to help you as you are looking for the right fit, even if we are not it. If we are not a good fit but know of someone else that can help we’ll happily send you their way.
We start with a no-commitment call about the challenges you are facing and where you want to go.
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