As B2B marketer, you have reached a tipping point and cannot just keep track of trends, tools and all the mojo required to run successful campaigns. There comes in a Digital Marketing Agency!
But again, you are clueless on hiring a digital marketing agency, because you never felt a need to have one.
What should you look for in them? How should the plan be? What metrics to track? Oh there’s so much you still have to do and you go back thinking if it is wise to hire the agency or still continue in-house.
Here are some pointers to help that you can look into while shortlisting the agencies.
Pedigree
With 20-somethings running the agencies, you might run into few who cannot boast of big names in their list. That should not hold you back. Ideally look what they are bringing on the table – knowledge of platform, understanding your business, ideas.
Actionable Tip – Ask them about their understanding your business in 2 slides.
Team
Look how big the agency is. While you might not need a 50 member team, but do they have 5 members who know the platforms very well? Flexibility is good but it shouldn’t hold back productivity.
Actionable Tip: Ask them about the team that will handle your account and you can research about them.
Statistics
If the agency just talks about fancy numbers – followers on this and that and not really talking about lead nurturing, generation AVOID THEM. While you should have healthy mix of follower and lead generation campaign, when it skews in the favor of former, chances are you’re diluting the brand. Ideally agencies should talk about ‘reliable’ followers.
Actionable Tip – Ask for one slide in which they indicate the type of statics they will track and convey and the tools they will use.
Customer Journey
Coming back to the earlier point, do they really know your business? Can they track the customer journey? Evaluate when they consider a visitor considered a ‘lead’.
Actionable Tip – Ask them to cover in one slide your customer journey. Check for goals and KPIs.
Content Strategy
For B2B companies, content play a big role in success of any campaign. Agencies typically ask you for certain content which they will use as-is or repurpose for various platforms. It’s imperative that you understand the content strategy and then be ready with basic content.
Actionable Tip – Ask for one slide of content strategy and couple more to give highlight of what content type required for each platforms they propose.
I believe the above will help you in finding the right agencies.
Do give a shoutout if you still have any questions and you can even share your thoughts on what you will look into while hiring an agency.
Image Credits: Free Digital Photos
