THE 5-step test to be sure you have the right partner!
Are you looking for a marketing agency? But how to choose it ? not obvious given the colossal offer on the Internet. So let's see how in just 5 questions you can rate the quality of a marketing agency between 0 and 20. For each point, remember to score from 0 to 4 the quality of the answers proposed by your interlocutor, you will thus obtain the complete score of your marketing agency.
1) Does the marketing agency offer a strategic approach?
What is a strategic approach?
Digital is not a media or a channel, but rather a set of spaces, platforms (website, blog, social networks, emailing, etc.) that must be understood and interconnected. Before starting a communication on a blog or Facebook for example, it is necessary to think about a real strategy: why are we doing this? For who ? What do they need? How are we going to tell things?
The risks of the lack of a strategic approach
Delivering relevant content aimlessly or to the wrong people is a waste at best, and an image problem at worst. Modeling recipes without adapting them to your project is putting yourself in someone else's shoes: you don't feel comfortable and, in the long run, it hurts you.
How to check?
Ask the agency about their approach: have they planned a complete strategic reflection or are they content to launch the operational part immediately?
What is the agency's experience?
Using an agency means bringing additional skills to your business. The agency with which you will work must know and master its subject: experience and expertise are two essential components for your project to work. This thus allows to
rely on tested and verified practices, know the mistakes to avoid and understand the targets you want to reach.
The risks of lack of experience for you
Entrusting your digital marketing to beginners means potentially cutting yourself off from expertise: knowing how to analyze actions relevantly, offering interesting content, understanding sectors or types of customers, etc.
How to check the experience of the agency?
Look at the list of references: do they correspond to companies that you know or that correspond to you? Analyze team profiles on LinkedIn: do they have the right credentials, skills, certifications, and endorsements?
How do they measure results?
We often talk about ROI (Return on Investment). While some agencies will focus on simple brand awareness, an effective digital marketing agency will also focus on results: number of prospects, engagement rate on a site, evolution of communities on Facebook, etc.
The risks of lack of analysis
Conducting marketing actions is good, but measuring their impact is better! Not regularly analyzing ROI is wasting resources that could be optimized by focusing on what really pays off. And don't we say: “Trust does not exclude control”?
How to check?
Ask the agency if they naturally offer regular reports or access to tools that link actions and strategically observed indicators.
Do they do what they recommend?
Honestly, would you rather work with a shoemaker with bad or good shoes? For digital marketing, it's the same. An agency that effectively uses the levers of digital marketing and inbound marketing for itself will naturally be more suitable to help you.
The risks of a badly shod cobbler
How can you trust a partner if you are not sure that he can do what he recommends? Working blind on only a list of (verifiable?) references can be perilous.
How to check this point?
Take a look at their website, their accounts on social networks: do they have a regular presence? Does their universe speak to you? You have to be able to project your project in their communication.
Do they make you want to work with them?
Outsourcing your marketing department means trusting a team of specialists to bring you leads. Relationships will therefore be regular and must then be based on trust and good humor! We are talking here more about partners than clients or service providers. Availability, skills, human relations, proximity: so many qualities that the teams of the digital marketing agency must have to work effectively.
The risks of a complicated relationship
Having to work with a partner you don't trust means wanting to check all the actions, observing a lack of original proposals, etc. In short, quite simply, to create problems there should be solutions
How to check?
Take a tour of their office, chat with the people on the team. You can also try to find contacts in common and see what they think of this agency.
So, the results?
Of course, this quick mini audit is for informational purposes only, but the idea is to ask the same questions or have the same analysis grid for each agency in order to be able to create a comparison. Something that is not always easy to do usually.
Between 0 and 5
Is it really a serious agency? Your business deserves better than this! fortunately, this little test will have allowed you to realize that before working with them.
Between 6 and 10
Be careful, you are going blind with this agency. A word of advice: keep prospecting because the risk is too high that the project will fail. Ask questions define the project even better.
Between 11 and 15
If you have no other possibilities, this agency can do the trick, but the results may not be up to your expectations or maybe it is necessary to frame things a little more? In any case, communication remains one of the keys to success.
Between 15 and 20
Obviously, you have found a real partner who can help you achieve your goals! Congratulation !
