How to choose the right marketing agency?

Businesses these days spend a significant amount of their annual revenue on sales and marketing, so it's of the utmost importance to consider a variety of factors when deciding on the right marketing agency for you.

The options can at times be overwhelming, and finding the perfect partner for your specific needs and goals can be difficult. In this post, we'll do our best to help you make the right choice.
How to choose the right marketing agency? We'll look at the different types of marketing agencies, certain factors to consider before hiring a marketing agency, questions to ask yourself before approaching marketing agencies, and as always, how we do things at Spirus.

What are the different types of marketing agencies?

Direct marketing:

A direct marketing agency will assist you with your direct marketing campaigns. They will often provide you with mailing lists that especially match up with your target market, and will design and write your direct marketing campaigns too. Direct marketing agencies also handle mailing out items on your behalf, and a good one will have software in place to measure the consumer response to the given campaign.

Digital marketing:

A digital marketing agency will assist you with making full use of the internet, email, and or social media for your marketing campaign. These agencies will offer advice on ways to use social media, help improve the search engine optimization (SEO) of your website, launch e-commerce services, and execute email marketing strategies and campaigns to communicate more efficiently with customers and leads.

Telemarketing:

As the name suggests, telemarketing agencies will provide telephone-based marketing services, often by acting as somewhat of a call centre for your business. For a more in-depth look at what exactly telemarketing is, read our article here.

Marketing consultancy:

A marketing consultancy agency will examine and scrutinise your marketing strategy, and offer up any suggestions or potential improvements that they may see from an outsider's point of view. This type of agency is generally not directly involved when it comes to the implementation of a marketing plan. Instead, they will do an analysis and an "audit" of your plan, and suggest new strategies for you to implement. For example, focusing on a different target market, or introducing a new product to the market.

Marketing communications:

A marketing communications agency will provide assistance with things like brochures, product guides, newsletters, and so on. This type of agency will also provide any writing, design, and or production services that you may require. A good marketing communications agency will also devise new strategies and methods to best reach your target market for any upcoming campaigns or products that you are lining up. So how to choose the right marketing agency and what are the factors to consider before hiring one?

Factors to consider before hiring a marketing agency:

Objectives

Before you approach a marketing agency, it's crucial to establish your own set of logical and achievable objectives. Doing this will allow help you to make an informed decision when choosing the correct marketing agency partner for your specific needs.

Target market and speciality

Having an understanding of your target market is key in order for a marketing campaign to succeed. Does the agency in question have specialised employees in the specific marketing channels that you are looking at? A good tip is to write down your areas of concern and bring them up with any marketing agency that you contact.

Planning and strategy

It's more than likely that, once you've decided on a marketing agency partner, they will ask you to provide some information. This could be anything from market research that you've conducted to an analysis of your inventory. Because of this, it's always a good idea to think about and plan your strategy ahead of time, so that you're ready to go when necessary.

Track record

This may sound obvious, but one of the key factors that will impact the success or failure of your marketing campaign is the track record of the marketing agency that you choose to work with. An experienced and proven agency will generate rewarding results for your business. That's what they do! Ask the agency who they've worked with previously, what experience they have working with a company like yours, and things of that nature. They might even supply you with details of a happy client as a reference check!

Timeline

It's vital to establish a clear timeline for your marketing campaign with your chosen marketing agency. Without one, you can run the risk of giving up too soon on a marketing campaign before seeing the anticipated and desired results. On the other hand, there's also the chance that you continue to spend money on a campaign that is just not generating any positives for your business. Having a timeline will help alleviate these issues.

Reports

Knowing how and when your chosen marketing agency sends you reports is also essential information. One needs to set clear expectations regarding how often reports and updates will be sent out, as well as what specific information will be contained in them.

Questions to ask yourself before approaching marketing agencies:

What are your goals?

It's so important that you define what your specific requirements are, and what your own achievable goals look like. Take into account things like the size of your team, and what your in-house setup looks like. Are you entering a new marketplace? These questions will help you to make an informed decision when choosing the right marketing agency partner to work with.

What is your budget?

Before you even think about approaching marketing agencies, you should work out and break down your budget. Do you have an overall budget for everything? What percentage will you be spending on certain, possibly more important, aspects of the campaign? The more of these types of questions that you can answer, the better position you'll be in when working out what kind of marketing agency you want to partner with.

What are your key performance indicators (KPI)?

Setting up your KPIs before partnering with a marketing agency is important because it sets concrete expectations, demands, and accountability. This goes hand-in-hand with knowing your goals, and if you have specific targets, figures, and costs in mind beforehand, then you and the prospective marketing agency can agree on a number of things straight from the off. It'll also assist the agency to tailor their strategy to your needs, and give realistic indicators based on the resources that you have available.

Who would you like to work with?

Possibly an obvious one, but it is often overlooked when companies choose marketing agencies to work with. Don't forget that you're essentially entrusting large parts of your business to this agency, so it's crucial that your teams are able to work together and there is a good culture fit. Do they have a good track record? What are their company ethics? How many team members will you be working with? This will, once again, allow you to make an informed decision when choosing the right marketing agency for you.

Why choose Spirus?

At Spirus, we offer a full range of marketing and communications services. From developing your strategy, mission, vision and values, to implementing and reviewing your marketing campaigns. Many of our customers have commented that they love the fact that we "do the doing" as well as the talking, making us something of a one-stop-shop for all of your marketing and PR needs. Working alongside your existing marketing team, we will provide any additional services that you require. Whether that's writing great copy, designing beautiful graphics, producing engaging videos, running your social media, printing your physical campaign, or liaising with the media, we will get your business out there!

We work collaboratively in partnership with our clients to bring your brand to life, reach the right people, and ultimately, make more sales. Your marketing activities will have the most impact if they are scheduled for the right time, to make the most of seasonal opportunities, and be aligned with your business needs and strategy. We have you covered!