Thinking of outsourcing your marketing?

There becomes a tipping point in a lot of companies where outsourcing the marketing or keeping it in house becomes a debate. However if you are thinking of outsourcing your marketing to an agency then here’s 5 questions we recommend you ask to make sure you get the best bang for the buck and don’t fall into some common traps.

1. Whats wrong with what I’m doing now?

A simple question that many forget to ask.

However if you’re speaking to an agency or even a one man band who’s talking about how they can get you amazing results without showing you what's going on right now. Then run a mile.

[Tweet "Any person worth considering would and should do a deep analysis on your current account. "]

At SV we never even take a client on before we do a full audit for two main reasons.

We want to be as accurate as possible when working with a client.

Much like if somebody took their car into a garage because they wanted it to go faster, the garage would do a full inspection/service to determine what parts the car needed. Thats the exact same with your business.

The second reason is also just as important.

We want to work with good clients.

We live in a world where you can set up a “business” (we use that term loosely) within seconds.

Outsourcing marketing is a two way street. We want to work with companies who have their shit together as we are not a burn and churn style business that go through multiple clients a year.

2. Can you introduce me to three clients to speak to?

Seems to make enough sense right?

This is a fundamental that you have to do. Again if someone is promising you results and saying they’ve helped companies like you scale then there should be no problem in introducing you to some of these real deal companies.

If as an agency they’ve got amazing results for clients...

Then clients won’t mind in the slightest about hoping on a quick call to share their experience. Why? Because these clients were once in your shoes too.

3. What's the guarantee you’ll give me?

This is kind of a misleading comment because no one should guarantee results. No matter how similar your business might be to others that agencies have worked with every business is different. However there are so many horror stories out there of agencies tying business into long contracts in which they can never leave meaning they just get burnt.

At SV we never promise results, we’re not that naive.

However what will do is have a minimum KPI. From the auditing process we mentioned above we will sit with you and have a minimum goal that has to be met within a short time period or we both walk away. This could be anything from sales, leads, inquires etc…it completely depends on the business.

You need to have a security blanket in there for yourself and besides a good agency shouldn’t want to keep a client on a retainer that they’re not performing for…that's just bad business.

4. Who will be managing my account and where are they based?

Another question many think is an obvious answer. The reality is 80% of agencies outsource their work to other countries which is fine as long as they're open and honest about it.

The problem occurs when a company thinks they’re signing up for an agency when in actual fact they’re signing up to a one man band who outsourcing all the work overseas.

Again we have no problem with this as long as its honest but we’d recommend you find out what you’re paying for. Is it an in house team who all sit round one office and work together or is it outsourced elsewhere?

5. How much time on average will you spend on my account?

You’re paying for a result. Time should be defined as success. Never the less you need to make sure your expectations are aligned with whomever is running your ads. You might be going in thinking you’re going to be their biggest priority, they might think you’re a small client. So ask them for the fee you’re paying whats the average time spent on the account a week.

Again any good agency will know this information.

Don't be fooled, time spent doesn’t mean that results will be good but it will give you a clear indication of their business model and how much of a priority you will become to them.