In a world dominated by digital marketing tactics, businesses are constantly thrown curveballs on whether to work with a local based or Los Angeles Digital Marketing Agency for example. The dilemma people have to consider though is that choosing the right marketing agency can make or break a company’s cyber future. Whether you’re hiring a digital marketing agency for the first time or the tenth, you always need to be careful about what exactly you expect. The problem that plagues the search for a proper digital marketing agency is the sea of black hat agencies that can make empty promises about making you the behemoth of the industry while they rob you blind. Fortunately, with the right mindset, it’s possible to lower the probability of falling prey to an unprofessional and dishonest digital marketing agency. This is why we brought you the top 10 questions that can help you discern whether all the glitter you see is gold or not.
1. Who Is Your Ideal Client?
This is a typical interview question, yet, it can tell you a lot about a digital agency’s vision. Asking about their ideal client helps you understand how the agency perceives the qualities of good clients and bad clients. If their cultural and professional standards align with yours, it can mean that the collaboration can get you great results.
2. Who Are Your Previous Clients?
This is one of the most important questions that can help you feel the pulse of an agency in their field. Rather than settle for hearing about bigshot clients, look for further information about the industry they’re inclined to do work for. If most of their clients are in the steel industry and you operate a bakery, for example, stay wary. This doesn’t exactly mean that digital agencies can’t be flexible with the industries they can support, but it feels safer to see proof of clients doing relevant work of yours.
3. How Will You Align with My Goals?
Digital marketing agencies shouldn’t be simple lead and traffic generators; they should be more like your strategic partner who can see your vision and market for it accordingly. Their goals should be aligned with yours and every deliverable action should be relevant to the targets your company has in mind. You should find out more about how the agency interprets powerful insights. Even if the agency is popular and well-known, it should be in sync with your speed and direction to effectively take you to the top.
4. How Is Communication Managed?
You should find out whether the company uses project management tools, emails, standing calls, or any other method to communicate with you. It’s quite important to understand how the digital marketing agency shortens the gap of remote collaboration and communication between their clients. The best digital marketing agencies are up-to-speed with the newest and most convenient systems that use more than one platform to manage communication, billing, reporting, and project management.
5. How Often Will We Meet?
While the technology and platforms used to assist in the communication and collaboration processes can do a wonderful job, meetings help in the assessment of progress and providing inclusive reports. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the frequency of meetings as it always boils down to preference. Ask yourself if you’d feel more comfortable with leaving the execution of the marketing strategy completely in their hands, or if you’d prefer to be on top of things all the time.
6. Who Am I Working With?
A digital marketing agency is a big addition to your business. This is why you need to make sure that you’re going to be comfortable with who you choose to work with for a potentially long time. It’s normal to research the company and check out its website and client reviews. It’s okay to ask about the members who will be directly assigned to work alongside you; you can even meet them to ensure that you can get along just fine.
7. What Is Your Idea of Success?
A marketing agency isn’t a Midas touch to your business; it doesn’t simply transform it into gold upon contact. Any digital marketing agency worth its salt knows that marketing isn’t a one-hit magical wonder, instead, it’s a long road that takes patience and dedication to hit milestones. It can take a lot of time to find out what works and what doesn’t and how the best results can be replicated on a bigger scale. The perfect agency should be able to define your own brand success with your vision taken into consideration. It should also handle the representation of results—good, bad, small, or big.
8. How Often Do You Outsource?
A digital marketing agency may offer a plethora of services, but how many of these services are outsourced? While it’s normal for a marketing company not to have in-house experts on every service they can provide, it’s more reassuring to know how many and which services they specialize in. This is very important when it comes to major projects like rebranding and revamping websites.
9. Which Services Are You An Expert in?
For a big business, an inclusive all-around digital agency is usually the way to go. But sometimes small businesses have direct and focused goals that they’d like to achieve in the fastest manner possible. For example, they might be a photographer who advertises on social media and want to know if a digital marketing agency is able to help them get free instagram followers. Similar to the outsourcing question, you need to know which certifications they have and how committed they are to providing the best in-house service.
10. What Does the First Month Look Like?
Since the best digital marketing agencies hit the ground running from day one, you need to understand how it’s going to start directly affecting your business from the get-go. This can help you assess the brand’s vision and see if it aligns correctly with what you had in mind or not. This doesn’t mean that you should expect a sudden transformation; it only helps you understand the plans the agency chooses to deploy.
Interviewing a digital marketing agency before hiring it is a very wise choice, and you should do your homework on them to be able to ask the right questions. The right questions are those that can probe them to provide information you need to help make up your mind comfortably. It may sound cliché, but if you ask the right questions, you’ll know which agency is the one.