When hiring a marketing company, you as the business owner expect them to be the professionals. You expect that they understand the market and online marketing world. So, with expectation for leads, sales and expansion you hire the best sounding company for you. Online Marketing is a very slippery business and many of our competitors sell snake oil. We know that because we rescue companies repeatedly from lack of attention, requests are made and nothing gets done, misuse of time and no accountability.
In this blog we want to help you! There are 5 simple questions to ask your marketing company that they should be able to answer and back up with solid analytics.
Question 1
“Can you please send me my monthly report of the website analytics?”
Once of the main issues with marketing companies is tracking. Are they reporting your website traffic to you monthly and gaining insights from those numbers for future marketing strategies? Have they even installed Google Analytics on your website when they took you on as a client? If you are doing ANY Online Marketing or ANY website traffic generation this should have been the first thing that was completed. If they have none of this, it might be time for a fresh pair of eyes.
Question 2
“Can you tell me what your marketing strategy is for the next quarter?”
Online Marketing changes constantly. For instance, Facebook organic reach is at an all time LOW of 7% of people who see your posts organically. Their algorithm changes should cause a change of strategy for your social efforts. If you have not heard from you marketing company in 6 months, then something is wrong. A quarterly connection, reporting and strategy insights session is a must. What are you selling? What are you offering? Are there new services that need to be promoted? Do you have new staff you want to introduce? YOU are the best person to know your company – and to market YOU they should be spending time with YOU!
Question 3
“Can you please send me a report of what is working and what is not?”
If you are spending $1500 a month on Facebook and Facebook Ads but all your traffic is coming from LinkedIn then you need to readjust your strategy and plans. Your marketing company should be able to send you a report showing where your traffic is coming from! If you are paying for SEO then a majority of your traffic should be coming from Organic Search. If you are paying for Facebook Marketing, then then most of your traffic should end up after a few months coming from Facebook. This is all information that is EASILY available and EASILY sent. It is not hard to pull up this report from your website analytics, (hoping you have that!) Open communication is a must and if something that you thought was going to work is not then a conversation must happen and new strategy should be put in place.
Question #4
“Can you send me how many leads we got in the last quarter?”
This question will relate to your online marketing if you are doing lead generation for sales, lists or calls. This will fall in line with Facebook Leads, Google Ad Words and any paid advertising. An excel list of leads from Facebook or your website forms should be sent to you on a monthly or quarterly basis depending on your industry and timeframes. When doing Google Ad Words a report with calls, emails and even recorded phone calls should be available to you. Again, generating this information is EASY and not difficult. Tracking those leads are an essential part of their services and just as important to them as to you – or they should be…
Question #5
“Can you please send me the content we will be using for the next month or two?”
When doing online marketing with social platforms or SEO an essential piece is content creation and content strategy. For the most part this should always be done in partnership. They should be able to send you the following including but not limited to:
- Blogs
- Graphics
- Videos
- Landing Pages
- services promotions
- keywords
Every quarter you should be receiving a content request from your marketing company that informs them of the newest offers, events or anything that would apply to content marketing and search engine optimization. Just posting pretty images with quotes, or linking to a page on your website is NOT marketing. There must be flow, consistency and engagement for online marketing to work on the social platforms and with SEO.
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I dare you! Go to the company or person running your marketing and ask a few of these questions. If they send over the items requested, then you are in good hands! If they fumble and have no analytics, no plan, no tracking – MOVE ON! They have not done their job and the investment you are placing in their hands is being used without care or concern for your business.
Online Marketing can be AMAZING but it can also waste thousands of your dollars doing nothing. Please, when hiring or reviewing your marketing company use these questions as a baseline to keep things accountable and ensure your investment.
