Are the agency marketing services you’ve been receiving a bit lackluster? Have you fallen out of love with your marketing consultants (or do you suspect they’ve fallen out of love with you)? There are many signs that it’s time to start looking for a new inbound marketing agency…and here are some of the biggest.
1. They’re more concerned about feel-good metrics than conversion metrics.
There are “vanity metrics” that give us all the warm and fuzzies – things like web traffic, impressions, likes and followers. Then, there are the ones that increase business. Which ones are your agency marketing services provider putting front and center in their reporting to you?
2. They don’t give you access to your data.
You paid for it, so why can’t you have real time access to it? Don’t allow your agency marketing services providers send you a monthly report and let that be the end of it. This is particularly important when you’re working on a new campaign – you should have the ability to login and check on its progress anytime.
3. They’re not performing A/B tests.
No idea what this means? Your agency marketing services provider might want to keep it that way. Simply put, A/B tests are basically digital focus group research. They’ll try two versions of an email/website/ad on a limited audience in order to see which gets the most interest and conversions. This is something that can be done with any marketing form that lives online and can give valuable insights on the current campaign as well as on future efforts. Ask your marketing consultants if they’re performing A/B tests – if they squirm, you should too.
4. They forgot why they were hired.
If they’re trying to flip the script and change what your expectations of their work should be mid-contract…ask yourself why. Is it because they can no longer deliver on the mutually agreed upon expectations you set out at the beginning of your arrangement? Hopefully it’s because they truly believe – based on solid and provable reasoning – that their work should change track.
5. They're not “thought partners”.
If you’re hiring a “Yes Man” to perform your agency marketing services, you must as well toss their fees out of your conference room window. Your marketing consultants should be driving results for you, yes, but also collaborating with you to create campaigns that are not only successful, but in keeping with your overall brand identity. Agencies worth holding onto continually make time to learn what makes your business tick and tap into you and your staff as the fonts of information that you are.
Mark Parent : February 9, 2015 1:00:00 PM EST
