Choosing a marketing and advertising agency is a challenging process. You will invest a lot of your time and hard-earned money into this new partnership, so you should carefully evaluate your options. Most retailers are smaller companies, so hiring a marketing agency is like adding a marketing addition to your company. This is why the quality of your marketing agency is paramount. Evaluating a digital marketing agency is not an easy task, so we’ve come up with some bullet points that should help you make the right decision. Follow these criteria for selecting an advertising agency or reevaluating your existing one, and you’ll be set up for business success!
Does Your Marketing Agency Understand Your Business?
It’s easy to get carried away with flashy social media presence and big talk, but does the agency you’re considering know your industry? Do they understand the ins and outs of your day-to-day work as well as the big picture? When looking for a digital marketing agency, you should first consider the agencies that have experience in your chosen field of business. These types of agencies are tried and true, so they can most likely recognize your needs, anticipate them and create a winning strategy. You know they’ve done it before! Industry experience is invaluable when it comes to marketing efforts and it will save you a lot of time and money that would normally be spent on a lot of hit-and-miss ideas with an agency from an unrelated field of expertise. Having a partner that knows how your business operates from the inside out, has been through the same challenges, and knows the pain points of your business is priceless. So, in conclusion, if it’s possible, always look for industry experience!
Make sure they understand the ins and outs of your day-to-day work. The agency needs to understand your daily routines, your goals, and your current capacities. For example, if you’re using a cabinet estimating software, your agency needs to get familiar with it, see, how this helps you, who you’re cooperating with within the software, and help you establish even more meaningful and fruitful relationships.
They Talk the Talk But Do They Walk the Walk?
Many agencies have perfected their sales pitches, but can they back them up with facts? One of the best ways on how to evaluate a marketing agency before you enter into business with them is to check their previous work. You can do this by going through their case studies if they have any or simply by engaging in conversation and asking relevant questions about previous projects. If their other clients are from similar backgrounds or have goals that align with yours, you can easily assess if their marketing efforts would suit your company as well. Seasoned agencies will be able to provide you with case studies and reports that will put your mind at ease and help you build the trust necessary for this type of partnership. Another green light when evaluating a marketing agency is — glowing reviews from clients! In 2023 you know you can rely on people to leave both positive and negative feedback on just about anything! Don’t forget to check your potential agency’s reviews and, if possible, have a chat with their previous clients!
Is It a Match? Personality, Prices, and Services
One of the easiest things to check is: does your potential agency offer the services you need? It’s very common to find generalized marketing agencies that claim they cover a multitude of services, but it’s often best to find an agency that specializes in the exact services that your business needs. This can often mean you can get the best results with an industry-specific or niche marketing agency. These types of agencies already know and excel at providing the services needed to thrive in this industry. For example, if you are a retailer and your industry is the kitchen business industry, you will need a marketing agency that provides appropriate services, such as reputation management, advertising, SEO, and social media management. Always consider an agency that can adapt to you and integrate different approaches for maximum results. Having a digital marketing agency that meets the specialized needs of your business is crucial. So, if you are a kitchen cabinet manufacturer or a kitchen cabinet dealer, you need an agency that can help you and show you how to sell kitchen cabinets.
The next step in evaluating your digital marketing agency is considering its pricing plans. Are they affordable? Do they offer a tiered pricing system? Can you add and subtract the services you need? Finding a marketing agency that can perfectly fit your budget is not a small feat, so having some flexibility and different pricing options is always welcome.
Last but not least in this section, would you enjoy working with them? Often this can be overlooked, but consider the fact that you will have to spend a substantial amount of time in communication with this agency. Is their personality a good match for you and your company? Do you have similar missions and visions when it comes to business and company culture? Walking in step with your marketing partner truly makes the work a breeze, so pay attention to your compatibility as well.
Reporting For Duty?
One of the best ways to ensure consistency, increase trust and keep up the accountability of your selected marketing agency is with an accurate and precise reporting system. Since you’re investing a lot of money in your marketing efforts, you need to know exactly what the agency is doing to get you the results and ROI you agreed upon. So what should this report entail? We’ve got the deets.
Based on your specific pricing plan and the services you’ve selected, your digital marketing agency should provide you with monthly service and performance reports. The service reports should list every action taken by your marketing agency in the past month, for example, they can report how many GMB posts they’ve published on your behalf, add a list of blog posts with links, report on how many pages have been updated with new keywords, etc. The good part of working with digital marketing agencies is the measurable results.
The performance report would go into more detail and measure specific metrics relevant to your business and the service provided. For example, they can give the exact numbers of paid and organic website visits compared to the previous month, get to the nitty-gritty of the average lead cost, and show the social media stats and the current keyword rankings as they compare to the past period.
An overview of the report should be available to you at all times, as well as sent directly to you on a monthly basis. This insight, along with all the necessary explanations and analysis is crucial to your marketing efforts. Evaluating your KPIs, ROI, and overall strategy and making adjustments based on the reports and results regularly is what can make the biggest difference for your business. Data is key and using it in a smart and efficient way separates the cream of the crop marketing agencies from the rest.
Communication Is Key
How available is your agency? Is the communication always transparent? Do they know enough about kitchen marketing? Do you feel heard and understood? These are all important things to consider when you’re evaluating or reevaluating a marketing agency. Effective and consistent communication with a reliable agency is incredibly valuable. Knowing you can always reach your contact person at the agency and being treated with respect and courtesy should definitely be on your list of priorities when interviewing a new agency. Your account manager needs to have an excellent working relationship with you, understand your schedule, and address your concerns as they arise. Being transparent through the ups and downs and clearly voicing opinions should be a two-way street and any agency that can provide this would get a green light from us!
FAQ on Evaluating Marketing Agency
How to evaluate a digital marketing agency?
To evaluate a digital marketing agency, you first need to look at their proposal, check out their references, meet their team, evaluate their prices, and feel the energy. What is your impression after checking all of these points? What is like the portfolio of their previous work? What are the results and ROI of their work with other clients? While evaluating a digital marketing agency, you need to have your goals, needs, budget, and what you’re looking for in mind. Are you looking for a long-term partnership or a shorter one? Choose more than one prospect, ask all the questions you need answers to, and then create a short list of candidates. Once you have them listed with all the pros and cons, you’ll be able to choose the right agency for you.
What evaluation criteria should be used in selecting an advertising agency?
The digital agency evaluation criteria that should be used in selecting an advertising agency are your line of work, your goals, your specific needs, the agency’s experience in your line of work, results, and the ROI they’ve achieved thus far with their current and past clients. Their range of services, the quality of their account team, and commitment to their clients are also very important criteria. When selecting an advertising agency, make sure you understand in what media and what sectors they specialize in. Their previous campaigns and the results they achieved are also very important.
How do you evaluate marketing agency performance?
Once you’ve hired a digital marketing agency and the first results are achieved, it is time to evaluate the marketing agency’s performance. You can measure its success by how much revenue it brought to you since the day you hired the agency. Don’t forget to take into account the amount of resources you’ve spent to make this revenue happen. Developing SMART goals for the agency’s work is one of the first steps in evaluating the marketing agency’s performance. At all times, inspect and measure their professionalism and capacity for holistic marketing, as well as their capacity for a long-term partnership that will develop and grow.
What makes a marketing agency successful?
A digital marketing agency is successful when it actually does what it preaches, when it stands by its words, and when it delivers what was promised. A successful marketing agency will be able to work closely with its clients, build meaningful, personalized partnerships with its clients, and successfully cater to clients’ various marketing needs and requirements. A digital marketing agency that is successful will work diligently on achieving its clients’ goals and include all useful channels to achieve this. It will not shy away from getting creative and innovative to achieve digital diversity and fluency. Growing with your clients is one of the most important qualities of successful digital marketing agencies.
How do you review the effectiveness of digital marketing?
There are several important steps to go through when reviewing the effectiveness of digital marketing. Just after hiring and before the work starts, set SMART goals for each of the campaigns you’re going to be working on with the agency. You can review these SMART goals and how effective was the work for each of them in different stages of the campaign and at the end of it. Together with the agency, you can choose digital metrics that reflect your goals, and don’t forget to set up the tracking for these metrics. The agency should analyze and report on the results achieved in the sequence you agree on. Make sure that, together with your agency, you learn from the results achieved and outcomes, and in accordance to that, you improve and innovate your approach.
Why is it important to evaluate the effectiveness of a digital marketing agency?
Evaluating the effectiveness of a digital marketing agency will help you achieve better ROI, make your sales efforts more effective and budget-friendly, and improve your conversion rates. You will also learn a lot and become better at decision-making. Most importantly, evaluating the effectiveness of a digital marketing agency will help you understand your audience and your customers better. Understanding their behavior will help you improve your strategies, coordinate your efforts better, and be smart with your resources.
Do You Need Digital Marketing Services for your Kitchen Business? Hire KitchenDEV!
KitchenDEV is a familiar name in the kitchen business industry. We have years of experience and a proven track record in implementing winning marketing strategies for kitchen retailers. We’ve gotten to know the kitchen industry inside out not only through our client work but through our own business ventures as well. KitchenDEV team is intimately familiar with the pain points and challenges of kitchen and bath retailers and manufacturers, so we can adequately respond and overcome them! But don’t trust our word for it, check out our success stories and stellar client reviews. We are confident that we can provide the best marketing service for kitchen retailers. Hire KitchenDEV and let’s skyrocket your business together! Contact us today.