If you want your business to continue to grow, then hiring a marketing agency offers numerous benefits, including access to specialised staff, industry knowledge, and the time to focus on core business operations. Agencies really do bring scalable solutions, but you can also run into some trouble if you don’t select the right one.
Here’s what to look for in a marketing agency and how these individual factors can be crucial for your business’s development…
Problem 1 – Poor Communication
Many agencies do their clients a disservice by communicating with them using jargon and overly technical language. Clients may struggle to understand terms, leading to misinterpretations and poor decision-making. This can reduce trust and make clients feel disconnected from the process. Clear, simple language helps build trust, encourages engagement, and ensures clients fully understand the strategy and results.
Check out our digital marketing glossary here.
Poor communication isn’t always about the language used, but it can also mean the structure and consistency of conversations. Poor communication with a marketing agency can stem from various issues, including slow response times, overpromising, a lack of transparency, or minimal updates.
How to avoid poor communication?
When you first meet with a marketing agency to discuss your goals, it is essential to establish a clear plan for communication and expectations. This way, the agency can create a strategy tailored to your goals and provide transparent updates along the way. It’s important to choose a designated platform for all project-related communication. At TFA, we use Slack internally and email to communicate with clients; this approach allows us to maintain a clear structure and avoid confusion.
Problem 2 – Overpromising
Another frequent complaint is overpromising and underdelivering. Agencies might set unrealistic expectations during the sales process, only to fall short once the campaign is underway. This disconnect between promises and performance can lead to disappointment and strained relationships with clients.
How to avoid overpromising?
If you have been overpromised by an agency, then it’s most likely that you aren’t the only one who’s experiencing this. Clients rely on agencies to provide accurate assessments of what can be achieved within a given timeframe. Therefore, once it becomes clear that the original expectations have not been met, clients lose trust, and an agency’s reputation is damaged. A damaged reputation typically means negative reviews and fewer clients, so this will be something to look for when deciding on a marketing agency.
Problem 3 – Lack of Strategy
A lack of strategy in a marketing agency is probably one of the worst problems you can have! This can lead to wasted resources, missed opportunities, minimal leads and inconsistent messaging. Key areas where this lack of strategy might manifest include an ineffective use of your marketing budget, inexperienced staff, a poorly defined target audience or failure to adapt to market changes or trends.
How to avoid a lack of strategy?
It’s important that you look for agencies with a clear understanding of your business goals, target audience, and a plan for how they will use data to track and optimise campaigns. Many agencies offer a trial period or a short contract period to test their services. This is the perfect way to evaluate their ability to identify unique selling points, differentiate from competitors and produce effective results for your business. However, it’s important to remember that you won’t get viral content or amazing results overnight. A good marketing strategy takes time and refinement, so it’s best to assess their planning process and expertise over results immediately.
Throughout this blog, we have discussed clear signs to avoid when looking for a marketing agency to help with your business growth. It’s essential to remember that these problems don’t occur in every agency. With these clear signs of what to look for in a marketing agency, you can find one that helps your business rather than hinders it. Explore our portfolio to determine if we’re the right fit for you.