Gone are the days when marketing was something companies could have or not have. Today it’s virtually impossible for any organization to survive without an advertising strategy and, for the most part, SEO (search engine optimization.
Also, it’s no longer enough to test marketing strategies on your own; neither can you assign these duties to a division within the business not equipped to handle marketing. If you want results, you will need a marketing and advertising agency that can handle all marketing aspects.
Now that you’ve determined which kind of advertising agency is best for your business, you need to evaluate marketing agencies around you to find the best pick. Let’s look at the red flags to keep an eye on when hiring an advertising agency.
The Pitfalls to Avoid When Hiring an Advertising Agency Include:
A Marketing Agency That Focuses On a Single-Channel
Some marketing agencies are only comfortable with what they know. If they deal with TV commercials and radio ads, they are confined to that single channel. On the other hand, the marketing agency could only be focusing on digital marketing. Your business could miss out on a valuable audience who only have access to traditional media.
A proper marketing strategy is multi-faceted to reach any potential client wherever they may be. A multi-faceted marketing strategy will include digital marketing, email marketing, traditional marketing such as print media and radio ads, etc.
A Marketing Agency That Doesn’t Offer Adequate Reports
Advertising is intended to change people’s actions, but to transform someone’s actions, you have to change their opinions, and to change their opinions, you have to get their attention.
You can quantify people’s actions, but it’s harder to quantify their opinions and attention. That’s why you need an advertising agency that looks at reports such as SEO, overall traffic, and click-through rates. These metrics can give a rough idea about people’s opinions and attention.
For instance, if your website is getting more overall traffic and new site visitors than you did at a similar period in the past year, it means the ad agency is drawing more people’s attention.
A Marketing Agency with A ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Marketing Approach
Although marketing agencies work for various sectors of the economy, many don’t offer ingenuity and distinction. Instead, they have a ‘one-size-fits-all’ marketing approach which lets them work easier without considering what’s best for their clientele.
For instance, when a client requests a personalized marketing strategy, some agencies will absurdly respond that they don’t do that for any other clients and that the client should trust the marketing process in place. This is a major red flag.
A Marketing Agency That’s Stuck in Time
The new age of digital marketing and particularly social media marketing, has changed the marketing landscape forever.
Take Facebook, for instance; in 2018, organic business posts were reaching a fairly large audience. Then Facebook changed its algorithm, thereby devalued organic reach by at least 50%. This meant companies had to adopt new tactics if they wanted clients to see their posts.
The marketing scene is changing every day, and it’s the duty of ad agencies to accommodate these changes. By no means should they adopt every new theory or strategy, but they should be familiar enough with the changing landscape and make educated decisions.
A Marketing Agency That Doesn’t Offer Project Management
A marketing agency that doesn’t offer project management services is a massive red flag. You see, a project manager is the accountability expert in a marketing team. Project managers are cited as one of digital marketing experts that should work on your campaign strategy.
Project managers can spot marketing glitches and bottlenecks before they become a serious problem to your business. They are also effective communicators who set clear targets so that everyone on the marketing team is on the same page.
Final Thought
To sum it all up, marketing agencies ought to be aligned to your objectives as a business. If that’s not the case, you might not attain the targets you’ve set for your business, which could negatively impact your revenues.
