If you’re looking online for a marketing agency to help you, good luck. We’ve poured over competitive websites and if you can tell us all apart, you’re a genius.
But I may have figured out a way to help.
I just got off the phone with a friend who runs a creative agency and while we were talking, I pulled up his website. Keyword for keyword, the capabilities look similar. To help him understand how we’re different, I said, “it’s not our capabilities, it’s the questions we ask.”
His agency’s first question is “how can we create a really fun, attention getting campaign for these guys?”
Our first question, to the client, is usually along the lines of, “what does your sales funnel look like?”
And that, as they say, makes all the difference.
We’re not the only folks to say we focus on results. But our question is, what is a result for you?
A sale? A lead? A click? A like? How are you measuring it, how are you generating results now, and what are your expectations?
Then we want to know what your organization looks like. Do you have a sales team in place? Are you putting one in place? Are you advocating to the powers that sign the checks that you need one?
Because bringing you the biggest buzz in the world will fall flat if you don’t have a process for turning inquiries into revenue.
And we want to know who owns you. Stockholders? Private equity? A parent company in Europe?
Knowing whether your marketing effort is subject to market timing, investment guidelines, or a foreign corporation that needs help grasping the scope and complexity of the US market tells us how to structure the campaign.
So when you narrow your query down to a few agencies and get them on the phone, pay close attention to the questions they ask. The questions will tell you how they would work with you, whether they understand the pressures you’re facing every day, and whether they get your problems.
Some prospects have found our questions invasive, and have gone another way. Those that have stayed find themselves promoted up the corporate ladder and say things like, “I’ve never worked with an agency like this before.”
If you wonder what they mean, give us a call. We have a few questions for you.
