You Don’t Have To Hate Your Marketing Agency. Here Are The Ways To Find One You Actually Like

 

Picture this (because it might be your reality). You’re a small business owner and you’ve decided to start delegating tasks within your business to help it grow and succeed. Marketing–from top to bottom, email to content marketing, social media to paid advertising–it’s just not your expertise and you know your business could thrive beyond your hopes and dreams with the right help. You hire a marketing agency.

A few months in and you’ve found something unfortunate to be the case: you feel like you’re doing more work and are taking on the stress like never before. You thought outsourcing your marketing was supposed to make life simpler … and you’re right, it is supposed to be simpler!

In working exclusively with business owners for years, we hear a lot of horror stories concerning marketing agencies. While not all marketing agencies are a story turned for the worse, you should be feeling like your efforts to grow your business are (and continue to be) the right decision … and never the wrong one.

 

Some Of The Many Reasons Business Owners and Marketing Agencies Don’t End On The Best Terms

Like we said, we’ve worked with businesses across the board and have seen and heard stories that anyone would shake their heads at. We get it. As a business owner, you’ve got to wear a lot of hats, and running your own marketing from top to bottom isn’t one of the hats you’ve opted to wear. That’s why you’ve hired a team to do it all for you, and to do it the best way possible. 

The complaints heard ‘round the marketing world typically fall into three buckets:

 

• Communication (well, lack thereof)
• Dependability (usually of the not-doing-what-you-say-your-going-to-do variety)
• And what we’ll call dependence (meaning the agency doesn’t proactively do anything without the client asking for it)

 

Do these complaints sound like the business owner has any easier of a job than they did before making the smart decision to hire marketing help? Hint: Heck no! This shouldn’t be any business owner’s reality, and we’re here to tell you it doesn’t have to be. 

Let’s dive into the buckets of complaints we hear on the regular so you can look for red flags, avoid agencies who fit into these categories, and hire a team to get the job done right.

 

Communication From Your Marketing Team … It Should Be Better

Communication is key–isn’t that what they say? Whoever they is, they’re damn right!

When you’re looking for and hire a new marketing team, you don’t necessarily know how communicative they’re going to be until you’re in the thick of it. 

They might have a top-notch, high-powered sales team whose commission is based on getting you to sign on the dotted line, but when the sales person gets you inked, they typically step out of the picture and communication goes silent. If you call, they should answer. And if they don’t, they should call you back (sooner than later, would be nice). Here’s an added bonus: They ask what your preferred communication method is (and then actually use it!). 

Communication can be finicky when bringing in new people to help your business grow but, in reality, streamlining communication for success should be at the top of the list. Be sure to know how your new marketing agency will handle communication from the get-go and beyond. Seek out current or previous clients of that agency, find testimonials, and make sure you know what you’re getting yourself (and your business) into. Your business is your priority, it’s not trying to track down someone to talk to about the next step in marketing efforts. Effective communication is going to make the process best for all parties involved, so make it a priority when seeking out a marketing team.

 

Dependability, Is Your Marketing Agency Missing This Quality? 

Businesses have deadlines, deadlines that are meant to be met. You didn’t hire marketing help so you could hold someone’s hand every step of every project. You’re not a babysitter (unless you are … but that really doesn’t apply here), so don’t settle.

A great marketing team should consistently prove their dependability. Is that monthly newsletter going out like promised? Are all things social media being taken care of like you’ve agreed on so you can focus on other aspects of your business? Your marketing team should already be on top of it like promised. No extra reaching out by you as the business owner should be in the cards.

 

Dependence On You … Instead Of The Other Way Around

Feel like your marketing team is just waiting for you to give them every step of direction, point out opportunities, and come up with the next great campaign? Bummer. Get yourself a team that’s dependable and won’t make you feel this type of pressure.

As experts in marketing, a team of professional marketers should be the ones coming to the table with brilliant new ideas, new opportunities, and the efforts necessary to get your business out there in front of your people. They’re professionals, after all.

Now, of course, this isn’t to say that hiring a marketing agency completely cuts out all innovative marketing ideas a business owner might have for their company. The more brains at the table the better. Instead, hiring a professional means they should be doing that marketing opportunity research for you so you don’t have to. And then all ideas from all sides can be made a reality … by the marketing team, of course.

 

How Bareknuckle Doesn’t Fit Into The Average Of Marketing Agencies

Now let’s talk about the good-guys and the get ‘er done-ers in the world of marketing agencies. There are plenty out there for business owners to hire for the long haul–and actually be pleased! We like to think (and prove) that we’re one of them.

Here on the Bareknuckle stomping grounds (meaning our clients and all the great work we’ve worked hard to accomplish together for their businesses), we’re not the average marketing agency like the ones that have given our industry a bad rap. 

Bareknuckle … 

 

Takes communication and organization really dang seriously. 

• We have a team of marketing experts who work with all of our clients–there’s always someone to talk to.
• Project management is a big part of our job and ensures proper internal and external communication and organization that are essential … they make the marketing world go ‘round.

 

Does what we say we’re going to do.

• Promise = action. Here at Bareknuckle we come with actionable plans and follow up on those plans, without question.
• You have enough to worry about as a business owner, and we understand how it can feel when you need support and don’t get it. We can tell you … we’re not those guys.

 

Has ideas and strategies to bring to the table, you can count on it.

• We like to believe our clients hire us because we’re experts in what we do (which is, in fact, true), so we’re here to let you be the expert in your business and we’ll be the expert in marketing your business.
• The marketing industry and consumer behaviors are always changing. We’re on top of those trends and will make sure your business is up with the times and ever behind.

 

Ready To Get Your Marketing On-Track And Efficient?

Well, Bareknuckle’s your crew! We’ve worked with businesses of all shapes and sizes and can help you. And the best part is, no need to wonder about hiring one of those horror-story-marketing-agencies … that’s just not us. Start the conversation with a Free 15-Minute Call.