Are Marketing Agencies Worth It?

As a business owner, it’s overwhelming enough to manage and run your business let alone the endless and ever evolving responsibility of marketing. Let’s face it; You don’t have much of a business if nobody knows about it. You can’t afford to not market your business, but how can you keep up with it all and still grow?

Hiring a marketing agency may be a solution until you are ready to introduce your own marketing department. A marketing agency is a service based business that can handle any and all aspects of marketing for your brand.

What is a marketing agency?

A marketing agency is a company that provides marketing services to promote the products or services of their clients. Their goal is to grow their client’s business and increase their revenue to achieve their business goals.

There are many different kinds of marketing agencies out there.

1. Inbound marketing – their focus is to generate more leads from inbound channels such as to attract people to your business. This prioritizes building brand loyalty and providing value to keep customers coming back.
2. Social media marketing – the focus here is to generate demand and build brand awareness with your audience. This is much like networking and informing people that you not only exist, but that you are the superior choice.
3. Paid media marketing – this is for running paid ads on various channels such as Google, sponsored posts on social media, video ads on YouTube, or even radio. This is consider outbound marketing and focus on reaching a wide audience quickly (whether it’s your target audience or not.
4. Influencer marketing – this means collaborating with others who have a big audience or influence to promote your product or service. You see this a lot on TikTok and Instagram Reels when someone is reviewing or sharing a testimonial on a product.
5. Brand/Creative marketing – this takes inbound marketing to a deeper level by strategizing the best ways to define your story, mold it into effective messaging that resonates with your target audience, and create visuals that leave a positive and lasting impression.

Choosing a Marketing Agency

Here are some tips on how to find and choose the right marketing agency for your business.

Set SMART goals. Be sure they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Defining your goals will help you determine whether you need a marketing agency that focuses on brand awareness or if you need one to help establish your influencer marketing.

Set a budget. This can be difficult for newer or smaller businesses just starting on this journey. But sharing what you’re able to afford every month or for a specific amount of time helps the marketing agency determine what service they can offer you. That way neither of you waste your time if they can’t get their services to match your budget.

Check the portfolio. Most marketing agencies will have a portfolio or list of past projects/work they’ve done. Reviewing their past work will help give you an idea of their typical style and quality of work.

Read the reviews. Of course, peer review is very influential. Seeing what others have to say can give you a better understanding on what it might be like to work with that particular agency.

Set expectations. Defining your expectations and the results you’d like to achieve helps determine whether an agency is capable or even has the capacity to take on your project.

What to expect with a new marketing agency

There are a series of steps that need to happen before a marketing agency can move forward with a new client. A good marketing agency will have a standard operating procedure that will walk you through onboarding and establish expectations.

Contract

Any legitimate marketing agency will require you to sign a contract. That way expectations and details about the project are clearly documented and mutually agreed to.

Questionnaire

A good marketer will need to get up close and personal with your business. Sometimes this will require you to fill out a questionnaire that asks some of the following:

• What it is you do?
• What you sell/who you sell it to?
• What your unique sales/value proposition/UVP?
• What makes you stand out against competition?
• Marketing efforts you’ve done in the past.
• Goals/results you’d like to see.

Access to client’s accounts

A marketer will need access to your online accounts that are relevant to your service agreement. This could mean allowing access to your social media pages, google analytics, website hosting site, etc.

Audit Review

It is nearly impossible for a marketing agency to start work immediately without doing a thorough audit of your accounts. This means they will dig deeper to find out what has been done before and what their results were.

Strategy

Now that the marketing agency knows enough about your business and sees your analytics, they can now start coming up with a strategic plan for upcoming campaigns and ways to better promote your brand.

Kick Off Meeting

This is where the marketing agency will present their strategies backed with the data they collected on your business. This is also a great time for you as the client to ask any questions or adjust certain key elements in the plan to better represent you.

What it’s like working with Missy Burns Creative

MB Creative is an Inbound, social media, and brand creative marketing consultation service that focuses on providing the best creative strategies that will elevate your brand to higher peaks of visibility and brand awareness. As a result of prioritizing the strength of your brand story and building your presence organically with your audience, your ROI and lead generation will increase.

I have 10 years experience in business and marketing management and bring a fresh, edgy, professional and educated outlook on new strategies that will better grow your business. I take the time to get to know you personally as well as your business. I also research your community and/or audience to become fully aware of their habits and the opportunities available for marketing.

My team and I love working with any industry as long as they’re passionate, determined and adventurous businesses who are open to creative new ideas and getting serious about strengthening their brand. We will work with just about any budget and adjust our services to better match your goals, needs, and expectations.

You can see our portfolio on our website here and read our reviews on Google and Facebook.

Are Marketing Agencies Worth It?

If you are serious about growing your business into a credible and highly recommended brand, it requires the right marketing knowledge, dedicated time, and expertise. A professional marketer will be able to dedicate the time and research it requires to establish and implement a creative marketing strategy that will effectively and efficiently reach your goals.

But there are things you can do beforehand that will help you get your business established enough to move towards hiring a marketing professional. As business owners, we are always looking to grow and increase our revenue. But sometimes that requires investments and delegating tasks to someone you can trust so you can better use your time to continue growing your business.

If you are interested in learning more about MB Creative and what it could look like working together, please give me a shout! I’d love to chat with you.

This article is proudly sponsored by Cody Calendar advertisers