Working With A Marketing Agency – What To Expect & How To Prepare

If you’re a small business owner, it’s likely that you’ve not worked with a marketing agency before. Being in this position can feel pretty daunting, and parting with your cash with high hopes of leads and conversions is not a decision you should make lightly. However, if you partner with the right marketing agency, you should quickly feel confident that your money is going towards the right expertise! With this in mind, we have put together some handy things to know about working with a marketing agency, including what to expect and how to make the most out of the relationship.  

The Benefits Of Working With A Marketing Agency

Marketing is essential to businesses of all sizes as it is how you build awareness of your brand and drive sales or enquiries. Without marketing, you could be severely cutting your chances of success and missing out on opportunities to build your brand. However, from working with our clients over the years, we know that business owners know they need to market their business properly, but struggle with knowing where to start. That’s where working with a marketing agency can help, and exactly where we can come in and help you. 

Working with a marketing agency allows you to utilise the vast experience that they have over different marketing disciplines (such as SEO, PPC, email marketing and graphic design) in different industries, as well as the skills and knowledge of each individual person in the agency. So, you really have nothing to worry about! 

Who To Work With

Deciding which marketing agency to work with entirely depends on what you are looking to achieve. If you’re looking for help across the board in your marketing and require design expertise as well as strategy, then a full service agency would be the perfect partner. However, if your goals are more specific, then there are specialist agencies out there to work with too. A social media agency will have the niche expertise, accreditations, and relationships to help you increase your following and use social platforms as a key revenue stream. Alternatively, for those requiring assistance with getting their brand awareness out to the public more and into publications, then a PR agency is what you’d be suited to. 

Don’t be afraid to speak to a number of people to see what kind of experience they have, and pay attention to the partnerships they have which could add value to your business. For example, at Fuel, we are partnered with Meta, Google, Microsoft and Semrush, not only highlighting our expertise on these platforms but also giving our clients access to the relevant tools and insights required to make their marketing work smarter. 

Things To Consider When Choosing Your Marketing Agency

It’s always good to ask around your business connections to research whether you know anyone who works with an agency. This way you will be able to hear how they find working with a marketing agency, as well as getting recommendations of agencies that are reliable and successful at working towards your goals. 

Another useful thing to do is to look into who the agency has worked with and who their current clients are, as this will give you an idea of the level of experience and trust they have from brands, and whether they have any sector-specific knowledge that you could benefit from. It’s not necessarily essential for them to work with well-known brands; what is more important is the type of work they have done and the results they have generated when providing the services you think your business could benefit from.

What Is Your Budget?

It’s important to take into consideration that there is a cost to working with a marketing agency as well as an additional cost for actual advertising spend (e.g., a daily budget for Google Ads). What this will be is completely dependent on which marketing channels are recommended and the amount of time that the agency recommends you need. At Fuel, our retainers are based on hours, so your monthly bill will equate to a number of hours that you’ll be entitled to use over the month. If more hours are required or you need additional work done that isn’t included in your retainer, then this will typically be estimated separately. 

So, make sure you communicate your budget with the agency to ensure that they are aware of this when putting their proposal together. 

What To Look Out For When Signing An Agreement 

Most agencies will ask you to read and sign some kind of agreement before they start working with you. It’s very important that you read through the terms and conditions of your agreement and understand whether there is a notice period if you wish to end the agreement in the future. Some agencies will work only with long-term agreements and retainers, but we would suggest erring on the side of caution if anybody tries to lock you into a costly deal that will take you months to get out of.

When working with a marketing agency, you should also take the time to properly consider what they are offering. Are they overpromising with results that you think are unrealistic? It’s ultimately very difficult to be able to predict the results of a campaign before you have any initial campaign data, so if someone is promising results that are too good to be true, then they probably are. 

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Marketing Agency

Communication is key when it comes to working with a marketing agency, from clearly stating your goals to responding to emails for approval on campaigns and content. While they are the ones that are hopefully making the magic happen, they should ask for your input and get your sign-off before putting things live. Your agency certainly won’t expect you to dedicate all of your time to marketing (that’s their job!), but two-way communication is key to keeping things flowing.

It’s also important to trust the agency, as they are the experts! If your gut feeling is that you don’t trust them or don’t believe everything they are saying, then this is a sign not to work with them. 

If you’re considering working with a marketing agency, we’re always happy to have a chat and see if we’d be a good fit for you. Most of our team is based out of our head office in Plymouth, but we work with clients all over the UK, with some international clients too. Simply reach out to us to find out more about how we could help your business.