If you’re about to hire a marketing agency to help you get better results for your small business, take a few moments to ready this…
Exploding a myth
Many small business owners think that marketing agencies cost an arm and a leg; that they will be paying £1,000s a month for the help they need.
Whilst that can be the case for bigger businesses with complex marketing needs, it doesn’t have to be. The cost of the marketing support you need will depend, basically, on the time they provide to help you. The more they are expected to do, and the complexity of your marketing will determine the amount of time and therefore the cost.
Some of our clients pay just a small three-figure sum each month.
Things to consider when choosing a marketing agency
There are lots of marketing agencies out there. Some are huge (Saatchi & Saatchi style), and they range in size down. When choosing the marketing agency for you, investigate these three areas:
How they develop a marketing strategy for your business
Marketing agencies can see a lot about your business online. Your website will give a huge amount of information about you, as will your social media accounts. Companies House will tell them more, as will the credit agencies. Of course, you will have spoken to them a few times, but is that enough for them to then go away and write your marketing strategy?
If your marketing strategy and plan are developed without you being the room, run away.
At SME Needs we know you have ideas about where your marketing should go. You will have likes and dislikes (often based on experience) of various marketing channels. We will be in the same room as you and you will be an integral part of the planning discussion. We want to hear your ideas and we want you to challenge/comment on our ideas.
You need to buy in to the strategy that is developed. If you’ve not bought into it, you’re not committed, and you won’t make sure the resources, knowledge and budgets are there.
Does the marketing strategy presented match their service portfolio?
Full-service marketing agencies, as the name suggests, want to give you a full service. They want you to get all your marketing needs from them. Why? Because they have lots of staff and offices to pay for. The more of their services you are using, the stickier you are as a client and the harder it is for you to cut ties.
That can work, but are you missing out? Are there marketing channels that could deliver great returns that they don’t do?
Digital agencies may not recommend trade shows and there’s a good chance they won’t recommend direct mail or other offline opportunities, for example.
Whilst any small business marketing strategy has to include a sizeable amount of digital marketing, it can include offline too. But if it is not even discussed, how will you know?
At SME Needs, our model is different. We work with marketing specialists across all disciplines, on and offline. Our role is to manage your marketing to deliver the ROI you’re looking for. We work with either the people we know and trust, or the people you know and trust.
How long are their contracts?
Marketing can take time to start delivering. A new website will take a few weeks to build and some more time for the SEO work to kick in and generate the traffic needed, for example. Building a social media audience takes time too, as does an email marketing list. But it doesn’t mean you have to sign a 12-month (or longer) contract with the agency. You will be able to see progress over time and if you don’t like that progress, you should be able to make changes.
SME Needs’ approach helps with this is two ways:
- Our minimum contract is just three months, with a rolling 30-day notice period after that.. If its not working, you can get out easily.
- Working with multiple third-party specialists means we can make changes easily. If the marketing plan includes SEO, but that isn’t working, we can quickly either change specialist or focus on another channel. Not so easy if one agency is doing everything for you.
If the marketing agency you’re about to hire does any of these things and you want to discuss an alternative approach, call us on 020 8634 5911 or book a time directly into our MD’s diary here.
