As a small business owner, your focus is growing your business not marketing. When word of mouth was no longer working and your sales reached a plateau, you decided to hire an outside agency to develop and implement your marketing strategy.
You did everything right. You met with several agencies, reviewed their proposals and chose the one that seemed like the best fit.
The agency showed you the amazing results you could expect from their work. Expectations are good to have at the beginning of the relationship, but those expectations need to be reasonable. If they seemed too good to be true, maybe they were.
It’s been months and you’ve seen little results… Is it time to move on?
If…
1. Different agencies (or people) are handling different aspects of your marketing needs (website, social media, email). The same message told by different people without clear guidelines in place can distort the message. A clear and concise message is key to communicating your brand’s values which aids in building brand awareness and loyalty. Many times, this multiple agency strategy can cost more money than it would to hire one agency to oversee everything.
2. The agency doesn’t seem to grasp your brand identity. Your brand is your company’s personality. It’s what tells your audience who you are at your core – your why. If your communications with your customers and prospects aren’t accurately showing your true colors, how can they know who they’re doing business with?
3. The agency doesn’t understand exactly what it is your company does. Sounds a little weird, right? How could an agency make promises to get you results when they don’t even know what it is you do. Sadly, this actually happens more often than you think.
4. You see dollar signs every time you request a change. I’m not saying you shouldn’t expect to be invoiced for changes that you request for your site. What I am saying is that there are instances where a requested change may only take your web developer a couple of minutes to complete. However, those 2 minutes just cost you 30 minutes because your developer bills in half-hour increments.
5. You can never seem to get someone when you have a question. Questions come up and when they do, you should be able to expect an answer within 24 hours (if not sooner). You should have someone that you can contact directly either by email or phone so you can get your questions addressed as quickly as possible, especially when there’s a critical issue with your site or a time-sensitive matter that needs to be addressed swiftly.
You spent countless hours and sleepless nights developing your company. You deserve someone with that same level of dedication to helping you share your story and build your brand.
Want to see if we’re a good fit? Let’s chat!
