So you have decided to outsource your marketing – congratulations! Reaching out to a professional SEO Agency in New York shows your seriousness about your business’s marketing. Outsourcing your business’s marketing for the first time? Or have you done it quite a few times already? It doesn’t really matter. You will still benefit from this list of questions on selecting the right marketing outsourcing partner in New York. The idea is to have little or no kinks cropping up along the way.
In this post, our marketing experts share with you the top 5 questions to ask prospective marketing outsourcing SEO Agency in New York (or elsewhere). Let’s help make sure that you land the right partner and get the best possible deal!
Question 1: What are your capabilities?
Most marketing agencies will be thrilled to talk about their services. But ask them about their capabilities, and they will pause before they speak. So what’s the difference?
Most marketing agencies essentially focus on packages and their benefits and pricing. This is a great starting point and is necessary to get the ball rolling. But to look deeper, you need to ask them about their capabilities.
By doing so, you will no longer be looking for information about a particular marketing service. Nor will you discuss how much it will cost you. Instead, you are asking about what all the agency can potentially do for your business. How have they fared in the past? What kind of team and resources do they have at their disposal? How well do they understand the space? This way, you leave the field open to a wider discussion that focuses on them and not you.
For example, here are a few marketing capabilities to look for in a top marketing outsourcing agency in New York.
- Marketing Strategy and Planning.
- Marketing Budgeting and ROI Analysis.
- Organic Traffic Generation (e.g. SEO, Social Media, and Email Marketing).
- Paid Traffic Generation (e.g. Online Ads, Social Media Ads, Search Engine Ads).
- Project Management.
Question 2: Are you familiar with our industry?
It’s one thing to know how marketing works in general. But creating campaigns that strike the chord for a particular industry is a whole other ball game.
Asking this question will help you eliminate prospective outsourcing vendors that are not familiar with your industry. You will also weed out those that do not have a track record of creating a good buzz in your sector.
We have seen first hand how great marketing agencies fail to deliver in niche markets. So get ahead of the game and ask them what they bring to the table. How can they help in marketing your business right and in the industry that you belong to?
Question 3: How do you measure and report marketing success?
There are too many marketing outsourcing agencies out there that are pulling wool over your eyes. Marketing SEO Agency in New York who are worth their salt will never tell you that “the number of blogs” or “the number of social media posts” is an indicator of marketing success. There are five key categories of marketing success. These are:
- Eyeball – e.g. search engine impressions, social media views, etc.
- Footfall – e.g. website traffic, click-through-rate, etc.
- Engagement – e.g. social media likes, comments and shares, blog comments, interaction with website CTAs like button-clicks and downloads, etc.
- Lead Generation – e.g. inbound inquiries, outbound responses, filled contact-us forms, signups, product trials, etc.
- Conversion – i.e. the percentage of leads who actually become your paying customers.
Question 4: How much involvement do you expect from our team?
You are onboarding an outsourcing partner because you want your business to be marketed more effectively and efficiently. You also want to free your and your team’s time for your core business. Now imagine the pain if you have to be constantly available for your marketing partner. Worse, you may end up running a mini marketing team internally to help them perform their job!
To avoid falling into this trap, ask them loud and clear how much time and effort will be required from your end. Reputed marketing outsourcing partners – be it in New York or elsewhere – don’t eat into your bandwidth. They make sure that you stay updated and in-loop about your marketing success. We also ensure that each of our clients have a dedicated account manager to liaise with you and your team.
Question 5: How much is it really going to cost us?
Hidden costs are a strict no-no when it comes to outsourcing. They can easily double or treble your marketing investment without any significant increases in the benefits. This is why we have a strictly “no hidden costs” policy here at Agency Couch. Ask your prospective partners about taxes, add-ons, reimbursements, subscriptions, maintenance/retainer fees, software costs, etc. well in advance. Make sure that the figure you hear from them is the one you finally end up paying!
There you go – you can now get your A-game on for your next marketing outsourcing discussion with these 5 crucial questions. Looking for the right marketing outsourcing agency in New York to take your branding and marketing to the next level? Visit www.agencycouch.com, or write to us at getintouch@agencycouch.com.
