Questions You Should Be Asking Your Marketing Agency

QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF

1. What are my goals?
2. What is my budget?
3. What’s my preferred communication style?
4. What am I looking for an agency to do?
5.  Are they a good culture fit?
6. Do I like this team?
7. What is the buying experience like?
8. What did I like about the last agency I worked with?
9. What did I not like?

THE BASICS

1. What are your areas of expertise?
2. What are your in-house capabilities?
3. Do you work with similar companies?
4. How do you make money?
5. Who will be working on my account on a regular basis?
6. What are the main industries you work with?
7. How frequently do you communicate with your clients?
8. Who would I work with on a regular basis?
9. What tools and software does your team use?
10. What’s included in the contract?
11. What are your team’s values?
12. Do you have any experience within my industry?
13. Do you use freelancers or is your team in-house?
14. Can you talk me through the process of completing my project?
15. How many revisions and edits can I make on my project?
16. How long will it be until my project is completed?
17. Upon completion of my project, what do I actually own?
18. How long has your marketing agency been in operation?
19. What are your expectations for me as a client?
20. How much experience do you (or your team) have?
21. In addition to current clients, can you provide a few former clients as references?
22. What ongoing training do you provide for your staff? How do you ensure they stay current on the latest and greatest approaches?
23. Who do I call if I have a problem?
24. What will you do to get to know my business?
25. Do you expect to reassess – or reinvent – my strategy?
26. Who do you think should have creative control?
27. What happens if I’m not happy with someone on the team?
28. What do you look for in a successful client relationship?
29. What will be expected of me as a client?
30. What is the onboarding process like?
31. How big is your agency?
32. What digital services are you an expert in?
33. Why will your agency be in business the next five years?
34. How long have you been in business?
35. What is the average tenure of both clients and employees?
36. How many clients are signed to multi-year or annual contracts?
37. How transparent are you?
38. How will you do the things that we liked about our last agency, and how will you make sure to avoid the things that frustrated or alienated us?
39. Are you versatile enough to meet our needs?
40. What kind of availability do I need to have?
41. What is the right length for our contract?
42. What is included in each month of the contract?
43. What should we expect from the on-boarding phase?
44. How do you come up with new ideas?
45. Do you have designers on your staff?
46. What metrics will you be monitoring for us?
47. How do you decide which social media platforms we should focus on?
48. How do you differentiate between voice and tone?
49. How does your social media strategy reflect our brand?
50. What experience do you have with paid social campaigns?
51. Do you use website templates or create original, custom designs?
52. Do you subscribe to responsive design?
53. How will you ensure that our website keeps pace with the growth of our business?
54. Will you incorporate my feedback into your design processes? 
55. What do you use for website analytics and how will those analytics enhance our conversion rate? 
56. How else can you show us that you’re the right company for us?
57. Will you work with me to set and achieve my company goals?
58. Which marketing software do you specialize in?
59. What is your process for building audience personas?
60. How will you enhance my site’s conversion rate?
61. How will the website keep pace with my business?

REPORTING

1. What does your reporting look like?
2. How often will we receive reporting?
3. Will reporting include analysis and/or a review meeting/conference call?
4. Will we have access to any online reporting suites for daily reporting?
5. How will your team make use of this data for improved results?

RESULTS

1. What are the metrics and KPIs you will use to track results?
2. Which channels and strategies will help me reach my goals?
3. When do you expect to see results?
4. What are some measurable examples of success your clients have had based on your work?
5. How do you measure success?
6. How do you measure the success of short-term goals?
7. How do you measure the success of long-term goals?
8. What is your agency’s perspective on what makes a campaign successful?
9. What results are you going to use to determine success? What is your measuring stick?

FINANCES

1. How much will my project cost and what are the other billing details that will impact me?
2. What financial incentives do you have for products and services you may recommend?
3. Do you get commissions or affiliate fees?
4. What does your billing structure look like?
5. Are there items that must be paid in advance? What about payment terms?
6. What and how do you bill for expenses?
7. Is there a mark-up or are expenses invoiced at cost?
8. What do you consider a “rush” project? Are there fees for this? If so, how much?
9. Are there products that I will need to budget for outside of your services?
10. What is the range in cost for multi-year or annual contracts?
11. Are there formal forecasts of future annual revenue, growth, expansion, or offerings?

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

1. How is your agency keeping up with SEO changes?
2.  How has SEO evolved over the last five years?
3.  Can you give me a run through of each separate item in your SEO strategy?

CONTENT, BRANDING

1. How will you be using backlinks in our campaigns?
2. How do you differentiate between mediocre and high-quality backlinks? 
3. Do you have a “brand” of content marketing that you use?
4. How do you on-board your content creators when they need to write about a new industry?
5. Will I be responsible for any of the content creation?
6. How will you make sure that the content you create for us matches our brand strategy?
7. Do you have any experience building a new brand?
8. Do you differentiate effectively between content and copywriting? 
9. Do you focus on short or long-form blog posts?
10. How can they infuse content with your brand strategy?
11. What are the top three factors that make a piece of content or copy successful?
12. How do you use personas when writing content?
13. How will your social strategy reflect my brand?
14. Do you design with copy in mind?

What about Nuvo?

Now that you’ve had a look at the questions you should ask your marketing agency, you might be wondering about we would answer these questions. The Nuvo Agency is a full-service marketing agency. We have the know-how and the resources to manage your marketing, social media, and design a custom website for your business. Click the Capabilities tab at the top to get an idea of what we’re about. If you’re interested in speaking to one of our experts, call us!