How To Work With a Digital Marketing Agency: A Survival Guide For CEOs & CMOs

Congrats On Signing With a New Marketing Agency. Now What?

Congrats on partnering with a new digital marketing agency! This is a very exciting time for your organization, but putting your best foot forward early is crucial. Here are a few tips to help you get the most value out of working with a new marketing agency:

1. Be prepared! The initial meeting can be the make-or-break moment in determining how things will go from here. Your team should have clearly defined goals and objectives in mind, as well as understand what success looks like at each stage of the project. A good foundation will make communication much easier later on too!
2. Set aside time for consultation calls or meetings every couple of weeks. It is important to align on the fact that getting results takes time so agencies are happy to offer regular updates on progress (and advise if something needs tweaking). This way, everyone stays focused, and morale stays high throughout the process (which makes everything more efficient).
3. You may be surprised by how little direction you actually need to give a marketing agency once you start working together—our approach tends not only towards collaboration but also autonomy & responsibility within each member’s role within our organization’s hierarchy. As long as there aren’t any major changes midstream that requires significant campaign revisions, then everything should continue smoothly without needing much intervention apart from regular campaign optimizations.

Let’s dive into a few more key tips to help you get the best possible results while working with a digital marketing agency.

Understand the Onboarding Process

The onboarding process is the first step in working with your digital marketing agency. It’s important for an agency to have an easy onboarding process that guides you from start to launch.

When you sign on with a new digital marketing agency, it’s important for them to get their arms around your company and its goals so that they can provide you with the best service possible. So naturally, this will be the most time-consuming portion of working with an agency. The onboarding process typically includes:

1. A discovery call where they ask general questions about your business and understand its objectives
2. Collecting information for systems & passwords, branding/assets, audience information, and communication plans
3. Onboarding paperwork that establishes expectations around deliverables, timelines, and budgets
4. A strategy meeting to review the marketing plan and schedule
5. A report call after the first week or so to review the initial launch results and highlight outliers

Discuss Goals, KPIs, and Priorities

Have you ever wondered why some people can be so successful with their goals while others are always struggling? It’s because they set clear goals and work towards them. Some people will try to skip over this step and jump right into the solution. They think that having access to the right tools will help them achieve their goal. But that isn’t how it works; for your digital marketing agency to succeed, you must first clearly define the problem and your goal.

If you want your business (or even your personal life) to change for the better (and who doesn’t?), then make sure to develop clear, SMART goals with your agency. “SMART goals” refer to objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound. Be ambitious but realistic simultaneously—you can’t expect results overnight!. If you don’t know where to start with defining your problems or setting goals, having a transparent conversation with an agency can help make these more clear and provide specific areas of focus.

Create a Budget

Make sure that a well-defined budget is created and that both parties review and understand the constraints. While it may seem daunting to create a budget, it’s really quite simple once you know the process. You first need to look at your current analytics and understand where your money is going. Is your current marketing strategy costing too much? Are your campaigns bringing in conversions, extending your brand’s reach, or accomplishing other business goals? Where can we save money and spend more effectively on other parts of our digital marketing campaigns?

After answering these questions, try creating a table with two columns: “Costs” on one side and “Results” on the other side. In each space between these two columns will be an item representing how much money was spent (and/or earned) by that specific task or project—for example: $200 spent on Facebook ads vs $1,000 in gross revenue received from those same ads (netting out at $800 profit). As long as you have enough data points for both columns of this table then it should be easy enough for anyone else who uses similar metrics (like CFOs or CEOs) to understand what works best for their business—which helps everyone stay focused when making decisions about investing into new campaigns!

Set Expectations Early

A digital marketing agency is a critical partner in your brand’s success. You want to make sure it’s the right fit for your organization and that you set expectations early on, so you’re both on the same page about project scope, timing, budgets, and creative.

Here are some tips for doing just that:

1. Ensure your expectations are realistic: This one sounds like a no-brainer, but remember that what works for one company might not work for another. You should know what level of service you’re looking to receive based on previous experience and industry standards, and then make sure you’re asking an agency to deliver something within those parameters. An agency is more likely to exceed expectations if they know what they’re working with in terms of scope and scale—and more importantly, they won’t let their clients down when they realize those goals aren’t feasible based on time constraints or budget limitations.
2. Make sure both parties have agreed upon those goals: If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my years as a marketer (both in-house and agency side), it’s that misunderstandings can lead us down paths we might not want—or need—to go down and costs a lot of time and money!

Communication is Key

When you’re working with an agency, communication is vital. This means that you must clearly understand the level of communication expected from both sides and what channels it will take place over. It also means that you should be able to provide feedback on how well things are going—both positively and negatively, promptly.

If your agency isn’t talking with you, or if the communication is too infrequent for your liking, try discussing a more regular update cadence or see if your agency can send your reports more regularly. If this doesn’t help, consider switching agencies until one comes along who can provide the level of service that works best for your company.

Review the Marketing Plan and Launch Schedule

After you’ve received your initial proposals and decided that the agency is a good fit, you should be prepared to review the marketing plan and launch schedule. The agency will likely have created this document as part of its RFP response process.

When reviewing the documents, make sure:

1. You understand what information they are trying to convey
2. The plan and schedule fit your needs (i.e. they align with your business goals)

If any questions remain, ask them before moving forward. Be open-minded and ready for changes where needed—this is an opportunity for collaboration between you and the agency!

Be Open to New Ideas For Growing Your Company

When working with a digital marketing agency, you’re working with specialists who should know what they’re doing. They have the training and experience to guide your business in the right direction. If something isn’t working, they will let you know. At first, it may seem strange to hear that something that has worked well for years needs to be adjusted or changed (and vice versa). But if the goal is growth—which it should be!—you need to be open to new ideas and directions that might seem uncomfortable at first glance. The only way out of a rut is through it; taking chances on new things will help keep your company moving forward rather than stagnating.

Give the Marketing Agency Time to Get Results

Many factors determine how long it takes to get results, including the scope of your project and the number of people involved. However, you should expect to see results in at least 3-6 months if your agency is doing its job well.

As a rule, marketing is an investment, not something you can expect to work immediately. It takes time for all parties involved—you and your team, plus any agencies or contractors—to collect and analyze data and optimize campaigns accordingly. The good news is that when done properly, good digital marketing will improve over time as more people engage with your content online through social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter.; Paid or unpaid content can drive higher engagement, which leads to additional reengagement and brand growth (more likes, retweets, etc.), which can eventually become more conversions both organically or inorganically: more engagement = more conversions!

Calculate the ROI of Working With a Marketing Agency

A promising start to any relationship with a digital marketing agency is clearly understanding how you will measure your return on investment.

To do that, you need to calculate the cost of working with your marketing team and compare it to the costs of working with an agency. You can do this by calculating how much time and money each option will take from you.

If you don’t already have a dedicated person on staff who does nothing but marketing, then add up all the hours (and dollars) spent on creating content for your website, social media, and other channels if you were doing it yourself. Then compare those hours (and dollars) against what the agency charges for their service. If their price seems reasonable and they can offer more value than what would be available from within your company, then consider them as partners in this process!

Let’s Get Started!

In this article, we’ve discussed the process of working with a digital marketing agency. We covered the different ways an agency can work with a business, what to expect from an agency, and some of the pitfalls to avoid when working with an agency. Overall, working with a digital marketing agency can greatly improve your online presence and reach new customers. However, it’s important to choose an agency you feel confident in that has a solid reputation. Additionally, make sure to set clear expectations from the start so that there are no surprises down the road.

Here at Well-Oiled Marketing, we understand that choosing to work with the right people for your business can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re ready to take your business growth seriously and get results from a team of experts who care about your success, then contact us today!