Outsourcing Your Marketing: 5 Mistakes To Avoid When Hiring An Agency

Outsourcing your marketing can save you time and effort spent doing it yourself. You can also get better results by delegating it to third-party pros. However, there are many mistakes you need to be careful of when hiring a marketing agency. Below are 5 of the most common blunders to avoid.

Mistake #1: Failing to set clear marketing goals

Before you hire a marketing agency, it’s important to have a clear goal in mind. Do you want to generate more direct sales? Or do you want to attract more website visitors? Perhaps you want to generate more return customers? Or maybe you want to focus on new leads? Having a clear goal will help you choose the right marketing agency and you’ll also be able to measure the results better. Setting specific measurable goals can be particularly effective at spurring on agencies to work harder on your marketing (for example, increasing sales by 10% over the next three months). 

Mistake #2: Hiring an agency that doesn’t truly understand your industry

Some marketing agencies are happy to take on customers from all industries, whereas others are specialists. Quite often specialist companies will charge more, but you can be certain that they will understand your industry better. For example, if you need help promoting a new finance app, working with fintech marketing agencies could ensure that you work with agents that understand your product and consumer. Researching an agency's past clients is also a good way to get an idea of where their expertise lies.

Mistake #3: Focusing solely on the cost

If you’re on a tight budget, you may be tempted to choose a marketing agency purely based on cost. While it’s a good idea to collect quotes from multiple agencies, going with the cheapest price isn’t always a sensible idea. A cheap marketing agency may be trying to make up for a poor reputation, or they may be using very limited resources to promote your company. Try to compare other aspects such as reviews, website quality and search rankings to influence your decision as to who to choose. 

Mistake #4: Ignoring online reviews

Online reviews can give you a good idea as to how good a marketing agency is at satisfying its customers. Lots of negative reviews could suggest that a company is not very good at getting results. By reading these reviews, you can get a better idea as to what a marketing agency is doing right and wrong. You should pay particular attention to recent reviews - some companies can have lots of past positive reviews, but lots of recent negative reviews, suggesting that their quality of service may have declined. 

Mistake #5: Outsourcing the wrong marketing tasks

Many companies outsource marketing agencies to take over specific tasks like SEO or email marketing. It’s important to consider which marketing tasks you actually need to do outsource and which you can feasibly do in-house yourself. Some companies find that they’re able to successfully do their own social media marketing without needing to outsource it - unless you try doing it yourself, you’ll never know if it's something you need help for or not.