30 Jul What to do Before Hiring an Agency
By Justice Abbott, Marketing Intern
Attention business owners! Are you swamped with managing your business and not able to find the time or energy to adequately market your product/services? If you answered yes to that question, then it’s time for you to hire a third-party marketing firm, marketing freelancer, or advertising agency!
BUT FIRST READ THIS BLOG! As an advertising agency ourselves, we have a couple of tips to share BEFORE you hire that individual or company. These tips will aid the process for all involved!
1. Develop a Brand Kit
Before outsourcing your marketing, work with a branding consultant or graphic designer to create a brand kit. A brand kit is a short, easily understandable guide to your businesses visual identity. It’s a quick reference to understand the logos, colors, fonts, and messaging that best represent your business.
Having a brand kit readily available when outsourcing your marketing is beneficial because it allows that individual or agency to seamlessly understand the image you have/want for your business which allows content creation to happen faster. Hiring an agency without having a brand kit is not impossible, but it does drastically slow down the marketing process because your agency will need to develop this brand kit with you.
This is an example of our brand kit:
2. Create a Communications Plan
If you want a smooth partnership with a marketing agency, then a communications plan is something you will need to have before beginning any new campaigns. A proper communications plan will include an executive summary, the voice of your business, a brand guide, and communication objectives.
This communications plan will allow your hired agency to quickly adapt to your business and easily create content that is on brand. This plan helps them take your business in the direction you want it to go in and helps the marketing process flow because your agency will have all the necessary information needed to successfully market your business!
3. Have Access to all of Your Social Media Feeds
This one seems obvious, but we see it all the time! Make sure you have access to all of your social media feeds before outsourcing your marketing.
Business owners often hire an agency because they don’t have time to market their business on social media themselves, which sometimes means these social media accounts are extremely outdated and the usernames and passwords are lost somewhere in archives! But, because your social media accounts were active at a point in time, they might have a small following which is helpful because you won’t have to start at ground zero. If you don’t have access to these accounts, your agency will have to create new social media accounts for your business which will delay the marketing process as the new accounts need time to gain a following. Get those followers and likes to at least 100 so you can uncover demographics. Make sure they are real followers, never mass follow or pay for followers. Only grow your accounts with those who are your target clientele.
Some questions to ask yourself before outsourcing your marketing are:
- Do you know who has the login info?
- Do you know what your handles are?
- Do you know who has admin access?
These are important answers you need to know before a marketing agency is introduced to your accounts!
4. Make Sure Your Website is up to Date
Before giving us a call, check to make sure your website is up to date and most importantly, that all of the social media icons direct properly. This will prevent us (your agency) from having to work backwards when starting your campaigns.
You’ll want to have your newest, most up to date information easily accessible on your website. You may need to work with graphic designers or website developers to ensure your website is ready to go. It is also important that any URL’s you are providing to customers are functioning properly for an easy transition to using an agency.
5. Have Updated Contact Information
Before reaching out to a marketing agency, make sure all of your contact information is updated for your customers. This means ensuring you have a working, accessible listed e-mail address and contact phone number, a correct business address, and a completed “about section” on social media platforms.
Having updated contact information before hiring an agency is beneficial because it allows your agency to easily insert this information in content without having to back-track and find or create working e-mail addresses and phone numbers. It is also important because having incorrect contact information published will direct your customers to the wrong places, causing a need for your agency to attempt to re-direct which can cause confusion and business decreases.
Once you’ve checked off all of these steps, you are ready to hire an agency to take your business to the next level! Just remember, preparation is key and being properly prepared before hiring an agency will make the process easier for all. If you have any questions about your business’ readiness for an agency, shoot me an email at Justice@germono.com.
