Thinking of working with a Performance Marketing agency but don’t know where to start?
For most people, their company or their career is a source of pride and joy, but finding a suitable company to satiate your marketing needs while being a good cultural fit can be somewhat of a challenge.
People usually start searching for a Marketing agency to partner with without knowing what they need to prepare in advance. Being prepared not only expedites the initiation process but also serves as a way to better understand the current marketing situation of your company.
Let us look at what you need to prepare in advance so that you improve your grasp on what your company needs and save time and money by expediting the initiation process.
Performance marketing is a form of online marketing that focuses on driving specific actions or conversions, such as clicks, leads, or sales. Unlike traditional advertising, performance marketing is highly measurable and ROI-focused, which makes it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes and industries.
Different companies have different needs and need to communicate to various audiences. Depending on their requirements and resources, they develop marketing strategies that sometimes can lead to market disruption.
If we look at all the successful companies and their marketing campaigns, we will most likely see they had a clear vision. They knew their product/service, knew what problem they solved, and what was the best way to showcase it.
While a clear vision is not necessarily something one can come up with on the spot, but rather something developed over time, a good base is needed to lay the foundations.
If you are looking or already are in the first stages of working with a Marketing agency, chances are your business has a Mission and Vision in place. If not, make sure to establish them as soon as possible because they are the key components to building your brand identity and voice.
Another question you should answer is: What is my company’s unique selling point (USP)?
Knowing your USP makes marketing your product or service easier. It cuts through all the unnecessary fluff and gets straight to the point.
Having your USP and Mission/Vision in place makes the job easier for you and the marketing agency you want to hire.
The Marketing Agency should now be able to offer possible solutions or strategies faster as they will understand your company better. If you are uncertain about how to answer these questions, there is nothing wrong with consulting with the agency you are trying to partner with. Sometimes depending on the situation, a refresh might be necessary.
Let's take a look at your business strategy. How have your sales and marketing worked so far? Have they been aligned together before, or is this why you are looking for a Marketing Agency?
How you conduct business and what channels you use are important in determining which route might be best for you and your business.
Let us give an example. John owns a company that produces heavy machinery for dry cleaning, such as washing machines, dryers, irons etc. John operates mostly B2B, and the main way that they attract potential clients is through different fairs and showroom events. The company gathers people for their events through word of mouth and the occasional social media post.
John explains their current strategy to a potential performance Marketing agency, giving them all they need to formulate a better and more efficient plan for generating leads for John’s business.
The agency comes up with a solution for John's business. They set up a few online ads, all liked to a landing page they created for John's business where everyone can register people for the next event. Now John not only has a better way of generating leads but also a better way of keeping track of them.
With each registration, John's database of potential clients increases and the emails get collected to follow up on conversations or send the people exclusive offers, further increasing the chances of selling and keeping an open line with its customers.
Like John, you should prepare a concise way of explaining how your business operates and your future goals. Having a good grasp of who your audience is and who your buyer personas are can be a huge help.
It may be the case that you have already gone through the first steps before, and maybe you have tried some strategies yourself.
Usually, business owners try to cover marketing themselves or internally as much as possible, but usually, it is difficult to support financially at an optimal level.
So after trying your hand at marketing internally, you decide to hire a performance marketing agency.
So, what’s next?
Compiling an overview of everything done so far is the best way to start. Try answering questions like: What strategy did you follow? Was the campaign successful? Were they brand aligned? Did you collect any data on the campaign performance?
Maybe you did not implement any online advertisement and kept it all the old fashion way through traditional media and poster printing. While this is less useful for any potential performance marketing agency, it still can serve as a way to convey the brand image to the marketing agency
To fully understand the situation, we need to get into a few specifics that help agencies determine the current state of your business. Before you partner with a performance marketing agency, your business needs to have implemented some KPIs and have some data on how they are currently performing. Tracking these KPIs enables your business to identify areas for improvement and determine the specific types of performance marketing strategies that will be most effective in achieving its goals.
For example, if the KPIs show low website traffic and high bounce rates, a performance marketing agency may recommend implementing search engine optimization (SEO) strategies or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns to drive more targeted traffic to the site and improve conversion rates.
In addition, setting performance benchmarks and tracking KPIs allows businesses to measure the success of their performance marketing campaigns over time. These enable companies to identify the most effective strategies and allocate resources accordingly.
By understanding your current performance metrics and setting realistic benchmarks, businesses can work with performance marketing agencies to develop effective, targeted campaigns that drive results and deliver a strong return on investment.
These KPIs might look something like this:
If you do not possess any data or any KPIs, don’t worry. Working with your new marketing agency you can set up a wide variety of data tracking systems that will help you with your efforts and set the appropriate KPIs to check on your performance.
Seeing that we wanted to keep this article to the point and easy to digest, there are a few things that we left out.
For example:
We mentioned in the beginning that different companies have different needs. So if there is anything you think the agency you are employing needs to know, do not hesitate to show it to them. We recommend compiling a concise document with everything discussed in this article and whatever else you have. Make sure to include everything from brand books to creative assets and promotional materials.
The document can serve as a way for any marketing agency to get to know your company a little bit better, as well as troubleshoot problems faster.
