It’s important to ask the right questions of a potential digital marketing agency or consultant BEFORE you hire them. There is nothing worse than working with someone who is not the right fit ☹️. It can cost you valuable time, money and potentially lose you leads and customers. This applies whether you wish to outsource your next short-term digital marketing project, or work with someone long-term. By asking the right question as part of your due diligence, you will be better informed to get a better match and help avoid possible issues, before you commit to working with your next digital agency.
Prioritising The Most Important Questions
In this article, we’re going to list a massive load of questions for you to learn more about working with a possible new agency. This is by no means a complete list. Add more questions as needed to cover off what you need to feel more comfortable with an agency and confident in making a decision.
Now, it’s key to flag at this point…
This is a LOOOOOOONG list and you need to go through and…..
Be respectful to potential agencies and consultants. Time is a precious commodity – for them, and for you. Therefore, if you have a small project with a smaller budget, then you probably don’t need answers to all these questions. Focus on the questions that are critical. For bigger projects and investments, I would expect someone to ask a lot more questions to feel more comfortable making a decision.
Remember too, just like you’re sussing out the agency, they too will be asking questions of you to make sure they can help you and are a good fit to work together.
Questions To Ask A Potential Digital Agency:
Business Based Questions
- How long has this business been around?
- What’s your current role in the business?
- Who are the owners?
- What’s their backgrounds?
- What are the core values of your business? How does your business live these?
- ⋆ What makes your agency different to other agencies?
Marketing Service Based Questions
- ⋆ What services do you offer?
- What don’t you do?
- How do you work with clients (do you offer implementation/done for you services, done with you, training or online courses etc)?
- Describe the process of working with you
- Are you familiar with digital marketing tools, plugins and technology such as X,Y, Z (list off what you need)? If so, can you describe what you/your team has experience with specifically
- What’s the biggest digital marketing trends that you see are working right now, that your agency is using to get the most results for clients?
Team Based Questions
- How many on your team?
- Where are your team based?
- What’s the experience of your team members?
- How long have you been doing this for?
- What training and development is offered to your team?
- What was the latest course/training your team did and how long ago was that?
- What tools do you use to communicate with me?
- How does communicate / workflow work in your business?
- ⋆ Who will be working on our project specifically?
- Do I have a dedicated account manager, and if so, can I meet them?
Client Based Questions
- Can you describe the typical client that you work with?
- How many clients has your business worked with?
- How many clients are you currently working with?
- On average, how long do clients work with you for?
- ⋆ Describe the typical results a client may experience with you
- ⋆ Describe the best client that you’ve worked with
- ⋆ Describe the worst client that you’ve worked with
- Have you worked with other businesses in our industry? If so, what results have you achieved with them? If not, how will you get up to speed with our industry?
- Have you got examples of the work you’ve done (e.g. Google Ads campaign, past website that you’ve developed, Google Analytics to show the rise in traffic, blog post to showcase content marketing & copywriting skills conversion, email marketing campaign with open and click-through rates etc)
- Have you got 3 clients I could contact regarding working with you?
Project Specifics Questions
- What’s your process to make sure you understand the needs of our project?
- *Based on our project requirements, can you describe a similar client you’ve worked with and what specific results you’ve achieved (e.g. conversion rates, number of leads, traffic results, search volume growth, first-page ranking etc)?
- What realistic goals do you think you can help us achieve (and by when)?
- ⋆ If you were successful, when could you get started with our project?
- ⋆ How long will it take?
- How do you envision we measure the success of this project together?
- How much will it cost? Will there be any additional ongoing costs that I need to be aware of?
- How do you bill?
- What’s the minimum length of engagement (particularly relevant for monthly retainers)?
- What reporting/visibility will you be sharing and how frequently?
- As we have several internal team members involved in this project, how would you manage that?
- If we work with multiple outsourced digital marketing experts, how will you work with them to fulfil on this project?
- If you’re successful, what do you need from me to get started?
- What input do you need from me ongoing?
- ⋆ If and/or when we finish working together, do I own all the marketing assets that you’ve created?
- How often do you run meetings with clients for a project like ours?
Other Questions
- Is there anything else that I should have asked, that I haven’t yet?
… and of course, add your own questions here!
Are there any questions that we’ve missed? Please feel free to let us know!Do Your Homework
Once you’ve determined the list of questions you’d like to ask, do your own research first. Some answers to these questions can be found online. Google the agency, visit their website, social media accounts, read client testimonials & reviews online, and even check out the business owners’ social profiles. You might be able to answer some questions before you speak with them. (If not, you’ll get a good sense of their business and team, based on what you find).
Be Confident With Your Outsourcing Decision
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