When looking for the right marketing partner for your business, you need to consider 4 key aspects.

Step 1. What Are Your Company’s Needs?

Understanding what you want to achieve through your marketing efforts is critically important. Stating this as measurable goals so you can track your progress and understand when you have achieved your objectives as well as clarify your expectations from an agency. Both sides of this partnership should have clear expectations from the start. For example: 

• I want to grow our organic traffic by X%.
• I want to get X number of leads.
• I want to drive X conversions during the holiday season. 

The SMART Marketing Objectives model can be helpful when setting goals:

Step 2. Build a Shortlist of Consultants

Once you’ve decided on your goals, it’s time to start searching for your marketing partner. Here are three useful strategies for selecting candidates:

Ask your team, peers or network

Someone in your professional circle may have worked with a marketing services provider in a previous position. Ask your colleagues and network if anyone can share relevant contacts.

Ask other companies

Look at the marketing of non-competing businesses you’re already in your contact list. Or, maybe there are vendors you currently work with. Do you like what they are doing with their marketing? Who do they collaborate with? Do they outsource some of their tasks? Reach out and ask them who they may be working with. You can ask them for recommendations and references.

Can’t find companies from the same niche, search for other businesses that have similar challenges. Is someone helping them with their marketing strategy? 

Search Professional Listings

If your still coming up empty-handed, LinkedIN is full of professionals from every industry and role. Searching for “marketing consultant” should vet you many results. You can further filter by location, industry, etc., to whittle down the results to a manageable size for further investigation.

Fivvr and Upwork are great for 1-off collateral needs and short-term projects lasting less than 3 months. These sites provide specialists that work on a more transactional basis, rather than partnering with you and your company on strategy, growth and longer marketing campaigns.

Step 3. Ask for a Proposal

You need to collect important information about each marketing consultant on your list. One way to do this and easily compare the options is by using a project brief or request for proposal (RFP). Outline your project and goals and describe any specific requests. Don’t forget to include expected deliverables.

Ask all the questions you want your potential marketing partner to answer about the solution they propose, their marketing plan, timeline, pricing and fee structure, contract terms, etc.

Here’s a good example of how to write a Marketing RFP  Your own RFP depends on your company’s specific needs and goals. However, this is a starting point and a source of inspiration.

If they demonstrate these 3 criteria:

• A Clear Marketing Strategy.
• An Emphasis on Business Clarity.
• Experience in Creating Growth.

Step 4. Match with the Ideal Partner

By now, you should have a shortlist of 2-3 consultants you feel confident to deliver on your company’s marketing needs. It’s time to explore which one will be the best fit. We suggest taking the following actions to select your future marketing partner.

Check their online presence

First of all, see how they market themselves on the web. Marketers should not only advertise their services, they should also market themselves and create content to build trust and credibility.

Look through their website and blog, peruse their LinkedIN, etc. Read their customer testimonials and case studies. Ask to see their portfolio.

You may also want to get in touch with current or previous clients and learn more about their experience with the consultant.

Make sure you “speak the same language” 

The marketing consultant you choose will be representing your brand, so it’s important that you speak the same language. For example, an old-fashioned, traditional style could be a good choice for a bank, while a tech-savvy, trendy marketer can have an ideal brand voice for a young startup.

When looking through a marketing consultant’s portfolio, pay attention to overall design and graphics, tone of voice, topics, writing, headlines, and calls to action. Ask yourself if their past work aligns well with your brand vision and approach.

Chemistry Matters

Schedule a meeting with the marketing consultant you are thinking of selecting. Prepare a list of questions you want to ask about their processes, strategies, or other specific things you want to clarify. 

These meetings take a little time, yet are very useful to help you better understand whether or not you can have a healthy working relationship.

Many brands we work with come to us through long-term clients or people that have moved to a new company and would like to work with us again. This is one of our favorite types of outreach. You get people who like what you do and you get paid to do more of what you’re good at.

Putting It All Together

Finding the right agency partner takes time and effort. The more thorough your search process is, the better your chances are that you’ve made the right choice for your company.  

Every business is unique and needs an individual solution. The right consultant will understand what you do and how you do it. The right consultant will be able to mesh with your audience or sales cycle. And, the right consultant will bring fresh perspectives and ideas to inspire you and your customers.

Let’s talk to see if StratIG Media is right for your company’s marketing needs.