What to consider before hiring a marketing partner

I still can't believe earlier this month marked three years of Pané Marketing being in business. If you missed the announcement, be sure to check out this post for the recap video that almost made me cry while sifting through three years of video footage.

Anyways, what I'm really here to talk to you about today is what you should be asking yourself before hiring a marketing agency (or a marketing consultant) to work with your business.

Question 1: Are there real-life testimonials backing up this agency? Or just a lot of logos?

How many times have you seen a company brag about "Brands we've worked with" and there's a butt load of logos stacked on their website?

Now ask yourself how many times you've seen that logo stack AND some amazing testimonials to go alongside it.

Chances are, it's been a lot less frequently.

And the reason for that is just because a marketing company may have worked with a brand, it doesn't mean that the brand had a great experience.

I once worked with a marketing agency where tensions were HIGH with one brand, yet we still paraded their logo around everywhere because they were such a big name.

Instead of respecting the fact that the brand wasn't happy with our work, already reduced the scope of our work, and was vocal about their plan on leaving the agency within the year....we were still plopping that big ole' logo front and center on our client list because of the 'brag' points.

Talk about a major ick move. ??

Another example I can give you is the other day my friend sent me a local marketing company's website and it looked straight-up AI-generated.

There was zero human touch (aside from typos) and just felt scammy from the moment you loaded the webpage.

Yet, right there on the bottom... CLIENT LOGOS.

And honestly, no one would be the wiser. Those are real local businesses they've worked with.

But it doesn't tell the whole story.

One of the clients they featured under their "We're proud to have worked with" logo section is a brand that recently reached out to me because - and I quote - "We hired a marketing agency a few months ago, but they're not providing anything they promised us in the contract."

TALK ABOUT MISLEADING.

Marketing companies that display logos only and don't follow up with happy customer testimonials are MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR red flags in my opinion.

And of course, there may not be a lengthy client praise from every brand they work with. But zero? Absolutely not. Hard pass.

Question 2: Does this agency have experience doing EXACTLY what you're looking for?

Oftentimes marketing tasks get lumped together and there are misconceptions about what certain tasks entail.

For example, if you were looking for social media management that could mean you're looking for full content ideation, content creation, content posting, content monitoring, brand interactions, etc. OR it could mean you're just looking for someone to come up with a content plan for you.

You have to get specific in what you're looking for and be sure that whoever you're hiring is capable of getting the work done.

The biggest thing here is transparency for me.

If a brand says they've never done XYZ task before, but they've done adjacent work and can get you what you're looking for, I'd much rather this answer than blindly trust a company who says they can do something even though they've never actuallllly done it before.

When an agency or a consultant is upfront about their current capabilities and past experience, it's a major green flag for me.

Question 3: How do they operate? What's their process? How involved do you need to be?

Once you establish that the marketing agency or marketing consultant is more than capable of assisting you, it's time to get into the operation questions.

You need to make sure you're clear on the next steps if you decide to pull the trigger.

You need to be clear on how they communicate and if they're going to need a little or a lot from you in order to get the job done.

For example, are you the type of person who likes weekly check-ins to make sure the project is on track?

Or are you more of a set-it-and-forget-it, I passed the baton onto you so I have full faith in what you're doing - no check-ins needed type of person?

On the same token, if the agency is going to need a decent amount of feedback from you and you're clear on this, yet when push comes to shove and you're not responsive and the quality of the agency's work begins to falter due to your lack of response, are you going to be okay with this?

These are just a few of the things you're going to have to analyze and keep in the back of your mind before making any hiring decisions.

I hope this rundown was helpful and if you've been considering working with Pané Marketing, you can learn more about our services here.