Doug is fed up with his current digital marketing agency.
He had been paying them a sizable monthly fee for over four years and was not getting quality leads, nor was his business ranking well in organic searches. Even in his own city, he was not showing up. Now he’s looking to hire a new digital marketing agency to manage his SEO and paid search campaigns.
This week Doug asked me to review a package he was considering buying from another digital marketing company.
Over-Promised and Underdelivered Marketing
Doug’s business is a B2B services company with a clear niche. When he contracted with his current company, let’s call them Biz A, they promised that he would have quality leads rolling in. They built him a new website, provided SEO services, Google Ads management, social media campaigns, and a plethora of other services.
At first, a few leads trickled in during the first year, then slowed to nothing. Doug had been gradually cutting back on the monthly $3,600 fee and was now paying $800/month. I was shocked that this fee was for hosting a simple 10-page website, one-hour maintenance, and a monthly report. Not one word of copy had been added to his site in four years—no blog or content updates. Doug was overdue for a change.
Doug is considering a comparable digital marketing company. We’ll call this company BizB. He sent me their package to review, and give him my feedback.
It didn’t take long to see red flags in the “amazing package” from BizB. For $3,900/month, it promised to solve all its digital marketing challenges and deliver five quality monthly leads.
It included building a new website, blog writing and social media management, SEO and Google Adwords, and various other services.
The Business Owner Bears Some of the Blame
In defense of marketing service companies, all the blame can’t always fall on them. Like many business owners, my friend Doug detests marketing and considers it a necessary evil.
Marketing people can also banter a lot of jargon that can make people feel like they just need to hand it all over to these people who know what they’re talking about.
Another business owner once told me that the SEO specialists he hired seemed to produce smoke and mirrors with every monthly report. Words & phrases like SEO, SEM, Adwords, page rank, MQL, SQL, conversions, evergreen content, analytic reports listing referrals, bounce rates, keywords, and SERPs are tossed about.
A business owner can understandably find themselves simply signing up for the service; they can give their online marketing to someone who knows what they’re talking about and get it done. But, marketing your business should never be handed over to someone outside your company just so you can ignore it and hope it does its magic.
Doug needs to ask more questions to ensure he knows what he’s paying for and what caliber of work he’ll receive. After reviewing the digital marketing package, I sent Doug about 12 things he needed to clarify with them before signing on. For Doug’s $3,200/month, they included a website with 15,000 words, monthly blogging, social media distribution, lead capture, and quality leads.
Here are the questions I sent Doug for 5 of the services BizB is offering:
1. Website Included
Is a new website included in your monthly package? In the proposed marketing package, the “new website included” gave little information about what was involved and what the deliverable would look like.
What would your time investment be in building a new site? What is the development timeline? Who is doing the copywriting? What content gathering are you responsible for? What is required from you and your team? How many pages and what design choices will you have? How many revisions are included?
Who owns your website?
If a new website is included in your package, you need to know if it can be easily moved to a new hosting provider should you decide to switch. Four years ago, Doug was told by BizA that the new website they would build belonged to him and could take it with him should he want to switch hosting providers.
However, when I logged into the backend, I found that the site was built on the company’s custom platform, and he would have to export the HTML code. It had no user-friendly CMS (content management system) like WordPress.
So while he could “take it with him,” it was pretty useless to him: after exporting it, he could not make updates without knowing HTML, which would also be difficult for others to update.
Your website is the center of the web universe for your company. It’s a big deal. Make sure it presents your brand as an expert and the trusted authority in your industry.
2. SEO Keywords
How are they building a strategy for you? How long will that take? Will they go over the keywords with you? How do they anticipate adding keywords to existing pages every month? Can they provide examples of what they’ve done for other clients?
One of our clients has recently hired a digital marketing agency to manage their SEO and paid search campaigns. As our client’s brand manager, we are working with their agency to align the content with the company’s marketing and branding goals.
Two months into the agreement, they sent us the keywords and SEO strategy. We were surprised to learn that approximately 40% of the keywords were irrelevant (unrelated to their industry or product line), and the SEO strategy was not on the same target as the company’s. The agency missed the mark in their research and understanding of our client’s company.
Have someone knowledgeable about your company’s sales goals work with the marketing agency on your keywords and SEO strategy. They need to be aiming for the same target!
3. Monthly Blogs
How will the marketing company get content for the blogs they write for you? Will they routinely interview you or your team, or are they writing generic content? Where and how will they do their research? Are they using AI to write your posts?
Does the content created by your marketing company reflect your unique expertise and experience? Do you get to approve the blog post feature image? Are other images or photos included? Do you approve of the copywriting? How many edits do you get?
Is their content plan well thought out so that it’s sustainable and creates an organized content tree on your site? Are they copywriting for search engines or people?
Google’s core ranking systems look to reward content that provides a good page experience with people-first focused content. Google uses a measure called “E-E-A-T,” or “Double E-EAT”: Experience, Expertise, Authoritative, Trustworthiness.
The following questions are Google’s guide to quality content that will help you meet the EEAT standard
“Does content demonstrate that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as the actual use of a product, having actually visited a place, or communicating what a person experienced?”
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia, or book?
- Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
- Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators or spread across an extensive network of sites so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
4. Exit Offer, Visitor Departure Engagement, or Pop-up
How do they decide on the exit offer? Will your exit offer be an irresistible piece of content? If so, who will write it? How many revisions will you get?
The exit offer or lead capture is a download or other gated content and needs to be something for which people will give you their email address to obtain.
Creating a valuable lead-generating download requires a solid understanding of the problem your prospects have and how you can provide information or tools to guide them to the right solution.
5. Social Media Management
Who is writing the content for social posts? Who is selecting images and creating graphics? How will they engage influencers, follow others, or respond to comments and reviews?
If they are creating content, are they collaborating with you on it? Is it unique or grabbed from a generic pool of industry-related resources? How are they staying on brand? Will they provide drafts where you can edit and approve each one?
There were numerous other questions with the package that I’ll not go into. At Identity Creative, we create original content for our clients, which takes time and creativity. I did not want to see my friend get taken by another company that would deliver pablum.
Content writers need to reflect your brand and expertise.
If the content posted to your site and social pages will truly build credibility, you need content writers who are intricately involved in your company. Or they need to be experts in your industry and understand what makes your solution different from the rest. Knowing your copywriter, or rather, having your copywriter know your business will maintain brand consistency in messaging, style, and tone: a brand blueprint is a tool that will give them an advantage.
BizB promised to produce two monthly blogs totaling 3,000 words of new content. There was no mention of how that content was to be created. You don’t want trite or simplistic content uploaded to your site.
I’m passionate about this because I’ve seen people get ripped off. I know how much good copywriters cost. Churning out generic content is not a good SEO strategy and won’t serve your brand well. Ask questions and dig into what a digital marketing company is offering to do for you. It should make sense.
Be involved in your marketing.
When your digital marketing agency has your monthly reporting meetings, make them a priority and ask questions. If they’re using terms that are unfamiliar to you, ask until you understand. Don’t shrug off your questions because “they’re the experts.” It’s not rocket science, and you know your business and the customers you seek more than they do.
A couple of years ago, I met with another client’s digital marketing company managing the Google Ads campaign. When I questioned the call to action they had created, I told them that it would draw many of the wrong prospects because it was so vague. (This would waste time for the sales team who qualified incoming leads.)
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the project manager’s response. “We are not worried about getting quality leads; we want to make sure they get any kind of lead!” This is an inept strategy. Make sure you understand and have them explain to you how the work they’re doing supports your goals and your brand.
When you hire a company to optimize your site for search engines, you should see steady improvement in ranking and that your lead-generating goals are the same as theirs. Appoint someone in your company as the Chief Brand Officer to review the content the marketing company is writing and posting. Provide experts from your company to supply information to the marketing company so that your content positions your brand with expertise to build the reputation you deserve.
The more you care, the more their team will care.
It’s too easy for some marketers to slide in their effort when they don’t think someone is following up and expecting an explanation. Before you sign on the dotted line for a contract with a digital marketing agency, ask the right questions to be in the know about what you’re paying for. After you sign on, keep them accountable because your brand is on display: This is worth the effort!
