Professional marketing agencies offer services that drive traffic to your business location and website. But which to choose depends on your goals, the services you need, your budget, and the performance and reputation of the agency. Keep reading to learn how to choose a marketing agency to grow your brand, including the most important criteria to look for throughout the process.
1. Understand What Marketing Agencies Do
The first step for how to choose a marketing agency is to understand the landscape. In general, marketing agencies plan, design, and execute strategies to promote a business or product. However, not all marketing agencies offer the same services or level of support. Open the tab below to better understand the types of services a marketing agency can provide to help you build a strong brand presence.
Some marketing agencies offer specialized services in just a few areas, while others provide full stack marketing for everything from digital marketing to public relations, branding, and advertising. Here are some of the outsourced services that may be available to you:
- Listings management: Agencies handle creating and managing listings on online business directories like Google My Business, Yelp, and business-specific directories to improve local businesses’ online exposure.
- SEO (search engine optimization) and local SEO: Marketing agencies use a variety of SEO and local SEO tactics to attract customers searching for businesses online.
- Content marketing: Digital agencies plan and create valuable, keyword-rich content such as blog posts, articles, videos, emails, or infographics, that resonate with a brand’s target audience. This helps brands establish authority, attract organic traffic, and build a loyal customer base. (Learn what’s involved in local SEO content marketing.)
- Pay-per-click (PPC) ads: Advertising on Google with PPC ads is another common local marketing agency service. It includes ad setup, optimization, campaign and budget management, keyword research, reporting, and more.
- Local services ads (LSAs): Many agencies help set up and manage Google Local Services Ads, specific to service-oriented businesses. They ensure the ads are properly configured and optimized to attract local customers, provide regular reports, and look for ways to reduce average pay-per-click cost and increase return on ad spend.
- Email marketing: From finding ways to build email contact lists to creating emails, conducting A/B testing, and tailoring and segmenting campaigns, many agencies will manage both cold sales emails and permission-based email marketing efforts from end to end.
- Social media marketing: Agencies use social media marketing and advertising to promote businesses to the desired audience. They use tailored strategies, engaging content, account management, and highly targeted paid social media advertising to improve brand awareness and visibility.
- Reputation management: Monitoring online reviews, responding to customer feedback, and implementing brand image strategies are just some of the ways marketing agencies help businesses improve brand reputation.
- Publicity and PR: Getting a story onto the news gives brands the ability to gain awareness as well as affinity and word of mouth. Many marketing agencies offer public relations (PR) services, such as writing and sending press releases and pitching local or industry-relevant journalists on newsworthy stories.
- Other local advertising: Traditional ad services can include direct mail campaigns in which targeted promotional materials are sent to a specific local or industry-based list. Additional large-scale or local advertising strategies may include TV commercials, radio ads, or billboard placements for wider reach.
To determine whether choosing a marketing agency is the best route for your company, it’s important to know both the upsides and downsides. Consideration may also lead you to conclude that the best option is to adopt a hybrid approach, where some of your marketing is done in-house, with other aspects outsourced.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Saves you the time and learning curve of mastering technical aspects of marketing | An agency might not understand specialized aspects of your products or services |
| Experts may be able to produce a much higher return on marketing | Takes time to research and vet marketing agencies |
| Lower payroll expenses if you don’t have to hire in-house | You might not be able to find an agency that offers all the services you want |
| Flexibility to easily change your plan or agencies if you aren’t getting the results you want | Can be cost-prohibitive unless you can allocate money for marketing |
Marketing agencies can do a lot of the heavy lifting needed to help your brand gain visibility and sales with people in your target audience. The best marketing agencies do this and more, and offer tailored plans as well as affordable options (such as a la carte services) to get your business on the map with customers locally or on a national scale. If you’re a small business that focuses on selling goods or services to local customers, you can even find a local marketing agency to handle all your marketing needs.
2. Define Your Goals
Learning how to choose a marketing agency is made easier by knowing what you want to achieve at the end of the day. To make any marketing campaign successful, it should be directed toward specific, measurable goals. Doing this step will not only just give you a defined end goal, it will also make it easier to communicate expectations with potential agencies.
Start by assessing your current marketing situation. What are the ways you are currently marketing your business? Evaluate if these are performing well and if any gaps can be improved. You can make your goals even more specific by adding a target audience, a subgoal, or a timeline.
For example, instead of a goal like this:
“I want to get more people to go to my bakery.”
Set a goal like:
“I want to get more middle to high-income foodies into my bakery to try my new artisan pastries.”
You can establish a target audience through demographics, interests, and behaviors. Although having a more general audience is also OK, making your marketing campaigns more targeted usually helps maximize advertising efforts. Higher targeting leads to more specific reach and, potentially, better quality leads.
Your goals will provide a solid foundation for collaboration with a local marketing agency. This will help them create on-point strategies specific to your business goal, audience, and timeline.
Not sure of the demographics, pain points, and interests of your “ideal customer” types? Use our customer persona template to build profiles of your ideal customers to determine the best channels and messaging to reach them.
3. Decide Which Marketing Services You Need
Marketing encompasses a wide range of potential services. However, the services a startup or small local business needs may differ from those required by a well-established or national brand. Before going further in the process of how to choose a marketing agency, figure out whether or not you need the following services:
- Assistance building a local marketing plan and strategy
- Website marketing to increase traffic to your site
- Web design (or refresh) to ensure your brand has a good website
- Local SEO to rank higher on Google
- Assistance with creative (e.g., copywriting, graphic design, videography)
- Content or ad planning
- Pay-per-click ad management
- Social media marketing and advertising
- Email marketing
- Publicity and public relations
- Reputation and reviews management
- Media buying for TV commercials, radio ad spots, billboards, and so on
- Analytics and reporting
Keep a list of the services and features you need from your marketing agency to create a successful campaign. This can help you narrow down your list of potential agencies later on. It is best to prioritize marketing agencies with all the services you need for a more unified approach and lesser cost.
4. Set a Budget
In 2023, marketing budgets comprise 13.6% of a company’s total budget, according to Deloitte. In other words, a business with a total annual budget of $200,000 would invest $27,200 into marketing. You don’t have to set your budget this way, but successful companies always have a marketing budget in their priority allocation. Otherwise, it’s easy to find that “there’s no money for marketing,” which means your options for working with an agency are limited (if not off the table).
Before you continue the process of learning how to pick a marketing agency, take the time to have a thorough discussion on how much you can spend. This will primarily rely on your business’ financial capabilities and the extent of work you expect from your partner agency. To help you, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Assess what you have. Begin by evaluating your overall financial resources with factors such as your current revenue, profitability, and available funds. It is crucial to be realistic about what you can comfortably invest in local marketing and advertising campaigns.
- Prioritize return on investment (ROI). Keep in mind that marketing is an investment rather than an expense, and it’s an investment that can (and should) produce a return far over its expense. Think about the potential return on investment you expect from your local advertising efforts. Generally, it’s better to start with higher-yield tactics that allow you to reinvest in marketing more quickly.
- Look at industry standards. A good reference point is looking at how much other businesses in your industry or niche are spending on marketing. Remember that each business’ goals and needs are different, but this is a good starting point. Deloitte’s 2023 CMO Survey provides the following data:
Industry | % of Revenue Spent on Marketing |
|---|---|
Banking, Finance & Real Estate | 8% |
Communications, Media | 10% |
Consumer Packaged Goods | 11% |
Education | 3% |
Healthcare | 16% |
Manufacturing | 15% |
Service, Consulting | 23% |
Retail, Wholesale | 16% |
Technology & Software | 22% |
Establishing and sticking to a budget makes it easier for a marketing agency to determine the best strategies to start with. This, in turn, allows your marketing to start producing a return that creates a repeatable and growing cycle of reinvestment.
Small budgets don’t have to be a deal-breaker. Startup marketing agencies like Straight North specialize in creating tailored, a la carte services that help you maximize results and control expenses. Reach out for a free consultation and get expert advice on which marketing strategies are most likely to move the needle for your small business.
5. Research & Narrow Your List of Marketing Agencies
Researching and narrowing down a list of potential agencies will be easier with the list of services you need and your marketing budget. You can find the best marketing agency to cater to your budget and goals in several ways. For example, we’ve already pre-vetted agencies based on some of the major aspects of digital marketing:
- Find out our top picks for the best local SEO services
- Learn who we recommend as the best digital marketing agencies
- See who made our list of the best social media marketing agencies
You can also manually search for local marketing agencies by yourself on Google as well as review directory sites. Most platforms allow you to search for agencies with specific filters for location, industry expertise, budget, or services offered.
Some top platforms to research the best options based on reviews include:
- Clutch: Clutch provides a comprehensive list of business service providers across different industries. The platform includes client reviews, hourly rates, company size, industries, focus, and other valuable insights to help you make informed decisions.
- UpCity: UpCity is a business-to-business (B2B) service provider directory that can be filtered by city, making it effective for searching local marketing agencies in your area. It comes with client reviews to help find reputable agencies and a number of ways to contact the provider.
- Agency Spotter: Agency Spotter is a directory specifically for marketing agencies. It has a search function for filtering according to services, location (city and state), and budget.
- HubSpot Solutions Directory: HubSpot’s directory features certified and experienced agencies in various aspects of digital marketing. Only agencies that receive a certification from HubSpot can sign up on the directory.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations from trusted sources. Firsthand experience brings invaluable insight into how to choose the right marketing agency. Talk to other business owners in your community, reach out to your local Chamber of Commerce for a recommendation, or speak to business associates or colleagues in your industry.
6. Set Up a Consult
Once you come up with your shortlist of potential agencies to work with, now is the best time to set up consultations with the agencies that best match your goals, service needs, and budget. This will help you assess how well they suit your needs. A consultation also allows you to personally gauge the agency’s expertise, approach, and compatibility with your business.
Make sure the consultation is conducted in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing. It would be difficult to assess the agency through email or messaging.
Before the consultation, collate the information you’ve worked on from the previous steps, including your current marketing plan, strategies, and campaigns. Make sure to discuss your expectations clearly as well. This will help provide a clear picture to the agency and facilitate productive discussions.
Here are some questions to ask during the consultation and to answer yourself afterward:
General Background Questions |
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Budget & Pricing Questions |
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Reporting & Measurement Questions |
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Post-consultation Questions to Answer |
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Free Checklist: How to Choose a Marketing Agency
To make this easier for you, we created a free checklist using the questions above for how to choose a marketing agency. It includes what to ask the agency as well as questions to answer afterward that will help you come up with the best choice for your business.
To use it in Google Workspace, save it as a copy to your drive. To use the checklist with Microsoft Word or another app, download it to your device or cloud drive first.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
Want to skip ahead? Start with Straight North. They offer a broad range of marketing services and serve both small business and startup clients.
7. Check References & Reviews
After your consultation (and before signing on the dotted line), visit the website of your top-rated agencies to gain more insights into their services, expertise, and industry experience. Cross-check it with the information you received during the consultation. This will show how transparent their website is and how well they communicate.
Review their portfolio or case studies to assess their ability to deliver results for businesses similar to yours. Prioritize checking the references they sent over, especially if it’s a business that operates in the same industry as your business. This will give you valuable feedback on their services from actual users.
There are also other ways to get a glimpse into a marketing agency’s reputation, reliability, and quality of service. Online review sites or simply the reviews on business directories show how satisfied their customers are with their services. Other places to consider viewing reviews are:
These platforms, where you can find online reviews, provide an additional layer of information. All in all, it would help discern the best marketing agency for your small business. The reputation and track record of a marketing agency is a testament to its capabilities. Use it to make sure your choice is aligned with your expectations and capable of meeting your local advertising needs.
Pro tip: Take note of the agency’s response to negative reviews, as it can indicate their willingness to address and resolve issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
Digital marketing agencies work by helping businesses promote their products or services online. They assess the client’s business, craft a plan that aligns with their needs, and execute different strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media, and email marketing.
It is worth hiring a marketing agency to promote your business if you don’t have an internal marketing team or need help managing multiple marketing campaigns. Not only do they have the expertise to do so effectively, marketing agencies will also share cutting-edge industry updates and tech to help you grow your business more efficiently.
Established marketing agencies usually have a solid track record of success by delivering results to their satisfied clients. However, it still depends on a number of factors, such as strategy, market conditions, industry, and even timeline. To make sure your chosen marketing agency will be successful, assess their portfolio, case studies, and testimonials thoroughly.
Bottom Line
Learning how to choose a marketing agency is a process that requires plenty of research, both about your business and the potential agencies you may work with. Establishing your business and marketing needs, goals, and budget is what will help you hone in on the best marketing agency for your business. Afterward, you can expect better leads, more engagement, and a stronger brand presence.
We highly recommend that Straight North make your shortlist when choosing a marketing agency. They cater to small businesses and startups with affordable starting points and plans to start generating revenue for business growth. Plus, there’s no risk to reach out for a free consultation, where they will share their ideas for the best ways to promote your company.
