Avoid marketing pain by hiring the right agencies
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by the Digital PR agency Search Intelligence which uses PR methods to grow a link portfolio and North Star Inbound which is a highly recommended agency for penalty recovery. See their case studies linked in the newsletter.
This week’s recommended resources:
Hubspot dropped its must-read State of Marketing 2024. Dig in and get informed.
Never miss an SEO update by reading Aleyda Solis’ SEOFOMO, Nick Leroy’s SEO for Lunch and Steve Toth’s SEO Notebook
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On March 5th, Google launched significant algorithm updates that will reverberate for a long time on search results. I have suggested in multiple prior newsletters that this was likely to happen, so I won’t belabor the point in this one. I will analyze the impacts and strategies in a future update, but for this week, I want to give my perspective on avoiding working with partners that put you at risk of surprises in marketing performance.
Agency realities
There are thousands of options when choosing a digital agency or solution; most people are lost when finding the right one. In my own consulting, I frequently hear horror stories about past agency and freelancer experiences that sometimes even cause marketing leaders to throw up their hands and declare that SEO/SEM or whatever it is that they tried to be a waste of time.
Some have even found themselves on the negative side of an algorithm update and are traumatized by their agency experiences.
To be fair to them, most agencies and freelancers are, in my opinion, subpar. The opaqueness of digital marketing allows many supposed experts to declare that they tried their best, “but the algorithm moved against them,” or worse, they share results that proclaim that they are doing well, but the reality is very different.
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Some of this can be attributed to inexperience, while others might be more deliberate in their lack of performance. This is an unfortunate reality, and I think it is critical to choose an agency or expert only based on a recommendation from someone you trust.
Here are some options for finding an agency or freelancer:
Shameless plug from me: I maintain a list of agencies and freelancers I vetted. Please reach out if I can introduce you to experts or agencies within any digital niche. Freelancers or agencies, please fill out this form if I can make recommendations for you.
Industry events: Attend digital marketing events, watch the presentations from the experts, and see if they address the points later in this newsletter. (I have a small list of recommended ones I am attending this year. )
LinkedIn, but with a twist: look at the companies whose digital presence you admire and reverse engineer who might be the source. It’s possible you can’t work with the same agency, but maybe you can work with their past employee. You can also look for the full-time employees who used to work at that company and hire them as freelancers.
Use your network: Post on social media that you are looking for specific experts or agencies. You will get a lot of unwanted references, but you will also get solid recommendations. This is the digital way of asking your friends at scale, but if you have industry friends you trust, by all means, do this first offline.
The downside of the wrong solution is that it wastes money and time, which must be compensated later.
Choosing the right partner
Beyond the initial selection process, here are key characteristics to prioritize when evaluating potential partners.
Deep Industry Knowledge: A proficient agency goes beyond generic marketing expertise. They should comprehensively understand your specific industry, its unique challenges, and relevant market trends. This in-depth knowledge allows them to tailor their strategies to your needs and achieve targeted results.
In my process of vetting agencies, this is where I stopped being surprised when I asked deep questions and was met with awkward silence. If a potential agency or freelancing partner cannot articulate a thought on how or why something works in digital marketing, run the other way. Ask them to explain algorithmic nuances like you are a five-year-old. You will be surprised at how many can’t.Data-Driven Approach: Transparency and data-driven decision-making are hallmarks of a reliable agency. They should utilize comprehensive analytics and reporting tools to track progress, measure the effectiveness of their strategies, and provide you with clear, actionable insights.
I have seen many agencies take reports from Semrush or Ahrefs and slap their logo on them. It’s okay to use external tools, but they need to offer expertise in addition to the tool's output, which explains the impact on your business.Open Communication: Regular and transparent communication fosters a successful collaborative relationship. Any agency is readily available to address your emails, but do they actually provide the right answers? Most agencies will have dedicated scheduled meetings, but you want to make sure that there’s someone who can explain answers to your questions outside of those meetings.
Promises and transparency: Be wary of any promises from anyone in digital marketing. If they guarantee a “ranking” or a “CAC”, run. You are hiring an agency to be an extension of your team, and that’s how you should judge them. They should be aligned with the metrics you choose and not the ones they choose alone.
Chemistry: Extending the earlier requirement, you are hiring an agency or freelancer because you don’t have the capacity internally to do these initiatives on your own. Approach this effort like you are hiring a new employee, not like you are bringing on a new vendor. Yes, of course, you can terminate a contract if you don’t like the vendor, but there will be pain and lost resources in that process. In the same way, you don’t hire an employee quickly, be just as painstaking with an agency or freelancer.
Long-term outlook: When you bring on this digital resource, don’t just think about today’s needs. Also, consider your future needs as they change because you want this solution to grow with you. If today you have a small SEO effort or paid budget, can this resource handle 10 times the size? It’s better to have a big agency or overly skilled freelancer work on a small project than to have a small agency or junior freelancer stuck managing a big effort without the skillset.
Don’t think only about price: When it comes to cost, you will always get what you pay for. Budget is and always will be a consideration, but consider the alternatives. For example, is this resource less expensive than a full in-house team? Or, can this external resource unlock significant revenues from this expense? Spending millions on an agency is no big deal when you can earn billions.
Hire internally first!
The best solution for digital marketing is always to hire internally, but that is not always possible for various reasons. You shouldn’t hire a full-time resource if you don’t have a full-time job for them, and backfilling their time with extra tasks inevitably means you aren’t going to get the best people. A great marketer wants to put their energies into their passion not time filling work.
If I can help you find the right person or get the right freelancing roles/clients, please reach out!
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