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Beyond content: three core values to look for in your marketing agency

In today’s climate, where content rules the world and SEO rankings can make or break your business, marketing is becoming an attractive venture for many entrepreneurs.

This also means that marketing agencies have quickly become ten-a-penny. Suddenly businesses have thousands of digital and content marketing agencies to choose from, all offering broadly the same set of services and all promising the same impressive results.

Finding a diamond in the rough can be an exhaustive process and often involves stubbing your toe on a number of glamorous-looking rocks.

To make the process a little less arduous, we’ve written a quick guide featuring our top three indicators that sit outside the realm of standard service-offerings and suggest that your marketing candidate can deliver on your business goals.

Walking the walk

The first, and arguably most important, feature you should be looking for in a marketing agency, is irrefutable evidence of their successful relationships with clients and sound methodology.

Imagine stumbling across an agency’s website — their web design is eye-catching, and their service pages are packed with attractive offers: “Your business will see massive sales increases! Huge outreach capabilities! All for an almost unbelievably reasonable price!” But just because they’ve written this, it doesn’t mean they’re going to give it to you.

If you find yourself trawling through a website to find any evidenced examples of an agency’s good relationships with previous clients then, the chances are, they haven’t got many.

When the smokescreen of salesy jargon and lofty claims clears, you need to see genuine testimonials from satisfied customers and not just the promise of success.

Talking your talk

You’ve found an agency with gleaming testimonials — what’s next? Well, a huge part of the marketeer’s job is to capture your business’ core messaging. They need to take your internal expertise and broadcast it. Without a true grasp of your business’ subject matter, your materials will lack authenticity and the impact will be lost.

Making sure an agency has the capacity to navigate your route to market is really important. Have they spoken your language before and, if not, do they have evidence of industry-versatility? You need a team that will work hard to understand your industry, your challenges and your customers, and you need them to get there fast.

Taking stock of an agency’s capability to reflect your company’s messaging and services is a great way to narrow your options further and build your confidence in the agencies that remain.

Conversation sells

Let’s say you’ve gone through the stages above and narrowed your options down to three agencies. They have one final hurdle to clear. Do they pick up the phone when you call? Did they respond to your email within 24 hours?

Responsiveness isn’t just about manners. It’s the ultimate indication for the nature of any future business you may do together. An agency that’s at the end of the phone when you need them is an agency that you can trust to be there throughout your partnership.

We’ve spoken to a number of frustrated clients who’ve walked away from agencies that would take upwards of a week to respond to a simple enquiry.

Using your initial contact experience with an agency to forecast their reliability for the future is a great way to help you finalise your decision.

A step in the right direction

All these factors are important when it comes to taking the leap and outsourcing your marketing. But for us, the most important thing is that it feels as little like a leap as possible. A guided step won’t keep you up at night.

Our team at asabell have a vast array of experience marketing in the languages of multiple industries and sectors. What’s more, there’s always a friendly voice at the end of the phone, ready to discuss your marketing options.

Visit our website or give us a call to find out if we pass our own test.

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