When Is The Right Time To Hire A Marketing Agency?

I am excited to talk with you today about when is the right time to hire a marketing agency. Listen to the podcast here

I get asked a lot of times, do I need to hire somebody? Can I do it myself? What is the goal? What is the purpose?

There are times when I think I need to get my car taken care of, but it will cost X amount of money. A lot of times when people come to me, they’re saying, well, I know I need help, but I don’t know what I need help with, or I don’t know where to start, or I don’t want to spend a lot.

How do we know if we want to work with an agency?

1. Just post when you feel the need to on social media: Nothing geared toward your goals. A plan has to be well-developed, whether through a strategy session or implementation. Those are the two most significant things that come to mind when setting a plan into action. We need to get specific about the goals. It’s not just, oh, I want five new clients, What do we need beyond that? Do we need to grow our email list? Do we need to grow our social media? Do we need to do some paid advertising? All of that’s figured out when we set those goals, and then we talk about the marketing plan. I work with a personal trainer that’s local in Ohio. I asked, what do you think about these two topics? I love them. Let’s go with it, This person lost 30 pounds, not only because she started taking control of her health and her body, but because she started to eat healthier. I listen to my client’s needs, take those ideas, and implement them into something beautiful and high converting. Let’s think about how we can utilize it and put plans into action to get the best results.
2. There’s a decrease in sales: People are very cautious about finances. Many things can play into a decrease in sales. However, people will spend more if they know the value and know they need it. If you’re seeing a decline or a reduction in your sales, really take a step back and see why you had a better month, last month versus this month. What did you do differently? Maybe you haven’t had a good month in six months. That’s a time to evaluate. What am I doing for my marketing? Am I spending enough? What can I pay? How can I get an increase in sales? We have to invest in our business to get a return on investment. I invested in my business by hiring coaches and joining masterminds. I had to invest in my business to grow and get to where I am today. Of course, the first time I invested, I thought that was a lot of money. We all have these roadblocks and hesitations, and it’s the same thing with marketing. Is it going to give us a return on investment? Is it going to target the right people? Maybe there’s a decrease in sales because you’re not reaching the right audience; I always talk about knowing your ideal audience and that it is critical and vital to growing successfully. If we’re not targeting the right people, our sales will decrease.
3. Tracking of data: I give reports to my clients at the end of the month. I break the data down and give them all of the pieces. We look at the traffic if they are on Facebook we look at the data, the analytics, how many new people joined, how many new people liked, and how many commented. Do we see growth this month? Or was there a decrease?  We look at the information and see what worked well for this month but didn’t for that month. I talked with my client the other day about the progress of social media for them. They just started, and they’ve gotten some great leads from it, but they couldn’t justify where all the other leads came from. They know they came from the website, but I asked if they came from social media or Google. We want to make sure we understand those pieces. If they’re coming to your website, that’s fantastic; It’s working, but did they come from a Google search? Did they come from a referral? Did they come from social media? Diving into understanding where these people are coming from is vital, so you know the best use of your money. It’s ever-changing what works well this month might not work well next month.,we always have to adapt and overcome and change things as we see fit. But we have to be able to track that data.
4. Keeping up with trends:  I was on a call the other day with a client, and we were talking about the benefits of why he chose me over another agency. He said I don’t have time to keep up with the trends, scheduling, and posting, and I am not knowledgeable enough. I’m not going to change my oil and be successful.. I have to hire professionals for the oil change, and I have to hire a professional plumber to fix any issues. I have to hire an accountant to do my taxes. I hire professional experts because I know they can care for the pieces, and I don’t have to learn. And it’s the same thing with marketing. We don’t want to sit there and research and put together a plan to track the data; let the professionals do it. We, as an agency, are constantly learning and growing. There are so many things coming up in January, February, and March, where I am investing in my future because of new digital marketing trends. I’m investing in reading; I’m investing in listening to being a better marketer. Everything is changing; videos are popular. Tik Tok took over Google. Let’s talk about that for a second. Tik Tok was ranked number one in search, and it blew Google out of the water. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-loses-top-domain-spot-to-tiktok/431026/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sharpspring&sslid=M7OwNDU2MrU0MLAwBgA&sseid=MzK2MDK1MDA3tgQA&jobid=d9dd402b-2d19-4b7f-a03f-e8657beb956a If that doesn’t tell you that the digital world is changing, I don’t know what will. Google has always been the number one source, and it’s always been powerful, and it still is to some extent. Now you have more competition, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google. TikTok and Instagram compete for reels and videos; it is exciting.

Things are constantly changing in the digital field, but you don’t have to keep up with it. Your agency can keep up with it. You don’t have to create little videos; anybody can make these videos for you. You can create campaigns for these videos and have your internal marketing team create the videos. There are so many ways of working together and figuring out the trends and how to utilize them best. That goes back to a plan. It’s important to plan and figure out what social platforms we’re using and which ones need to be changed. All of those little pieces are included in a strategy session. What is your plan? Break it down month by month. Do you want new sales, new clients, do you want to hire new people? Or do you want to launch something? No matter what you want to do, a marketing agency can help you. We’ve done Facebook ads for hiring contractors and I typically break down what I want to sell in my agency. I want to sell XYZ. How am I doing that? I’m doing it by creating a podcast about this topic. I’m doing it by creating what I need to do in my marketing to achieve these goals? If I need to hire somebody, who do I need to hire? Granted, a marketing agency can’t always help you with the hiring end of things, but I know that I need to hire, so I go and ask somebody to help me. What do I need to do to hire someone? Where should I be doing all these little pieces? Or do I need to hire an expert person that can just take over and hire people for me? When it comes to the marketing end of things, I make sure that there are specific action plans and goals taken to increase those sales, brand awareness, and consistency. Whether you’re a franchise or a small business owner, there are so many ways to do that. So I hope that you’re able to digest all this and think about your plan.

Break it down into six months, a year, three months, five years, or whatever you need to do. Then from there, say, oh, I’m excited about these things. I’m ready to hire an agency. I’m prepared to outsource these things so that my marketing can do the work in sales for me.