Transcript

Hey there, I’m John Doherty, and I’m the founder and CEO of Credo, where we help great companies get introduced fast to the best pre-vetted digital marketing firms. And if you find this content helpful, I’d love for you to subscribe to this channel so that you’re notified about weekly videos moving forward.

Be sure to stay to the end, where I’ll tell you where you can go to download our free guide to hiring a digital marketing firm. 

Today we’re going to talk about hiring an agency and how specific of one you should look for. At Credo, we’ve helped almost 6,000 companies looking to hire a digital marketing company, and through that experience, we’ve been asked for a lot of different things.

The goal of today’s video is to help you do a better job looking for the right type of agency so you can focus your search and actually get started instead of always being in the market for a marketing firm.

 

If you’re watching this video, you probably have the following challenges:

  1. Your business isn’t growing like you need it to be, and you’re getting to a point where whatever you do HAS to work and work quickly.
  2. You’ve been looking for an agency for a while, or you kind of feel like you are perpetually in the market for an agency but can’t find the right one.
  3. You’re losing time and opportunity by not hiring.

The opportunity ahead of you after watching this video is big. 

  1. You’re going to understand what the most successful companies do when it comes to hiring.
  2. Why looking for an agency with direct experience doing what you need for a direct competitor is like looking for a needle in a haystack (you’re very unlikely to find it.)
  3. How to properly assess if an agency has the experience relevant to you and the order in which to value their experience.

Look, I’m a marketer by trade. But since late 2015, I’ve focused my time, career, and company around helping other companies find the right agency. In fact, as of this moment, our homepage is titled “The best way to find the right digital marketing company.”

In running our company, we’ve not only spoken with thousands of companies looking for a marketing firm, but we’ve also hired quite a few ourselves to help us with Credo specifically. From content marketing companies to freelance writers to freelance designers and development agencies and developers, we’ve hired probably 20 different companies or individuals to work with us.

Some have worked out incredibly well. Others were duds.

We’ve seen hundreds of companies hire marketing firms since 2016. Many have done it well, and others have not been as successful. And to be honest, a lot have not hired at all, but spent a ton of time looking for that needle in the haystack.

If that’s you, today I want to re-orient your mindset around hiring an agency so you can take action and get it done.  Allowing you to start learning and keep growing your company.

 

Let’s dive in. I have 5 specific things I want to share with you.

  1. The companies we see have the most success in hiring and growing with an agency, hire a firm with deep expertise in the service they need and with the type of business they are. For example, SEO for eCommerce or digital strategy for lead generation. Those are the two things that ultimately matter in getting results.
  2. These companies are clear on the length of engagement they need and who will be doing the work. When someone tells us that they plan to execute on it internally but are open to the agency doing it, that tells me that they’re not clear on what it will take to get the results they need, and thus any engagement they sign is more likely to be doomed than succeed.
  3. Unless you’re in a regulated industry like healthcare, you shouldn’t require that your agency have experience in your direct niche. It’s fine to desire and even look for that, but this agency may be impossible to find depending on your niche. So go back to point number one and look for an agency with experience doing what you need for the kind of business that you are, such as eCommerce.
  4. Many companies who have not hired an agency before want to prioritize an agency with direct experience with a competitor because they think that agency can just take that competitor’s playbook and give it to them. While it is true that experience in a specific vertical can help and mean that said agency is more up to speed, they do not just take another company’s strategy that the company paid for and give it to you as well.
  5. Finally, in order to know if an agency has experience with the channels and the type of company you are, you should simply ask! Say something like, “I’d love to see some case studies and examples of CHANNEL work you’ve done for other TYPE companies.” Asking for testimonials and case studies should be enough to tell you if they have suitable experience!

 

To review:

  • Today we talked about hiring a marketing company and what successful companies do when hiring one.
  • We covered the 5 things you need to consider when hiring a marketing company and what to look for.
  • We talked about why finding a company with direct experience in your specific vertical will likely be searching for a needle in a haystack and what you should prioritize instead.

If this was helpful to you, feel free to download this ebook, “busy executive’s guide to hiring a digital agency.”

 

I’m John Doherty, founder and CEO of Credo, and I’ll see you next time.