Thinking of hiring a telecom marketing agency? Great! Just remember, not all agencies are created equal. With more marketing agencies entering the telecom space and wanting a piece of the action, it’s important to do your homework.
We’ve compiled the top 10 questions to ask during the vetting process to ensure you select the agency that’s right for you.
Learning how the agency gained its expertise will help you decide how deep that expertise actually goes. Some agencies are entering the telecom space after working with only one or two other telecom companies. Others may have telecom experience but recently picked up the marketing piece. Inquire about the background and past successes of the agency’s telecom marketing specifically.
In many marketing agencies, the people actually doing the work in your account may be interns or straight out of college. This can create a recipe for frustration, since the people with the expertise aren’t involved after the sale. Ask about the telecom marketing experience level of the specific people who will be working on your account, especially the writers.
By reviewing the client list of a prospective agency, you’ll get a good feel for its experience and level of expertise. Check to see if the telecom marketing agency has worked with other companies similar to yours in size, budget, and growth stage. As an example, if you’re a carrier, but the agency has only worked with telecom agents, you could run into difficulty.
Similar to the one above, this question will help you decide if you’re a good fit for the agency. Will you be a big fish or little fish in their pond? Do your needs align with their strengths? By exploring who they consider an ideal client, you’ll get a good sense of how well your collaboration may work.
Every agency has its strengths, so you’ll want to make sure you align with a telecom marketing agency that excels in what you want to achieve. Make sure the agency can articulate your goals, how it plans to achieve them, and how it will measure success.
Case studies are testimonials on steroids, and can provide clear before and after snapshots. If your agency can’t provide case studies with actual before and after data, you may want to continue searching.
Marketing is in a constant state of flux. With Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and other platforms constantly updating their algorithms and features, what worked amazingly well yesterday could be harmful today. That’s why it’s important to find an agency that pays attention and adapts to what’s happening in the marketing space.
Direct sales and Channel sales are completely different animals and require different skill sets for effective marketing. Whether you’re looking to attract more direct customers or reseller partners, make sure your agency know the difference and can plan your marketing strategies accordingly.
A solid telecom marketing agency will have run several successful campaigns and can tell you all about them: what the customer’s goals were, how they formulated the strategy, all the tactics employed, and what the results were. Asking for the most successful campaign will give you a glimpse into the creativity of the agency and its ability to help its clients stand out from the crowd.
We’ve all had a campaign or two yield less-than-spectacular results. The key is to know exactly what went wrong so that future campaigns are more fruitful. Can your agency articulate how and why a particular campaign didn’t produce the desired outcome and what it would do differently if given the chance? If so, that’s a great sign.
Also, pay attention to the reasons for failure. Were they experimenting with a new platform that ultimately didn’t pan out (forgivable)? Or did they fail to aim the campaign at the right target audience (less forgivable)? Answering these questions will help you assess the competency of your agency.
While cookie-cutter programs may seem attractive due to their turnkey nature and lower costs, make sure you know to what extent the program will be tailored to your specific goals. In a hyper-competitive space like telecom, it’s easy to blend into the masses if your strategies lack a dose of creativity.
We hope these questions will help you in your quest to hire the perfect telecom marketing agency for you. Is there anything we should add to this list? We welcome your input!
Also, feel free to reach out if you’d like to learn our answers to these questions.