Finding a Marketing Professional who is knowledgeable and you can trust is challenging. Trusting the information they provide is a leap of faith and that’s the reality.
Here are 3 Tips for choosing the right Marketing Professional and deal breakers to help sift through the options without wasting too much time.
Tip 1: A good MP asks questions about your business first.
A serious Marketing Professional starts every new meeting asking questions about your business. A good professional already researched the type of business and industry but asks questions for confirmation and perspective on what they researched. This indicates they’ve invested time into this meeting and take business seriously.
Trying to sell their service immediately is a red flag not a deal breaker. If the meeting continues and they DO ask questions about your business, continue with the other tips.
Deal Breaker: If they never ask quality questions of your business, it’s a deal breaker. How can they help your business when they don’t know much about your business or take time to listen to you?
Tip 2: A good MP recaps what you told them and creates a preliminary marketing plan on the spot.
With the preliminary research completed before the meeting and the quality questions asked in the appointment, a good Marketing Professional can give you an idea of a marketing plan moving forward.
Really good marketers would start with a short term, revenue generating plan and then explain a long term marketing plan. These plans should incorporate a mix of marketing options specific to your business and industry.
Deal Breaker: If the marketing professional tries to sell you the “big kahuna” marketing plan right away it’s not a partnership between the two of you, it’s them selling to you and will not be successful.
Tip 3: A good MP doesn’t push your business to drop loads of money to begin the process.
As previously stated a good Marketing Professional will already have a preliminary marketing plan after asking specific questions. Included are questions about the marketing budget. Understanding that information a quick return on investment calculation will determine, roughly, the dollars available for marketing.
The preliminary plan will start with the first steps, a marketing focus and move to other future projects. A partnership between a marketing professional and a business is created by taking steps, learning about each other and understanding revenue goals. The best way for this to happen is starting with a small plan, generate some revenue, move on to bigger, more lucrative projects.
Deal Breaker: If the marketing professional wants to revamp your website and all of your social media, add more social media options, change your sales system, delete or change all traditional marketing, create a whole new brand identity and then wants to hand you a hefty bill- run away.
These tips were compiled from clients experiences.
Our job is fun and when done well our relationships continue and our clients make more money so we all win and we are very aware of this lucrative relationship. We hope these tips help you make the best choices for your marketing.
