Bad Experiences with Digital Marketing & Advertising Agencies

Working with businesses across a variety of industries, there’s one thing many of them have in common: they’ve tried digital advertising before and didn’t have a positive experience. Whether it’s Meta, Google, TikTok or one of the many other advertising platforms, for one reason or another they felt it was a waste of time and money. Sometimes it’s due to trying to keep your ad management in house, forcing someone inexperienced in digital ad platforms to try and learn on the fly. Often times it’s due to a marketing agency employing a “one size fits all” strategy to a business they don’t fully understand. While this approach can work sometimes, it almost always leaves money on the table. With this in mind, we put together a short list of things to look for when hiring a marketing agency as a small or medium-sized business.

Are they willing to work with your budget?

Like any business, marketing agencies have costs to cover and a bottom line to meet. Even so, a willingness to meet your business where it’s at is a big positive when working with a marketing agency. At OMM, we include several different options at various price points in every proposal we send to a prospective client. If a business still isn’t able to afford our services, we encourage them to take our game plan and implement as much as they can on their own or with their in-house team. For the cost of a single consultation, you can get 4-6 months of marketing strategy laid out for your business with identifiable easy wins and steps on how to implement them. If you have any questions along the way, we’re happy to offer hourly support or answer quick questions over email. We’re confident that in 6 months time, if your business has implemented our suggestions, you’ll see the benefits and come back for next steps.

Do they take lessons from your previous marketing efforts and experiences?

While we believe that most marketing agencies are experts in their field, nobody knows your business better than you. Too often agencies are comfortable taking a “one size fits all” approach without first learning what makes your business unique, what has failed in the past and what has worked for you so far. One of our current clients, Santa Monica Striking, was in that exact position only a few months ago. After getting talked into a new website and ad strategy by a marketing agency specializing in martial arts gyms, they found themselves spending more money and having to do more manual work following up with their leads only to see a 10% increase in sign ups. These “specialists” were losing them money for months before they heard about Off Montana Marketing. After speaking with one of our Marketing Specialists, we felt that an audit would be the first step in getting them back on track. After seeing their new website, talking with their team members and digging through their Meta ads account, it was obvious that this marketing agency was using the same template for Santa Monica Striking as they had for every other gym. While it might have worked in the past, the fact was it was not working for Santa Monica Striking. We put together a proposal, identified their current problems, recommended solutions and built a step by step plan on how we’d implement them. Since switching to Off Montana Marketing, Santa Monica Striking has seen a 50% increase in monthly sign ups without increasing ad spend, without needing to manually follow up with every lead and, upon their request, we even rebuilt their old website to save them money in web hosting fees.

Do they ask questions about your business, your target audience and competitors?

As a marketing agency, there can be a pressure to seem like you have all of the answers before you even walk in the door. The reality is, our expertise is marketing. Even at OMM, we’re not experts in running a gym, a therapy clinic, an outdoor brand or an events company even though we’ve delivered record breaking results for companies in all of those sectors. We just handle the marketing. Your marketing agency should come in asking questions and trying to learn as much about your business as they can. A big green flag is if they don’t just look at your past wins and losses, but if they look at some of your biggest competitors as well. If you’re a small or medium-sized business, we highly encourage you to go to view your competition wherever they show ads. For Meta, it’s https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/ and for Google it’s https://adstransparency.google.com/. One of our biggest strengths as an agency is a willingness to look at your competitors strategy and take the lessons they’ve learned without have to go through the trial and error. Even if you’re just a business owner trying to handle your own marketing, these are invaluable resources that can show you what ad strategies work. The next step is identifying how you can improve them. If you need any help identifying your competitors, finding their ads or brainstorming ways on how to improve them, book a free 30-minute intro call and we’ll help you put a plan together.

Are they willing to earn your trust?

One of the most underrated traits of a good marketing agency is their ability to understand your position and invest in your company with their time. Business owners have every right to be skeptical of marketing agencies. As an agency it’s easy to overpromise and underdeliver and as a business owner it’s easy to be sold a pipe dream when you’re looking to grow your business. At OMM, we believe that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. We don’t want to waste your time or your money, so we make sure that our plan is carefully crafted and each step is meticulously implemented so that you get the most bang for your buck. The best part is, we’re flexible. If you’re skeptical, there’s no need to pay everything upfront. We can take it step by step, keep in constant communication and if you ever want to slow down or pull the plug, you can and you’ll only pay for the work we’ve done. To date, we’ve never had a company stop in the middle of our plan and that’s in part because we’re willing to work at your pace and budget.

If you’re a business owner looking to hire a marketing agency or even to improve your own internal marketing team, we hope these tips were helpful. If you’re looking to talk more about how Off Montana Marketing can help your business, schedule a free 30-minute intro call and we’ll start putting together a plan as soon as possible.