It’s funny to write about this topic since we are a marketing agency as well and it’s our best interest to tell you mostly about the positive sides of hiring an agency, right? 
Well, we are sure that you have landed here to read another biased opinion where we are trying to sell our services to you by providing why agencies are great and bring a lot of value, bla bla bla.
Yes, we are surely going to tell you what are the benefits of hiring a marketing agency. BUT, we will also explain, when you should not hire a marketing agency. When your agencies are destined to doom you or when you’re not ready to hire an agency. That will save you both time, energy, and not meeting important business goals.
It’s been more than 5 years since we have been in business and we have our fair share of dealing with different types of clients and their queries, both locally and internationally. In our quarterly strategy session, one of our focus always is, how we can match up with the clients we want and offer them the best services even if it requires us to let go of clients with both small and big budgets. We try to serve clients within our own capacity, pricing model, synergy-fit while keeping our services within a certain market standard.
You can also look into what a marketing agency can offer from here.
Benefits will come later. Let’s start with the bad news.
When you should not hire a marketing agency in Bangladesh
1. When you did not set a tangible outcome
Even for a brand awareness campaign, you should have some metrics or tangible targets to chase. If you’re not sure about that, and only want sales in any way possible. You’re going to miss out important process and deliverable your agency needs to plan or provide. You’re surely going to have a misunderstanding at one point and miss your business goal eventually.
2. When you’re a solo founder?
Most of the solo startup founders have a lot on their plate and they fail to meet the alignment between the agency and their work. It’s also risky for agencies to work with solo founders sometimes, as a startup requires a lot of groundwork which solo founders may not want to do due to cost constraints. Though it’s very popular among solo founders to shift their marketing tasks to an agency before hiring an in-house team. If single founders are not organized, do not have a clear business plan. Their marketing agencies will not be able to give him great results.
3. When you choose the wrong TYPE of agency
Let’s be real. Not all agencies have superpowers or excellence in all of their service listed. Some will great at online media buying, some will deliver excellent results in video production. You need to know what’s your agency’s niche, can they show you a case study, do they have any certification? Do they have a dedicated or a mixed team that can deliver results? One thing for sure, that your agency should be great at planning. So, even if they do not have the required skillet. They can always source a third-party agency or freelancers for your project that they can guide and ensure delivery.
If you’d like to run paid ads. Go for an agency who are specialized in media buying and online advertisements.
If you’re more into long-term branding, go for an agency with media planning, SEO, or regular campaign management skills.
If you’d like to run a tech-focused business, make sure your agency team has one tech guy who can guide and handle the project for you.
3. When you’re an established brand, but do not have a dedicated person for agency communication
Agency communication is crucial. Suppose, you’ve just joined as n Operations Head or Marketing Manager in a branded FMCG company and your job is to build the marketing department from the ground up.
You must assign someone who understands the tid-bids of marketing who can guide, get insight, and plan with the agency on the marketing deliverable. Especially in the retainer projects, agencies’ account personnel and your marketing guys should be closer than their other colleagues, as both of them should be aligned to their goals and delivery.
4. When you do not have an internal marketing plan
If you do not have an internal quarterly or yearly marketing plan, you should not proceed with agencies, as your goals are not set properly. Setting up a marketing plan for your business can make you realize what you should get from your agency and what you need to do yourself in-house.
5. When you do not have budget estimation according to the market.
Oops! It’s a constant war on the budget side between agencies and clients. But, you should at least have some ideas or intelligence from your network that, what should be the market rate for certain types of service. Otherwise, you’re not going to get the right agency for your work. Your budget can be small or big. But, it’s very important to understand what you’re getting from your budget. You’ll always have management pressure for making your operation lean. But, spend wisely, you’re surely going to ripe the result from your marketing activities.
Ask yourself these questions before hiring an agency
You should start by preparing internally and writing down your objectives. Be very clear about your reasons. You also need to ask at least one of these four questions before starting your agency search.
- Do you or your team constantly state that we are too busy to finish our work?
- Do you lack the capacity or resources to get the job done?
- Does your internal team lack the capability or experience to finish a certain level of work?
- Do you lack innovative ideas or need a fresh external perspective to do something new?
and also, are you ready to hire a bunch of marketing guys for your organization and manage them for rapid executions? If your answer is yes to at least one of these questions. You need to look for an agency.
Benefits of hiring an agency
- 1. You don’t have to pay a marketer’s full-time salary.
- 2. You get a lot more than just marketing expertise for one fee.
- 3. You gain access to the latest technology and tools.
- 4. You maintain efficiency among your existing staff.
- 5. You don’t need to train agencies.
- 6. You can easily scale up your marketing efforts.
- 7. You keep up with the latest marketing trends, without a learning curve.
- 8. You benefit from an outside perspective.
- 9. Saving Costs
If you’re looking for a marketing agency that can work cross-border from Bangladesh, follow a structured process to onboard you as a client, guide you, set internal KPIs based on your business goal. We are open for business! Do knock us for a discovery call.
