These days, every business needs an online marketing consulting firm. You need the firm to manage your web presence and reputation against the competitors.
The firm also assists you in your day-to-day goals. These marketing consultants will drive these goals in the right direction. Most firms offer services that improve your visibility in Google search.
These firms use legal techniques to polish your existing SEO and content marketing plans.
The biggest problem that is, not all firms are created equal.
Sure, it’s possible to find the list of Top 10 best marketing firms in less than 10 seconds. You simply need to key-in the right keywords in Google and, that’s it. You’re done!
It, however, doesn’t mean all these firms offer the right and quality services that are worth your money.
Wherever the firm is located, whether in Chicago, New York or outside the country, it’s your responsibility to study the firm and its team of consultants.
Remind yourself trust is earned. Therefore, before hiring a firm, take time to exhale and ask yourself the following questions.
These questions will serve as your guide to evaluate your chosen marketing firm.
1. Does the firm practice what’s written in their blog?
The firm’s reputation depends on how the team manages their blog.
Their blog defines their brand. It reveals their work ethic, camaraderie and professionalism.
A quality blog is regularly updated with fresh original contents such as inspiring stories, instructional articles and free downloads.
2. Does the firm’s site provide case studies?
Case studies serve as the heart and soul of the firm’s content marketing campaign. It’s the type of written content that tells a success story, which convinces the people to hire the team.
3. Does the firm tell you how their team operates? Do they outsourced or work in-house?
These days, online marketing firms choose to hire a number of qualified consultants from neighboring countries.
It’s expected a team of consultants will consist of Americans, Filipinos, Indians and Malaysians.
4. Does the firm explain the latest news in online marketing?
The online marketing world is competitive. There are new rules and new techniques invented every day. Therefore, it’s the firm’s responsibility to share these news to you, either by mail or by chat.
5. Does the firm complement your business’ culture?
It isn’t enough to hire a firm that you can afford. You need to hire a team who understand your business. They need to familiarize the flow of transaction, from top to the bottom funnel.
6. Does the firm achieve great results with past clients with similar goals as yours?
Reading the firm’s reviews is one way of studying a firm’s reputation. Past reviews and testimonials serve as your guide to know if the firm was good enough or was great enough.
7. Does the firm offer flexible pricing models?
It’s expected for a firm to offer a list of great services. However, the truth of the matter is you don’t need all these services.
For example, your website needs on and off page SEO but it doesn’t mean you also need email marketing services.
Therefore, choose what specific services will work for you and your business.
Ask if you can’t understand how a specific service works. It helps to conduct your own research too. Do your assignment and learn to negotiate.
8. Does the firm offer discounts when you pay in cash?
Paying in cash is a good thing. It means the firm will want you as their long-term partner and the team will do what they can to serve you better. They will give you more freebies, more extra services and more discounts.
9. Does the firm provide a service in traffic generation?
Your website needs traffic generation to ensure its web presence is consistently healthy.
Traffic generation yields great results but it doesn’t happen overnight or in a month. It can be achieved if the team works extra hard to attract more people to your website.
10. Does the firm provide a quality service in lead generation?
A business without leads is a dead fish. Leads are the people who want and who need your services. You can convert these people into new and repeating customers.
11. Does the firm provide a quality service in lead nurturing?
Leads expect your care and attention. These people long for quality information, which convinces them to stay in the list. Lead nurturing goes beyond the walls of search engine optimization. Well-nurtured leads will spend money to get your offers.
12. Does the firm provide a quality service in customer acquisition?
Customer acquisition is about respect and trust. You want your firm to attract the curiosity of people to get to you. Once these people get into you (for example: sign up to your weekly newsletter), they will start to respect you. Trust comes when you’re showing care.
13. Does the firm provide a quality service in analytics?
Every thing online is measurable. A marketing firm will oversee the numbers, percentages and graphs for you. The team will record the progress and failures of your campaign.
14. Does the firm provide a team of content writers?
The main responsibility of a content writer goes beyond blogging and e-book writing. Content writers are expected to create a content marketing plan, which consists of keyword research, duration of writing a content, editing the content and content submission to selected social channels.
15. Does the firm provide a team of site developers?
Site developers are in-charge of all the technical aspects of on-page SEO. They create the website from scratch, install necessary plugins and make sure the website remains internet friendly to all types of users.
Usually, a developer isn’t your man for all that you want. He or she needs the assistance of a graphic designer, a webmaster and a content writer to fully optimize the website in search engines.
16. Does the team provide an up-to-date project management tool?
Spreadsheets are old-school. Firms these days need to use an online project management tool (Wrike, Trello, Evernote, Basecamp etc.) to impress you.
You can easily monitor their accomplishments and weekly goals if they’re given an access to this tool.
17. Does the team respond positively to real-time marketing opportunities?
The team needs to stay flexible to whatever changes in online marketing. They must learn how to respond to whatever problems and complains.
Days at work are not happy all the time but if the team works smoothly, they can still convert the most negative event into a positive opportunity.
18. Does the firm set clear, realistic and measurable expectations every month?
It’s the firm’s responsibility to create, re-create and organize their goals and expectations. Every goal results to expectations – that’s why, the expectation needs to be crystal clear. The goal needs to be measurable by their analytics.
19. Does the firm provide a timeline for progress?
Every goal is monitored and measured. Whether the result is positive or negative, the firm needs to include it in their day-to-day timeline.
This timeline serves as their detailed evaluation board to understand what’s going right and what needs improvement.
20. Does the firm conduct a Skype meeting?
Weekly or monthly meetings play a vital role in business transactions.
Whatever the agenda is, either it’s only a scheduled meeting for 30 minutes or one whole morning, a meeting enhances your relationship with the firm.
It melts the iceberg and opens new ideas for long-term realistic development.
21. Does the firm provide training videos and free e-books?
A marketing firm never gets tired to educate people. The consultants will find time to write free e-books and conduct offline workshops. True education goes beyond the unlimited walls of online learning.
22. Does the firm provide a report filled with meaningless metrics?
Reporting isn’t an easy job. Some reports are too detailed but confusing to understand. These days, the firm needs to change that habit. The consultants must submit a succinct and visual report, which consist of summary, colored graphs and bullets.
23. Does the firm provide graphs with accurate interpretations?
A report without graphs is no report at all. To make things easier to digest, the firm’s monthly and annual reports need to include various types of graphs to clearly explain the necessary interpretations. Presentation also becomes more professional with graphs.
REMEMBER: You can’t find a perfect online marketing consulting firm. It never existed. It never was and it never will.
A firm can give the best quality service you need but it provides no one-that-fits-all formula for success.
Success means hard work and requires experimentation. It’s a process and it doesn’t happen overnight.
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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/
Leads Ahoy 
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