When you read this headline what is your reaction? Did you think that I’d mostly talk about what you should expect from your digital marketing company? If that’s so, you’d only be half right. This is a crucial beginning, but half the work is on you — your assistance building a relationship with your agency will greatly impact your future with your firm.

So if all this is true, where do you begin? Do you wait for the digital marketing company to establish the parameters for communication? Most often the agency will do this; they will set up monthly (or more frequent) campaign progress meetings with you. You can direct the timing and content of these meetings. Let your agency know your preference for the day and time for the meetings and that you would like to receive a meeting agenda the day before the meeting occurs. This will give you time to prepare.

On the agency side it’s their job to honestly represent all information about you online and continually review competitors. The digital marketing agency should learn where you stand in your industry and should be able to accurately represent your value proposition to your audience. How will they do this? You can provide them with all of the background materials they need to immerse themselves in the intricacies of your business. It’s not necessary (or even possible in most cases) for your agency to become an expert in your business. What you do want them to do is develop a deep understanding of your business niche and how your company offers unique value to your customers. Without this knowledge your campaigns will never mature to what they could be. You and your digital marketing company can avoid this impasse with a few Q&A sessions that align your goals with your specialized service offerings. Let’s look at some of the topics you can discuss with your agency to build a great relationship:

1) Competitors: Usually a digital marketing company will ask you to name your top competitors. The idea is to see if any of them are positioned high in Google search results and then backwards engineer the success – what are they doing to gain these positions? Also your agency can review competitors’ offers, calls to action, social media accounts and other communications to discern how they are presenting themselves and their products and services. Whatever information you can impart about your competitors to your agency will save valuable time that your digital marketing company can put towards campaign strategy.

2) Availability: Your digital marketing company will likely make every effort to schedule progress update meetings with you at your convenience. It’s vital that you attend these meetings unless something extraordinary comes up, as your input is crucial to the ongoing success of the campaign. For example, during a discussion about organic traffic, you might happen to mention a new service that you plan on rolling out. In turn, your agency might point out that it could create a blog post announcing the service and then develop social media content to promote it. This conversation might not happen at all if you didn’t attend the meeting, or at best, it would be delayed, and hence the buzz you want would be delayed as well.

3) Sharing marketing materials: Your digital marketing company will need some help getting up to speed on all of your products and services. As soon as you begin working with them, forward them pertinent brochures, videos, fact sheets and other information they will need to understand your business and your unique value proposition. Remember to note if you have won any awards or recognition. Point your agency to your press release archive and your online newsroom (if you have one) so they can view your media kit.

4) How to track campaign progress: Usually your digital marketing company will have a process in place for tracking campaign milestones and goals achieved. Don’t leave it totally to them to do this – let them know what data you need them to track. Your agency can (and should) provide you with custom reporting. This is the only kind of reporting that is truly valuable and it will become an important part of your decision-making. It’s fine if they update a reporting dashboard with the latest month’s figures, but you also want to know how many people downloaded your e-book, how many liked the new offer, etc. You may need to guide the agency more than once if your needs change. Don’t worry; many firms work hard to anticipate your needs and know how to evolve reports over time.

These are but a few of the ways to build a solid working relationship with your digital marketing company. When you and your agency commit to open lines of communication you will have removed one of the major barriers to online marketing success.

Organically serves customers in Gatlinburg, TN, and also Sevierville and Knoxville. We’re your local digital marketing agency that also provides campaigns for national brands. We believe in transparency and forming great relationships for your success!