Don’t Get Duped: Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Online Marketing Company

4 minutes read
Share this article

Table of Contents

One of the biggest mistakes I see roofers make is the belief that they are not “technical” people.

This belief absolves many of them of taking responsibility for not learning about online marketing and websites.
Since a lot of roofing contractors are older and not a lot of young people are entering the trades this puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to the internet.

Contractors are far behind other niches when it comes to online marketing.

Past negative experiences and online lead generation companies like HomeAdvisor have held a lot of contractors back from understanding what it takes to succeed online.

This stuff is not rocket science.

Anybody can understand it.

You just have to take the time to learn and understand the strategies at a high level.

The two main reasons why marketing campaigns fail is because of incompetence and fraud.

Fraud

Although this is rare fraud still happens with many marketing agencies.

With fraud, you have to use your gut to determine if you are being lied to. Your gut is the best lie detector in the world.
Asking for referrals might prevent this from happening but does not guarantee it.

It’s much harder to get defrauded if you know what to look for.

Don't Get Duped: Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Online Marketing Company marketing company

Don't Get Duped: Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Online Marketing Company marketing company

Incompetence

This is the most common reason why marketing agencies fail to deliver.

How can you determine if the person you are dealing with is competent?

This is tough to determine if you don’t know what to look for.

The best way to do this is to ask the right questions.

What are the right questions?

Keep reading below to find out…

The most important metric

The most important metric is past success within your niche using a particular strategy.

For example, have they had success with previous roofing clients using PPC or Facebook?

Can they show you the results?

A lot of agencies have case studies but they don’t have case studies in your particular niche. This is an important distinction.

The reason is that marketing strategies change depending on the market. What works for an attorney might not work for a contractor.

When you are dealing with a generalist marketing agency you have to know if they have gotten results with other roofers.
If they haven’t and you decide to work with them then you’ll be going into uncharted territory.

I’m not saying they can’t be successful, in fact, if they are good then success won’t be that difficult. But you should keep in mind that there might be a few bumps in the road.

SEO is the exception here. If you are hiring an SEO agency and they are good then they would have productized their service.
Which means that they will consistently deliver the same SEO service/product to all their clients and the niche won’t matter.

You should look for case studies

Case studies are difficult to fake. This is the best type of proof that you can use.

Even if they have had success with past clients this is no guarantee that they will do the same for you.

Marketing has a high failure rate. An entrepreneur understands that marketing is an investment.

An investor knows that not all his investments will provide a return.

This doesn’t prevent him/her to stop trying.

Past negative experiences should not stop your business from growing.

Don't Get Duped: Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Online Marketing Company marketing companyDon't Get Duped: Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Online Marketing Company marketing company

You don’t know what you don’t know

To determine what you need to know you have to first determine what questions you need to ask. The answers to these questions will help you determine if you are making a good hire.

Questions to ask before hiring a PPC agency:

  • Do you use landing pages?
  • Do you have clients in my city?
  • What are the expectations?
  • What’s the conversion rate of the landing page?
  • Do you track the calls?
  • What is the average conversion rate of the leads?
  • Reports?

Questions to Ask when hiring a Facebook Ads agency:

  • Do you use a marketing funnel?
  • What is the offer that you are providing to prospects? Free Roof Inspections, Gift Cards etc..
  • What is the expected conversion rate?
  • Will you be sending reports?
  • What are KPI (Key Performance Indicators) will you be looking for?
    Reports?

Questions to ask before hiring an SEO agency:

  • How will you improve our website rankings?
  • What kind of backlinks will you be linking to?
  • Do you follow Google’s best practices?
  • Can you share some information on your past client’s results?
  • Will you be sending reports?
  • Can you guarantee that our site will rank #1 for a major search term? If they answer yes then this is a big red flag. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking
  • What are the timelines for ranking?

Reports & Tracking

Your marketing partner should track everything. I can’t tell how many marketing agencies don’t track their results.

Without proper tracking, you will never get an understanding of what is working or not. Tracking provides a compass on your journey to your marketing destination.

Here are a couple of examples of what your reports should include. They can be sent weekly or on a monthly basis.

  • PPC
  • Cost Per Click (CPC)
  • Avg. Position
  • Conversion Rate
  • Cost/Lead
  • Amount Spent
  • #of leads
  • Web Leads datasheet
  • Facebook
  • Cost Per Click (CPC)
  • Conversion Rate
  • Cost/Lead
  • Amount Spent
  • #of leads
  • Web Leads datasheet
  • Facebook Relevance Score

All SEO reports should include a few things:

  • summary of activities
  • search traffic
  • search rankings
  • conversions

Conclusion

Information is power.

The more information you have the better your decision making will be.

I don’t expect you to become an overnight digital marketing expert but these questions will help you determine if you are hiring the right marketing partner for your company.

Even if they answer these questions with flying colors and you are impressed by their expertise this does not guarantee success.

Marketing will always have a high failure rate.

But that should not stop you from doing whatever it takes to succeed. The company’s future depends on having an online marketing strategy that works.

Latest Posts

Book a Free Demo

Check Availability

in your local market

enter your zip to get started

Check Availability

in your local market

enter your zip to get started