7 Questions to Ask Your Marketing Partner

When looking for a prospective marketing partner, you must do your due diligence. That means asking tough questions unapologetically to ensure you have the best fit for your needs. Today, we’ll discuss seven vital questions to ask any potential marketing partner. The answers will give you critical insight that will help you determine if they are suitable.  

1. What Is Your Experience in My Industry?

The answer to this question can be very enlightening. First, you’ll know if the agency has done its due diligence to understand your business. Pay attention to how they describe your industry and your products or services. Are they giving you information that is insightful and touches on your potential challenges, threats, and opportunities, and how they can respond to them?  

Secondly, this question gives you insight into other campaigns that they have created for competitors or industry leaders in your sector. Pay attention to innovation and creativity in their campaigns and any experience in emerging or niche industries. While your marketing partner needs to have a successful track record, having it in your specific industry may not be as critical when compared to their other strengths. 

2. What Digital and Traditional Marketing Capabilities Do You Have?

Traditional advertising has a vital role in the 21st century. Marketing channels such as radio provide unparalleled local reach. What you are looking for in a potential marketing partner is how they leverage traditional platforms and why.  How do they use their knowledge of your target audience to determine the most effective way to reach them offline?

Listen to how they describe the importance of reaching local audiences through traditional marketing methods while reaching new or even global consumers through digital strategies. Do they discuss the importance of continuity and consistency of the message across platforms? What digital strategies do they employ, such as SEO, social media, blogs, emails, videos, paid advertising, or other techniques? Which platforms do they believe are the most effective for influencing your ideal customer?

3. What Does Your Process Look Like?

You want to know that your potential marketing partner has a clear methodology for growing your business, reaching new market segments, and acquiring new customers. There are some essential components to creating a successful marketing campaign that they should be able to describe in some detail, including:

• How they customize a strategy based on your goals and objectives.
• What types of research and analysis they use to design the ideal strategy, such as SWOT, competitive analysis, or others.
• How they customize your message to align with your mission statement while setting you apart from your competitors.
• What methods they use to measure the success of the marketing campaigns?

4. Do You Know My Audience?

Again, if the marketing agency you are interviewing has done its due diligence, they should be able to answer this question with some confidence. However, they should discuss the techniques they’ll use to do more in-depth analysis to uncover new opportunities for reaching your ideal customer. What mix of quantitative and qualitative research will they employ to learn more about the behavior and influences of your audience? Look for some of the following:

• Communications assessments
• Audience surveys
• Historical analysis
• Analytics

5. What Success Stories Can You Share That Relate to My Industry?

This question heralds back to the first one and is very indicative of how they identified the particular needs, challenges, and opportunities of a business in your industry. What is essential for you is how this agency can leverage that success to create the right marketing plan for your business. Just like a customer success story results in increased engagement for your consumers, how a marketer solves problems and builds success for others in your industry is a compelling story. Your ideal partner will be able to contrast and correlate how those successes will benefit you. 

6. What Is Your Competitive Advantage Over Other Prospective Marketing Partners?

Everyone wants a marketing strategy that gives them a leg up on the competition. When looking for your optimal choice for a marketing partner, you also want to know what makes them the better choice over others.  Remember, this partner is supposed to be an expert in crafting a strategy to give you a competitive advantage. If they can’t describe their own, consider it a red flag. 

7. How Does Your Approach Align With Our ROI Goals? 

Beware of the slick sales presentation where you are inundated with terms and jargon that are not backed up with substance. A competent and experienced marketing partner will differentiate themselves with how they communicate their strategy. They should have at least an initial idea of your goals and be prepared to show you some objectives you should target. Finally, the right choice is the one that can clearly explain how they craft a marketing strategy that aligns with those goals. 

Choosing the Right Marketing Partner 

You take the time to research and vet most investments. One of the most strategic assets for your business is the right marketing partner. An essential step to a successful marketing partnership is due diligence. By asking strategic questions, you can glean critical information that will allow you to judge whether a prospective marketing partner will be a good fit for your business.