As a full-service marketing agency we talk with business owners and professional practice managers from across the nation who represent a wide variety of business niches. Many have worked with agencies in the past and have concerns based on those experiences. For other owners, this might be their first time considering retaining an outside agency.
As you might imagine, the questions that owners are asking are often very similar. In fact, I’ve identified eight of these questions as being nearly universal from all the prospective clients we talk with. In this post I want to answer these questions.
1. How long have you been in the marketing industry?
I started this company in 2003. Prior to launching Alchemy I had built and sold three successful businesses. (Full disclosure, I had also started and shut down a couple of efforts that were not profitable.)
My motivation for starting an advertising/marketing agency came to me as I interviewed local business owners as well as several who were trying to launch new businesses. What I quickly realized was that these men and women had exceptional expertise in their chosen business fields, but did not understand how to attract customers, clients, and patients in a consistent and affordable way.
Based on my experience building my own companies, I felt this was a market niche I could fill.
You may recall that in 2003 the Internet was in its infancy. “Dial Up” was the only way to get to the world wide web. Marketing channels like Facebook and YouTube didn’t exist. Google did exist but had not yet developed the algorithms and strategies that would make it the dominant force that it is today.
In fact, when I started this business we were primarily a traditional advertising agency that offered “big agency” services without the $10K to $15K monthly fees. We did things like fax blasting, setting up phone rooms, multi-media buys, and direct mail. Interestingly enough, we still do these last two for several of our clients.
In 2006 we began to transition to more online work. We built our first websites and began doing what at that time passed for search engine optimization. Each year we incorporated more and more digital strategies for our clients to the point where at this time, about 85% of what we offer is Internet based, the remainder more traditional ad agency work.
2. How will you integrate my current marketing tactics with your strategies?
Before we enter into an agreement with a new client we have a “discovery meeting.” This is typically an hour or so conversation where we learn more about you and your business. We learn about your goals for the business and what you have been doing to achieve them, as well as what’s worked and what hasn’t brought the return you hoped for.
This meeting is also an opportunity for you to ask questions about our company, team, and processes.
If, after this conversation, we believe that we can help you meet your goals, we will create a proposal that includes specific marketing strategies that will help accomplish those goals while staying within your current budget and capacity for growth.
This understanding of your current capacity is critical. Frequently an agency will launch a total blitz that results in more calls than your team can properly serve. That is not doing you a favor! If I bring you 100 prospects and you can effectively work with 20 then all we’ve done is upset 80 potential customers. It is far better to introduce marketing at a pace and scale that increases over time. This lets you grow your business, increase revenue, and then add more marketing budget as your capacity allows for more growth.
Since we work primarily with local and newer companies, we almost always design a strategy that encourages steady growth over time. This is one reason why we have clients who have been with us since 2007!
3. How will you work towards enhancing my brand’s voice and online presence?
One fact that I believe makes Alchemy unique, is that for more than 20 years now we have had the opportunity to work with over 300 different businesses across several dozen business niches. This gives us a diverse perspective when it comes to helping our clients express their individuality within often highly competitive local markets.
Sometimes, particularly with younger companies, we have the opportunity to work with the owners to clearly define their unique brand and ideal customers. From this foundation we can develop the specific strategies that will best help them enter into the fray and grab market share.
For more mature companies that have a well-defined brand, we will frequently expand their reach into new customer segments or nearby communities by leveraging their identity with strategies they have not tried before.
An advantage of our national presence is the cross pollination of ideas from other business niches and parts of the country. For example, a marketing idea from a roofing contractor client in Atlanta that we implemented for a garage door company in Boise, helped them grow by more than 50% in one year.
In another instance we applied a unique message developed for a pest control company in California to a CPA practice in Ohio.
What I think is important to realize when it comes to helping our clients create or enhance their brand image, is the fact that we are not limited to “cookie cutter” strategies that are proposed to every prospective client we talk with. We can approach each new client opportunity as a unique business and with our 20+ years of experience, create systems and tools to take their brand to the next level.
4. Will I have a dedicated account manager or point of contact?
Yes, there will be one person that will be following up with you and that you can always contact with a question or concern. Part of their responsibility is to be in regular communication with the other team members who are working on specific fulfillment tasks that we have implemented for your business.
Our team is distributed, we are not all in the same office. If you have a question that cannot be answered immediately, it is generally less than one business day to get the information needed.
5. How often will I receive reports and updates?
Each month we provide a comprehensive report detailing the activities and results for all the programs we have implemented for your business. This will enable you to easily determine the return on your marketing investment.
For some of our products, particularly paid ad management programs, we also provide mid-month summaries.
6. Are there any long-term contracts involved?
Our normal agreement is written for a 12-month period. At the end of six months we include an option for someone to end the agreement by providing 30 days notice.
Our “unwritten” policy is that if, after several months of working together, you don’t feel like we are helping you meet your goals, and we can’t come to an accommodation together, I will release your agreement without penalty. I can say that in 20 years that has only happened one time.
There are some exceptions. Some of our paid advertising and SEO products require a minimum number of months. This can be from three months to twelve, depending on the program. We’ll make these policies clear as part of developing a proposal for you.
7. What kind of input will you need from me?
Before we can begin implementing any strategies there is an initial questionnaire that we will ask you to complete. This will tell us about your current assets, social media platforms for example, and how our team will be able to access them if we’re providing a service that requires us to do so.
Other information we may require would be digital copies of logos or branding tools, images you’d like us to use, key members of your team that we may need to interact with, or other logistical information to help get started working for you quickly.
For the first few months we prefer that you are available for an hour or so to review the monthly report. This helps you understand better what we are doing and gives us feedback on how you are experiencing our service. After that it is your option whether we continue these conversations.
8. How will my data be handled and protected?
As a part of our onboarding process for any new client, we create folders using Google drive. These are password protected, with each individual folder only accessible by our team members that work on the specific product(s) we are storing your data for.
If our service requires that you provide customer/client/patient lists, we keep these in separate folders and only collect basic contact and email address information. No personal data beyond these basics is ever required for the work we do.
We also perform regular data backups that are stored offsite from our main office. Should there ever be a fire or other issue where our office computer systems are damaged or destroyed, we can easily restore from backup and continue with just a brief interruption.
9. Can you provide me with case studies or examples of similar businesses you have helped?
Absolutely. There is a page on our website that offers several case studies from different types of businesses. You can see that here: https://thealchemyconsultinggroup.com/case-studies/. In addition we have numerous examples of results our clients have achieved from various paid advertising campaigns. Please ask and we would be happy to share these with you.
10. How will you define and measure success for my campaign?
This is something that we will do together. As part of our discovery process we work with you to identify the specific metrics that are most important for you to achieve your business goals. Our monthly report will reference these and evaluate how each strategy we have employed is contributing to the objectives you want to achieve.
One of the values of working with Alchemy is our ability to employ a variety of strategies that work synergistically to help you meet your business goals. For example, a search engine optimization program is designed to move your website to the first page of the search engines. Did you know that the online reputation of your company is an integral part of the search engine algorithms that determine placement in search results? Focusing just on the details of an SEO program without considering the importance of your business’ reputation will limit the effectiveness of the SEO work.
A similar relationship exists between paid advertising and retargeting.
During our discovery meeting and proposal review conversations, we’ll work with you to incorporate the programs that will provide the highest return on your advertising investment at the budget level you are able to start with. Then, over time, as you experience the results of the campaigns, we can add new products that will help achieve your business goals more quickly.
11. Do you offer any guarantees?
It is unusual for an agency to offer a guarantee, particularly since we don’t have control over your sales team’s effectiveness. We might provide 20 prospect opportunities, but if your sales team can only convert two of these to customers is that a reflection on our work?
That being said, we are confident enough in our products that we do offer some guarantees. For example, our “Results First SEO” program is structured so that you only pay when one of your keywords is on the first page of one or more of the four primary search engines.
Our trademarked Marketing 3-Pak® and Core 5® come with a guarantee that says if we don’t meet the goals that were agreed upon for the first quarter, we will work at no cost to you until they are achieved.
12. Will I own all of the creative assets developed during our work together?
Absolutely. I am aware of horror stories of agencies that will “hold hostage” a client’s website and demand an additional fee to release it if the client cancels services. In my opinion, this is nothing more than theft.
Any websites, landing pages, email sequences, reports, graphics…all belong to you as our client. If we are hosting your website or landing pages, we will work with you to transfer them to your own hosting account should you decide to cancel our services.
13. What are the costs involved, and how are they structured?
There are two ways that we work with our clients.
In some cases we accept a one-time project, building a website is an example of this. For any short term engagement our proposal will include the full cost of the work we agree to, as well as the payment terms. In most cases we require 50% of the fee at the time we start a project with the remainder due when our client accepts the finished work.
Far more common are ‘retainer agreements’ where we are engaged to provide a variety of services over a period of time. Here again our proposal will clearly define the scope of work we will be doing and the monthly retainer amount for those services. As I mentioned earlier in this article, we typically structure our engagements for a 12-month period with a cancellation provision after six months.
One of the facts about our agency that I’m most proud of is how long we keep our client relationships. The national average in my business is just four months! That is, a client stays with an agency for just four months before canceling services. Our longest client relationship started in 2007 and we have many clients who have been with us for 5+ years. Our team does an excellent job at meeting our client’s goals and expectations, which is why we have this retention rate.
There are certainly other questions that we hear, but some or all of these eight are consistently a part of nearly all conversations with a prospective client. I hope this has been helpful and answered some of your questions about working with Alchemy. If you would like to have a further conversation please contact me directly by email at: gordon@thealchemyconsultinggroup.com or by calling 877-978-2110.
