“When can we start?” 

In my years working with new clients at 9 Clouds, I’ve heard this question more times than I can count. People typically want to get started yesterday on whatever project or service we’re discussing. 

But that’s not how we do things — and it shouldn’t be how the marketing agency you hire operates either. 

Is Instant Pricing Worth It? 

🚩 No, it is not. 🚩

Not to throw the (entire) industry under the bus, but a lot of marketing agencies are ready to sell clients anything at the drop of a hat. There’s no determination of what will best impact a business’s bottom line. 

As a rule, if you get an instant price from a digital marketing agency, you’re getting a cookie cutter solution. There’s not a way for someone to instantly offer you a price for the best services to fit your business.

You wouldn’t accept a quote from a contractor before they’d seen your home, right? How could they know the proper price for a kitchen remodel without looking at your existing setup and getting information on what you want changed? 

It’s exactly the same with marketing. We have to look at a business’ marketing history and goals before we can determine the best services. 

In the grand scheme of things, an extra week or two is a blip on the timeline if it gives you the opportunity to spend money on the best areas of opportunity (and not waste money on services that don’t fit your business).

It’s well worth a short wait to improve the long-term success of your marketing efforts — but too many leads are unwilling to give the discovery process time, and elect to take the off-the-shelf option. 

[eBook] Questions to Ask Your Agency

Find Yourself a Straight Shooter

Let’s talk honestly about the bottom line. I understand that this post comes off pretty sales-focused, but my intention is really to explain why it benefits businesses to do the research before spending money on a major investment like marketing. 

Even if you never work with 9 Clouds, you should find an agency partner that values your success enough to be honest about the work they do. 

Would our CFO love for me to sell everyone we work with the most robust package? Probably at first. But what happens in three to six months when that option isn’t providing results?

Here’s what happens:

• We lose all of our clients.
• We spend an unnecessary amount of time chasing new leads.
• No one on our team has any job satisfaction.

We thrive on our clients’ wins, so everyone would chase me out of the office if I sold the moon to every lead and robbed them of actual opportunities to succeed. 

The truth about our work is that much of what we bring to the table is the culmination of a ton of hard work and research. Obviously, we love the creative parts, but the data is what drives our decision-making. 

Want to Be a Good Marketer? Stop Fearing Data

Don’t Water Down Your Results 

How do we specifically use data to make those decisions?

We execute an audit to determine how far a client’s money can go. Our specialists for each of our core services review things like:

• Geographic reach
• Location demographics
• Platform competition
• Potential reach

Unless you have an unlimited marketing budget (sidebar: if you do, call me 🤙), you can’t show up on every platform. Spreading your limited budget thinner by trying to be everywhere is only going to dilute your results across the board. 

We take all of this into consideration to help our clients succeed. Whether a client needs to beef up their services or cut back on marketing, we provide data-backed recommendations to improve their return on investment (ROI). 

Do the Best You Can With Your Budget

Now, not to be a hypocrite, but we do have some pricing on our website.

Our starter packages are what we’d consider the lowest viable product to begin marketing. If someone’s budget absolutely doesn’t allow for a custom option, these base packages are a good place to start.

The goal with starter packages is to help businesses who have done no previous marketing build a foundation, at which point better recommendations can be determined. Without any foundational data, those custom recommendations can be tough to define.

For anyone who has a base marketing strategy in place, though, we’d highly recommend a custom approach.

Getting More With Less: How One Auto Dealer Saw Improved Facebook Results After Lowering the Budget

Taking the Time to Get Digital Marketing Right Is Worth It for Your Bottom Line

A lot of business owners and marketing managers go into the first call with our team expecting a proposal and a package price, but we very rarely have that answer on the first call. We have to understand what a business actually needs first.

If you want a really solid marketing recommendation in approximately one to two weeks, then we’re the right agency for you. 

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