You have been limping along and trying to do marketing and public relations in house with little to no results?

There are 5 CIMple considerations in looking for and hiring an outsourced marketing or public relations agency:

1. 1. Does the agency you are considering have experience marketing for the service or product area you and your company focus on? If yes, great. If no, that is great, too! There are pros to hiring an agency with experience, as their learning curve is greatly reduced. On the flip side, an agency that has a solid track record of success with various types of businesses has the ability to look at your business with a set of fresh eyes and have no preconceived ideas on how you or your competitors have been marketing. This can often times bring fresh insight to marketing and positioning your business.
   2. Ask the question, how long have most of their clients been with them? If it is well over three years, which is the industry average, that is a solid agency with a proven track record of getting results for their clients, or they wouldn’t continue to retain and partner with the agency.
   3. Ask the question, what is the turnover of key executives or account service people? The last thing you want is a revolving door of people servicing your account.
   4. Ask the question, what is the driving force behind the agency? If they drive with creative and not strategy first, that could be a serious problem. Effective marketing and growth always comes by laying down the strategy first and following with creative and tactics.
   5. Very important, do you really connect and like the people you will be working with? Does your gut and intuition tell you this is an agency that really cares about their clients and their success?