Are Your Outside Marketing Resources Giving You B.S. ? (Part 1)

We always cringe when we hear stories like these about marketing agencies or freelancers that potential clients have sadly hired.

So, we’ve compiled our “Top Telltale B.S. Phrases” that need careful scrutiny – because they may mean you should turn and run the other way . . . (and this is just part 1)

1. “We Know Strategy.”

The client ran a school to train potential chefs. He needed a lead generation plan. But he never asked each agency he worked with how they would help him generate leads.

Agency #1 created wireframes to map out a new website. The resulting website was beautiful – but wasn’t effective at driving the leads the school needed.

Enter Agency #2. The client realized the design of the website was fine, but he needed better content. So, he asked the agency, “Are you good at strategy?” And he got the answer, “Oh yes, we know strategy.”

Never ask a question like this that can be answered “yes” or “no.”

Ask a “how” question, like – “HOW is your strategy going to drive more leads for me?”

And then always ask for proof – “What have you done before like this and what were the results?”

What he should have heard was something like this: “the entire purpose of your website is lead generation. So, here’s our plan to help the website generate leads . . .”  And that plan should have included a discussion of lead generation offers, how the offer would be introduced on the home page and key course pages, and what the lead generation path would be on the website. But the agency produced nothing like that, because they didn’t understand lead generation.

When the client came to us, we wrote him a lead generation proposal for the website. The client’s response: “I know you have a real strategy, because your proposal was nothing but lead generation strategy.”

You need to understand WHAT KIND of strategy the agency is proposing.

If the entire purpose of your website is lead generation, you need to hear about lead generation strategy.

2. “We know Lead Generation.”

A website design agency needed to generate more leads. They hired an agency that supposedly specialized in lead generation for other agencies.

The “lead generation agency” proposed to send out an email to the types of companies the website design agency wanted to reach.

But the only call to action was to contact the website design agency to learn more. (So, they were only going after “A” leads – those who were interested in talking to the agency today.)

This effort was emailing cold “suspects” – companies that had likely never heard of this website design agency nor had they ever seen the agency’s work.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to allow the suspects to click a link to fill out a simple form to access the website design agency’s portfolio?  That would have created actual leads with which the website design agency could have followed up.

When I asked the “lead generation agency” why they wouldn’t want to include a “lower commitment offer,” here was their answer (and you can’t make this up . . .):

“But then we’d have to follow up . . .”

I asked the website design agency if this “lead generation agency” had produced any leads from the previous emails they had sent out on their behalf.

The response: ZERO (which is what we would have expected from a cold email with no offer, to suspects that had never heard of the agency or their work before).

Before you hire anyone for lead generation, ask them specifically how they are going to generate A, B, and C leads – and why. Ask to see what similar programs they’ve done – and their results.

3. “We know Email.”

The “lead generation agency” was going to send out a single email to their list of suspects. “We specialize in email,” they said.

But that single email didn’t pique the interest of those suspects . . .

It didn’t talk about results the website design firm had achieved for their clients.

It didn’t talk about how the website design agency had solved a problem for a client.

It didn’t highlight any of the agency’s work.

So, the email didn’t give the recipient a strong reason to contact the website design agency at all.

Perhaps this agency was good at acquiring email lists of companies (or perhaps they had built their own list.)  Clearly, this “email specialist” didn’t understand how to write sales copy – or generate leads.

Always ask to see examples of an agency’s best email campaigns.

If the copy isn’t interesting, if it doesn’t make you want to read more, if it doesn’t make you want to take the next step (or if the next logical step is missing), they won’t spend your money wisely.

If you’re doing lead generation, you need someone experienced in lead generation.

What does “experienced” mean? Ask to see some of their best work and ask what the results were for each.

If a resource can’t tell you how they increased traffic or leads – by how much — and what the cost per visit or lead was, they’re not the resource for you.

Gone are the days of websites that just “look pretty” or hiring resources because “their work looks good” or “they’ve worked for (insert big name here).”

You need measurable results for your marketing budget. Let’s stop being fooled by these B.S. lines.