As a business owner, you understand that even if you have the skill set and the time, you should never handle every aspect of your business. That’s why you’ve been working with a digital marketing agency.
Whether your current team is in-house and consists of a few employees or is a marketing agency with dozens of industry experts, they may not be a match for your finance business. Here are five signs that it’s time to make a move on to a different agency.
Tasks Are Slipping Through the Cracks
When you start to notice marketing goals aren’t being met (like posting to your social media platforms so many times a week) or that your marketing team isn’t catching important changes like a slipped search engine page ranking has started to slip, it’s time to take a step back and make sure your current marketing agency is still a match for your goals and needs.
If you started with an internal team of existing employees, their list of responsibilities may have grown out of control. If you’ve been working with an external marketing agency for several years, your company’s growth could have surpassed their own. Either way, tasks that are slipping through the cracks means that it’s time to find a team who can handle your marketing needs.
Minimal Progress
Handing over your marketing to a team, whether internal or external, is an example of smart business practice. Even though you know what you want to accomplish with your marketing, you also know that you have enough on your plate. Having someone else in charge means you can focus on what you do best.
But not everyone understands this principle. For example, internal teams can take too much ownership when marketing for their place of employment. They’ve been asked to do it all, so they want to prove they can do it all. The problem is, it’s rare to come across one person who can write a blog, design an infographic, master SEO, be in touch with the latest social media algorithms and trends, develop a brand voice, piece together an email campaign, and shoot a video series.
Marketing agencies are guilty of this, too. As they try to keep up with market demands, they sometimes promise more than they can deliver. If you’re finding that your marketing team is putting their pride before your progress, it’s time to move on to a team who can handle it all (and will find a solution when they can’t).
Your Marketing Feels Outdated
Outdated marketing material is almost worse than no marketing at all. While companies who ignore marketing aren’t reaching potential leads, outdated material is reaching audiences. And it’s leaving a bad impression.
How current is the research your marketing team is using? Whether you use an internal or external team, ask the next time you touch base. You may be surprised to know they’re using third-party data, like nearly 90% of other companies, instead of curating their own for your specific marketing goals and needs. If your marketing isn’t being strategized around accurate data, it could be outdated. Here are a few other signs to look out for.
Templated marketing
Have you ever been looking at a competitors website or social media posts only to find that the content sounds eerily familiar? Templated newsletters, social media posts, and landing pages are an outdated and, quite frankly, lazy approach to marketing that’s still common practice in far too many marketing companies.
If the only difference between your content and that of a competitor is the business name, you’re not getting the personalized marketing you need to succeed.
Your social media posts are all about your business
Wait, isn’t that what your social media platform is for? While it’s certainly a strong marketing tool, a social media platform should be used to share a variety of posts.
Instead of being treated like a billboard that screams a promotional message about your company, social media should be viewed as an ongoing dialogue with followers. Ask them questions. Share content you think they’ll enjoy, even if you didn’t create it. Get to know your audience at a pace that makes them comfortable.
Your marketing has little variety
Is your marketing team only focused on your blog, or sending out weekly newsletters? Is the bulk of your marketing efforts going towards creating short social media posts?
A marketing team that understands today’s trends will know you need to have a variety of marketing material available to your audience, including infographics, white papers, blogs, and social media content.
Your Website Isn’t Original
When a potential client is researching their options, they’re likely to visit several websites to compare services, reviews, and prices. Unfortunately, too many companies in the finance niche are using templated websites that help them blend in with their competition rather than stick out.
A personalized design and approach that matches your brand, geared towards your audience, is crucial. Nearly half (44%) of today’s consumers react negatively when a brand’s website doesn’t make an effort to create a personalized experience.
You don’t offer personalized experiences
Nearly half (44%) of today’s consumers react negatively when a brand’s website doesn’t make an effort to create a personalized experience.
If you haven’t jumped on the personalization train yet, your content approach is outdated. It doesn’t take much to add a reader’s name to their newsletter copy or design unique landing pages for specific locations or other demographics.
You’re Still In Charge
When you have a marketing team, you should be able to put marketing-related tasks in the back of your mind and tackle your own to-do list. But if your team seems uncertain about what you want or how you want it done, it could be time to move on to a different agency.
An experienced and confident marketing agency won’t perform as an order taker by delivering a requested list of one-dimensional requests. Instead, they’ll know how to guide your marketing strategy and bring it to life with minimal direction.
While it can take some time to understand your goals and marketing needs, your team should be able to work independently most of the time. If confusion seems like a constant caveat, the issue is unlikely to resolve itself.
Your Industry Isn’t Being Well-Represented
Does your marketing content seem to not match your industry? This can happen for two reasons.
- You’re working with an internal team who understands your business, but not marketing.
- You’re working with an external team who understands marketing, but not your business.
In both situations, there’s no bridge to connect your industry and the marketing it needs to succeed. The only solution here is to work with a marketing agency with extensive experience in your industry. For example, NYB Creative specializes in creating custom marketing plans for finance, insurance, and real estate businesses.
Whether your marketing team can’t keep up, is getting in their own way, or is putting out marketing material that is outdated and hurting your brand, finding a new marketing team sooner than later is a must.
To see if NYB Creative is the marketing team you’ve been dreaming of, get in touch with a team member today.
