Hiring a digital marketing agency can seem like a smart next step when you’re trying to grow.
You have a product or service that works and a target market that needs it. You’ve built something with real potential. But now you’re hitting a ceiling.
- Your lead flow is inconsistent.
- Your marketing feels scattered.
- You’re doing too much work yourself.
You know it’s time to bring in support.
This is when most business owners and nonprofit leaders start looking for a marketing agency. The challenge is knowing which agency will help you grow and which will give you even more to manage.
There’s a significant difference between marketing agencies that churn out activity and strategic partners that drive real growth, but that difference isn’t always apparent until you’re deep in the work.
Before you sign a contract with an agency, ask yourself (and them) these questions.
1. “Are we leading with strategy or tactics?”
The traditional agency approach is set up to sell “deliverables” – tactics like ad campaigns, blogs, social media content, and visual graphics. Without a clear growth strategy aligned to your organization’s goals, these deliverables are just noise.
- Ad impressions that don’t drive leads because your targeting isn’t aligned with your audience.
- Email marketing that doesn’t drive meaningful engagement or follow-through.
- Thought-leadership content that ranks on Page 1 of Google but doesn’t convert leads to customers.
A partner will begin by assessing your business to understand your customers (and targets), current performance, internal capacity, revenue/funding drivers, and – most importantly – your growth goals. Then, they’ll work backward to create a strategic roadmap that helps you achieve those goals.
This plan offers the clarity needed to prevent wasting budget and time on something you know won’t work.
2. “Is this a custom solution or something everybody gets?”
Pre-built packages are an efficient way for agencies to set scopes of work, but they rarely fit the specific needs of an organization.
Consider that you need to redesign your website to match your customer journey.
A pre-set package that includes so many pages, forms, and graphics might not lead your prospects through your funnel.
What if you need to reach out to your donors more often to ensure they’re staying connected?
A bundle of email messages won’t establish the cadence and follow-up necessary to tell your story.
A fast-growing business with a founder-led sales model needs a very different approach than a nonprofit looking to diversify its donor base. Both organizations have unique goals, constraints, and strengths that pre-built agency packages often cannot meet.
3. “How are you connecting marketing to sales?”
Agencies face the same challenge businesses and nonprofits face: connecting marketing and sales to show the complete picture. Marketing shouldn’t just generate attention. It needs to drive forward movement for sales.
Unfortunately, many agencies operate in isolation from your sales or fundraising team. They run campaigns, hand off leads, and then move on without knowing what happens next. Of course, not all agencies are at fault. They have to be given access to sales to coordinate across the entire funnel.
Asking this question ensures they’re making the effort to ensure your people and systems are talking to each other, so you can see your prospects move from marketing to sales, from sales to onboarding, and from onboarding to customer success.
We talk more about this approach in A Beginner’s Guide to Revenue Architecture »
4. “Who is actually working on my account?”
One of the most common frustrations we hear is that the people who pitch the work at a marketing agency are not the people doing it.
Have you been in a meeting with a senior team during the sales process but then been handed off to a junior staffer who’s probably juggling too many accounts to pay yours enough attention?
That’s how many agencies operate.
We recommend looking for a marketing partner who puts a senior-level professional – someone who thinks like a business owner or a nonprofit leader (not just a marketer) – at the helm of your account. This person should be responsible for scheduling meetings, reporting results, and managing the work.
So you don’t have to be.
5. “How do you measure success, and how often will we talk about it?”
Impressions, click-through, and bounce rates are easy to track but don’t always reflect what matters to your organization.
Metrics like this matter, but they need to be connected to meaningful outcomes for your business or nonprofit – outcomes like revenue and pipeline growth or donations and engagement.
Ask your marketing partner to tie your reporting to your bottom line:
- Did these impressions grow our audience?
- What percentage converted and at what stage?
- How much revenue came in from this campaign?
- How do we repeat it, or should we pivot?
The Bottom Line
By asking the right questions and seeking the necessary answers, you can find a partner focused on results – not just deliverables.
At RevUp Growth Partners, we help businesses and nonprofits grow smarter and more sustainably.
We built our business model to address the gaps we saw in the traditional agency approach, like one-size-fits-all packages and campaigns that check boxes without delivering results. When we approach your marketing, our work is grounded in alignment, strategy, and expert execution – and it ties directly to your goals.
If you’re looking for a strategic partner who will think like part of your team and build a plan around your goals, we’d love to connect.