Different agencies specialize in different aspects of marketing – digital and/or offline. Hence, collaborating with an agency that’s an expert in their chosen field is essential. It will be a great start when the agency’s specialty aligns with your business goals.

Working with a full-service provider has its pros and cons. There will be advantages of having a full team who are able to create a coherent plan and serve all requirements.

However, the age-old saying of “jack of all trades, master of none” applies as well. Working with companies that specializes in specific fields will enable you to get the best service possible for each channel.

For instance, our main bread and butter at PUNPAGE is providing social media marketing services (specifically Facebook & Instagram). We cover areas of social media marketing such as creating a social media strategy, creating contents, executing campaigns, data-driven Facebook & Instagram advertising, influencer marketing and more. This experience allows us to understand the market of our customers at an extended level, identify specific opportunities and developing an effective data-backed success plan.

Scenario example: You’ve just sent the agency an email which includes a brief of the services you’re looking for and a few days later, the agency replies you with their quotation.

Has this happened to you before?

This is a huge red flag! A passionate agency will always challenge your brief by asking the right questions. This allows them to dig deeper into why you’re interested in their services, and to find out what you truly want to achieve for the company. Some might even advice if your expectations are realistically possible to achieve. Give them the chance to study your brief and ask you questions, and this will give you a glimpse of their strategic approach.

A good agency is transparent about the amount of time they devote to managing, monitoring and optimizing your social media accounts or campaigns. If they try to avoid this question, watch out!

You have to consider how much of their time you are getting for the amount you’re paying.

It is important to consider how the agency communicates and collaborates with you, as this is vital for success. Do they want meetings that are face-to-face or via video communications applications such as Zoom? Does the agency work with remote teams? Can they collaborate with your other agency partners? Will you have direct access to their team or will you be communicating only with an account manager?

Service and accountability should be as critical as the work itself. A good agency will have the systems and processes to ensure these are built into the way they work with you.

I’ll repeat – everything comes down to your business requirements, but it is important to know the precise protocols as it helps to establish a smooth working relationship. This causes lesser time spent on misunderstandings and more time spent on creating constructive work.

An experienced and professional social media marketing agency will have the skills from day one to help guide and transform your marketing strategies. Ask your potential agency what it will be like for the first 30 days of working together. When they start walking you through the deliverables and their procedures, and you will be able to judge if the agency has the correct vision for your brand.

We like to hit the ground running, usually performing in-depth audits of the accounts and digital properties of our clients to determine the areas of greatest strengths and opportunities. Without knowing the history of a campaign and the current digital structure, it is difficult to build a well thought, targeted and strategic roadmap that is optimized and ready to be executed. Otherwise, you’re only adopting a ‘one size fits all’ plan that should be avoided at all costs.

After conducting an audit, we map out exactly what will be done and the tactics to execute to achieve both short and long-term results using data-driven strategies.

Be wary of social media marketing agencies who promise that you can expect significant ROI in a short period.

To produce meaningful results, marketing campaigns focused on social media takes time especially if you’re just starting to build your brand. Once you’ve built your branding, you’re in it for the long haul.

At PUNPAGE, here’s the timeline that we share with our clients who ask about the amount of time it takes to see results when using social media marketing with an advertising budget or media buy:

1 to 3 months: Building of brand on social media with little results.

4 to 12 months: You should see positive results compounding each month. Start to see a growth in social media followers and engagement.

12 months to 24 months: You should see a substantial growth of traffic to your online store or physical location(s), as well as collected a substantial audience using the Facebook Pixel events to Customer acquisition.