Working together
I need marketing help, but I don’t want to get burned or hand my business to mystery people.
Start small, know who is doing the work, and keep enough access to understand what is happening.
Short answer
Be careful, not cynical. Look for transparency, alignment, and a reasonable first step.
The details
The full answer.
A bad experience should make you more thoughtful, not permanently stuck. Marketing is full of experiments, and no honest partner can promise to solve every business problem at once.
The important questions are practical: who is working on the account, what do you own, how will you communicate, what are you testing first, and what happens if the first idea does not work?
What we’d do first
Choose a partner you can talk to directly. Start with a focused project or campaign, keep control of your important accounts where possible, and build confidence over time.
More questions
Related questions.
Working together
Marketing people keep talking over my head.
If you cannot understand the recommendation, it is hard to make a good decision about your business.
Read the answerWhat’s working
How do I know if my marketing is actually working?
Track what you can, change one thing at a time, and use the business, not a prettier report, as the scorecard.
Read the answerBudget
How much should I spend on marketing?
There is no magic percentage. Start with an amount you can learn from without making the business nervous.
Read the answerWant help with your version of this?
Tell us what’s going on.
Show us your version of it. We’ll take a look and tell you what we see.