Stop Wasting Money: 4 Things to Look for When Evaluating Marketing Agencies in Dallas, TX

Finding the right marketing partner can sometimes feel like you’re trapped in an episode of Love is Blind. You’re hearing what they’re saying, they sound pretty great, but you don’t actually know what they’re going to look like or act like once you actually get together. Over and over again I hear from business owners who have been burned by well-intentioned marketing agencies/staff because of one main reason: marketing was not aligned with business goals. No amount of fancy designs, cool videos, or amazing strategy can make up for spending money that does not yield results.

The Courtside Group is a marketing and creative agency in Dallas, but this blog isn’t from Courtside nor is it about Courtside, this blog is being written by Kyle Fenner, the Founder of The Courtside Group. Before I started Courtside I worked on two other businesses, and since they were both tech businesses, I evaluated and/or hired marketing agencies to support our business. I worked with some amazing people who were very talented, but it would frustrate me when I felt like they didn’t understand how we made money. When I would talk to other business owners, I found that this feeling was fairly ubiquitous. Business owners wanted (and needed) marketing support in the areas of website development, graphic design, social media strategy, and video production, but they were hiring the wrong people. They were hiring vendors, not partners. In this blog I hope to help you learn from my mistakes so that you can ask the right questions to hire the right partners.

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Do they openly share their strategy during sales calls, or is everything hidden behind their paywall?

I have no problem with expensive consulting engagements, especially if they’re actually needed and valuable, but oftentimes agencies realize they can deliver a couple sentences worth of value in an 80-page strategy deck that was 98% boilerplate jargon. Look for partners who are open and honest about their ideas and strategies. These agencies and individuals will continue to be open and honest throughout your engagement, while those who hide everything will continue to look for opportunities to raise their scope and make more money at every turn.

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Are they willing to take accountability for KPIs?

Most marketers do not want to take accountability for KPIs, and I completely understand why. Marketing attribution is quite a finicky beast, especially for B2B companies or high-ticket B2C companies; however, you and your partners need to be aligned on KPIs that they can be accountable for, and if they’re unable to commit to any numbers, it likely means they know they won’t hit them. Maybe that’s okay, for example if you just need a video done and you want to hire a production partner who doesn’t want to be responsible for the distribution of the video, but it’s something to be looking for.

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Do they know everything?

Run for the freaking hills when you bump into the person who knows every answer for how to grow your business.. Marketing is both an art and a science. Artists know that what is viewed as a masterpiece can be quite and confusing at times. Picasso regarded one of his most famous paintings, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," as “a complete failure”. Scientists know that they have to create a hypothesis, test that hypothesis, and then evaluate. Yet some marketers believe that they know exactly how to crack the code for your business, and they’ll tout the awards they bought as proof. The best marketers are those who know that they don’t know everything. They’ll work hard to experiment, test, and iterate, always avoiding putting all chips in one basket.

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Are they asking questions about your business, and do you believe they could articulate your business model back to you in less than 30 seconds?

Personally, I think this might be the most important item on this list, because how on earth are you supposed to market a business you don’t understand? If you feel like your meetings only ever consist of them pitching you or talking about how great they are, they’re likely not going to be a very effective partner when you’re three months into an agreement and you’re realizing something needs to change. Make sure your partners understand your business, they know your goals and objectives, and they’re willing to put their own preferences aside in order to help you hit them.

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Working with a marketing partner can create a ton of value. As broader consumer trends place more and more importance on video, here at The Courtside Group we have been able to create tons of value for our clients through cinematic films, B2B content marketing, and social media marketing. But not all marketing agencies are created equal. I created The Courtside Group to address the issues I noticed in the industry, but there are many great firms and individuals out there. You just have to make sure you sift through to identify them.

If you ever want to riff on some ideas or ask any questions, please email info@thecourtsidegroup.com. That will get routed to me, I just don’t want to place my email in plaintext on the internet for the bots to get a hold of (looking at you ZoomInfo).

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