What to Expect from a Marketing Agency Onboarding Process

In this video, Nicole from our Strategy team will talk about what you can expect when you first partner with a marketing agency. Keep reading to learn more!

Transcript

All aboard the Marketing Express! Everyone make sure you have your tickets, because this is a ride definitely don’t want to miss.

…Okay, so maybe agency onboarding doesn’t look exactly like that.

But, in this video, we’re gonna cover what a typical marketing onboarding process looks like. Specifically, we’re gonna look at seven steps that most onboarding processes will include. Just keep watching to learn more.

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1. Finalize the contract and payment

When you first partner with an agency, you might be ready to jump right into things, but first you have to make the partnership official. That starts with signing the contract. Once you’ve done that, the next step will likely be setting up your method of payment.

This is not the most interesting part of the process, but it’s a very necessary step toward getting started with an agency. Once it’s taken care of, you can really start to get into the marketing company onboarding process.

2. Receive a questionnaire or attend a strategy meeting

Once the contract is signed, you can expect one of two things to happen. One possibility is that you’ll get sent a questionnaire that asks you about the inner workings of your business. It’ll cover things like your company’s specific needs, goals, budget, and competitors.

The other possibility is that the agency will set up a meeting, either in person or over a video call. You might even receive a form AND discuss the answers in a meeting. Wow.

Whichever option your agency chooses, though, they’ll be sure to get that info from you somehow. Then they’ll put together a customized plan for your business based on the details you give them. At least, that’s what a good agency will do.

3. Get matched with an account manager and team

The next thing that will usually happen in the marketing company onboarding process is matching you with your dedicated account manager.  An account manager is responsible for handling your account and coordinating with you on everything that the agency does for your marketing. So even though there may be a larger team driving results for you behind the scenes, you’ll really just need to focus on communicating with your account manager.

As I mentioned, you may also be assigned a specific team of marketers who will be working on your campaigns, depending on the agency and how it works. You may meet that team at the same time as your dedicated account manager, or you might meet them later on. Either way, your account manager will coordinate everything with that team so you don’t have to go back and forth with five or even ten people.

4. Set up all necessary software and analytics tools

In order to improve your marketing, the agency will need to use a variety of digital tools. In some cases, these tools will be things you’re already using, and the agency will need to have access to them in order to harness them for your marketing. In other cases, the agency may set up new tools for your business.

Many of these tools will be for the purposes of reporting and analytics. The agency needs to be able to track your marketing data to see which areas need improvement, and they’ll get that tracking set up early so that they can start gathering data while they’re onboarding you.

5. Attend the kickoff meeting

Now it’s time for kickoff. And not the football kind of kickoff.

Usually this will happen through a meeting — again, either in person or over a video call. If you haven’t already, you’ll get introduced to the team that’s handling your campaigns, and the agency will go over the plan they’ve drawn up for your marketing.

You’ll have the opportunity to give feedback, and if there’s anything that isn’t quite what you want, you can get them to tweak it. Once everything’s squared away and you’re all on the same page about what you’re doing, it’s time to get started on your marketing campaigns.

6. Get regular marketing updates and recommendations

This is the easy part of marketing company onboarding. Your marketing agency will get to work on your campaigns while you get to sit back and watch the magic happen. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be kept in the dark. A good agency will regularly update you on their progress.

Those updates might include regular marketing evaluations, detailed reports, calls to discuss the progress of your campaigns, and recommendations on how to continue optimizing your strategy. That means you’ll stay informed of what’s happening, but you won’t have to do any of the work yourself.

You can do some of the work if you want to. It all depends on the services you invest in. It’s just nice to know that some agencies, like WebFX, have the experience and the resources to handle everything for you — from strategy to implementation to reporting.

7. Watch the results roll in

At this point, there’s only one step left in the marketing onboarding process: To kick back and watch your results go up. Rankings, site traffic, leads, sales — whichever metrics you’re trying to improve, the agency should be able to improve those for you. It may take some time for the results to start rolling in, especially with strategies like SEO and content marketing that require a lot of time and effort to take effect. But over time, you’ll build up your online presence so the results continue to roll in.

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And that’s it! That’s an overview of what getting started with an agency looks like.

Now that you know about marketing onboarding, maybe you’re interested in learning more about other areas of digital marketing. If so, just subscribe to our YouTube channel and our newsletter, Revenue Weekly. And if you’re looking for a top-tier digital marketing agency to partner with, be sure to consider WebFX.

That’s it for this video, so thanks so much for watching. See you next time!