Your first quarter working with a new marketing firm is a critical time of collaboration. It’s the time when you get to shape what your working relationship will look like on the day-to-day level. In that process, each team has important roles to play in the following areas. But to ensure that you start your marketing partnership off on the right foot, it’s essential to set your own expectations about what’s needed—as well as what is and isn’t going to happen—during the first few months. Here are a few things you can expect to be doing in the first quarter of your new marketing partnership:
Goal-setting is a key aspect of the first quarter of a marketing partnership (and one we’ll take a closer look at in Thursday’s blog). You’ll probably start off the quarter talking to the team about what you’d like to achieve in the first quarter and the first year of your partnership. As you begin to think about what goals you have for your marketing, gather any data on past marketing performance to help you better understand where you’ve been and where you realistically can go in the next few months.
As a first step, your marketing firm will want to take a deep dive into your past work. Whether they’re crafting a strategy for your brand or executing one you have created, in order to kickstart a successful marketing partnership, your marketing partner needs to master your brand’s tone, style and character. Whether you are looking to make a shift in your brand’s tone and style or continue in a similar vein, this approach will allow your firm to grasp where your brand stands now.
As your marketing firm begins to create assets for you, they will seek thorough feedback in the early days. They will use this feedback to refine their understanding of your needs and style, so that in the future this process will become streamlined. You should provide honest and constructive criticism and suggestions—they’re learning your brand voice, and your insight into that is invaluable! What’s more, hold your firm to a high standard. These early months are when you’ll be setting expectations with them as well, so you need to let them know what kinds of content work for you and what doesn’t. If you can clearly describe your needs and let them know what’s working and what isn’t, you’ll be on the same page going forward.
In addition to sharing this feedback, you need to make sure that you and your marketing partner share an understanding of key marketing terms. Do you define a qualified lead the same way? When you talk about given metrics, are you really referring to the same things? Now is the time to make sure that your language is aligned—it will save everyone a lot of confusion and frustration in the future. Take note: you’ll also want to make sure that marketing and sales are aligned in the use of key terms, especially when an integrated CRM is involved.
You also need to be sure you share any processes you have internally with the team. Do you organize files in your marketing automation system in a certain way? Do you love Google Docs and hate sharing Excel files? Let them know. They’ll be receptive to your needs, and you’ll be able to keep internal processes in place.
It can be disappointing embarking on a new marketing partnership, signing the contracts, beginning work and then finding that those leads you expected to see coming in aren’t there yet. Don’t worry if this happens: marketing takes a long time to set up and fully deploy, so the results aren’t instantaneous. However, you should get a sense from your marketing team about how long it will take before you start seeing results.
At the beginning of your partnership, set up a timeline for each month of the first quarter. Together, hash out what you can expect from them each month in terms of content, communication and growth metrics. Can they help you forecast when leads will start coming in, and how much growth you can expect to see? Can you track what they’re up to through a tool like Asana or Basecamp, or will they give you weekly updates on what they’ve accomplished? This way, you’ll know what to expect and avoid any surprises going forward.
Are you looking for a new marketing partner? Take a look at our approach to branding.
(Click here to expand)
