How will you be individually targeting my audiences?

This question should really lead to a conversation about your audiences. It is just as much your responsibility as it is your digital marketing consultants to help define your target audiences. Think products, buying habits, income levels, gender, age – this list is long. Build user persona’s based on the type of users that buy from you. If you have analytics tied to your website or your eCommerce platform, it shouldn’t be hard for them to pull this information and build them. If they don’t understand your question or tell you that they are going to build a program that “encompasses everyone” – fire them.

During our once a week status updates, what benchmark information will you be tracking?

First, yes, you should be having once a week status updates during the duration of your marketing and advertising initiatives. You need to be updated with the successes, failures and adjustments being made to your campaigns. A great campaign is constantly being edited as it runs to ensure that you are reaching your audiences and converting on your goals. If status calls aren’t part of the management package – fire them.

What are the steps for our conversion funnel?

A conversion funnel is the path that a customer takes from engaging your ad all the way to seeing the thank you page after check out. There can be as many steps as necessary, but typically we like to keep this path as short as possible. The conversion funnel is so important because even if you have great ads that get the attention of your audience, they can get lost in the process of purchasing. Typically, we don’t build an advertising program without have a conversion funnel built. It doesn’t always have to be check out either, it can be whatever conversion or goal you are looking to achieve for your program. Maybe it’s a email sign-ups, or even to download a flyer – no matter what, it’s part of the funnel and your digital marketing consultant should have an answer on this. If not, you know what to do.

What are your management fees?

Managing your digital marketing strategy should never out price your actual spend. Expect 25 – 35% management fees on your total spend with your consultant. Anyone that is asking for more is ripping you off. However, if you have a smaller spend, you may have a minimum that they are going to work with because setup and design takes some initial work up front.

How will you be spending my budget?

It’s likely that the first question they will ask you is what your budget is going to be. With dollar signs in their eyes, make sure you go into this meeting with an idea of what you can spend. Please note: there is no minimum to spend on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or any channels that I am missing. If someone tells you otherwise, they are lying. Now, with that being said, you have to understand that digital marketing is a crowded space these days and that you are in a supply and demand program. If you are marketing a product or service, there will be minimum recommendations by these platforms in order for you to get a good ranking or even reach your audience. For example, a lawyer may pay upwards of $40 – $50 per click in order to have first page rank. But, with a good website and better ad writing, you can still get good page placement, impressions and clicks for the $2 – $5 range.

Finding out how this budget is going to spend is important to understand what platforms work best for your business. If you have never done any digital marketing advertising before, I would recommend throwing budget at a bunch of different areas and seeing where your target audience engages with you the most. Maybe Facebook over anything else, or maybe Google Adwords works really well. You don’t know until you try.

Why these questions matter?

Your marketing money is typically profits being re-purposed to increase overall sales and revenue. It’s easy, very easy, to spend money on digital marketing campaigns and have engagement results. However, the conversion process is a lot harder to achieve when you are working online. From the start of working with your digital marketing consultant, asking these questions will ensure that you are on the right path to a better marketing plan, which in turn will save you money and increase leads.

Listen to my Podcast episode about How to Hire a Digital Marketing Consultant.