Marketing Plan Agile
Summary
Josh Ramsey discusses the importance of holding ad agencies accountable rather than simply accepting what they sell you. Agencies often pitch what they’re best at, not necessarily what your business needs. Josh emphasizes asking the right questions, reviewing KPIs, and ensuring results are clearly defined in contracts. By getting involved, he ensures agencies maximize effectiveness, helps businesses spend less while getting more value, and focuses on building upon what’s already working instead of tearing everything down.
Highlights
Chapters
00:01 Q: Why do ad agencies often drop the ball for business owners?
00:10 Q: Why do agencies offer what they’re good at instead of what you need?
00:24 Q: What key questions should you ask an ad agency?
00:33 Q: How should KPIs be set and measured?
00:44 Q: What should an agency contract clearly define?
01:01 Q: How can a fractional CMO hold agencies accountable?
01:24 Q: Why do marketers push unnecessary rebuilds like new websites?
01:43 Q: What makes Josh’s approach different from most agencies and CMOs?
Action Items
00:24 Ask agencies what they are good at, why, and for how long they’ve done it.
00:33 Review the KPIs provided—are they meaningful and being met?
00:44 Ensure contracts specify what’s being done, why, how, and the expected result.
01:01 Bring in a fractional CMO to hold agencies accountable for every effort.
01:24 Beware of marketing providers who push unnecessary rebuilds instead of focusing on ROI.
01:43 Identify what’s working well and build on it instead of starting from scratch.
Transcript
Josh Ramsey
So we’re all aware that there’s plenty of ad agencies out there. But here’s really where I think the ball gets dropped—holding that agency accountable. See, ad agencies are offering you what they’re good at, not necessarily what you need.
So what I do when I work with an ad agency is walk in the door and ask a ton of questions. Ask the agency: What are you good at? Why are you good at this? How long have you done it? But then I want to know exactly: what are the KPIs that they gave you, the business owner or executive that’s managing them? Why did they give those KPIs, and have they been efficiently and effectively met?
See, when you sign a contract, what should happen is they should say specifically: this is what we do, this is why we do it, and how we’re going to do it, and what is the result that we’re looking for. Oftentimes, that is not explained well enough—or not explained at all.
So once I’m involved, I’m able to hold that agency accountable and get every last effort out of them to maximize the effectiveness of what they’re doing for you to be able to grow your business. If you want to have a conversation about this, show me the contract that that agency is implementing for you and let’s have a quick conversation. I’ll tell you exactly what I see, why I see it.
And I also want to throw this out there—one thing that often happens with marketing people is that they come in and they start to just tear apart whatever you’re doing. They go, “Oh, you’ve got to rebuild a new website, you have to do this, you have to do that,” and they’re not really focusing on what’s important to you, the business owner—which is to spend less and get maximum out of it.
So I come in and find the good with the bad. There’s always something good that most agencies are doing out there. What I want to do is work to find what’s good and then build upon that. And that is one of the key differences of how I work versus most ad agencies and most Chief Marketing Officers.
I hope to talk to you soon.
