If your business has ever retained a marketing agency, chances are you feel cheated by the experience.
Why?
Because you spent a lot of money to promote your business with nothing to show for it.
Unfortunately, that’s the experience of most business owners — even if the marketing agency believes it’s providing the services you paid for.
Here’s why…
As for-profit ventures, marketing agencies try to lock in profits by ensuring they get paid per their marketing contract whether or not they’re able to deliver. Which focuses on making the sale to you to get the agreement signed but not necessarily delivering anything of value after that.
For example, the marketing agreement typically may lock you in for a minimum of one year where you’re required to make monthly payments regardless of the agency’s performance. And if you try to terminate early, the contract will require you to still pay for the full year.
And it gets worse…
Because most marketing contracts are written to give ownership of the intellectual property created to the agency. So, once the term is done, you either renew to keep using the materials (e.g., website content and design) or have to pay an additional hefty fee to continue using it after termination. In many cases, this fee will exceed what you paid monthly for the entire year. What an unpleasant surprise.
What do you do if you’re tired of paying for “optimization,” “social media buzz,” and other vague nonsense that doesn’t generate more profitable sales?
First, retain an agency that focuses on direct response marketing instead of “creatives” and “branding.” You want to be able to track results and pay primarily by cost-per-action (CPA), such as number of sales calls generated by the direct response marketing. This will involve tracking and hard numbers instead of unquantifiable B.S. that adds nothing to your bottom line.
And you’ll want to make sure the contract protects your legal rights instead of being a one-sided agreement that favors the agency.
If you need help with a cost-per-action marketing agreement for your business, it’s probably time to schedule a phone consultation with Business Lawyer Mike Young.
