Hiring a marketing agency, an entrepreneurship agency, an internet branding agency, an international growth hacking agency, or a data-driven content marketing agency is a crucial first step and venture for virtually any business, no matter its magnitude. It is perhaps the most daunting task that a startup may undertake. For those who don’t have prior experience in this realm, the process can become very worrisome. When deciding to hire a marketing agency to help grow your business, there are several questions that you need to ask. Here is a list of these questions that you need to ask when hiring a marketing firm:

What is the definition of a marketing agency? How does this differ from other agencies? How do startups benefit from hiring a marketing firm? Does this firm offer a strategy for advertising for businesses with limited budgets? What sort of services does the marketing agency provide?

Is it cheaper to work with an external agency or can it be more advantageous to work in-house? The cost of hiring an outside firm may be cheaper due to exorbitant amount of capital required. But in some cases, this may not be enough to launch your business successfully. There are many in-house agencies that offer similar services at a lower rate. This can be a problem especially for a startup marketing agency, as this requires a lot of investment in terms of time, effort and resources.

Does the agency provide A/B testing? Testing has been proven to increase sales conversions. It also allows you to test different variants of a product or web page combination without spending large sums of money to conduct market research. A startup marketing agency should be able to provide this service to clients.

Will the agency provide content management and SEO strategies? A successful marketing strategy is one that combines smart online practices like content management, SEO and paid advertising. Thus, the startup marketing agency should be able to provide a comprehensive package of SEO, content management, social media optimization and pay per click management. If they do not provide these services, then they cannot be trusted with any business’s marketing strategy. Look for a provider who can give you all of the above.

How many new business development activities does the marketing tactic plan? Marketers have a number of marketing tactics they can use to grow their businesses. A startup marketing agency should be able to provide a wide range of tactics to use to help grow a client’s business. If they only have a few marketing tactics in stock, they may not have enough to grow a larger clientele.

How do the inbound marketing agencies stack up against large agencies? Large agencies have an advantage in that they have access to a huge pool of resources. However, the cost of growing a small business can be high. A startup inbound marketing agency may have fewer resources than large agencies, but they can outsource nearly everything and often work in smaller cities at a much lower cost.

So there are some things you should look for when looking for a top startup marketing agency. Look for a provider who can provide access to content management, SEO strategies, PPC strategies, social media optimization and pay per click management and make those strategies available in multiple regions around the world. That way, your business can grow globally and serve clients from anywhere in the world.

You should also be able to hire a small but steady team of writers, designers and marketers who can work together on creative content. Many startups choose to outsource their writers and find someone else to write and design for them. While this can save a lot of money, it doesn’t allow you to control costs.

Look for a startup marketing agency that is able to provide comprehensive data-driven strategies that can grow your business and drive more traffic to your site. Many agencies simply focus on search engine optimization or on bringing in a specific niche of clients. There are two problems with this approach: first, search engine optimization is completely data-driven; even small changes in algorithms can change your ranking dramatically. Second, while it is important to work with trusted companies like BAMF Media, which has been in business for many years, you also want to be sure that data-driven strategies will drive growth. Otherwise, you could be wasting time with what you think is a good strategy, but isn’t really helping you grow your business.

The final thing that you should look for in a good agency is an emphasis on strategy that goes beyond hiring a team of experts to execute on a plan. There are several growing industries, including health care and technology, where startups are forming at an unprecedented rate. Even though the majority of these businesses form as buyers and sellers, you also need to develop growth strategies. If your startup marketing agency only focuses on execute strategies, you may find yourself joining a company that is doomed to fail. A reliable agency will work with you to develop strategies that help you grow your business from the ground up.