Marketing agencies generally do a solid job for their marketing clients when it comes to designing and developing a website.  They know the importance of things like effective positioning, clarity of communications, user experience, and results-centricity.

Again, for the most part.  Not all agencies are top notch.

So why is it that so many agencies don’t apply the same principles to their own work and specifically to their own website?

We have spent a good part of this past year evaluating marketing agency websites.  See the results of our efforts here: RSW/AgencySearch Agency Website Scorecards.

I am truly amazed at what I see on some agency sites.  So much about them and so little about you.

So much about their fun, cool looking office (that now, has few people in it).  And so little about what they understand about your category.

And so little about what you can deliver for them in terms of results.  And so much about how fun and strategic and easy to work with they are (like all agencies claim).

An agency’s website is their storefront.  Marketers come to sites to see work, the people, the successes of what the agency has achieved for clients just like them.

And they don’t want to work to get all this information.  Agencies at times really complicate the process and make it so hard for a marketer to find what they need to know about the firm.

In our most recent New Year Outlook Survey – 2023 (which will be released next week), 92% of marketers stated that category expertise is very-to-moderately important when considering new agencies.  So if you, the marketer, can’t find work that is relevant to you (easily), what do you think you’re going to do?  Bump yourself off the agency’s site.  Who has the time to dig??

And in our same survey, 72% of marketers said that an agency’s site is important/very important in helping them determine whether or not they’ll entertain a first meeting with the agency.

If the agency’s site isn’t up to snuff, they’ll get snuffed!

I tell our agency clients and those agencies involved in agency searches we manage that “the way you look today, is a reflection of how you’ll operate tomorrow.”

So if you’re looking at firms, think about what you’re seeing when you visit an agency’s site.

While they might do a good job for you in the end, having an agency that has their own stuff together is going to be better in the end than an agency that barely has time to keep their own house in order.

Need help finding a new, best-in-class market agency?  We can help out – and even work at no cost to you.