Have you ever heard this quote?

"Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers."

-Robert Half

I’m sure you have, and there’s a good reason why: The quality of the questions asked is sometimes the least recognized, yet most critical aspect of any strategic business discussion. And yet, in a fast moving, solutions-oriented world, it can be easy to not invest enough time into asking the right questions.

One of the most critical predictors of a successful client-agency partnership is how effective you are at asking the right questions. When contracts, profitability and more are at-play, asking the right questions from the beginning can mean the difference between a successful or failed product, keeping or losing your job or, at a minimum, hard feelings.

The short list that follows provides a good starting point and may spur additional ideas for those of you in the throes of an influencer marketing agency search right now.

1) How Good is My Current Influencer Marketing?

You’re searching for an agency for a reason, be it for strategic guidance, fresh ideas, capabilities bandwidth you can’t sustain, and more. It’s surprising, however, how few brand leaders don’t want to hear (or don’t want their colleagues to hear) that their baby is ugly (sorry, “has opportunity”).

What do you have to lose by asking? An agency worth its salt understands the critical importance of relentlessly studying best practices for their marketing discipline(s). Let’s face it, sourcing the best ideas, execution practices and methods that get results is survival skill in the agency world. This isn’t as forced for those on the client side.

Even if the truth hurts, chances are, you’ll be better off for asking.

A side benefit of asking this question is you’re communicating that you haven’t come with an immovable agenda and that you care about and are open to their perspective and the honest truth, which can create trust and build rapport.

2) How Do We Compare to Your Other Clients or Other Brands You've Studied?

This is not just asking them to tell you about the types of clients they have and which attributes you do or do not share with them so you can assess whether they know how to work with a brand with your unique needs. This is about getting insights from people who have worked with 25, 50, 100 or more other brands. They’re exposed to a breadth of client marketing strategies, tactics and budgets which can provide a rich set of successes, failures and sheer data and insights that can shorten the ramp-up time and limit missteps for you both.

3) What Are Examples of Objective, Measurable Goals You’ve Used for Client Campaigns in the Past?

Influencer marketing has come a long way in recent years. Just as how business goals have given way to SMART goals, Big Data and flat analytics have given way to SMART data and multi-dimensional analytics. Without data informing your influencer marketing strategy, effectively planning for, evaluating and learning from the success of your campaigns is impossible.

In this past year alone, marketing technology providers have come online with better, smarter, easy-to-use influencer marketing analytics platforms and comprehensive solutions that make it easier than ever for a brand to discover and evaluate their influencer opportunities and validate their marketing spend. 

The industry is at a point where it’s inexcusable for an agency to recommend an influencer marketing program that isn’t based in data, measured and evaluated.

4) How Do You Go About Identifying Influencers?

The days of a time intensive, entirely manual process for identifying the best influencers have passed. Marketing technologies have helped automate and simplify the process, while providing better analytics to support prioritization and decision-making. While blogger networks are important, so is the ability to identify the influencers with the shortest runway to success because they’re already talking about you, your competitors or your category and creating the most impact when they do.

It’s in your best interest to know their process for finding the right folks and doing so efficiently.

5) Which Factors Do You Take into Account When Vetting Influencers?

While sophisticated influencer marketing technologies are increasingly available and easy-to-use, you can’t automate expert-level good judgment, knowledge and experience in the vetting process. You are trying to get at what is their approach for determining the right influencers for a brand and campaign or if they use a service for determining this. Understanding the qualitative measures they use gives you insight into how thoughtful they will be about finding the right influencers for your needs.

6) What Have I Not Asked You About…But I Should?

Let’s face it, whether you’re using an RFP process, a search consultant, or prefer a more casual process for reviewing and meeting agencies, just know that, large or small, the new business process can be challenging for even the best or most resource rich agencies. They can get so focused on answering your questions completely and meeting timelines and budget requirements that introducing new concepts takes a backseat. Give them an opportunity to tell you about a trend, a big idea, a service offering or anything else that they just haven’t have the chance to yet.

A byproduct of asking this question is that you’re, essentially, framing the relationship as one where both sides should challenge themselves to come forward with discussion items, suggestions and ideas which can ultimately lead to better solutions.

In Closing

Although there are many more questions you could ask and not all of these are specific to influencer marketing agencies, we hope this list provides you with food-for-thought. 

For the full detail and critical steps to follow when building influencer marketing programs, I encourage you to read our latest eBook, Your Guide to the Three Essential Elements of Influencer Engagement. This was designed to provide simple steps to help you, the marketer, develop an influencer marketing program. 

Finally, to learn more about how VizSense is solving and simplifying the influencer marketing conundrum for today’s most visionary brands, corporations and agencies and to receive a free trial subscription to VizSense’s social content analytics platform, contact us here.