More than a few financial advisors and asset managers have struggled with how to integrate online marketing with traditional offline marketing efforts.
As a content-driven inbound marketing agency, we like to ask clients “Does your website bring you hundreds of leads each month? Do you know how much traffic you get from you site each day or month? Does your site generate new leads for you while your sleeping?”
If the answer is “no” to any of the questions, it’s likely time to consider turning your site into a lead generating machine.
As you consider updating your site, what questions should be asked of potential marketing partners, whether done in-house or out?
Here are 71 questions to ponder, derived from discussions we often hear in the proposal process:
Pricing
1. How much will it cost?
2. What is included in the cost, and what’s extra?
3. Is the cost of writing text, blog posts included or excluded in the proposal?
4. What do you need from me to help price the project?
5. How much of my time do you need before, during and after the project?
6. Do you bill hourly, based on project, or on retainer?
7. Will we pay extra for faster delivery?
8. Do we pay extra for additional drafts?
Timing
9. How long does it take to build (or rebuild) my site?
10. How long until we get a first draft?
11. How many drafts can we expect from start to finish?
Strategy
12. How do know when I need a new site?
13. How can you make my site into a lead generating machine?
14. How will my new site build trust with my target clients?
15. What would you change on my current site?
16. How do I get contact information from leads?
Expectations
17. What can we reasonably expect our ROI to be?
18. Can I expect more site traffic, and if so, how much?
19. How many leads can I expect daily, monthly, and quarterly?
20. What will our compliance department and/or legal counsel expect to see and not see on the site?
21. How frequently can we expect to modify and update the site?
References
21. Will you provide me references form other clients you've worked with?
22. Have you worked with any other companies with similar objectives and styles?
23. Have you worked with other firms our size?
24. What makes your site design services special?
Content
25. What other marketing content do I need to maximize my site’s value?
26. How many blog posts should we write each month, and why?
27. How do I determine what to write the posts about?
28. How long should each blog post be?
29. Can you write and post the posts?
30. What are eBooks and how can they help generate leads?
31. Does it make sense to build a resource library of whitepapers, infographics, presentations, and other content on the site?
32. Can I use testimonials on the site?
Logistics
33. Where will the site be hosted?
34. Will you do market research before creating my site?
35. Will you sign a Do Not Disclose (DND) agreement?
36. What will happen when we redirect the old pages to the new pages?
Ownership
37. Who owns the content?
38. Who owns the domain name?
39. Do I need to keep my current hosting account?
40. What happens to my old hosting after we launch the new site?
Related: How to Get Influencers to Notice You
Compatibility
41. How would we work together every day?
42. Do you do the development, design, and writing in-house, or do you outsource?
43. Who will I be working with – the firm owner, president, project manager - or other?
44. Do you use online tools do you use to manage the relationship, and if so, which ones?
45. How involved in the site redesign process will I be expected to be?
Design
46. Can you show me samples of your work?
47. Should we do a full rebrand and design change, or make less wholesale changes to the current site?
48. Who owns the graphics?
49. How will the revision and editing process work?
50. What are wireframes?
51. Do you do logos?
Development
52. Will the site work for mobile devices?
53. What website platforms have you used to build sites?
54. What is a Content Management System and which one would you suggest for my firm?
55. Will you build the site from scratch or from a template?
56. Do I need a mobile app and can you build one?
SEO
57. What's your SEO expertise?
58. What will happen when we redirect the old pages to the new pages?
59. What can you do to maintain my current site's search engine value on Google?
60. What are backlinks and how do I get them?
Analytics
61. What platform should we use?
62. Can you set it up and show me how to best use it?
63. Will you provide regular reports?
64. What metrics should we be measuring for success?
65. What other tools are available in addition to Google Analytics?
After Launch
66. Can I make updates to the site after it’s completed?
67. What if there’s a bug or two, how do you fix them?
68. Do you provide training on how I can maintain and edit the site in-house?
69. What happens if I want to move to another content management system?
70. What happens to our working relationship after the site is done?
71. How often should we update the site, and why?