What Are You Buying?

Expanding Crowded Igloo from South Africa to the United Kingdom was tough.

Our best marketing efforts were falling short… spectacularly short.

I met with more than 100 marketing agencies while I desperately trying (and failing) to fix our own marketing.

The people sitting across the table looked impressive. They came with

• polished decks,

• smooth answers,

• long lists of client success stories,

• and an unmistakable confidence of having pitched many times before.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that…

…I was remaining silent at the exact moment it matters most.

A belief I held for a long time: if a marketing agency had done marketing for a long list of clients, the agency knew why their marketing works.

It certainly wasn’t a stupid belief (though a bit naïve, looking back).

I couldn’t market my own business, and the people across the table had years of marketing experience. Paying for their expertise was the whole reason we were in the room.

Each pitch deck showed me what the agency had already done for other businesses. However, none of the pitch decks answered 1 specific question: “Why did those results happen?”

I paid a hefty price to learn that the fluency of a pitch isn’t a substitute for the substance of a reason.

The 1^st question you should ask is also the simplest: “Why do you recommend this approach?”

Asking a marketing agency this question moves the conversation from what the agency plans to do to the reason behind their plan.

A good answer’s specific: it explains how their approach produces results, and how their approach relates to your business.

A weak answer? When they’re light on any explanation as to how or why their approach works.

They may well say things like, “This worked for Microsoft…” or “When I was at Vodafone we…” (I really did get these answers!)

The 2^nd question you ask when the marketing agency tells you what they’re going to do for you. “Why does this approach outperform that one?”

A lot of marketing agencies will tell you that

• video outperforms static images,

• cold e-mailing prospects beats social media outreach,

• or long-form copy converts better than short-form copy.

But why?

If the answer’s “because we’ve seen it work”, that’s from little more than experience.

If the answer explains which approach moves a specific type of person to act, that’s insight. Understanding.

The difference between the two shows up when an approach stops working.

Experience only knows that something worked; insight knows what works and why it works.

Video does not outperform static images in every metric.

Short-form copy is only better in specific use cases.

Every approach has pros and cons… and every approach needs to be employed at the right moment, for the right purpose.

You don’t sow seeds on a field that hasn’t been prepared. You can, but don’t be surprised if your results aren’t what you hoped for.

When a marketing agency’s only running on experience and systems, they can’t adjust or change the trajectory. And the business paying for that lack of insight stands by helplessly as its momentum stalls.

The 3^rd and final question matters the most. Because most marketing agencies aren’t able to answer it: “Why will this work for my specific audience, at this specific stage of my business?”

Marketing agencies can describe what tends to work across the aggregate of their clients.

For some it works…

…for others it fails.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Very few can turn what works into a clear, evidence-based argument for why it applies to your specific business, and your specific audience, right now.

I found out the hard way how rare that explanation is. I interviewed over 100 marketing agencies to find 1 that understood how to develop a winning recipe.

The strongest argument I had for not asking these 3 questions was that surely years of results earn a marketing agency the benefit of the doubt? I thought experience is what you’re paying for.

I do believe experience is worth paying for. But most people don’t gain knowledge from experience, they only gain experience.

Years of results tell you a marketing agency’s approach worked somewhere, but they can’t tell you why it worked, or whether that same approach will work for your business.

Your business is unique, different from any other.

Your people make it unique. Your personalities. Your approach.

Ask a marketing agency “Why?”, and you’ll often get

• a retreat to their track record, with past clients,

• a defensive tone,

• or something vague.

A marketing agency that can’t tell you why their results happened can’t tell you whether those results will happen for you.

All 3 questions come down to 1 word. “Why?”

You don’t need a marketing background to ask “Why?”

Asking “Why?” isn’t a sign of distrust. It’s curiosity with an expectation: that the marketing agency can explain the reasoning behind what they’re recommending.

Asking “Why?” isn’t arrogance. A founder asking “Why?” is admitting they don’t know, yet.

And asking “Why?” doesn’t show inexperience. Understanding what you’re paying for, and why it should work is part of your job.

A marketing agency that knows why their approach works will often

• welcome the question,

• go deeper than a pitch deck,

• and apply their answer to your business and your audience.

“Because it works for other clients” isn’t an answer, and neither does a longer list of client success stories. (Ask for their failure rate.)

If you’ve chosen marketing agencies based on the strength of their pitch before, you could be paying for experience while hoping you’re buying ability.

Asking “Why?” changes what a pitch meeting is for: less time admiring their pitch deck, and more time listening to the reason behind their pitch deck.

Most founders will still choose to stay silent, because asking “Why?” can feel like they’re being difficult. (Or because they’re feeling insecure.)

Staying silent is expensive, and a marketing agency with real answers welcomes your questions.