This week’s question comes from Andrew who asks: “What do you do when you’ve picked the wrong agency to design, develop and market your site??”

There’s nothing worse! You’ve spend days and weeks searching for the right digital marketing agency to build your website and half way through the project you regret the choice you made. We don’t have the details but the answer does depend on the type of contract you’ve signed with them and what stage of the build you are at. We’ll assume that for whatever reason you want out? If that is true then you have to gather all the evidence you can to approach your agency to terminate any contract and any outstanding bills.

Here are some of the reasons why you might find you’ve picked the wrong agency and how to prevent it happening again:

They have over promised and under delivered – it’s easy to get excited when you start talking about the possibilities of web and what it can do for your business. Try not to get carried away! Divide your project up into stages. Get the fundamentals right in stage one and then you can start to add fancy bits later.

You didn’t get what you agreed – sometimes the sales person isn’t aligned with the development team. The sales team are so keen to win the business they might promise you the world without checking this with the development team. Make sure that someone from the development team is present at any initial meetings and you get their agreement.

They are taking too long – make sure you agree a solid project plan upfront with agreed timescales then tie payments to agreed milestones. This will help spread the cost of the project for you and give the agency motivation to get the project done on time.

The quality is poor – the danger with digital is that its low barriers to entry mean “everyone’s an expert”. We’ve seen people with shockingly poor knowledge of how the web works calling themselves “social media experts” because they’ve used Twitter and Facebook. Due diligence is needed to ensure the people you will be working with know what they’re talking about. Check them out on Linkedin or Google to see if other people have commented on their work or check their experience.

No results – despite being fast paced things in the digital world can take their time. Especially if you’re talking about search engine optimisation! But don’t let this be an excuse for poor performance of lack of results. Any agency worth their salt will keep timesheets and audit sheets which they should be happy to share with you. Have regular update meetings to check progress.

Once you’ve built a case then there should be little argument for you parting company. If on the off chance they still won’t budge then it’s time to find another agency for help. Keeping in mind what we discussed go out and find another agency to work with. Once you’ve found the right agency you can seek advice from them about their practice and get them to help you build a stronger argument for leaving them.

We wish you the best of luck Andrew!

Jeremy