On the quest to grow your business, perhaps you find yourself being a bit cautious about how many cards you are willing to show to get the answers you seek. Competitive businesses, businesses with sensitive data, and businesses that simply want to keep their numbers private are often worried about this when discussing the state of the business with marketing professionals.
While the threat of corporate espionage is a prevalent threat in some industries, most agencies want to help your business, not destroy it. Marketing agencies usually need a bit of data about your company in order to make the best decisions about marketing it. The more intimately the agency knows the company, the better the marketing strategy is likely to be.
It may be possible to reveal certain aspects of your business that are critical to marketing without giving away sensitive information. This approach will vary depending on you industry, but if it is possible to give the agency enough data to take your business to market.
A marketing agency should ultimately be like an extension of your business that simply works out of a different office. In a perfect situation, the agency will earn the trust of the individuals who are running their client’s businesses. Once this happens, the doors open up to better conversations about what can be done to market the business better. Sometimes this may need to include sensitive data.
Whether or not the trust is in place, it is always a great idea to have the agency sign off on a non-disclosure agreement. If you are at the beginning of your relationship with the agency, this may actually help to boost trust early and give time for the trust to be earned. Conversely, at a mature stage of the agency / client relationship, the NDA is still an excellent thing to have in place, because if you ever want to make a switch in agencies, you will not have as many worries about what they know of your business.
While we recommend getting an NDA signed before getting a marketing analysis or consultation, working toward trust is ultimately the best solution. In the long run, trust will not only make it easier to reveal sensitive information, but also to cultivate a better understanding between both parties and allow the marketing agency to promote your company better.
