What A Real Marketing Agency Does Behind The Scenes

Everyone can post a photo. That does not mean they know how to market a business. We take over the mic this week and pull back the curtain on what real marketing work looks like when it is done by an actual marketing agency, not a “pop-up” marketer chasing vanity metrics.

We talk through the unglamorous parts that make the glamorous parts work: client discovery meetings, defining goals, building a content strategy, doing keyword research for SEO, and writing captions with intent instead of guessing. We also get honest about the role confusion we see all the time, like assuming a receptionist or admin can double as a social media manager. Social media marketing is its own craft, and the difference shows up in consistency, clarity, and results.

Then we hit the big misconception that can wreck your expectations: likes are not the scoreboard. We explain why reach and views often matter more than hearts, how to read performance in the back end, and why monthly marketing analytics reporting is what keeps a campaign accountable and improving. We also answer quick client questions, including why content shoots, photography, and reels can be part of a full-service workflow, so businesses are not left scrambling for assets.

If you want a clearer way to evaluate a marketing partner and understand what you are paying for, listen through and keep notes. Subscribe for more, share this with a business owner who is stuck on likes, and leave a review with the next topic you want us to tackle.

Transcript

New Hosts And The Big Claim

SPEAKER_00 0:18

All right, welcome to the podcast this week. We are taking over for Shelby this week. So I am Alexis. And I'm Maddie. And today we're gonna talk about how everyone thinks that they are a marketing business now or marketers. So I feel like it's really getting popular and people are kind of just saying they do what they do, but they're not going behind the scenes, and that makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah, I think a lot of days now with all the like influencers and content creators online, everybody thinks that because they can post that they know what marketing is and everything that goes into marketing. Well, you'd like to think that is true. It's definitely not. Yeah, it's definitely not. There's a lot more that goes into marketing behind the scenes. And so your admin girl, your receptionist, is not your social media girl. She is not your marketing girl. As much as she might say she can post on social media, there are so many things that go on behind the scenes, like SEO work,

Why Posting Is Not Marketing

SPEAKER_01 1:22

analytic work, um, strategy. There's strategies that are built before content is even beginning to be created. And so all people see is that final post that goes on social media and they don't see all of the work behind it, all of the research that went into that caption, the target audience research, um, all those different things, the messaging, the goals, all of that takes time and effort, and people don't see that. They just see this cute little post that they look at for 10 seconds and they keep scrolling.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

And so with marketing like us being a marketing business, we have so many different roles that people really don't know about. Like we have managing the um accounts, like making sure that the client is happy with what we're posting, making sure that we're getting their information right or getting their videos in, things like that, going in, doing content shoots, like remembering little things about them too, you know, you know, remembering that it's their birthday or things like that, that you know, just all these random influencers, they really don't know much about their client. They're just posting what they, you know, want to post, but they don't have any, you know, back work. And that's where it's like, that's where we come in that we actually have that backwork. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

And I think with that too, it's like they're posting just a post, but they're posting just the product or just the service, they're not posting like personal part of it. Like you said, like the birthdays,

Strategy, SEO, And Client Context

SPEAKER_01 2:47

behind the scenes, like their lives, the videos, it's just more like buy my product. And people really want to buy from a face, they want to buy from a person, they want to buy from somebody they trust. And so having that marketing agency that is taking the time really to deep dive into who you are and what you do really impacts the result of your marketing. And also, like, we take the time to deliver analytics every month. I know that I go through all of our clients' monthly analytics and I go to the back end of each account and I put it on a cute little form and I send it to them and they get to see how well they're posted, their engagement, their follow or their views versus viewers. They see all of that in numbers, um, and then we expand on it as well. And so they're not just getting the post, they're also seeing what we see on the back end, um, and being able to show them that we are delivering results. Exactly. So I think that is a big thing as well, especially nowadays with people not interacting on social media. There's a big gap of like seeing how your post is doing versus the likes that it's getting. Yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

So that kind of goes into like how posts might not get you know that many likes, but then you go on the back end and they're getting so many

Analytics Over Likes And Views

SPEAKER_00 4:07

views, and that means you know, it is working. So those likes don't mean everything, yeah. But with a lot of these marketing, you know, like pop-up people, influencers, they're like, oh, we're gonna get you all these likes, and yeah, you might like to see that likes, but then when you go on the back end, it's really not, you know, not performing well. Yeah, and so I think that is a major thing that we do. You know, analytics is a huge part of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah, definitely. And people seeing your post is what matters. It's like driving by and seeing a billboard, like you don't think about it for about half a second, but then when you go to think about whatever service or product you need, like that person that popped up on your social media page is the person that you're gonna think of. Yep. So it's just kind of like reiterating on the the views and the viewers are what matters. Nobody's gonna nobody likes posts anymore. I don't like posts anymore. Yeah, exactly. So I don't don't value how your social media performing or how your marketing agency is performing off of the likes. Look, go go look at their analytics report because that is that is what matters. That's the key. So to kind of close this out, we're just gonna go into a few questions. Um, so Alexis, what is something that clients are surprised to learn that we do?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I feel like like content shoots and photography, like a lot of clients don't realize that we also do that and that we also do like reels and you know short videos like that, and they

Client Questions On Hidden Work

SPEAKER_00 5:32

think it's all just posting, you know, just post, but it we also do the content shoots and everything like that for businesses.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

So right, you don't have to hire a photographer when your marketing agency is asking for photos. Exactly. Like we are there providing it. I know I've gone to so many shoots with Shelby and she does the photos, I take the videos, and then we send the content to our content creator, and she gets to use all of those. So not only are we creating the posts, but we're also I mean taking the content that we're gonna be using. That's a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

All right, so my question is what does a typical marketing project involve that clients don't see?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, I think it that's a that's a good question. Hire clients will hire us and then we do all this work behind the scenes, and again, they're not really seeing all of that. So I mean, from a starting point, it definitely starts with a lot of meetings with the client. They let us know what their business is, what they do, um, what they what their goal is with the marketing, um, what they're kind of like do they want more calls? Do they want just more visibility? Uh, do they want email campaigns? Do they like what are they trying to get? So all of those questions and all of that is thought about when we're talking to the client. And then not only that, after the meetings, then we're doing our own research behind the scenes. Like we're on Google, we're on um AI, asking AI for keywords. What are people searching in that industry? Like that's a big thing, too. Um, is putting the industry into AI and being like, what are people searching? Because the keywords that we think people might be searching, they're often not. Um, so all of that kind of like goes into it, and then a strategy is formed. So, how are we gonna go about this in thinking about the clients' goals and the market research? How are we going to turn that into a strategy moving forward to make sure that these posts and this content is working? Um, and then from there it's creating the content and creating the captions that are SEO focused, and like that is really important. It's not just a random caption, it's something that was researched and we know will target your audience and what they're searching. Again, all of this is feeding Google and all of it is feeding AI, and so that kind of really goes into it as well. And then like the analytics part of it too, showing the client the results. I mean, there's so many things that could take so long to explain all of it behind the scenes, but yeah, marketing projects take a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of work, and we're not just making random content, we are taking the time to really know your business and know your goals and focus on that. So, yeah, that was our podcast topic for day today, kind of just diving into um the world of marketing nowadays and how everybody thinks that they can do it, but really

Choosing An Agency And Closing

SPEAKER_01 8:13

it takes a lot of experience and knowledge. So just be aware of what you're going into, do your research, and um pick a good marketing agency. That's my advice. It's perfect. All right, if you have any comments, questions, any topic ideas for the future, go ahead and let us know. You can email us or leave a review down below. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you next week.

unknown 8:32

Bye.