Is My Agency Charging Me Too Much for Emails?

Hey Joe,

My team and I have been working with an agency to create our emails — but I’m worried we may be paying too much.

Every time we send a request, it takes weeks to deliver. That makes it a challenge to get to market as quickly as we need to.

How much should agencies charge for an email? And how long should it take to create them?

Thanks,

Cost-conscious Caroline

Hi Caroline,

Thanks so much for bringing up this question.

Email is an important marketing tool for B2C and B2B businesses. It’s tough to feel that your partners aren’t doing the most they can to make your campaigns both efficient and effective.

Trust me, you’re not alone.

The truth is, it depends.

I know this may sound like a wishy-washy answer, but bear with me.

When it comes to how an agency scopes out an email project, it depends on:

• the size of the campaign you’re giving them
• how many other clients they’re dealing with, and
• how long they’ve been in the space.

These are all things that can dictate the price tag on an email campaign — as well as how much time it takes the agency to deliver the end product.

Hold your agency accountable

You likely first engaged your agency because you lacked the right resources and skills to create emails in-house. And that’s totally fine. It’s the same with many marketing teams.

That said, you still have options to hold your agency accountable or find ways to reduce how much of your budget goes to email. Here are three ways.

1. Have open discussions

Have frequent and frank discussions with your agency partners to set key performance indicators.

This can include the:

• cost per email
• time spent to develop each email, and
• performance-related metrics.

2. Ask questions

Ask your agency questions so they can let you in on their process and build a stronger relationship with you.

Here are a few examples:

• How are they building your emails?
• What tools are they using?
• Why does it take them two weeks to deliver one email?

3. Know that there’s an alternative

You do have the option to bring email in-house — and that doesn’t have to be scary.

With a platform like Knak, for example, you can build emails in 20 minutes and be sure that they’ll reach the right people, render properly, and offer an on-brand experience to your readers.

And you don’t need a whole team to do it.

This last one doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to your agency partners.

Leverage your agency

Agencies are built on bold, creative thinking, so tap into that.

You can work with your agency team to build the next standout marketing campaign in your industry.

And if you feel you still need help with email, Revenue Pulse has an exclusive partnership with Knak — and they’d be happy to help you use the digital platform to its fullest potential.

You’ll be set up for success whichever way you choose to go.

You’ve got this,

Joe Pulse

P.S. Have a question? Contact us here.