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Marketing Agency Termination Letter Sample

Sometimes marketing agencies will struggle with understanding a client's business or prove not to be accountable for the results they provide. After trying to amicably resolve gaps in performance, companies, charities, and professional organizations may sometimes need to terminate their marketing agency. Here are 3 impactful templates for canceling services with a marketing agency along with a transition plan. Don't settle for average growth - work with our team of dedicated growth professionals, and challenge your team to become the market leader in your industry today.

Work with a team that cares about your business just as much as you do

We've heard time and again how our business owners want advisors that take the time and care to manage their marketing as if it was their own. Take on the challenge of removing one service or subscription that is dropping the ball by using our agency termination letter sample today.

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Books CEOs are Reading: 2017

CEOs, executives, and business owners need lots of inspiration as teams look to them to lead, nurture, dream, and serve. Here are the top books read by major CEOs and leaders along with their key points. From one leader to another, this article is bound to keep your reading list well stocked for the rest of the year. For those who are ready to take action with a unique marketing plan and strategy, consult with the team at Profitworks today.

Develop your competitive edge with Profitworks

Companies work with agencies and marketing teams to develop a unique sales engine and brand to reach and retain clients. Work with Profitworks to become the market leader in your industry today.

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Best way to ask for a testimonial: Google, Facebook, Yelp

A testimonial is a powerful resource that can help boost companies past their competition. Testimonials are a public guarantee of an experience and product that your company has delivered and should be regularly sought after as part of an on-going feedback process to better serve clients. Let the work speak for itself: work with the Profitworks team to get your customer testimonial program in effect today.

We help you source regular testimonials to increase sales

We've heard time and again how our business owners want advisors that take the time and care to manage their marketing as if it was their own. Work with the Profitworks team to help more great products and services get discovered.

Executive Summary

 - Testimonials are by far one of the strongest marketing tools for a business to grow their reputation and impact sales

 - Businesses often neglect this crucial steps in acquiring qualifications from delivered work but in reality is a small step that can be appended to existing processes with relative ease

 - Asking for testimonials is a first step in brand maangement and has the secondary benefit of empowering customers to be your greatest advocates

Top reasons companies choose testimonials as their marketing arm

Organizations often seek to establish trust with prospects as part of sales cycles or marketing efforts. One of the best ways to do so is a testimonial provided by an existing or previous customer on their experience with your company and product. Testimonials work - across industries and channels, these are concrete trust artifacts that help prospects become sales. Testimonials have the following benefits for prospects when evaluating a new company:

• Reduces perceived risk in working with your company as others have taken the risk already
• Client references that are connected to the prospect sends even stronger signals as a prospect can fact-check
• Its easier to follow the crowd and a series of testimonials triggers prospects' crowd mentality

Best way to ask for a testimonial - general guidelines

Here are some quick tips to asking a customer for a testimonial:

1. Ask a customer for a testimonial after completing an order or service
2. Reduce overhead by asking the client to submit it through Google, Facebook, or Yelp
3. Recommend to the customer not to speak negatively about competitors
4. Provide guidelines that customers shouldn't reference team members by name for privacy and fairness to other clients as this would discourage customers when they don't interact with the "superstar"
5. Help them articulate their challenge and how the situation was resolved

Asking for Google Reviews

Requesting Google Reviews offers customers the most convenience and efficiency for their time. We typically suggest that customers consider using a Google Reviews request template after every service or successful interaction. To accomplish this the most important aspects are to allow one-click access to a Google Reviews page for your business compared to the 5-6 steps they would usually take.

One-click access to Google Reviews forms

To help your customers quickly get to Google Reviews for your business:

1. Make sure Google My Business is already set up for your location
2. Verify your business location to allow customers to enter reviews
3. Utilize a direct Google Review link generator 
4. Attach the link and instructions as part of your request template

Pro tips for managing Google Reviews

Here are a number of best practices for managing Google Reviews to help your customers see that you go above and beyond the call of duty in terms of responsiveness:

• Reply to all Google Reviews whether they are positive or negative
• For negative reviews always try to provide contact or a resolution to the issue
• For positive reviews thank the reviewer
• Continue to request reviews to maintain a steady stream with at least 1 new review in the last 3-6 months

Asking for Facebook Reviews

Facebook reviews is another metric that is sometimes used when a prospect conducts research into your company online. Google utilizes reviews from a variety of sources and Facebook is just one of the many social or review aggregators that are used to determine the first impression of your company to prospects. Facebook allows business owners to create their own business page to communciate and interact with their prospects and customers.

1. Setup a Facebook page and enable reviews
2. On your home page ensure the reviews section is visible
3. For every person that likes your page or post, send them a private message to thank them
4. If they are interested and reply back ask them to provide a review for your page
5. Share deals in store or on location for customers who write a review
6. Involve employees with requesting reviews during customer delight moments (instances where your team went above and beyond)

Pro tips for managing Facebook reviews

• Like and interact with the reviews provided
• Use Facebook as a way to communicate news to customers to grow your following
• Review your competitor's customer reviews and invite those customers to try or review your service
• Maintain your business review list to ensure reviews are at least recent to the year

Asking for Yelp Reviews

Yelp is a common place for restaurants and local businesses. It is one of another of Google's top choices in presenting a rich card of information to prospects. Yelp is a worthwhile focus because it is often neglected by businesses. Yelp operates in a similar fashion to Facebook business pages but requires more stringent verification along with far more reviews than Google. People trust Yelp just as much as they trust Google Reviews.

How to ask for Yelp reviews

1. Use emails to invite customers to provide a Yelp review
2. Track customers that have not provided reviews on other channels and consider offering a promotion to first time reviewers
3. Include a direct link and utilize a URL shortener to make it easy for customers
4. Offer in-store discounts and promotions for a visitor to review your Yelp page

Pro tips for managing Yelp reviews

• Share reviews that are exemplary
• Message and thank the users for their Yelp reviews
• Find serial reviewers in your industry and invite them to try your service or product

Growing your business one testimonial at a time

Testimonials are a great way to grow your business and help share the best things about your team with the public. As we've seen, testimonials build great public prestige and trust with prospects who have yet to experience your company's work. Testimonials are a time-tested way to effectively get prospects off the fence.

Unfortunately, organizations often struggle with how to get testimonials and how to derive insight and hone their service based on the feedback they provide. Negative testimonials can also be a great source of reflection and help better serve customers. Testimonial acquisition is just one piece of the overall activities required to acquire new customers, some of which may have never heard of your brand or product before.

Profitworks helps organizations succeed with marketing

"I've found Profitworks to be tenacious and adaptable to the challenges our industry possesses."

-Blair - Business Owner & Customer

Read More About What Our Customers Say

We've helped companies across Canada and the US succeed with growth, because we believe in the beauty and meaning of every article written, email sent, and social media post crafted. Our team endeavours to create unique competitive advantages for all of our customers and would be thrilled to learn more about your mission and plans for your team. Profitworks provides marketing strategy, content marketing, branding, and social media management for great companies with a stellar product or service.

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Fake Marketing Companies Canada

Canadian enterprises face significant challenges like securing local economy and limited resources from the government for expansion and development. Yet one of the greatest challenges faced by Canadian companies is the lack of transparency and integrity from marketing companies. As a result, local enterprises have lost considerable resources and time being mislead by marketing agencies that may seem legitimate at first glance. Marketing is a crucial way to reach and engage your target customers and though there are challenges with finding the right provider the right marketing agency, however, can be a strategic partner in future and predictable growth. Consult with the team at Profitworks today. Utilize the lessons learned below to avoid marketing scams faced by Canadian businesses. 

Develop your competitive advantage with Profitworks

Companies work with agencies and marketing teams to develop a unique sales engine and brand to reach and retain clients. Work with Profitworks to become the market leader in your industry today.

Executive Summary

 - The main scams marketing companies use are directory listings and office supplies fee collections

 - Perpetrators of marketing scams utilize high-pressure tactics and alleged pre-approval by company officers to force companies to pay

 - Thankfully, a number of these companies have been shut down and their Chief Executives have faced criminal charges though some are still at large

 - Working with the right marketing agency helps promote sustainable growth while a misaligned partner can cause debilitation

Though marketing companies that offer entry-level jobs to new grads represent the largest segment of marketing company scams in Canada, there are subtle agencies that over-promise but fail to deliver on their growth metrics for their clients.

Montreal Telemarketing Scam - Express Transaction Services caused $170M in SMB Losses

A Montreal company defrauded hundreds of local businesses by sending out products that were not ordered and then having sales agents call to retrieve payment. This scheme generated over $170M between 2001-2007 as reported by CBC. The federal Anti Fraud Centre noted that thousands of businesses were impacted by this ruse and people connected to the organization faced criminal charges. The ploy hinged upon having aggressive collections officers call unsuspecting businesses 5-6 times a day asking the business owner to pay. 

Lessons Learned: Establish a paper trail, request proof of purchase along with the name of the officer in your company who approved the purchase. Do not pay for products just because there is an angry person on the phone. Small business owners would have benefited by calling the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre 

Newfoundland Government Sponsored Call Centre Scam - Michael Mouyal caused $136.8B in SMB Loses

Mouyal received a $200K grant from the Canadian government and used it to set up a call centre in St. John's Newfoundland to defraud Canadian businesses. The company operated under numerous business names noted by the Canadian Broadcasting Channel including Merchant Transaction Supplies, Merchant Supply Services, and International Business Directories. Through deceptive marketing practices, the company generated $136.8 Canadian dollars and defrauded hundreds of local businesses by representing that they were existing customers with a debt, often charging up to 700% the market value of products.

Lessons Learned: Request internal contacts that authorized the purchase, work together with other departments to confirm obligations prior to issuing any payments. Communication is key here and just because there is a difficult voice on the other side of the line does not mean professionals need to bend.

Alberta Company Ambus Registry Defrauded Charity and Not-for-Profits - Organizations lost $4M

Ambus Registry would often call up unsuspecting institutions and not-for-profit agencies to strong-arm them into signing contracts. These high-pressure tactics led to numerous concessions resulting in $4M in losses for businesses across the province.

Lessons Learned: Refuse payment if sourcing and procurement officers are uncertain of orders placed. Further cross check marketing place pricing for products to ensure fair and competitive costs are being carried.

Ontario based DataCom Marketing - Defrauds companies of $158M

Using the business directory marketing scheme strategy, Bernard Fromstein and company convinced local busineses to pay out over $150M over the course of 10 years. They did so by alleging that a company officer had purchased a business listing and that someone in the company had already authorized the renewal. CBC reports that the Chief Executive of the company faces jail time as a result.

Lessons Learned: Vendors typically with work with warm contacts rather reaching out to another company officer. It is highly suspicious that someone else has approved a purchase and that you would be required to process payment.

Mystery Shopper Scam - Defrauds thousands of Canadians of personal information

The typical ploy runs the following course: a job applicant applies and received a new role as a mystery shopper. They are asked to deposit a cheque whereby they can withdraw funds for their mystery shopping assignments while forwarding money to another mystery shopper. Unfortunately what people will find is that after they withdraw and transfer their money, the original cheque bounces and the victim is left with no job and no money. This a common tactic used by fake marketing agencies to con unsuspecting job seekers as mentioned by Better Business Bureau.

Lessons Learned: A legitimate employer or client will never ask you to withdraw money from your own banking accounts, be wary of any requests of this sort.

Event Marketing Scams - 3 weeks of unpaid work for employees

A number of local event marketing companies employs entry-level workers to stand at a booth to introduce shoppers to new products and promotions. This is a common arrangement for new brands entering the Canadian marketing scene that require a direct marketing approach. Direct marketing involves having someone demo and display products while trying to entice shoppers of a department or bulk store to purchase the product. Often times the event management companies will take shortcuts in paying and training their employees. A number of employee reviews have been posted and job seekers should be aware.

Lessons Learned: Ensure companies that are offering you a role or contract are valid. Ask for references to provide better insight into the client or employer you will be working with.

Canadia businesses should stay abreast of scams and potentially harmful organizations -  utilize the Anti-fraud Centre's resources like the Black Book of Scams provided by the Canadian Government.

Fake Followers Scams - Supposed growth hacker selling fake followers on social media

Having followers on any corporate social media account is a sign of market support and confidence. There are an increasing number of social media marketers that offer companies the ability to rapidly grow their follower base. However, many companies do not understand social media let alone are aware that fake followers can be purchased. G Shift covered this issue along with great tips on how to spot fake followers or how to validate a social media influencer before you sign on with them.

Lessons Learned: Validate fake followers using social media auditing tools like Status People.

Resources for companies who have been affected by fake marketing

Here are some great resources to determine whether the company you are being contacted by is legitimate or otherwise:

1. www.ripoffreport.com - a single source of rip-offs and scams.
2. Better Business Bureau is another great website to check on the company that is soliciting or offering you something that sounds too good to be true
3. Trusted Marketing Advisor - work with an established marketing advisor to help you debunk a marketing hoax or scam.

Profitworks helps organizations move ahead of the competition

"I've found Profitworks to be tenacious and adaptable to the challenges our industry possesses."

-Blair - Business Owner & Customer

Read More About What Our Customers Say

We've helped companies across Canada and the US succeed with marketing because we believe in the beauty and meaning of every article written, email sent, and social media post made. Our team endeavours to create unique and competitive marketing advantages for all of our customers and would be thrilled to learn more about your mission and plans for your team. Profitworks provides marketing strategy, content marketing, branding, and social media management for great companies with a stellar product or service.