The Two-Step System for Getting a Better Deal From Marketing Agencies

A digital marketing agency reached out to me a few days ago with an offer to promote my recently released book. The exchange didn’t go well, but it was highly instructive and I believe I’ve discovered a neat two-step approach to filter marketing offers.

Their proposal was simple: for a flat fee of $2,000, they will promote my book to a number of top industry blogs and get me featured on a couple of top podcasts. Their estimate, based on their experience, is that this will result in hundreds of sales.

Sounds profitable. But how do I find out if it is realistic? I have no way of knowing the profits of their previous clients or the conversion rates on various podcasts and blogs.

Then how can I verify that their offer is sound?

Step 1: ask them to predict the outcome

I responded with a simple question: do you think I can make $6,000 in sales?

With their ‘hundreds of sales’ pitch, I think this was a reasonable estimate. They responded with an enthusiastic ‘we are very confident that you can make at least that much’. Apparently, all their clients this year have recouped their cost and many have made over 200% in profits.

Sounds great. But can they back it up?

Step 2: ask them to attach their outcome to yours

I asked about $6,000 and not, say, $4,000 for good reason. Fully expecting a positive response to my first question, I had a second question prepared. It read:

Awesome. Then, instead of a flat $2,000 fee, I propose we do a 50–50 affiliate split. You will make $3,000 instead of $2,000 and I will limit my risk. How does that sound?

This is where they ran like the wind. Apparently, they were a lot less confident about the outcome when their own money was on the line.

And therein lies the catch. Look, I get it. If I was offering a service that I didn’t want to take responsibility for, I’d avoid affiliate deals like the plague too. But — and this is a big but — I’d have the common decency to not start my pitch with a promise of that superb outcome that I didn’t believe in.

If you’re not willing to bet on yourself…

A general rule of negotiation can be derived from this: if the other side isn’t ready to bet on their own performance, they can’t be trusted.

If they’re happy to promise a great outcome as long as they take on no risk, but then flinch away from sharing in the great outcome that they promised, they are being downright deceitful.

I’m aware that the outcome isn’t entirely dependent on the marketing agency. Obviously, if they book me for a podcast appearance, my performance will be a great factor in the conversion rate.

The honest thing to do, on their behalf, would have been to point this out rather than nod their head to my earnings-related question. A part of me is sorry that I asked about $6,000 and not $20,000 because I suspect the answer would have been the same.

Come prepared or don’t come at all

Cold outreach is fine. It is the backbone of many great marketing careers. I have been part of several lucrative deals that started with a stranger reaching out to me. I even once How I Negotiated the Sale of My Bootstrapped Businesssold a company by reaching out to strangers.

So, I’m not one to complain about cold emails. But, if you’re coming in cold, you better come prepared.

The person who was talking to me hadn’t bought my book. I know, I know — it’s naive to think that every marketer knows every product they promote. But in this case, it would make sense. Beyond knowing the general topic of the book, there is nothing to help them put me together with the right podcast hosts and bloggers. What if the message of my book is at complete odds with that of a host (and thus their audience)? That might make for an interesting conversation, but it’s doubtful that it would produce strong sales.

Furthermore, starting your cold email with the words ‘I loved your book, especially the chapter about X, and I would love to find out more about Y’ is a hell of a lot more likely to produce a partnership than their chosen introduction of ‘I noticed your new book on Amazon, congratulations’.

That reeks of a copy-pasted email with just my name inserted into a template.

Distance from the outcome

The above principle can, to an extent, be applied to other industries, but not as much as marketing.

For example, if you develop software for a client, you can’t be reasonably expected to bet on the outcome with your own money — the technical execution of software features is too far removed from the client’s bottom line.

However well you build the software, the client has several major steps ahead of them afterward before they can make money, sales being perhaps the final stage. The correlation between software development and earnings thus isn’t strong enough for profit-sharing schemes to work most of the time.

On the other hand, if somebody is promising to sell your finished product to their audience, then the outcome is the job. Profit-sharing then becomes natural.

Creators unite!

In contrast to the experience described above, I’ve had nothing but success when making deals with other creators — bloggers, newsletter authors, and YouTubers. Each and every creator that approached me about promoting my work bought the book beforehand and was happy to take an affiliate deal.

That’s because individual creators are responsible for what they promote and they care about their audience. For them, due diligence and honest communication are high-priority items; in contrast, for most agencies, volume and churn are high-priority items.

Once again, peer-to-peer networking triumphs over traditional corporate ways of doing business.