Plenty of marketing companies run close to the same plan for every client, and part of that is fine. The machinery under the ads (the page that books the click and the tracking behind it) should repeat from one business to the next, but who the ads talk to, what they say and what ends up on camera should come out of your business, after somebody has asked you enough questions to know it. If a company can't tell you which parts of its plan would change for you, you're looking at a template.
A business owner asked me nearly this exact question on a call this fall, after finding me through ChatGPT. They had been through a one-size-fits-all plan with a past agency and wanted to know whether I would run the same thing on them, so this post is the full answer.
Which parts of a marketing plan should be the same for every business?
The machinery should repeat, and I'd be wary of anyone who rebuilds it from scratch for each client. On every account I run, that means ads running on several angles at once, a page built to turn a click into a booking, tracking that ties each booked job back to the ad that caused it, and me in the account daily, cutting whatever wastes money. A fresh experiment on those pieces, paid for by you, helps nobody. Everything on top gets built per business. Who the ads speak to comes from your best customers, and what they say comes from the words those customers use when they describe the problem to a friend. The budget goes first to the service you most want more of. A roofer, a dance studio and a med spa can share every piece underneath and still end up with three campaigns that look nothing alike on screen.
What does a cookie cutter marketing plan look like?
It looks like ads that could run for any business in your trade once somebody swaps the logo. The photos are stock, often of a crew that isn't yours, and the captions use words you'd never say to a customer, usually followed by a row of emojis. Nobody touches the targeting after launch. The monthly report opens with impressions and reach, and you have to scroll to find out whether anything booked. Niche packages are the easiest to spot, the "roofer package" or the "med spa package" sold at one price to everyone in a trade, with the ads made before anyone has met you. Any one of these can be an off month. Three or four together in the first 30 days means the plan was written before you signed.
What should a marketing company learn about your business before running ads?
At the least, what a customer is worth to you over time, which jobs you want more of, and how many more your calendar can take. For a school or a gym, a customer is worth a full season of fees, and for a roofer it's one big ticket plus whichever neighbour calls you next, so the same budget math gives two very different answers. They should also learn who your best customers are in plain words, what those customers worry about before they buy, how you talk, and what got tried before and why it died. Capacity gets missed a lot. If you're booked three weeks out, more leads this month mostly means more people waiting on you.
How can you tell on the first call whether they'll build the plan around you?
Ask what they'd do for your business specifically, and listen for whether the answer mentions your customers or only their services. Then find out who makes the ads and whether that person will ever stand inside your location. What would they film, and where? And what do they need from you in the first two weeks? A company that plans to customize will come back with questions of its own, and a few of them will feel nosy, like your close rate or why the last agency left. If the first call is mostly them walking you through their dashboards, they won't learn much about you after you sign either. I put a longer checklist in how to choose a marketing company after you've been burned.
Why do templated ads wear out faster?
Because Meta and Google now pick who sees an ad mostly from the ad itself, and a generic ad gives them nothing specific to go on. What's in the picture and what the caption says are what tell the system who to show it to. Give it a stock photo and a caption any competitor could post, and it has no way to tell your buyer from anyone else in the radius, so your cost per lead climbs. People also scroll past generic ads faster. They've seen plenty that look the same, so the ad tires sooner and you pay to replace it. Footage of your own place and the people in it gives the system the most to learn from. I've spent 11 years behind a camera, so I'm biased on this one, and I'll own that. The longer explanation is in why your ads stopped working.
Who should make your ads?
Someone who has stood in your business and heard how you talk to a customer on the phone. At a large agency that's hard to arrange, because the person who sold you is rarely the person who makes the ads, and the person making the ads has usually never been to your location. An editor who has never heard you talk ends up writing captions in somebody else's voice. That's part of why I work alone. I'm on the sales call and in the account every day, and when the package includes production, I'm the one at your location with the camera. One person has downsides too (the bus factor is the obvious one), and I laid out both sides in one person or a big agency.
How does Versorix start with a new client?
It starts with a call with me about where your work comes from now and what a customer is worth to you, and if it isn't a fit, I say so on that call. If it is, you fill in an intake on how you talk and what went wrong with past marketing. Then comes an onboarding call where we pin down who the ads are talking to in plain terms, something like parents in Mississauga looking for a weeknight class for their kids, or homeowners whose basement took water last week. If your package includes production, I come out and film the place and the people who work there. The ads launch with the page and the tracking behind them, and I'm in the account the next day and every day after. The ad accounts, the pages, the footage and the lead data sit under your name from day one. The first term is 90 days.
If you're vetting me next
Put me through the same questions. I'd rather you test my answers on a call than take a blog post's word for it, and if my questions sound like the ones I'd ask any business, don't hire me. Book a call and come ready to talk about your best customer.