Before you shortlist a digital marketing agency in Mumbai, give each contender the same brief: one product you want to sell, one market you want to reach and one example of an enquiry your sales team would accept. Ask the agency to show how that buyer would find your business, evaluate the product and request a quotation. The answers give you a practical basis for comparing proposals.
1. Can the agency explain how your customer buys?
Suppose you manufacture conveyors. A buyer researching options might search for “pallet conveyor for an assembly line.” By the time they contact sales, they may have a load requirement, a plant layout and an installation deadline. Ask the agency what information that buyer should find on your product page and what details belong on the enquiry form.
Listen for the questions the agency asks you. Which applications produce your best orders? Which regions can you service? Who approves a supplier? Our guide to manufacturing SEO in India explains how industrial buyers research suppliers.
2. Can it show a comparable industrial project?
Ask for one case study that explains the client’s starting point, the work completed and how the result was measured. At Impulse Digital, our work with ElectroMech involved reorganising its website around products, business lines and regions so crane buyers could find the relevant offering. The project recorded a 20× increase in verified leads. When reviewing a result like this, ask what counted as a verified lead, what period was measured and which channels contributed. Read the ElectroMech case study.
3. How will the agency distinguish an enquiry from a sales opportunity?
Bring three anonymised enquiries to the pitch: a genuine quotation request, a vendor introduction and a job application. Ask how each would appear in the monthly report. All three can arrive through the same website form, but only one belongs in a sales forecast.
Agree on qualification criteria with sales before the campaign starts. A qualified enquiry might need a relevant product requirement, a serviceable location and a contact your team can follow up with. Ask how you’ll trace those enquiries through your CRM to quotations and orders.
4. What exactly does the quoted fee cover?
Give shortlisted agencies the same scope so you can compare their quotes. Ask each to itemise the monthly agency fee, advertising spend, one-off website work and any photography or technical content production. Establish who interviews your engineers, who approves product claims and who implements changes on the website. Those answers reveal how much work your own team will need to do.
A brief you can send to shortlisted agencies
We manufacture [product] for [buyer or industry] and want more quotation requests from [market]. A qualified enquiry for us includes [criteria]. Please share one comparable project, the first three changes you would test, an itemised estimate and a sample report showing how sales can follow an enquiry through to quotation.
If you’re comparing agencies for an industrial marketing project, tell us which product you want to grow and what makes an enquiry valuable to your sales team. Discuss your manufacturing project with Impulse Digital.
