You’ve identified that you need to take your company’s brand awareness and sales to the next level. You start considering the options and begin looking at all of the different avenues to get you there. You do some research and start to hear a lot of buzzwords: inbound marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and the list goes on. Then, you start getting varied opinions on where you should focus your resources and what will get you the greatest results. What is the right mix and who is the right person to get it done? As you weigh the options, consider the top benefits of hiring an agency to supplement your marketing team:
How are you supposed to know which of the tactics above are going to work for you when this isn’t your area of expertise? Let your partner take the reins and direct you. They should first understand where you’re going and then make the recommendations for what’s going to get you there.
With an agency partner, you’ll have a wide variety of skill sets at your disposal. The strategy your partner provides you with should outline the mix of services they’ll use to hit your goals and how those services might change or adjust over time as your campaigns mature.
If you choose to hire one person internally to execute your strategy, it doesn’t offer you nearly as much flexibility as an outsourced team with a variety of players who all have different strengths. With a multi-person team, you’re more likely to have a team that can grow and evolve as your business’ needs do.
Let’s face it - often times, an ongoing engagement like ours will require some kind of budget or board approval. While this may seem risky, you have a contract with goals to present as a business case for the investment. You also have the ability to calculate the ROI of an inbound marketing budget, giving yourself even more ammunition when approaching the key decision makers with your proposal. What’s more, by using a strong agency partner, you’ll be able to show real, measurable results that are tracked throughout the engagement in order to validate it. In addition, you’re not spending the time recruiting, hiring, onboarding and training a new employee that may or may not be able to perform all of those skills listed above.
We’ve come to find that our healthiest client relationships are those built on mutual respect and honest feedback. We think of ourselves as your partner and are going to give you genuine feedback (even if it’s brutal) about what you need to change to be successful. It’s much easier for an outside party to uncover these needed changes and share this feedback than an internal employee - and sometimes it’s make-or-break-you news.
I’m guessing you might be shaking your head and thinking to yourself “I’ve never had a ‘fun’ relationship with an agency partner.” News flash - YOU SHOULD BE HAVING FUN! We say it all the time - our clients’ time with us should be the most fun part of their day. We have open conversations about where we’re going and how we can help each other get there, we celebrate the amazing results we’re seeing, we work through challenging strategic conversations as a team, and we have fun together.
We hope you find tremendous success as you make the decision that’s right for you and your team. And don’t forget to have some fun with it along the way. Good luck!