As marketing continues to evolve, so does the level of technical expertise you need on your side. You might think that investing in external resources for additional support on their marketing strategy is silly. Think again. In our experience, those that do invest in areas like SEO and PPC support rise above the rest, fast. Agencies provide incredible benefit to you and your team, and open your marketing up to highly trained experts ready to grow your business online.
So you may ask, “Why does my team need an external agency partner?”
Let me count the ways…
#1 – Let Your Experts Do What They Do Best
If you have ever launched a website, you likely learned that developers are often not designers – and vice versa.
Individually, they may be the most talented professionals in their field, but to think you can find expertise in all areas is overly ambitious – and you’re leaving money on the table in the form of missed opportunity.
The same goes for your digital and internal marketing team.
Internal marketing teams are great at strategy and juggling many of your business’s most important needs. What often happens, however, is that your digital marketing efforts become just another task to juggle, meaning they don’t get the effort they deserve and need.
Enlisting an extension to your marketing team that is 100% focused on the execution of your digital strategy will not only yield more profitable results, but also free up your internal marketing team to focus on taking your holistic marketing strategy to the next level.
#2 – Unite Your Online & Offline Strategy
You don’t know what you don’t know!
Over the last 10 years, we have seen thousands of “ah-ha” moments on client calls where they tell us an offline strategy that is working really well and we can identify a direct complementary strategy that can be leveraged online.
For example, we have seen clients sitting on massive email lists, not knowing that those emails can be re-purposed for targeting online, driving already warmed traffic to convert again and again.
Your marketing team and your agency partner should be talking so regularly that ideas like this will pop up non-stop.
#3 – Double Your Industry Coverage
Not only are you playing against your OWN industry competitors, but you may also have an entirely different set of online competitors. By joining forces, your team + agency will have a more robust competitor monitoring processes and be able to more agilely react to changes in the industry.
Not to mention you will have even more resources available to attend trade shows, conferences, and webinars pertinent to both your business and the constantly changing digital landscape.
#4 – Delegate Execution & Elevate to Strategy
As a business owner, I bet you remember the day you got to hand over the reigns to your competent and smart marketing team.
You were able to delegate and elevate, spending more of your time on how to continue to grow your business. They had goals and targets to achieve and they reported their wins to you on a regular basis. Since then, I’d bet, your team has taken your marketing results to the next level.
Now give them the opportunity to do the same!
Partner agencies allow your marketing team to push down the execution of the strategy so they are spending more of their time finding more ways to efficiently use your marketing budget. Your partner agency should be given key performance metric goals and expected to report on the wins & losses.
#5 – Diverse Experience & Expertise Always Challenging Your Marketing Strategy
When you hire for a digital position internally, it often takes a long time to ramp the individual up to where they really understand your industry and are technically strong.
When you pair marketing experts with digital experts, you have the smartest people in the room when it matters most. Hiring a partner agency also gives you instant access to dozens of experts with years of experience, coupled with the agency’s commitment to staying on the cutting edge.
The end goal is to merge your marketing team and your partner agency and consider them your marketing arm. If healthy conflict is encouraged and everyone feels comfortable challenging each other, your business grows.
Our Advice: Look for a “Partner,” Not a Vendor
Reflecting on all our client relationships, we find that pairing with high energy marketing teams that really view us as an extension of their marketing department lead to the best relationship we can ask for.
This partner vs. vendor dilemma is a two sided issues:
- Your agency needs to ACT like a partner. Your business should not be an item on a checklist. You shouldn’t be just 1 of 100 clients that your agency team manages. When looking for an agency, ask the tough questions about how your account will be prioritized in their workload. Just as class size matters in schools, so does a low client-to-analyst ratio, no matter what agency you engage with. When they have enough time to truly live in your account, your analysts are going to be equipped to bring your team opportunities for growth.
- You need to let them in. If you do not give your agency the whole picture, they are only partially armed. They have the resources and experience to uncover massive savings and additional coverage opportunities if they understand how digital marketing fits into your business’s overall marketing plan. When they know what is winning elsewhere, they can use that to influence their decision making. Some examples of this include gross profit margin stats, performance metrics across mediums, voice and tone used in copy that works in offline tactics, etc.
Do you currently have an agency but did not get the warm and fuzzies from reading this? It’s time to really reflect on if you are getting what you want.
Rocket Clicks is committed to only being a partner to our clients. We love what we do. Even more, we love producing the results that create higher profits, more jobs, and more opportunities for those we serve.
Want to learn more? Call us today at 262-437-2334 for your free digital strategy consultation. We are so confident that we can show value that we promise to give you at least 5 takeaways in your account or site that you can action tomorrow and see immediate results.
