Whether it is a small business or a global company, from day one that operations where started up and running, the attention has been "doing things." However, "selling things" should also be a priority, and it is here where this strong marketing strategy plays an important part. Manufacturing businesses comprehend what a critical factor in succeeding is, but investing in time and money is usually placed at the bottom of the list right after having "crucial" things done.
When commitment and dedication are lost in a strategic marketing plan, you miss opportunities, sales could decrease, and a company could lose its essence and competitive advantag. Lots of businesses working with a marketing agency specialized in B2b marketing for an industry that could guarantee a constant focus to bring in new prospects, to obtain help from an agency requires dedication from the manufacturer, at least if the agency desires to be effective. But how much time do you need to dedicate for this to be achieved?
Full participation or limited?
A marketing agency's participation can vary, from being simply just a provider or even strategically. Do you have a clear plan and require the marketing agency to implement these objectives? Or Would you rather trust the marketing agency with their experience to collaborate in the inbound program and work together? Most times, we meet in the middle. Establishing your expectations from the beginning will help to know how functional the relationship should be.
Do you want to adopt a focus with limited participation?
Whatever you decide, it is essential to make sure that the agency you choose has marketing experience for the type of buyers you have. Frequently, the manufacturers are impressed with the work the marketing agency has done for their clients B2C or their market clients not related to the manufacturing industry. Attracting highly considerate buying prospects successfully is whole other story, if your agency cannot show the expertise and results for your specific industry, you should be cautious.
Determine the participation level depends on many factors. Do you already have an in-house marketing team, or do you outsource? Participation could be kept to a minimum or very active. Some of our clients participate in aggressive weekly phone calls, writing, publishing content, and working through an editorial calendar with the agency. We also have clients who don't have the resources and prefer an intervention focus, and they take advantage of our team to administrate all these details that they cannot tackle.
No matter how involved you are, your agency will always need time to get to know you, your market, your product or service, and your competitors. When Next Level Strategy starts working with a client, it's normal to feel anxious to begin, wanting to publish blogs, social media posts, and emails right away. But before all of this can start, we insist on getting to know all we can think about them, their needs, their weaknesses, objectives, competitive advantages, existing resources, and many more things. With this information, we will know how to carry out our inbound marketing program in a collective manner to be able to get the results they seek.
If you choose to be involved, great! Just make sure your expectations are clear from the beginning to establish proper communication guidelines. The advantage is that you can participate in content creation, schedule emails, publish blogs on your website, and more. You can be up to date on all the ongoing activities. When the agency provides you with an automated marketing platform the way we do with Hubspot, you can administrate content and contacts. You can access all the reports on campaigns and which areas of these have a better function, the resulting conversions, and lastly, the return of your investment (ROI).
Parting from here, we will be able to elaborate improvements on strategies and establish the next steps with your company. You also have to consider how hard it is for your internal team to develop robust strategies. It is most probable that they do not have the proper tools or a solid understanding of how inbound marketing works. An agency can provide you with orientation as well as the necessary strategies and then allow your team to manage the implementation part.
It all depends on how practical you decide to be, but you must not lose the opportunity and take advantage of the abilities and experience of the agency. An Inbound marketing agency can offer highly valuable external perspectives that you should exploit to maximize your results.
Do you want to adopt a focus with limited participation?
No working relationship is healthy if it is entirely independent. Keep in mind that you will need to participate regularly, at least in revision and approval of work, debates, changes, and planning of your company. Think that if you are not willing to commit in the long term, it would be more realistic to plan from the start of your participation and then possibly change the responsibilities as you see fit.
The advantage of limited participation is that the marketing plan and the work it entails, requiring minimum effort from your part, allowing you to focus on other critical functions of your organization. You might feel a bit disconnected. Still, it will be your agency's responsibility to have given trust and security through open and transparent communication, as well as work quality.
You will know you found your ideal agency when:
They show you knowledge in your industry. The right partner will comprehend your business and your clients through their experience. You can trust that they will look for what's best for you because they win when you win.
They show you they never stop learning. A right agency not only commits to continually learning about your business or prospects, but they will continue to take advantage of the latest technologies and better practices of Inbound marketing. They will keep on searching for strategic and innovative ways to help you succeed.
Maintaining everyone committed. Remember, you always need to be involved and be constant in your level of commitment, especially at the beginning, when the relationship is consolidating. Afterward, if you choose to change your role to only validate and participate in meetings to maintain everyone up to date on all new initiatives on your business, sales strategies, product improvements, and other matters.
The level of participation varies a lot with each organization, and it is most likely to evolve with time, either with full or limited partnership. Under any circumstances, trust and transparency are crucial to having a healthy relationship.
If you are searching for a marketing agency, we would love to meet with you and see if we are the right fit for you and your business. Remember, we take the time to get to know you and your commercial needs.