digital marketing agency - trending up strategy · inbound agencies utilize the inbound methodology...

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INTRODUCTIONChoosing a digital agency to assist with your marketing needs and sales goals is no easy task. There. Are. So. Many! We get it. That’s why we’ve created this guide. We want to help you navigate through the different types of agencies out there to help you determine which type you’re looking for, and which questions you should definitely include in the interview process. We’ve also provides a guided questionnaire for you use to as you select a final provider.

We’ll be dissecting two types of digital agencies: traditional, and inbound. Traditional agencies typically focus on specialties related to digital marketing only: web design, SEO, or social media, to name a few. Inbound agencies utilize the inbound methodology to increase the number of marketing qualified leads produced within the marketing department. Ideally, the agency you choose will focus not only on marketing, but also on sales, in order to achieve closed-loop results and an aligned sales and marketing team focused on revenue.

First, there are some questions you need to ask yourself about your own needs, ultimate goals, and expectations. Then, there are queries for you to investigate with potential solution providers to ensure they’re meeting all of your needs.

Let’s get started!

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DO YOU NEED HELP WITH EXECUTING SPECIFIC TACTICS, OR DO YOU NEED THE FULL PACKAGE OF STRATEGY, COACHING, AND EXECUTION FOR SUCCESS?

Some agencies focus on specific digital marketing tactics for their clients like search engine optimization, website design, or pay per click advertising. Each of these tactics plays an important part in your business’s digital success - and if you truly just need one or two tactics to supplement your marketing, these agencies may be a good choice.

But if you don’t have a complete digital marketing and sales strategy in place, these are simply pieces of a puzzle with no view at the larger picture - the closed-loop results of your marketing and sales plus the ROI of the agency’s tactics. A growth-focused digital agency will showcase their expertise through a customized strategy built to meet your goals. Then, it uses the tactics above and more to meet your marketing and sales goals with a long-term plan for success. In addition, they’ll provide a plan for the best way your team can reach those goals - with or without their direct assistance.

What is your agency’s long-term growth plan for helping our business grow?

What exact take-aways does your agency provide at each step of the process?

What tactics would you use to carry out our campaign?

Do you use any marketing platforms? If so, which ones? Will my team and I have access to those platforms?

Will we need to redesign our website? Why/why not?

QUESTIONS TO ASK A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY:

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DO YOU NEED A TRADITIONAL DIGITAL ADVERTISING PLAN, OR DO YOU REQUIRE AN INBOUND SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY?

Traditional digital advertising plans will be focused on driving paid traffic to your site. The goal with these plans is to have as many sets of eyes on your brand as possible, and entice a few of them to click through to your site for additional information. Rarely, the conversion rate of those interactions can also be measured - but is not a high priority. Instead, the delivery numbers are the main goal.

An inbound sales and marketing strategy focuses on the return on your marketing dollars, the conversion of visitors to your site to leads, and most importantly, the quality of those leads. The goal is a lower cost per qualified lead, and a lower cost of customer acquisition (COCA). Data drives actions for an inbound strategy.

Paid advertising requires close monitoring to ensure costs are staying in line, and returns are not guaranteed. For many small to medium businesses, spending tons of money driving traffic to their site without seeing returns is not financially feasible. If that’s the case for your business, consider a complete, closed-loop digital inbound strategy. Each phase of an inbound sales and marketing strategy should incorporate a data-driven approach to marketing that’s focused on your company acquiring the best customers.




WHO DO YOU WANT TO GET IN CONTACT WITH?

The strategy in the attract phase focuses on driving the best, most qualified traffic to your website. This phase should start out with DISCOVERY, where the agency’s strategist is working with your team of experts to identify your ideal customers, then researching and developing a plan to attract those types of prospects to yourbusiness.

Tactics include keyword research for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO), implementing keyword research with consistent content like BLOGGING, and pushing the blog posts out to the right SOCIAL MEDIA channels to drive interaction and new visitors. A growthfocused agency should be providing the researched keywords and hashtags to use in your content, as well as a clear content plan (including blog topics and titles to write) for success in attracting your prospects.

• Search engine optimization• Blogs• Social media

ATTRACT

WHAT DO YOU WANT VISITORS TO DO ONCE THEY COME TO YOUR BLOG AND WEBSITE?

During the convert phase, getting qualified visitors to convert to leads is the focus. Aligning your website and content offers with that goal is essential. Learning who visitors are, what questions they have, and solutions they’re looking for is the focus.

If you’re working with an experienced growthfocused inbound agency, the convert stage should include recommendations for premium offer titles, email subjects to address pushbacks from prospects, and a clear content funnel specified to your exact audience.

The tactics in phase 2 include producing highvalue downloadable OFFERS, LANDING PAGES with FORMS, and utilizing CALLS TO ACTION (CTAs). In this way, you’re able to collect contact information and gain permission to keep in touchwith these leads.

• Downloadable offers• Landing pages with forms• Calls to action (CTAs)

CONVERT




HOW DO YOU CLOSE A QUALIFIED LEAD INTO A CUSTOMER?

In this phase, your marketing and sales teams need to be closely aligned to ensure a smooth transition from online to in-person trust-building tactics. You’ll focus on continuing educationthrough workflows and e-mails. The growth-focused agency you hire should provide a recommendation and sales enablement plan for your sales team to utilize when it comes to closing the sale: which content to use, email templates to have prepared, and a plan for closed-loop reporting between sales and marketing.

For example, here’s the process we utilize in our own sales process:

Once the prospect is ready to buy, your sales team is alerted through LEAD SCORING of the lead’s online journey and will start the sales process with a DISCOVERY CALL. Next, thesalesperson can hold a diagnostic STAKEHOLDER KNOWLEDGE SUMMIT, gathering more information from other stakeholders and building trust with additional team members. Finally, a customized DEMO with solutions specific to the buyers’ needs proves that your business is the best provider.

• Segmented and personalized emails• Workflows• Lead scoring• Discovery calls• Demo

CLOSE




WHAT DO YOU WANT CUSTOMERS TO SAY ABOUT YOU?

Delighting customers with the goal of turning them into promoters of your business is the ultimate goal - the sign to future buyers that you deliver on your promises.

Through tactics like events, continued social and email communication, and smart content, you keep your customer base engaged and coming back to your business for answers and recommending you to others.

• Events• Smart content• Continued learning

DELIGHT

Tell me about your marketing process. What steps do you take to make your clients successful, and what will those steps do for me?

What does your marketing strategy include, and is it provided directly to us in a clear way?

Do you perform a website audit? If so, what does that entail? How often do you do this?

What are your tips for improving our site?

What kind of content do you envision us needing on our site? If no content is needed, what do you recommend to reach our goals?


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DO YOU NEED TO PROVE ROISPECIFIC TO YOUR DIGITAL BUDGET?

What strategy, planning and research goes into our campaign prior to starting each month?

What analytics do you provide at the end of each month?

How do you know it is successful? What do you measure?

What is considered a success?


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Most digital agencies are focused only on assisting your marketing team with driving visitors to the site. The idea is that sexy design, hard-hitting copy, and paid digital advertising efforts driving additional traffic to your site, or people to your product information, will meet marketing’s goals easier. However, for many marketing departments today, that idea no longer holds true because the goals have changed. The goal isn’t driving traffic anymore; now, it’s converting visitors to qualified leads in the most cost-effective way possible.

Executive teams are looking to marketing departments to prove the return on the investment of their dollars. If you’re unable to do so, you risk your marketing budget being cut or redirected. To ensure success with your marketing budget, you must measure and analyze each step of the way. A traditional digital agency will be focused on the number of views you receive and the conversions to site visits that the advertising generates. Their goal is to decrease the cost per visit, or cost per click, which signifies a successful advertising campaign.

A complete digital inbound strategy will not only include the plan and execution; it will also rely on data to guide the strategy forward. There are number of tactics used to measure success in this case: A/B testing (used in design, content, and more), metrics (views, conversions, engagement, and even length of visits), and analyzing the data that are available. For the two types of agencies, some of the goals are the same, but many are different and focus on different types of results. Be sure that the agency’s goals and measurement for success aligns with your own.




DO YOUR SALES & MARKETING TEAMS WORK WELL TOGETHER, OR DO YOU NEED A STRATEGY TO UNITE THE TEAMS TOWARD THE SAME GOALS?

Related to the ROI of your marketing budget is the follow-through: how well sales is able to nurture and close the qualified leads your marketing team has provided. This is a closed-loop process. If your sales and marketing hand-off is working well and your close ratio is superb, feel free to skip this section entirely; you’re part of an elite group that doesn’t need sales enablement.

However, you need to consider a digital agency focused on aligning sales and marketing in a unified strategy if you’re seeing the following symptoms:

• You haven’t identified what makes a lead qualified vs. unqualified (marketing qualified or sales qualified).

• Your sales and marketing teams don’t trust each other.• You’re looking at your close numbers and seeing one of two things:• Your sales team isn’t following up on perfectly good leads coming in from your

website, or• You’re unable to see leads from your website and what’s happening with them.• There’s no hand-off process in place between marketing and sales.• You’re considering a lead generation effort or partnership. It’s driven by the fact that

the sales team is complaining about lack of quality leads, but the marketing team is showing increased visitors and clicks to your site every month.




Traditional digital agencies typically do not pay attention to the sales area of your business at all; they’re focused on assisting marketing efforts to drive visitors to your site, but not concerned with what happens afterward. And despite these efforts, if you can’t effectively hand off a marketing qualified lead to the sales team and empower your sales team with a process for successful closing, it’s a wasted effort. Companies with poor sales and marketing alignment have a 4% revenue decline year over year; comparatively, companies with strong sales and marketing alignment achieve a 20% annual growth rate (Infor CRM). This big-picture analysis and focus on uniting sales with marketing sets a growth-driven agency apart.

A growth-driven sales and marketing agency looks at your business goals for both sales and marketing, then develops the strategy to meet those goals using the most cost-effective digital tactics available. They align the two teams’ efforts in a closed loop process. Which do you need? Be sure to decide before choosing a digital agency.

What will my marketing team be responsible for, what will your team be responsible for, if we choose to work with you?

Will our sales team be apart of this process? In what capacity?

What does your agency do to enable our sales team with follow-through from marketing leads?


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DO YOU NEED AN AGENCY TO CARRY OUT YOUR REQUESTS, OR TO GUIDE THE STRATEGY, PLANNING & EXECUTION AS A PARTNER WITH YOUR TEAMS?

If you’re simply looking for an agency to help carry out your strategy that you’ve developed in-house, you’re probably not looking for a growth-driven strategic agency. There are two main factors to consider:

Digital knowledge: research, knowledge-sharing, and learning.Who is leading the research and knowledge aspect of the relationship when it comes to the changing digital marketing landscape? This is an important answer to have as you decide who to work with. Paying an agency to help with marketing that isn’t staying up on the latest digital industry trends, research or changes could lead to issues with your own marketing and a potential loss of results.

Industry knowledge: research, knowledge-sharing, and learning.Who is leading the research and knowledge of your company’s industry in the digital space? If your team is expected to handle the research and knowledge, you’ll also need to make sure that your digital efforts match. Ideally, the agency you hire will also be proactive in researching your industry and changes within it, and use the research to aid your marketing efforts.

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What are your primary digital marketing educating resources?

Is your team required to take trainings to stay relevant?

Who is making decisions about where to focus campaign efforts, and how often are they re-examined?


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FINALCONSIDERATIONSWe’ve provided a lot of information to you about traditional digital agencies versus a growth-driven digital sales and marketing agency. At this point in your research, it should be abundantly clear to you that this decision shouldn’t be made lightly; it’s a big investment into the future of your company. Revising your website or marketing pieces in a one-and-done approach is no longer acceptable; investing in your marketing allows you to get ahead and stay ahead with a continually evolving strategy.

Choosing an agency that doesn’t align with your goals can lead to poor ROI and potentially missed opportunities. You want to be sure that whichever type of company you select, and ultimately whichever solution partner you choose, you know clearly where you want to be and select the business that can help you get there. We recommend a few additional questions to add to your list to ensure alignment with your new partner:

• Why do they want your business?

• What will they promise to accomplish for you, and in what time frame?

• Do they clearly understand the current status of your marketing and sales teams, the current process, and what the goals are?

• Have they researched your business and presented unique, demonstrated solutions to the problems you’re facing?

• Can they back up their solutions with proven results from other companies?

• Do they know what you are currently doing for marketing and why you are looking at hiring a marketing agency to help?

• Overall: do they care about you and your company’s success?



NEXT STEPSINTERVIEW THE DIGITAL AGENCIES YOU’RE EXPLORING

Now it’s time to interview the agencies you’ve been exploring. The final pages of this document include the questions we’ve recommended you ask a digital agency you’re considering partnering with, a space for you to include their answer, and most importantly, a Likert scale (1 to 5 rating) for you to rate the answers you receive and how they relate to your business needs.

The power of sales and marketing to deliver on business goals relies on two main things: the consumer’s pain points and the consumer’s decision-making process. To ensure that your business is part of the conversation while they are researching solutions, you’ll need a solution that will help your business meet (and exceed) its revenue goals.

CONTRIBUTERS:

Alicia Westphal, Sales & Marketing StrategistJenna Orrock, Director of Sales & Marketing

If you should need any additional information or resources about hiring a growth-focused agency like Trending Up, please visit our resource center at trendingupstrategy.com/manufacturing-resources or reach out now.


https://www.trendingupstrategy.com/manufacturing-resources

https://www.trendingupstrategy.com/contact-us

AGENCY NAME:

1. What is your agency’s long-term growth plan for helping our business grow?NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 5

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 5



NOTES:5. Will we need to redesign our website? Why/why not?

RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 5


6. Tell me about your marketing process. What steps do you take to make your clients successful, and what will those steps do for me?


7. What does your marketing strategy include, and is it provided directly to us in a clear way?

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 58. Do you perform a website audit? If so, what does that entail? How often?

NOTES:9. What are your tips for improving our site?

RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 5


10. What kind of content do you envision us needing on our site? If no content is needed, what do you recommend to reach our goals?

2. What exact take-aways does your agency provide at each step of the process?

3. What tactics would you use to carry out our campaign?

4. Do you use any marketing platforms? If so, which ones? Will my team and I have access to those platforms?

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 513. How do you know it is successful? What do you measure?

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 514. What is considered a success?


15. What will my marketing team be responsible for, what will your team be responsible for, if we choose to work with you?

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 516. Will our sales team be apart of this process? In what capacity?


17. What does your agency do to enable our sales team with follow-through from marketing leads?

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 518. What are your primary digital marketing educating resources?

19. Is your team required to take trainings to stay relevant?NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 5


20. Who is making decisions about where to focus campaign efforts, and how often are they re-examined?

OUT OF 100


11. What strategy, planning and research goes into our campaign prior to starting each month?

NOTES: RATING: (CIRCLE ONE) 1 2 3 4 512. What analytics do you provide at the end of each month?

SCORE:

digital marketing agency - trending up strategy · inbound agencies utilize the inbound methodology...

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