Given the fact that we are in the age of major technological advancement, it is only fair that marketing strategies evolve too. This highlighted the launch of inbound marketing, by HubSpot co-founder and CEO Brian Halligan in 2005. Since then, the inbound marketing method has been used by thousands of business owners worldwide who are looking to better their companies.
Due to this evolution, many companies have realized that they themselves are unable to create and maintain an effective inbound marketing strategy. This is where inbound marketing agencies come into play. They help your organization with all that is related to inbound marketing, while also keeping you in the loop and giving you the correct tools and instructions to maintain your strategy in the future.
Think of inbound marketing agencies as a nursery for your business. They help shape it into a company that trusts and believes in its prospective customers and clients to bring themselves in because of the inbound method.
Choosing a proper inbound marketing agency that fits your company is arguably the most crucial and important step in the whole process. Finding the right fit for you can be a challenging and time-consuming process, this is why this post is to guide you through and shed light on this milestone.
How to Choose an Inbound Marketing Agency
Nowadays, there are a plethora of different inbound marketing agencies to choose from which makes finding the right fit for your business increasingly difficult. Since the internet is now widely available to almost everyone, a simple google search is enough to be able to start up your inbound marketing agency choosing process.
We know that finding the right fit for you can be challenging, especially since there’s no “one-size-fits-all.” So, what should you keep in mind when looking for an inbound marketing agency to work with?
- Area/s of expertise.
Sector specialization must not be the only determinant in your selection, yet it should be taken into account. When studying a possible inbound agency, look for familiarity with your industry or a broad enough grasp of other sectors to swiftly accommodate for your particular concerns. - Garnered results.
Browse for case studies on the agency’s website and request outcomes that are relevant to your company or industry. Some agencies might not make public the statistical representation of their work for different clients, but case studies highlighting the process and written results do the trick. - How their own company is marketed.
How can you trust an inbound agency to execute a commendable project for you if they can’t develop a smart plan for themselves? Examine your potential agency’s publications (website) and social media platforms. Are they visually appealing, informative, well-executed (written, organized…), and functional? - Pricing.
While some agencies have their pricings listed on their websites, others don’t. However, you shouldn’t hesitate to contact them and ask for pricing details and justification for said pricing. In principle, inbound marketing service costs range between $4K to $15K a month, and reputable agencies typically address all aspects of an inbound marketing campaign.
- Onboarding process.
You need to know what’s coming during the initial few months of your collaboration with an inbound marketing agency. You also should know how the onboarding procedure will unfold. This is especially critical if you have involved stakeholders in the organization who are looking for returns.
6. Experience:
While experience isn’t the most important factor, it is important to take note of it. When keeping track of the results made by the company, it’s also important to note just how long the agency has been active within the field of inbound marketing. No one wants to hire someone new to the field when an entire business is at stake.
- Services.
Not all agencies can service the same industry a new client might bring them. It is often safer to either consult the agency to confirm their capability in that particular field or see the service pages if they offer something you’re looking for.
- Blogs.
One of the best ways to see how strong an agency could be is by reading through their blogs. This way, a client can have increased confidence with who they are working with or learn they aren’t suited for the task.
- Staff.
To ascertain you’re not working with a one-man-army, check the team’s page and see what the team of the agency consists of. If there’s no team page, research the company for a while
- Social Media.
Some agencies may not have a personality that would mesh well with every client. It would be best to see how active they are on their social media platforms and see if the brand’s identity makes a client more comfortable working with them.
- Past Clients.
One of the best ways to see how the inbound marketing agency operates is by knowing from their previous clients. Some agencies can have a list of their clients on their website as a point of pride. These clients can be contacted to see how the agency fared in providing their services.
- Website.
You can tell their quality of work by checking how the agency’s website is designed. It could be from the color palette to how user-friendly it is by navigating around the pages. With how they design their webpage, it’s easy to tell how they’d design your company’s website.
- The Talk.
To gauge the professionalism of the agency, it’s also prudent to keep track of how they speak with you as the high-value client. The tone could be formal or casual, depending on how you prefer and feel comfortable with it, but it’s important to see how seriously they take your tasks.
- Skills.
Modern computers are a great tool to have to show off their skills, but it isn’t everything.. It is important to know how effective they will be regardless if they use the latest computers or not.
- Multi-Media Usage.
Being informative and skilled with blogs is all good, but retaining attention with text alone isn’t enough. It is vital to know how skilled the agency would be with visual media. Photography, video editing, filmmaking, and other visual media.
- Timeliness
Inbound marketing is a timely process and requires plenty of work. That being said, the agency would know the amount of time needed to research, design, and conduct a full inbound marketing campaign. It is important that the time needed to conduct a high-quality campaign fits with the client’s schedule (within reason).
- Ease of Contact
An inbound marketing agency wants to be discovered by their clients naturally and just as easily contacted. While not the greatest indication of the quality, seeing how easy it would be to contact them is an idea of how they would design your contact service page.
- Call-to-Action
A way to view their marketing skill is how the agency would design their call-to-action, the ending of a blog or service. It should feel strong and tempting after reading a piece of content by the agency, which should transfer to their clients webpages.
- How Easy to Find
The job of an inbound marketing agency is to be discovered naturally and easily without the use of advertisements. For example, if you search online for an inbound marketing agency with certain keywords, avoid the links tagged with “ad” and check out the ones that naturally made it to the top.
After an extensive search, you should have a list of agencies to choose from. The next step is to go on each agency’s website and begin looking through their content and case studies to see which agency on your list could be a potential match for you and your business.
The next step is to schedule a call or a meeting with the person in charge of your business and their inbound marketing agency to be able to properly connect with them on a personal level and to see if their interpersonal and management skills are a right fit for yourself.
Then, you have to contact the list of inbound marketing agencies that you have short-listed to get a quotation or proposal to see the framework process and pricing for their services. A rule of thumb is that a good inbound marketing agency should have a solid inbound marketing strategy themselves. Since you are soliciting the help of an expert, you should be able to distinguish and point out their inbound marketing abilities from the get-go.
Finally, you should have around two to three options remaining at most. Then it’s up to you and the people you work with to make a decision about which agency to hire. This step is based on your own personal likes and dislikes, and should not be influenced by anything other than your inbound marketing needs and your thoughts on the agencies you contacted.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is the Mona Lisa of marketing techniques. The inbound method consists of promoting a business or service in a way that is minimally intrusive and specific to a group of like-minded people.
Inbound marketing provides an excellent way of getting your information across multiple channels whilst maintaining a robust brand identity. Social media and personalized inbound email marketing campaigns are a few channels to use when trying out inbound marketing.
In a nutshell, inbound marketing is a promotional method that heavily values and relies on the audience it is being presented to. This approach entices and intrigues potential customers, and transforms them into stable leads and buyers without being incredibly forward and annoying.
The inbound technique presents a unique and fresh approach to buyers due to its very personalized nature, thus making people feel more comfortable with the idea of subscribing to a service or buying a specific product.
Most companies nowadays are seeking the help of inbound marketing agencies because of the steep decline in outbound marketing’s efficiency, resulting in an increase in sales and revenue.
Inbound Marketing Agencies
An inbound marketing agency is a company that specializes in aiding other people and businesses in fulfilling their Inbound desires. These agencies bring together technology and tools, as well as personal industry knowledge and personal experience, to aid their clients in targeting the correct audience and keeping them engaged throughout the buyer’s journey.
Demand generation experts, content developers, and marketing automation specialists, are among the skilled individuals they engage to assist clients in achieving their objectives. An inbound marketing agency works in tandem with you to properly achieve your goals, and should not be chosen lightly.
One should properly research all available inbound marketing agencies near them and consult with different agencies before choosing the one they would want to work with, due to the fact that your inbound marketing ideals have to align with theirs, and because you are going to be spending a lot of time with them, so pick someone you get along with on a business and personal level.
One type of inbound marketing agencies is HubSpot Agency Partners, and the sole difference between them and non-partners is that the latter use their own tools instead of those provided by HubSpot.
What Does an Inbound Marketing Agency Do?
Inbound marketing agencies provide organizations with the digital marketing expertise and resources they need to engage today’s prospects and convert them into future customers using different inbound marketing tools. An inbound agency works with clients to align their people, platforms, and processes in order to use the inbound technique to attract, engage and delight their clients.
An inbound approach has a lot of moving parts, which is why picking an agency to work with is both overwhelming and relieving at the same time. The easiest approach to understanding what an inbound agency does is to consider each team involved in making inbound a success at your company, as well as their roles and duties in relation to your inbound strategy.
Doing this should help you understand what you’ll need to do if you’re planning on implementing an inbound strategy at your organization, as well as why you might want to request the help of an agency.
How Does an Inbound Marketing Agency Help You Reach Your Goals?
B2B inbound marketing agencies specialize in helping businesses reach their full marketing potential due to the fact that they themselves have specialists in-house that work on but are not limited to, SEO, social media marketing, and content writing.
Inbound marketing agencies work closely with their clients in order to develop an inbound marketing strategy that suits and appeases both ends. Since you are asking for their help, you have a say in what goes and what doesn’t. These agencies properly set up plans and goals alongside the business owner in order to keep both sides happy and comfortable.
An inbound marketing agency will help your business in terms of bettering your exposure and attracting more leads and eventually delighting them and turning them into returning customers.
Why invest in an inbound marketing? While closely following and monitoring the different stages of inbound marketing, agencies also take care to alter your websites and make them more attractive to viewers whilst maintaining and bettering their marketing abilities.
Finally, these inbound marketing agencies will also help you on a personal level. That is in the sense that they will give you the tools and means necessary for you to further your inbound marketing abilities and knowledge, while also boosting your sales numbers and revenue, rendering you a proper example that inbound marketing does indeed work.
Deep Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Knowledge
An inbound marketing agency would have comprehensive knowledge on SEO and how to utilize it. An agency such as LetsMarket.it has helped clients reach the top of search engine results through the utilization of SEO.
SEO is an important tool, as the search for keywords and phrases increases the likelihood of being at the top of the search engine. Those keywords and phrases would be extensively used in the content and service pages of a website.
Thanks to this strategy, the website and its content have a higher chance of reaching users who are looking for the product or service the client would be offering.
Social Media Expertise
In 2022, everyone who has a phone has social connections in their pockets. Marketers of all sorts have capitalized on this trend in two ways: by collecting data on the customer base and by using it as a form of digital advertising.
Instead of using interruptive advertising, inbound marketing uses social media as a point of contact between the customer and the brand. Social media’s role in inbound marketing is to increase brand awareness and value by directing traffic to the website and showing the brand’s identity.
Social media is an important tool for an inbound marketing campaign, as it acts both as a means of customer service and data collection. Feedback is important both to delight customers and to adjust any strategies to keep things on track.
Website and Content Design Capabilities
An inbound marketing agency would work with the client’s website as part of the strategy. Having a user-friendly and appealing design will attract more leads to the website and increase brand confidence.
With SEO research of keywords and phrases that fits the goal of the client, these terms will be used all across the website to increase the likelihood of appearing at the top of search engines. Part of the inbound marketing agency’s capability is constructing a well-designed layout of the website.
On top of having an appealing design, the inbound marketing agency can write well-written service pages. These pages would be designed to appear to the target audience on the top of search results.
A Focus On Foundational Strategy
One of the best aspects about inbound marketing is that the entire strategy works together with each phase with evidence-based design. Everything from the research phase to the deployment will be conducted with information gathered and analytics observed to adapt.
Inbound marketing is done primarily online, where everything can be tracked and analyzed. Should an inconsistency happen, the agency will make sure corrective action is taken, or if not, then future phases will be adjusted accordingly.
Comprehensive Inbound Marketing Services
The goal of inbound marketing is to raise awareness of your product, company, or service among your target audience. The process would naturally draw them into your company, reducing any customer skepticism.
These inbound marketing strategies can fit in all forms of industry, and an agency like LetsMarket.it has the expertise to implement a sound marketing campaign.
B2B Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a dynamic service that can fit in all industries. For B2B, inbound marketing has strategies for specifically targeting business owners or procurement officers to see your business’ website naturally.
When it comes to their own business, one of the strategies for B2B inbound marketing is to showcase the brand’s identity and value. While boosting those aspects of the client, it increases the customer business’ brand confidence in the client’s brand.
SaaS Inbound Marketing
In the year 2022, software is sold online, from Microsoft Office to the latest antivirus software, some of them are even sold as a service. In the digital age we live in today, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and inbound marketing synergize well.
If you’re in the SaaS industry, then inbound marketing is a better fit for you than traditional marketing means. Billboards, TV commercials and interruptive digital advertisements aren’t effective for SaaS. With inbound marketing, SaaS can benefit from their modern digital age marketing techniques.
eCommerce Inbound Marketing
With the rise of online marketplaces, many people have begun using their phones to order whatever they want or need. Inbound marketing strategies are effective to help an ecommerce business thrive.
With everyone connected digitally and have access to the internet on go, ecommerce and inbound marketing synergize well. Traditional marketing won’t be as effective as with inbound marketing, which has a more likely chance of reaching the target audience.
Healthcare Inbound Marketing
Healthcare is of paramount importance, and quite simply, one of the most basic human rights. The concept of reaching the right people at the right time is extremely important when it comes to healthcare and those who are in need of medical attention.
The rise of the Internet and the digital marketing space that ensued has caused a paradigm shift in the Healthcare industry. Patients now surf the internet for symptoms, diagnoses, side-effects of prescription drugs, and information about doctors and hospitals.
With inbound marketing in place, those search results can help the healthcare industry either as a business or as a PSA.
Paid Media Services
Inbound marketing has media as part of its marketing strategy. It could be visualized graphs and statistics or a short animated video; all tools would be used in an inbound marketing campaign to reach optimal results.
LetsMarket.it has a partnership with Verve Videos, an animated explainer video company with years of experience in producing paid media. Other inbound marketing agencies are likely to have similar deals or an in-house production team.
When thinking about making either a product page or a service page, marketers understand that videos or visuals would help retain the attention of potential customers. All inbound marketing agencies know the importance of retention and would use all tools at their disposal to produce or commission visual media.
VIDEO PRODUCTION CAPABILITIES
While most inbound marketing agencies have an in-house production team, some employ the services of other companies to produce videos. For example, LetsMarket.it uses its partner company Verve Videos to produce bite-sized videos for their clients.
Video is a popular form of media and retains attention in ways a wall of text wouldn’t. With the rise in popularity of short-form videos thanks to TikTok, other platforms have made their own variations such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Stories.
In an inbound marketing campaign, these videos can be helpful in retaining customers’ attention, raise brand confidence and show the brand’s identity when used correctly.
Continuous Improvement Approach
With the help of being constantly online, the inbound marketing agency keeps track and observes nearly every aspect of the marketing campaign. Through this, the agency can adjust any discrepancies found during the campaign’s lifetime.
If the results of a campaign weren’t as optimal as they could be, the evidence-based agency would record the data and make improvements for the next campaign. With this approach, new strategies and tactics could be developed with the improvements made to future plans.
Final Thoughts
Inbound marketing agencies are an incredible tool that aids and better many companies using the inbound method. They focus on marketing your business to appear to not only care about meeting your sales quotas but actually value your customers making you an excellent business owner.
These agencies not only help you with the visual aspects of your company, but they also work thoroughly on the technical details of the inbound marketing strategy that was agreed upon. There are many companies that use inbound marketing, and you might not even realize it!
Working with an inbound marketing agency is extremely beneficial for you in the long run as the efficiency and use of outbound marketing have steeply declined over the years rendering it null and of limited use.
Therefore, investing in a fully qualified team of people to help you is much better than trying and failing to use the inbound method yourself. Inbound marketing agencies have proven themselves to be one of the most effective and brilliant methods of introducing the inbound marketing method to your business.
Finding the proper firm to partner with may be daunting for organizations trying to expand through inbound marketing. Many businesses appear to be appealing from a distance. But if you select the incorrect one, you may not know they’re not what they seem until you’re well in the weeds.
