Inbound marketing demands time. As well, it takes much domain knowledge. It can be tough for businesses to have the time and internal resources vital to understanding and running search engine optimization and social media (to name just two) campaigns alone. In these situations, businesses may reach out to an independent agency to handle their inbound marketing initiatives.
If you’re looking for such an agency, these are the five main considerations you should make:
The Perfect Fit
Working with a firm that will redesign your website won’t fetch you more visitors. Web design and inbound marketing agencies usually seem like one and the same thing, and though they are definitely related, they work with two completely unique skills sets. Web design is design-heavy, while inbound marketing is content-heavy. Attracting more traffic and leads requires partnering with companies whose main job is to generate traffic through SEO and link building, blogging and content creation, and social media campaigns. The idea is to use an inbound marketing agency equipped with the exact capabilities that can help you attain your marketing objectives.
Clarity of Process
Content creation capabilities and social media case studies are important, but the bigger value an inbound marketing agency can provide its client lies in the way they tie the inbound pieces together into an inclusive strategy. More importantly, these agencies need to be able to explain their methodology to their potential clients as thoroughly as possible. This shows that the agency has delivered ROI to clients it has worked with before, further indicating that it has the chops to do the same thing to you now.
Scientific Approach
“Metrics,” “analytics,” and “benchmarks” are some of the words that must be peppered throughout your potential agency’s pitch. Developments made toward your objectives must be measurable every step of the way, and a good inbound marketing agency will have the capacity to keep track of all campaigns and give you performance updates from time to time. You are hiring these professionals because you want certain things achieved with the campaign. Only scientific data can prove that they’re doing their job.
Project Management Prowess
Inbound marketing is steered by the development of premium content created for your best prospects. For your inbound agency to succeed, it has to get inside your head to be able to build such content and know those ideal leads. They exist in your world because there are things they have to do for you to make your life easier.
An Inbound-optimized Website
Finally, does the inbound marketing agency you’re planning to hire, post on their blog regularly? What can you say about their own social media presence? Are the landing pages on their site optimized, and do they offer quality content on every page? A successful inbound marketing company should be its own ideal case study.