With the tremendous growth of the digital space and the need to promote businesses there, virtually every company with an online presence could use a good B2B Internet marketing agency. But as the Internet continues to evolve along with the many different types of marketing services, choosing a B2B Internet marketing agency can be a challenge.
All tactics and no strategy makes for less-than-stellar marketing
Chances are, it is not enough for you to have a pretty website. You need to get real value from your site, by making sure it reaches the right audience and delivers measurable results for your business.
Perhaps you have already spent a lot of money on “marketing” without seeing much return on that investment. Maybe the monthly reports show that money has been spent on marketing tactics — SEO, email, social media, and so on — but not what results those dollars are achieving (or not).
What is probably missing from those marketing efforts is a strategy behind the tactics.
Start with the end in mind
The secret to partnering with the best B2B Internet marketing agency begins with establishing why you need marketing before you even talk to a prospective agency. What are the end results you want to achieve?
Starting with the end in mind is essential to building an effective marketing strategy.
- What are your goals? What do you need your online presence to do? Generate new leads? Capture leads that are “there” but untapped? Build awareness? Generate direct sales? Deliver information? Position you as a thought leader? All of the above?
- What are your priorities? As attractive as the idea may be, you might not be able to do it all. So, what is your top priority? And where do your other goals fall in line underneath it?
- Who are your customers? Your future B2B Internet marketing agency — if it is a good one — will want to know everything possible about your customers, to understand what their purchase journey looks like and how to talk to them at every step.
- How will you hold the agency accountable? What benchmarks, KPIs, or other measures of success will you use to know if and how you are moving toward your goals?
- What’s your budget? While you might not know exactly what to expect starting out, having a figure in mind will help a B2B Internet marketing agency work with you to establish realistic expectations.
Once you have clarity around what you want to accomplish, you are ready to start deciding which B2B Internet marketing agency you need.
7 types of “marketing agencies”
There are many different types of companies among the top B2B Internet marketing agencies. Many have a specific area of expertise.
- Web designers/developers — These guys are experts when it comes to designing and coding websites, from layout to ongoing functionality.
- SEO companies — A really good SEO company will create and implement a plan (both onsite and offsite) that will make your website show up for specific/relative search results.
- Social media companies — These agencies are focused on the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service.
- Content marketers — These marketers create and share content online such as videos, blogs, and social media posts to drive traffic to a related business.
- Inbound agencies — These companies specialize in marketing tactics that are designed to draw qualified customers and prospects to you by engaging them on their own terms.
- SEM companies — Search engine marketing is all about promoting web visibility through paid ads, using SEO to enhance “searchability” and pay per click (PPC).
- Full-service advertising agencies — These companies handle all aspects of business marketing and advertising in all media but often have their roots in traditional advertising.
The trouble is, not all of these companies — particularly very specialized ones — will have skills in all the aspects of marketing strategy required to best leverage the capabilities of the web to reach your target audience and deliver measurable results.
Then there is the full-service B2B Internet marketing agency — a company that provides expertise in all or most areas of marketing. True to its name, this type of agency generally has deep AND wide marketing knowledge and skills at its core, rather than a focus on advertising or a single aspect of Internet marketing.
So, how do you choose a B2B Internet marketing agency?
If you have a range of marketing requirements — and who doesn’t? — picking a B2B Internet marketing agency can be complicated. You could hire experts from multiple companies, but that can get very expensive. Plus, unless they are all working in tandem, the results will be a marketing program that is disjointed and not as focused as you need it to be.
Which kind of B2B Internet marketing agency or agencies you choose will depend not only on your marketing needs, but also on what kind of resources you have in house. For instance, you could a hire an SEO team and be very successful — IF you have your own marketing director who can spearhead the efforts and work with your external marketing team(s) to keep everything aligned.
Why consider a full-service B2B Internet marketing agency?
With the diversity of marketing expertise required at all levels for success, the high cost of having an in-house marketing team — a marketing director, social media manager, SEO expert, content providers, and so on — is too high for many small and mid-size businesses.
For these (and many other companies), a full-service B2B Internet marketing agency is often the best option. Besides offering expertise across the marketing spectrum, a full-service B2B Internet marketing agency tends to be up on the latest tactics in an ever-changing field.
For example, as a full-service B2B Internet marketing agency, Hello Marketing Agency continuously learns about new channels and tools. This allows us to offer the most effective and complete marketing strategy, using the most appropriate tactics and measures of success.
Marketing success begins with you
If you as the business owner or leader are not clear about what is driving your need for marketing, even the best B2B Internet marketing agency will find it difficult to succeed.
On the other hand, if you begin by spelling out your goals, priorities, and measures of success, then it becomes easier to pick the right agency with the best strategy for achieving the desired results.
When you’re ready, read our Inbound marketing guide to learn how Hello Marketing Agency helps companies engage buyers and deliver leads.
