If you haven't figured it out already, we at Digital 1 are pretty big advocates and fans of inbound marketing, the best way to turn your website into a lead generating growth machine. If implemented correctly, inbound marketing can help you Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight your website visitors turning visitors into long-term clients and possibly even promoters of your business and services.
Inbound Marketing is a no brainer, but deciding whether to run your own inbound marketing efforts or hire an inbound marketing agency isn't as easy a decision.
The short answer; it depends on the structure of your own business, the time frame you need to see to start seeing results, and the resources that you have at your disposal. Our list of both positives and negatives of hiring an inbound marketing agency will hopefully help you decide if working with an inbound marketing agency is right for your organization.
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positives and negatives of hiring an inbound marketing agency
Lets start with the negatives. its always good to get the bad news out of the way...
Negatives of Hiring an Inbound Marketing Agency
Disclaimer: There are numerous potential drawbacks to working with an inbound marketing agency. We are only covering a few.
1) Absence of industry knowledge
Unless the inbound marketing agency that you are considering working with specializes in working with businesses within your industry, there will most likely be a bit of an industry knowledge gap at the beginning of the process. There will usually be a bit of a ramp up period where the inbound agency will learn about your industry, issues that you and your business are experiencing, and what your business's customers are looking for.
The more specialized your business and or industry is, the more time it will take any external team without a solid background in your industry to educate themselves.
2) You most likely are not your inbound marketing agency's only client
At most agencies, it is common practice for inbound marketing teams and or individual inbound marketing specialists to work with multiple clients at once. If they didn't, their monthly retainer fees would be astronomically expensive. This is something to consider as at times, they may have to juggle between the needs of your business and the needs of another one of their clients which usually results in you or the other client dissatisfied with the level of service that is being received.
This is a common problem for agencies that either have over extended themselves OR are possibly dealing with projects that may be experiencing scope creep.
3) Delayed Communication
No matter what type of external team you work with, you will inevitably experience some type of delay in communication. This delay in communication can be greater if the external team is in a different time zone and/or country. Different time zones/countries can make it challenging to setup conference calls and meetings as well as collaborate in real time.
Delayed communication can mean slower roll out as well as delayed modifications to your inbound strategy.
4) determining Project Scope and potentially dealing with scope creep
With any inbound agency or any company/organization for that matter, there’s always the concern of scope creep (see our blog post on preventing scope creep). Scope creep refers to uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project's scope.. This can be caused by inadequate communication of goals and needs, underestimation of work involved to complete the job, or the discovery of new needs in the middle of the project. Whatever the reason, the project is going to take more work than originally estimated.
While some inbound marketing agencies will build a contingency budget into the agreement accounting for some scope creep to fix critical problems, too much work not in the original agreement will strain any agency’s resources and cause them to want to revisit the agreement with your company.
Having to negotiate a project’s scope after work starts can be a very painful process, but you’d be surprised how often it happens. This is something that you definitely want to avoid, but at times can be unavoidable.
Positives OF HIRING AN INBOUND MARKETING AGENCY
There are many perks to using an inbound marketing agency. Here are just a few:
1) increasing the effectiveness of your marketing team without adding to your staff
One of the toughest decisions in business today is deciding whether to staff up or outsource when it comes to your marketing department or any department for that matter. When it comes to outsourcing your marketing efforts, outsourcing to and inbound marketing agency is a great option. By hiring an inbound marketing agency, you will be able to increase the effectiveness of your marketing team/department without adding to your staff. Although there is a cost (which can be significant) we have found it pales in comparison to the true cost of hiring a full time staff within your company to get the same amount of work completed.
Although it is always a great feeling to add to your company's team, it isn't always the best option. Outsourcing your inbound marketing efforts to an external team is a great option for many businesses.
2) Access to Writers, Designers, Developers and more!
Most inbound marketing agencies do a lot more than just offer marketing advice. They most likely will offer other services that compliment their marketing services. From web design and graphic design services to writing services where they may even goes as far as writing and designing full eBooks and white papers for your inbound efforts.
Working with an inbound agency can give you and your businesses access to a full suite of valuable services.
3) Access to a battle tested, experienced inbound marketing team
The inbound marketing agency that you choose to work with should have a team of battle tested, experienced inbound marketing experts. These experts will know all of the tricks to the trade of inbound marketing and will be able to help your business hit the ground running from Day 1. This is by far one of the biggest advantages of working with an external inbound marketing team.
When attempting to implement an inbound marketing strategy internally there tends to be a lot of obstacles such as supporting the other departments within your business, normal day to day responsibilities, as well as other marketing efforts that are under the marketing departments jurisdiction. Implementing a sound inbound strategy is very time consuming and in reality, a full time job. This is where an experienced external inbound marketing team can really come in handy.
4) CRM support and integration
The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform that you use is an integral part of your business. This is where you are tracking your leads and managing your sales funnel. Many inbound agencies will help you manage your CRM platform so your sales team can focus on closing sales. A properly managed CRM can increase productivity as well as sales. If not implemented and managed properly, a CRM can be one of your biggest headaches that you deal with on a weekly basis.
Conclusion
Just like any decision in life, there are definitely trade-offs when it comes to working or not working with an inbound marketing agency. We obviously believe that the positives outweigh the negatives but what is most important is how our clients feel about working with an inbound marketing team. Remember, evaluating ROI (Return on Investment) is a key component of any marketing effort and the bottom line is most inbound agencies that you work with will want to make inbound marketing the best investment you make in your business everyday.
Thanks for reading our post the Positives and Negatives of hiring and Inbound Marketing Agency. We hope this post helps you decide if working with a Inbound Marketing Agency is right for you and your company. Want to turn your website into a lead generating sales machine? Download our eBook An Introduction to Growth-Driven Design by clicking the link below!
