Marketing has grown past the days of relying on print and direct mail. Although those methods are still used, they are not solely relied on for a business’s marketing process. Before the internet, marketing mostly consisted of outbound marketing. Amid the digital age, marketing has evolved.
Marketing is either inbound or outbound. Inbound marketing, in a nutshell, is an approach that caters to your audience by creating a unique experience and tailoring content that they’ll derive value from. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, uses traditional marketing techniques to reach a broader audience. Inbound marketing entices the audience to come to you, whereas outbound marketing finds the audience and starts the conversation.
Your company must look at methods like online advertising, partner marketing and other digital means of marketing to help build clientele. Building loyal clientele happens through inbound marketing.
Outbound marketing is working toward the customer’s space. Meaning, advertisement or commercials are a part of outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is the process of supplying consumers with useful information and content. That can mean through blogs, social media and email newsletters.
Ideally, inbound marketing pulls consumers to your business. That works by placing quality content in front of consumers that may naturally want to be there. This helps build customer loyalty from the get-go.
Inbound marketing is great for building clientele in the digital era. A digital marketing agency can help you stay on top of your digital marketing while remaining stress-free.
What Exactly is an Inbound Marketing Agency?
What Exactly is an Inbound Marketing Agency?An inbound marketing agency works you through your digital marketing, offering support to engage consumers. They help you generate the activity you are seeking through marketing. This will offer the best results for your business.
Inbound marketing agencies will understand how to bring consumers to your business. They must know how to attract your target audience. By doing so, inbound marketing agencies will increase your customer base through quality content.
Some Tips in Choosing the Right Inbound Marketing Agency for Your Business
Choosing the right inbound agency is difficult. You must decide what is right for your business. A good indication is to look at what the agency’s content looks like. Take a look at their social media presence. If they have a good handle on inbound marketing, you can trust them to handle yours.
The right agency for you must also understand what your target audience wants to see. They know that inbound marketing consists of how to best draw the customer in by their interests. That involves creating quality content for both social media and online blogs.
The best agency for your business must capture your business’s vision and voice. They will give you the right staff that works well with you. Most importantly, they will understand your goals as a business.
Marketing exists to help your business achieve its goals. An inbound marketing agency must provide quality content to your target audience. They will also help update different marketing strategies that can improve your tactics.
To ensure you pick the right agency, here are a few tips to consider.
1. Pick the Right People
Not every company will work well with your business. It is important to find an agency that believes in your business goals. If they do not understand or believe in your goals, there is no point in developing a professional relationship.
Their staff must work well with your staff, ensuring you are happy with every product. You should never settle for a subpar agency. This is your business. It is important that the agency nurtures it in the way that you have.
That means the agency must provide you with the exact needs that you must have met.
The best agency for you will offer a package that best fits your needs. They will offer content marketing, social media strategy and email marketing. They will work these components around what you need as a customer.
2. Look for Transparent, Tested and Tenacious Services
You also must look for the three T’s in inbound marketing agencies: transparent, tested and tenacious. This means that the agency must have strategies that cover all three of the T’s.
Transparent refers to the evidence that it is working. It should be abundantly clear that the strategies are working for the better. The agency should provide you with monthly reports on analytics, ensuring they are continuously checking on your metrics. Typically, a good agency will restructure their strategies if they are not receiving proper results.
The agency should also remain transparent in its efforts. They should thoroughly communicate with you about their methods and strategies.
Tested means the strategies work through proven means. These strategies should not be spontaneously thought up. An agency will know their strategies work because they have seen them work.
Tenacious refers to the agency’s characteristics. They should be actively seeking results in a tenacious manner. The agency must fix what is not working, and they must do so quickly and effectively. Ideally, the perfect agency should not be timid.
When you’re vetting an inbound marketing agency, be sure they follow the three T’s.
3. Look at Their Portfolio (Do They Practice What They Preach?)
To pick the best agency, take a look at the agency’s content. If they have a blog or social media, check it out to see if it is a good indication of inbound marketing.
If it does not seem like they practice what they preach, look for another agency.
Here are a few red flags that an agency may not be fully equipped to do your marketing. If they are not thoroughly present on social media, that is something you do not want. Although social media is not a major contributor to metrics, it is still rather crucial. Consistent sourcing on social media means a great deal.
In addition, you’ll know an agency is not up to the task if their blog content is not up to par. Blog articles are great for inbound marketing. When completed properly, they can open up your business to an array of people on the internet. An inbound marketing agency must have a tried-and-true blog content strategy.
Ideally, a blog should be at the forefront of sales-generating. If their blog does not properly demonstrate that, it is rare that they could execute an adequate blog for your business.
Agencies must exemplify their own work. If their internal work is inadequate, your content probably won’t perform much better in their hands.
4. Match Your Company’s Personality
Believe it or not, an agency’s personality is equally as important as its performance.
Think of it as picking a new business partner. They will be working closely with you and your business, so it goes without saying that like-mindedness is critical as you grow a working relationship. This will also ensure that your business ideals and goals line up with the agency’s as well.
Perhaps you should begin your business journey with them on a more casual basis. By establishing a foundation first, it will be easier to know if you are compatible with the company. You will then feel comfortable working with them in the future as you have already set up a rapport. With this, trust your gut. You will know when someone does not fit your business.
5. Customized Marketing Strategies
Your business is unique and your marketing strategies should be too. An agency should understand that. They should have the ability to customize marketing strategies to best suit your company.
They also must understand how to continue customizing strategies as time evolves. The right agency will provide you with the right marketing strategies to suit your business.
Inbound marketing is all about relying on people’s interests as consumers rather than their interest in purchasing. By focusing on people’s interests, it pulls consumers to your company and product, naturally aligning them with you.
Customizing marketing strategies to fit the alignment of consumers that match your business is crucial. Attracting inbound traffic helps you create loyal customers. Quality content is vital when it comes to inbound marketing. An agency must always properly customize its strategies to best fit your content.
6. Understand Your Business Goals
6. Understand Your Business GoalsThe inbound marketing agency must understand your goals. They must understand your specific audience and how you want to reach those goals.
Your business goals should drive your inbound marketing approach. A business goal sets the tone for what your customer base will look like. Ideally, your marketing agency will help you achieve your goals within your business whether they are long-term or short.
7. Implement Updated Strategies
The digital world is fast-paced and ever-growing. That means digital marketing must also adapt to those fast-paced changes.
The right marketing agency for you will understand that. They’ll constantly look for ways to innovate and design strategies to keep pace with current practices and programs. As trends surface, they will work hard to understand those trends, adapting them into their market strategies.
An example would be the use of mobile sites. Mobile sites are often used more frequently than desktop sites. Because of that, a mobile site must be fully functional and accessible to people. Blog posts also must be mobile-friendly.
Social media algorithms also change frequently. An agency must know how to adapt to those changes. Search engines are also always changing as well. Agencies must adapt to that as well. They must ensure your content meets the people that it will appeal to.
By using updated strategies like SEO and social media, the inbound marketing agency can help you increase your customer base.
8. Show Commitment to Your Company
The agency you choose will ideally have mindfulness towards your business. It is important they want your business to succeed just as much as you do, and they should demonstrate that desire through their strategies and marketing tactics.
The right agency should be consistent in its communication with you. They should also show enthusiasm in their work for your business as well. An agency’s eagerness and professionalism in communication indicates a genuine interest in your company and its goals.
An agency should make time for your business and make you feel listened to. If they are responding late with premade emails, perhaps they are not the best match for you.
Much like any relationship, a business relationship should have the same commitment any relationship should have. The right agency for you will understand your business and want to increase the rate of customer satisfaction and growth.
Commitment will mean better work content. Better work content ensures that your business will thrive through inbound marketing.
Conclusion
The importance of inbound marketing in your business can’t be overstated. A carefully planned and executed inbound marketing strategy helps boost natural traffic that can turn into a loyal customer base over time. An inbound marketing agency will also help your business grow without added stress. If you want to improve your inbound marketing, Selling Revolution is the answer. Book a call with us today!