Inbound marketing is the buzzword of recent times. It is a revolutionary change for marketers. Hammering the consumer with outbound marketing barely generates any output. On the other hand, inbound marketing successfully attracts customers to the company by offering them useful and valuable material.
However, to successfully implement inbound marketing strategies, you must educate yourself about the methodology, be consistent with producing valuable content, and remain active on digital platforms to maximize the results. That is why many companies prefer hiring an inbound marketing agency.
Suppose you are considering investing in inbound marketing. In that case, we recommend hiring an inbound marketing agency, and to make sure you make the right decision in the first go, we are sharing seven useful tips to follow.
So, let's roll.
How to Hire the Best Inbound Marketing Agency?
Analyze your needs
There are no second thoughts about the effectiveness of inbound marketing; however, you must understand that it is a marketing strategy that cannot fix bad customer service or polish a product. Thus, before you invest in Inbound, make sure you are all set.
Now that you have the right product and ready to market it, consider who will be a better fit, a provider, or a strategic partner?
Provider
A provider will implement or enact the inbound marketing methodology under your strategic supervision. In other words, you will guide them, from step to step, regarding various campaigns that they will run.
Strategic Partner
On the other hand, a strategic partner will not only sell you a plan but use their expertise and experience to guide you. It is a two-way relationship where the inbound marketing company effectively works with your company to drive the best results out of Inbound.
Once you have decided on the same, you can move on to the following steps.
Evaluate the candidates
Even among the best rated inbound marketing companies, some are better than others. To find the most productive one, we recommend you to look for the following qualities:
- The Inbound agency aptly defined the delivery process
- They have a goal-oriented sales process
- They clarify their specific areas of focus
- They provide training for your internal team
- Their project management skills are on point
- The company emphasize on measurements
These qualities ensure that their approach to inbound marketing is appropriate and is more likely to yield the desired results.
Consider the compatibility
Your relationship with the inbound marketing company has to be long term. Since inbound is more of an ideology, it takes persistency to achieve the desired goals. Thus you must be comfortable with your partner agency and their standard method of operation.
To make sure you are compatible with the partner company or the service provider, consider their strategy. Indeed you can't expect them to share a full-blown plan before signing the contract, but nevertheless, they should be flexible enough to share an upfront action plan.
Once you have that tally the same with your needs and company goals, as well as the amount of time you can invest. The service provider that is aligned with these criteria is best suited for you.
Do a background check
While hiring a service provider, it is paramount that you conduct a background check to ensure their experience and expertise in the industry. Since inbound marketing is primarily based on delivering value, the company you hire must possess the necessary knowledge.
The best way to ensure that is by studying their previous case studies. Most inbound marketing agencies publish their testimonials or success stories on their website. You can check them out or ask your Inbound marketing service provider to tell you about their experience with other agencies similar to yours.
Also, check their customer retention ratio. While it is unrealistic to expect a hundred percent customer retention ratio, it is mandatory for the agency to have a substantial client base that is stable. Thus, do not hesitate to ask them directly.
Source: newbreedmarketing
Consider their own performance at Inbound Marketing
For any marketer, their biggest success story is that of their own company. Never forget to check what they have achieved for themselves with their own Inbound Marketing Strategies. If the results are positive, you can go ahead with your decision in their favor.
You can check their online presence to ensure the same. A good inbound marketing company will have a substantial online presence on various digital platforms.
However, do not evaluate their presence based on the number of posts; instead, look for the posts' quality.
Inbound marketing emphasizes the valuable content that a company yields. So, if the company you are considering has published enough useful content, you are in safe hands.
Their best inbound marketing example is their own success at it.
Check their communication skills
Like a healthy relationship requires good communication, the partnership between you and your service provider also requires the same. The agency you hire should have open and flowing communication with your in-house team.
You should be able to communicate your doubts and queries without any hesitation, and they should reply with absolute honesty and transparency. In fact, HubSpot recommends that you only consider candidates that embrace transparency as their core value.
To ensure the same, discuss the following business practices with the respective company:
- They should outline a consistent and regular meeting schedule in their sales process. The best thing about these meetings is that you can raise your queries and clarify your doubts as the engagement progresses.
- The agency you hire should have onboarding services. They should be more than willing to train your team and help them with onboarding.
- Some agencies are willing to hand over the login credentials of the marketing software they use to run your marketing campaigns. Look for such an agency as nothing reflects transparency more than that.
Weigh your budget
Companies are different in size and volume, and so are their budgets for investing in inbound marketing. Inbound marketing may not be cheap, but it is indeed worth it. You have to invest a considerable amount of time creating content and placing it on the right platforms to receive the desired results.
It may sound easy but involves a significant level of dedication and consistency. We understand that by hiring an Inbound Marketing expert, you wish to unburden your own team. So, considering the volume of the task, you are allocating your service provider, determine a decent budget.
Once you do so, you can consult with various agencies, check their plans, and make the final decision.
Bottom line
Just like a journey is enhanced by virtue of the company, your team's assistance optimizes productivity. While hiring an inbound marketing agency, you must keep this philosophy in mind. If you consider the factors mentioned above, you will positively find your perfect match.
So, what are you waiting for? Start working with the best Inbound Marketing Company to achieve business heights.
