Here’s When to Consider Partnering With Marketing Experts
From the Avengers to chocolate and peanut butter, some of the best things come from teamwork. It’s not that Captain America or chocolate isn’t great on their own; it’s just that sometimes a situation calls for more than one superhero, and sometimes a combination of separate delicious things is more delicious than the sum of their delicious parts.
Whether you’re part of a large business with its own marketing department or a small business with a handful of employees, your marketing efforts can make or break your whole enterprise. This is why many businesses today, big or small, often team up with marketing agencies to help them achieve their marketing goals. After all, when done right, teamwork really can make the dream work.
Now, there are a number of ways an experienced and trusted firm like M:7 Agency can help take your marketing to the next level, but how do you know when to reach out for that expert helping hand? Here are five sure signs that it might be time:
1. You’re Not Getting the Results You Want.
When you’re confident in your product, salespeople, and other core aspects of your business but you’re not seeing the results you’ve been hoping for, ineffective marketing may be the culprit. If you’re not getting the quality leads, social engagement, website visits, in-store traffic, or other KPIs that lead to business growth and strong ROI, then you may want to enlist outside assistance to get to the root of your marketing woes and put together real solutions.
Your messaging may be off. You may not be targeting the right audience. You may not be using the right channels or using them where and when to best reach them. Whatever the issue or issues, a marketing agency can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current tactics, and then work with you to create a strategy to meet your objectives and build momentum for growth.
2. Your Team Doesn’t Have the Necessary Skill Set.
Successful businesses are made up of many different types of people with different sets of skills who use those skills in their specific capacities. It’s why a baseball team doesn’t take the field with nine pitchers. While marketing is integral to success, not every company has marketing professionals or even a person or two with a fundamental knowledge of how to market a brand effectively.
Small businesses in particular may have the workers, boss, and administrators but not the marketers, as marketing tends to take a backseat to product design, production, and sales. However, none of that matters if the audience doesn’t know about the product and why it makes their life better. When it comes time to address marketing, winging it or getting just anyone to step in and take on additional responsibilities is typically a recipe for disaster.
Rather than wasting time and resources, this is when you want to go with a team who has the experience, expertise, and education in the craft to help you grow while letting your employees focus more on what they’re good at. Optimal results come when everyone is concentrating on what they do best, and bringing in outside marketing help to make this happen will serve you well in the long run.
3. You Don’t Have Room in the Budget for a Marketing Team.
Of course, it’s ideal to have a complete internal marketing team to handle all your needs, but it’s not always cost-effective. Hiring full-time employees and their various positions — from design and copy to photography and workflow — can add up fast, considering wages, benefits, recruiting, training, and other expenses involved. Furthermore, unless everyone is remote, you will have to make room for them and may also have to provide the computers, office comforts, and other tools to do their job.
With a fully integrated marketing agency like M:7, you can bypass a lot of those costs, saving a ton of money while having a whole team of specialists at your disposal. By the time you even post jobs to assemble your marketing team, an agency can already be moving forward with the strategy and deliverables you need to jumpstart your growth.
4. Your Marketing Team Needs Reinforcements.
Marketing agencies aren’t only for when your business is slow and your marketing needs a spark. Even when business is booming, a marketing firm can offer significant support that helps you increase capacity and take some of the work off your marketing staff’s plate, freeing them up to concentrate on your top priorities.
If your team is stretched thin, their overall performance may begin to crumble under the pressure resulting in everything from high turnover to increasingly subpar outcomes. Partnering with a marketing agency can be a big boost to your department, allowing your team to focus on their strengths and the agency to focus on theirs, so that both can thrive together towards meeting and exceeding your expectations.
5. Your Marketing Needs Reinvigorating.
The need to hire a firm may not be because you’ve been doing wrong, per se, but because you’re looking for some different or new solutions you don’t know about or haven’t tried yet. A marketing agency can help you expand your horizons, explore new tactics, and bring in fresh ideas when your own team may have developed tunnel vision or become complacent over the years.
Working on the same brand and messaging for so long, internal marketing teams may not be as up to date on the latest trends and most effective current strategies as a marketing agency who should be immersed in them. Not only can this help shake things up in a good way, but it should also help both your team and the agency grow and learn from each other, which will only strengthen your brand down the road.
If you recognize one or more of these signs when it comes to your own marketing efforts, it may be time to start searching for a trusted marketing partner. For insight on how to find the perfect fit for you and your business, check out these five questions to ask when choosing the right marketing agency.
At M:7 Agency, we specialize in helping businesses grow their customers, capacity, or capital. However, we’re not for everyone; we work best with brands ready and willing to execute in order to make their vision happen. If that sounds like you, contact us today about our fully integrated offerings including creative, communications, and strategic services.