With more people than ever shopping and interacting online, the opportunity for businesses to acquire new customers and skyrocket sales has never been bigger.
In order to achieve this, a marketing strategy is needed. And not just any marketing strategy – an effective, data-driven strategy that uses psychological principles to underpin and justify its activities.
Most businesses do not have the skillset in-house to build this strategy, nor the technology and manpower to put it into action. That’s where hiring a marketing agency comes in.
1. It will save you time
Don’t let the get-rich-quick books and courses fool you – effective marketing is not quick or easy.
Whether you are generating new campaign ideas, crafting marketing personas or building a social media presence for your brand, it all takes time to do it well. Trying to do it yourself, around other responsibilities, is a recipe for disaster in most cases.
If you are struggling to find the time to effectively plan and execute your marketing, that is a big sign that hiring an outsourced agency will be money well spent.
2. It will save you money
Hiring, building and scaling a marketing team can be a hugely expensive, let alone daunting task. It can also take a lot of time, especially if you are looking to hire senior talent with specific skills and experience.
On average, when the cost of an in-house marketing team is compared with the fee of a full-service agency, the agency will be the most cost-effective option, with none of the delays or drawbacks of hiring more employees.
You also save on onboarding, training and additional employment costs.
3. You can work with industry experts
When you hire a marketing agency you immediately have access to some of the best and most diverse marketing talent money can buy. Need a talented graphic designer for an ad campaign? An agency will have it. A dedicated account manager? Say no more.
If you work with an established marketing agency like Cognition, you can sleep easy knowing that the senior team in charge of your account have decades of experience in client management, content creation and marketing psychology. To build a team like that in-house would take years, with many failures along the way. As a leading marketing agency, we also stay up to date with all of the cutting-edge movements and trends so we can take advantage of opportunities as and when they happen.
4. You can get access to specialist marketing technology
Your marketing team likely already uses basic tools like Google Analytics, but many of the marketing technologies used by agencies would be prohibitively expensive for you to purchase.
Hiring a marketing agency removes this barrier and gives you full access to cutting-edge data analysis and marketing campaign tools. These allow you to review your marketing activities, quickly uncover opportunities and monitor your ROI.
The digital marketing battle of today is won by the brand with the most data. Working with an agency will unlock this for you.
5. You can create or refresh your marketing strategy
Whether you currently have a coherent marketing strategy or not, working with an established marketing agency will help bring clarity and impact to your campaigns.
Think of your chosen agency as an extension to your current team. Your new account manager, copywriters and strategists will bring a fresh perspective to your marketing, and will often be able to solve problems and challenges you have struggled with, due to the fact they have none of your preconceived ideas or beliefs about the way things should be done.
Also being able to build out a new strategy, with new tactics and goals, will breathe life into your internal team, and will often lead to better performance overall.
6. You can scale your marketing plan
Scaling your campaigns and success is perhaps the biggest challenge in marketing. It can be even more difficult to do with an in-house team, as it requires forecasting and hiring new team members – all of which takes time and money, with no guarantee of future returns.
When you work with an agency, you can scale your marketing efforts immediately, with the help of professional marketeers. No channel or tactic is off limits, or hampered by the lack of in-house skills or experience. From search to social, email to PR, you can promote your brand and acquire customers on all fronts.
Choosing to work with Cognition also has an added benefit, as we are part of the DXG Group – one of the largest HubSpot agency organisations in the world. If you wish to expand internationally, or to enter different markets, we have the scale and knowledge to help you do so.
7. You can refine your metrics and improve your ROI from marketing activity
Last but certainly not least, hiring and working closely with a marketing partner will help put the spotlight on what really matters: return on investment.
Your marketing agency is just as keen as you are to see a quick and tangible return on any marketing efforts. Working with professionals in this area will help you zone in on the metrics and KPIs that really move the needle, rather than getting stuck in vanity metrics that are hard to justify in the quarterly board meeting.
With the right team of experts behind you, and the right technology, your business can drive significantly more traffic, sales and leads in a relatively short time-frame. See for yourself by reading about some of Cognition’s clients.
Thinking about outsourcing your marketing?
Hiring a marketing agency is a big decision. To help you get it right the first time, we’ve put together a useful guide that will take you through the process of hiring a marketing agency, including a handy checklist of important things to ask potential marketing partners.
