Upload
jomorama
View
222
Download
4
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
8 Steps to Transforming into an inbound agency
Citation preview
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY.
Transform your agency into a sleek, high-performance inbound marketing machine.
A publication of
INTRODUCTORY
2
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
Introductory content is for marketers who are new to the subject. This content typically includes step-by-step instructions on how to get started with this aspect of inbound marketing and learn its fundamentals. After reading it, you will be able to execute basic marketing tactics related to the topic.
INTRODUCTORY
IS THIS BOOK RIGHT FOR ME?Not quite sure if this ebook is right for you? See the below description to determine if your level matches the content you are about to read.
Intermediate content is for marketers who are familiar with the subject but have only basic experience in executing strategies and tactics on the topic. This content typically covers the fundamentals and moves on to reveal more complex functions and examples. After reading it, you will feel comfortable leading projects with this aspect of inbound marketing.
INTERMEDIATE
Advanced content is for marketers who are, or want to be, experts on the subject. In it, we walk you through advanced features of this aspect of inbound marketing and help you develop complete mastery of the subject. After reading it, you will feel ready not only to execute strategies and tactics, but also to teach others how to be successful.
ADVANCED
THIS BOOK
3
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
... brings your whole marketing world together in one, powerful, integrated sys-tem.
HUBSPOT’S ALL-IN-ONE MARKETING SOFTWARE.
MARKETING ANALYTICS
Y
Request A Demo
Video Overview
Analyse your web traffic and see which sources are generating the most leads.
NBLOGGINGCreate blog content quick-ly while getting SEO tips and best practice pointers as you type.
MEMAILSend personalised,segmented emails based on any information in your contact database.
SEARCH OPTIMISATION
s Improve your rank in search engines by finding and tracking your most ef-fective keywords.
ULEAD MANAGEMENTTrack leads with acomplete timeline-view of their interactions with your company
qSOCIAL MEDIAPublish content to your social accounts, thennurture leads based on their social engagement.
4
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
8 LESSONS.
COMMIT.01
GET GOOD AT CONTENT.02
ADOPT INBOUND NOW.03
BE YOUR OWN CASE STUDY.04
PROVIDE RETAINER-BASED SERVICES.05
FOLLOW THROUGH.06
07 LEARN TO SAY NO.
08 CONSIDER YOUR CLIENT’S LONG TERM SUCCESS.
5
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
But you can teach a good, old-school agency how to adapt to
changes in the marketplace, and transform themselves into a sleek,
high-performance inbound marketing machine. We know. We’ve seen
it done time and again.
And, luckily for you, we asked a half dozen of the top execs at some
of these game-changing agencies to tell us how they did it. They
answered -- honestly, enthusiastically, and informatively.
“58% of companies in Europe are going to execute inbound
marketing strategies this year, which is the same figure as the U.S.,
with 42% of companies in Europe also set to increase their spend
on inbound.”
Stop wasting your time and budget on traditional marketing tactics
that yield low or no ROI. Here’s their advice for transforming your
agency from old-school, to inbound.
Introduction.
6
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
Step 1. COMMIT
7
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“Commit. Make a very tangible, meaningful commitment to inbound marketing.” - Greg Linnemanstons, President, Wiedert Group.
This is the first step toward your transition, and its importance must not be
understated. But it also must not be misconstrued.
“Inbound marketing is not something you tack on to your traditional
marketing offerings; it’s an all-in commitment to a different way of
approaching your business, and how you execute for both your clients
and your own agency. “
When Linnemanstons arrived at Weidert Group in 2000, it was a 20-year-
old agency doing the same old things in the same old ways as every
other agency in town. “Our lack of specialised positioning was killing us,”
Linnemanstons said.
“We neglected to follow the same advice we gave our clients: Understand
what your unique promise is, and then be laser-focused on communicating
that message effectively. I think the most difficult challenge we faced was
realising we were operating as a commodity service provider with no market
positioning to get us out of it.”
8
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
Weidert committed to change the way they sold their services, and was
determined to take a more inbound approach to it, instead. He applied the inbound
thought process to the questions he asked clients.
“Are you getting all the new business that you want?”
That led Weidert to a conversation that uncovered a client’s goals, what they have
or don’t have in place to accomplish those goals, the challenges they’re facing, and
what their timeline is.
The company still offers traditional marketing services at its 10-person shop, every-
thing from wrapping a car in collateral to creating a brochure. That is to say, you
don’t have to abandon more traditional advertising and marketing service offerings
to be an inbound agency. But by adopting inbound marketing at the core of every
client they approach, they no longer have to compete for business in a limited
market.
“The whole world is our pie.” Linnemanstons says; he now competes for business
far outside of Appleton, WI and its surrounding towns.
“Commit,” explains Linnemanstons. “Embrace the approach wholeheart-
edly. That’s very different than adding some inbound marketing services to your
offerings.”
9
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
GET GOOD AT CONTENT.
10
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“Get good at creating great content. If you’re not good at creating great content, hire an agency to do it. Then, get good at promoting content.”
An 85-person agency, Digital Relevance (formerly Slingshot SEO) was named the
fastest growing private company in central Indiana by the Indianapolis Business
Journal in 2012. Why? A nearly 3,600 percent growth rate over the past three years,
much of which hinges on their commitment to content.
If you’re staying up to date on SEO, you know that
the Caffeine, Panda, and Penguin updates radi-
cally altered how Google’s algorithms determine
search results. “SEO has undergone a steady revo-
lution since the 90s,” Aders explains. “We realised
we couldn’t create relevant brands for our clients
without expanding our definition of SEO to include
strategic content creation and distribution through
blogging, social media, email, and media relations.
“Inbound marketing is the new SEO.” Today, the company has a marketing team of eight dedicated to promoting the agency,
and its in-house social media team has grown to 30 staffers ready to blog, tweet, post,
and otherwise create content for Digital Relevance and it’s customers.
11
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
It’s important to reiterate that if
content creation -- or a certain
type of content creation, like video
content, for instance -- isn’t your
area of expertise, it doesn’t mean
you can’t play in the inbound
marketing ballgame.
Get really good at
outsourcing content creation,
for yourself and for your
clients.
If you need some help
transforming yourself into a
content creation machine, speak
to one of our agency inbound
marketing specialists -request a
one-to-one here.
12
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
ADOPT INBOUND NOW.
13
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“Start learning about inbound marketing now.”
- Bob Ruffalo, CEO and Founder, IMPACT Branding and Design
IMPACT Branding and Design began as a company that only designed websites
for it’s clients. But after the work was done, clients soon came back to Ruffalo
complaining that their websites were “broken,” which is to say they weren’t gener-
ating the amount of traffic they expected.
Ruffalo realised that if you don’t offer marketing services along with website devel-
opment, you and your clients were missing out on the real value that inbound
marketing generates.
IMPACT saw the following results within the first eighteen months of adopting
inbound marketing methodologies and technology;
Revenue doubled
Increased from 1,500 monthly site visits to 27,000
600 monthly leads
50-100 qualified leads converting into customers.
But what’s even more important is that now that IMPACT experienced how inbound
marketing could work for themselves, they could now provide these types of
services to their clients. That’s why it’s so critical for agencies to learn about
inbound marketing -- and implement it in their own agencies -- as soon as possible.
14
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
4. BE YOUR OWN CASE STUDY.
15
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“The first thing agencies need to think about is how to position themselves.“
Once you’ve immersed yourself in the
inbound marketing methodology, it’s
crucial to not only implement it for your
own business, but to demonstrate how
inbound has impacted your business.
In other words, be your own best case
study. It’s not enough to show how you’ve
helped other clients with your services
-- it’s incumbent on inbound agencies to
practice what they preach, and communi-
cate those results to potential clients.
“If tomorrow you want to be an inbound marketing agency, you have to market differently, sell differently, and execute differently. A mandatory step in the process is doing inbound marketing from your own agency.”
- Mike Lieberman, Co-founder and President, Square 2 Marketing
“1 in 5 European marketers say traditional adver-tising is less important in 2013”
Source: The State of Inbound Marketing in Europe
16
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
Acting as your own best case study will make the impact you’re promising seem
attainable, and grounded in reality. Heck, you believe in it so much you rely on it for
your own business growth -- that’s a pretty serious testimonial. So put some numbers
behind your own agency growth due to inbound marketing, and share those
numbers and stories with your clients -- current and potential.
Square 2 Marketing, for example, is able
to point to some serious traffic growth
from inbound; it’s increased 359% through
exclusively non-paid, web-based inbound
tactics. This has also resulted in a 10X
increase of inbound leads delivered to
their agency.
Being able to point to the lessons you’ve
learned, the success you’ve had, and even
the help you wish you had, will move the
business growth conversation from the
clouds to the ground.
17
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
5. PROVIDE RETAINER-BASED
SERVICES.
18
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“Create a pricing and service package model that allows you to provide retainer-based services”
- Paul Roetzer, CEO and Founder, PR 20/20
Roetzer could see that transparency and trust are key to relationship-building in a
world where customers own the relationship with their brands, and social media
can set things on fire in an instant. With that transparency in mind, he started PR
20/20 with 105 fixed-price, a la carte services. Eventually, he began to bundle those
services. That enabled him to build the business based on monthly retainers.
“You could just bundle what you’re selling now, but chances are that won’t work,” Roetzer says. “Start small. Start with one
proposal or one client who’s willing to experiment.”
Roetzer tests every new service they intend to offer internally for months before
offering it to clients. That enables them to determine their costs so they can prop-
erly price when the service is ready to be launched.
If you’re looking to transform into an inbound agency, you’ll inevitably have some
new service offerings that you’ll have to price and package. Take a chapter from
Roetzer’s book, keeping an eye on crafting retainer-based services, and thoroughly
experimenting with offerings before taking them live to clients.
19
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
6. FOLLOW THROUGH.
20
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“When you’re interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.”
- Tiffany Sauder, President, Element Three
Focused primarily on B2B clients whose revenues ranged from $2MM-$400MM
annually, Sauder found herself and her team constantly chasing data via spread-
sheets provided by their clients. Data which, by the time they received it, was
several months old ... if they received it at all. Worse, every client had their own
marketing tools. Element Three was expected to become fluent in their multiple
systems in less than 30 days -- an impossible task.
“This was hard, but you know what? So is change.”
Sauder was successful in transforming her business into an inbound agency due to
the fact that she was committed to learning about and implementing closed-loop
technology that brought everyone on the same page -- client and agency alike. The
commitment and up-front investment paid off.
By 2012, 80% of Element Three’s business was on retainer
Client renewal rates soared from 37% in 2011 to 83% in 2012
Client spend increased 91%
Revenues doubled, a feat they are on track to accomplish again in 2013
21
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
7. LEARN HOW TO SAY NO.
22
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“Be willing to make tough decisions and let money go. If you’re going to pivot your business model like we did, you’re going to have all of these clients that don’t want to adapt. Let them go.” - John McTigue, Executive Vice President and Co-Owner, Kuno Creative
“As your positioning and service offer-ings are solidified, it’s important to remember what kind of agency you’ve transformed into. That might mean leaving money on the table sometimes.”In the mid-2000s, Kuno Creative was a traditional
agency designing brochures, building websites, and
executing direct mail campaigns.
They also were not profitable, so McTigue and the agency’s owner, Chris Knipper, sat
down to figure out how they could fix things. Today, Kuno is a full-service, enterprise
inbound marketing agency that provides content, demand generation, lead nurturing,
marketing automation, and analytics for mid- to large-size companies, primarily in tech-
nology, healthcare, and manufacturing.
23
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
8. CONSIDER YOUR CLIENT’S LONG TERM SUCCESS.
24
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
“We’ve not simply adopted software, but what we’ve done is completely redeveloped our business in building out a full methodology that we both use for our sales and for our customers.” - Johnny Mone, Director and VP of Business Development, Brightfire
“Our differentiation is really our investment in our client’s long term success rather than just arranging a digital
project for them.”
The directors at Brightfire reconsidered their future growth strategy, and ultimately saw
inbound marketing with HubSpot as their opportunity for differentiation in the field.
Using the HubSpot software alongside the inbound marketing methodology gave
Brightfire the ability to offer business-wide solutions to their clients instead of one-off
creative projects.
With the tools to shift focus to a client’s entire strategy, Johnny says switching to an
inbound agency has also helped us to establish credentials in inbound marketing
which enable the generation of recurring revenues, which has enabled us to plan and
grow.
It worked. Kuno has gone from 300 smaller clients to fewer than 20, but those 20
pay the bills and then some, month in and month out.
25
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
After spending 2008 learning how to do inbound marketing, in 2009, McTigue
began using blogging and social media to get Kuno found online. They soon
realised this strategy was a real differentiator for them and they honed in on a
handful of clients for whom they could apply their content creation strategies and
skills. They became experts at creating effective digital content.
“Then,” says McTigue, “we focused on learning how to sell inbound marketing
services and to whom.” For Kuno, that meant letting go of smaller clients, or compa-
nies not willing to adapt. Instead of going for large volumes of customers, they
would focus on fewer, larger clients with the financial means and the will to make a
commitment to inbound marketing.
2x increase in revenue in first year
70% increase in revenue in second year
Continued growth through a recurrring revenue model
“36% of European marketers completely integrate their inbound marketing goals with their larger strategy”
Source: The State of Inbound Marketing European Report
26
WWW.HUBSPOT.COM
Share This Ebook!
8 STEPS TO TRANSFORMING INTO AN INBOUND AGENCY
Talk to a HubSpot specialist today to learn how you can transform into an
inbound agency.
LOOKING TO REDEFINE THE FUTURE OF YOUR MARKETING AGENCY?
TALK TO US TODAY.
HTTP://BITLY.COM/CONTACT-SALES-HUBSPOT