For companies who have not worked with an agency before, the concept can be somewhat abstract. It isn’t always easy to understand exactly what that partnership will look like. However, hiring a digital marketing agency can be paramount in your company’s transition from 100 percent traditional marketing to utilizing digital marketing, including inbound marketing, content marketing, social media marketing and many other strategies.
Here we attempt to make the experience clearer by answering some frequently asked questions we receive during the sales process.
Working With a Digital Marketing Agency: Your Top FAQs Answered by Canva PresentationsFrom an outside perspective, digital marketing agencies may start to look alike. There are thousands of HubSpot partner agencies alone, and that doesn’t take into consideration the agencies that focus on other platforms such as Marketo or the ones that offer just one service, like PPC.
Here is how we differentiate Kuno: We get a lot of leads from our own marketing efforts (we are an inbound marketing agency, after all), but we put the greatest effort into pursuing relationships with companies we believe in and that we think we can help get results. We want to work with companies that are doing good in the world, which has several different definitions. It can be the medical manufacturer that helps physicians perform better surgeries, the tech company creating software to keep lone workers safe, the manufacturer that is creating innovative ways to conserve water or the healthcare system that is not only saving lives but creating hundreds of jobs in the community.
This sets us apart from many other agencies that, in order to grow, will work with just about any brand willing to hire them. Those agencies most often apply a stock formula of tactics from a menu of services.
We’re set apart by the level of experience our team offers and our track record of success.
On the surface, we typically work with both B2B and B2C companies with $50 million+ in annual revenue, and a digital marketing budget greater than $250,000. But the companies we have the best relationships with are those that have positioned themselves as industry leaders through traditional marketing methods and are now ready to take marketing in a “new direction” by employing digital and inbound marketing strategies.
It is also helpful when a company understands the methods and resources necessary to achieve success online. To truly implement digital marketing requires the expertise of several team members. Many times, the companies we work with are looking to build an internal marketing department. They are considering hiring two or more internal employees to support content marketing, SEO, demand generation and marketing automation. While that might be the ultimate goal, in the meantime, both sides know Kuno has a faster, lower-cost alternative for doing many of those things compared to adding several new employees—at least in the first 12 to 24 months.
Digital marketing also requires several digital platforms, including a content management system to host your website, blogs and gated resources; customer relationship management software to manage interactions with prospects and customers; a search engine optimization tool; graphic design platform; demand generation or social media ad platforms; a project management system—just to name a few. At Kuno, we have several tools we recommend after years of experience and experimentation. Working with companies that trust us to utilize the tools we need to get the job done and garner the results they want always creates a bountiful relationship.
One of our largest challenges is getting buy-in and understanding of the methodology from the leadership team. One potential challenge could be that other stakeholders, including product managers and sales managers, may not be as familiar with the methodology and tactics and therefore need more education to fully support the direction you’re headed. You can prepare by including these people in your decision-making process and the on-site kickoff meeting. Then, once you get started, include them in the regularly scheduled meetings relevant to their roles.
If you plan to become a HubSpot customer and you work with a partner like Kuno, HubSpot waives any mandatory onboarding fees since we handle the setup and onboarding of the HubSpot platform with your marketing and sales teams.
For all clients, we have regularly scheduled meetings each month that can be focused on training. The cadence depends on the size of your marketing and sales teams.
We’ve done a lot of work and migrations with the HubSpot and Saleforce CRMs and some with Dynamics, so, yes, we can absolutely help. But it isn’t so much about which platform you are using but rather how the database was built in the past, what data was collected, where it came from, and what makes sense to bring into the new platform.
The most common scenario we see is that past CRMs were not used correctly and exporting and importing the most important lead and customer data into the HubSpot CRM is the best way to start. This usually happens before a new website is launched (if applicable) unless there are complexities and/or other third-party integrations we don’t know about.
You will have an inbound marketing consultant assigned to your account. This person will be your main point of contact. However, you will also have direct contact with members from each department (design, development, writing, SEO and advertising). Our people are all in-house.
Check out our whole team here!
It’s not possible to predict lead generation quantities until you have benchmark data from initial activities. And this is highly dependent on the quality of the content (which likely doesn’t exist yet), the value of the offers in your campaigns, competition, how your prices compare, etc.
We use the HubSpot reporting tools to monitor pipeline statistics and numerous other KPIs determined based on the goals we agree on as a team.
If you are ready to learn more about what a partnership with Kuno may look like for your organization, contact us today.
