I like sharing with all of you what I learn by working with all of you. Lately, I’ve been hearing more and more about agencies leaning away from inbound marketing. Some are leaving it all together and going back to what they did before inbound marketing became so popular. Other are weaving inbound marketing services in and around traditional digital services.
What’s going on? What do you do about it? Do you even need to worry about it? Of course you do. What’s going on in the community of inbound marketing agencies and the boarder digital agency community affects us all. More importantly, you need to be able to adjust your own strategy accordingly and if necessary. So, what are you? Inbound? Digital? Or Both?
Does It Even Matter What You Are?
Yes, it matters but maybe not for the reasons you think it matters. It only should matter to you. What I mean by that is it’s critical you know who you are. In order for you to execute, you need to be clear who you are. Here’s an example. If you’re an ALL IN inbound agency and a client wants to buy banner ads, you’re probably not going to be experienced planning, buying and executing a campaign like that. If you’re a digital agency, then this type of campaign is right up your alley.
Knowing who you are today and who you want to be tomorrow impacts almost every aspect of your business. It impacts your hiring and the stories you tell potential candidates. It impacts your selection of clients and the marketing stories you tell about your agency. It impacts how you train your team and how you teach your team delivery techniques. It’s going to impact staffing and team models. It affects almost every everything. So knowing is critical.
What Does It Mean To Be An Inbound Marketing Agency?
Labels are tricky and in general, I’m not big on their use. But this is about strategic direction and having a vision that you use to pull towards when it comes to decision making for your agency. If you’re an inbound marketing agency, then it should mean you provide inbound marketing services, you’re expert at using inbound marketing to get clients results and your team is primarily focused on executing inbound marketing campaigns for businesses.
It means that primarily you’re looking for long term clients who are committed to inbound as their marketing strategy and they’re committed to it for the future. It means you’re focusing your agency on business results and not the delivery of stuff. It also means you’re investing time and money in helping your team get good at delivering those business results.
What it doesn’t mean is that you won’t ever do anything that’s not inbound. For example, you have a great inbound client who wants a brochure and you have the capabilities to deliver, of course you should do that work for them.
What Does It Mean To Be A Digital Marketing Agency?
There are many more digital marketing agencies than inbound marketing agencies but I’d argue that most inbound agencies are also digital agencies. Why? Well most of what we do as inbound agencies is digital. But there are many digital agencies who don’t do inbound so let’s focus on what it would mean to be a digital agency who doesn’t do inbound.
I’ve evaluated a lot of digital agencies who know they don’t do inbound and some who think they’re inbound agencies but in reality they’re still digital agencies. Again, there’s no judgement here. Digital agencies are highly sought after, can be highly profitable and most of them actually work with very large clients.
Digital agencies get retainers, digital agencies have long term relationships with their clients. So what’s the big difference? The major difference in my mind is digital agencies are still practicing some of the more traditional principles of marketing. They’re buying media, they’re using the reach and frequency model, they’re working to get impressions for their clients and they’re using a lot of interruptive vehicles to continue that more traditional thinking.
Again, this isn’t a negative. There are a lot of businesses who still believe that impression based marketing works and they want an agency to help them execute it. This presents opportunity and you could even argue more opportunities and bigger opportunities than those coming to inbound agencies.
Can We Be Both Inbound And Digital?
It’s America, of course you can. But if that’s your direction, make sure you understand the challenges that will come with you attempting to be both inbound and digital at the same time.
I’ve been outspoken about how your prospects are in general fairly uninformed about what an inbound marketing program includes and it’s our job as evangelists for inbound marketing to help them understand what it is, what goes into it, how long it takes, and how it produces results.
If you’re helping them understand the thinking behind inbound and they ask for advertising and you say yes, it feels a little counter to the philosophy around inbound. I’ve always felt that degraded the value of inbound and made it a little less special.
This is another good reason to be sure who you are and what message your sending to prospects. If you confuse them because you’re not sure who you are, that’s just going to prevent them from feeling safe and moving forward with you. While you can be both digital and inbound, it might be easier to be one or the other.
What If I Need Help Figuring It Out?
Great question. While I think a lot of self-reflection and a deep understanding of the marketplace should help you come to a conclusion, one way or the other. I think this primarily has to do with how risk averse you are. For instance, the world is still getting comfortable with inbound and it’s mostly smaller businesses who are attracted to it. How does that sound as a customer base? You’d be ahead of the pack when the rest of the world starts adopting inbound but the road might be rocky on your way there.
On the other hand, being digital gives you access to almost everyone today. You can grab bigger clients and provide a variety of digital marketing services, but your team and your agency won’t be inbound experts. Remember it takes practice to get good at inbound. I mean really good. Predictable results good. The sooner you start the closer you’ll be.
As my man Wayne Gretzky said, “I want to skate to where the puck is going to be.” If this resonates with you, then you might be ALL inbound. If you want to serve the market as it exists today, you might be ALL digital. These decisions are not permanent, but you are going to want to try to stick with it for at least long enough for you to give it your best effort and to see the kind of traction you get when you focus all your energy in one direction.
Agencies 2 Inbound consulting, Cohorts and Mastermind Groups are perfect for helping you figure it out and then execute on your new found strategic direction.
So what are you? Let’s start a conversation. I imagine it’s not as black and white as I make it sound and I also image that many of you think you can be both inbound and digital. You might be right. Let’s hear about.
In the meantime, get good at telling your story, no matter what it is.
Start Today Tip – A little strategy goes a long way, especially when you’re a smaller company with limited resources. Mistakes cost more and required course corrections can be very challenging. The sooner you provide your team with a focus the faster you’ll get to your goals. Spend time with your team talking about these issues and gain their consensus. Everyone doesn’t have to agree, but they have to leave the meeting in agreement with your direction. Don’t feel like you're alone, there are people who can help you talk through and work through your specific concerns so you gain that illusive focus. Take advantage of those resources.
Agencies 2 Inbound – Helping You GO ALL IN ON Inbound!
