�� This question comes up often, and while there are numerous answers, one in particular stands out.
Hiring a single marketing person to fulfill many roles (necessary to bring you the most successs) would be your steepest challenge. Because some businesses require a more robust marketing plan than others, this list includes all of the professionals you could be working alongside when partnering with a full service inbound marketing agency:
Advertising is an important aspect of any marketing plan because many of the challenges a business faces revolve around website traffic. While advertising can bring more traffic to a website, it’s best to only utilize advertising as a supplement while also working toward increasing your website’s organic traffic from other online platforms like search engines, social media, and referral sites.
Due to the steep price of most advertising platforms like Google Adwords and Facebook ads, it's important to have a professional manage your advertising to ensure effective strategies are developed, ad optimization is implemented, ads are properly set up and managed, and return on investment (ROI) is earned and can be explained.
Your analyst, or inbound marketing strategist, is the person who will work with you to conduct your entirer marketing plan and then analyze it’s results, make changes where necessary, and optimize for performance on your behalf. Often, when companies manage their own marketing, they set forth campaigns but fail to analyze results, which can lead to a lot of wasted money and confusion between marketing and sales departments.
The importance of good graphic design in your marketing efforts goes without saying. The internet is a very visual place, and your company's online appearance has incredible weight on the credibility of your brand and organization from a consumer’s point of view.
Photography is a medium that has been around for years, and most business owners know they need original, quality photos as part of their marketing strategy. Video is a more modern medium that has recently been growing in popularity at a rapid pace. Consumers today need a clear visualization of what they will be purchasing. Photos and videos have the ability to tell a story that is often more powerful and easier to digest than written content alone. Because of this, more and more marketing agencies are adding in-house video producers to their teams.
Nearly every business will need some sort of printed materials at some point. This may be in the form of business cards, flyers, order forms, hand outs, posters, signs, or other promotional products. Print is a vital part of an overall marketing and branding strategy. Having an agency partner that provides print in addition to marketing is very beneficial because it simplifies your invoicing and often comes with client discounts! It also allows you to work with people you already know and designers who are familiar with your brand. Working with a small-business printing company and supporting your local economy can also give you peace of mind.
In the fast-paced world of social media, it’s smart to leave publishing to the professionals. Businesses often think they should hire an intern or recent college graduate to handle their social media marketing because millennials tend to be up to date with the latest platforms. This is true, BUT the platforms a millennial with no business experience might be familiar with may not be where your target audience lies and, therefore, won't be effective. Likewise, social media is meant to be simple and fast, and the chances of your employee posting incorrect (or even inappropriate) content increases.
Hiring a professional content writer to write your website content, your latest news or blog posts, and your social media posts will allow for brand consistency across all your content.
Website development is one of the more specialized positions an agency has to offer their clientele. With a web developer on your agency team, website changes or issues can be handled in a timely manner, rather than added to a long list of everything else your internal marketing employee needs to complete (or learn). Additionally, most people in marketing don't even have the technical ability to successfully orchestrate web development tasks.
Most online content is written or, when spoken, scripted. Writing and editing are highly specialized skills that can take your website and overall brand from good to great. Content should be engaging and original, and editing should be utilized across every form of publication to ensure accuracy and competancy.
After reviewing all of these positions, we hope you understand that no single person can successfully perform all of these tasks. The more technical tasks especially, like writing and web development, simply cannot be done by a person who is also an expert in something else, like graphic design. When it comes to acing your inbound marketing plan, it really takes a village to raise a business.
If you’re interested in discussing your marketing needs or simply would like a marketing assessment, schedule a consultation with one of our strategists! When you work with an inbound marketing agency like Blue Frog, you'll have an entire team of experts at your service. We have offices in Denver, Des Moines, and Huron, but we work with businesses across the entire nation, and we'd love to have the opportunity to work with you. Reach out to us today!