When Is the Time to Invest In Marketing for Your Business?

As a business owner, it can be difficult to know when the time is right to take the next step to move your company forward. When to hire outside help for marketing is one of those decisions that business owners often struggle with. To help you decide whether the time has come to bring in professional marketing help for your company, consider your current goals and challenges and how a marketing agency could help you overcome those challenges to reach your goals.

What are your long-term goals?

Start by clearly listing your long-term goals for your organization. How much would you like to see business grow and in what time frame? What kinds of potential customers do you want to do a better job reaching? Which parts of your marketing process would you most like to improve: for example, branding, building awareness, answering potential customers’ questions, or overcoming anxiety or friction in their decision making about your products or services?

What obstacles lie between you and your goals?

Now that you have a clear expression of your goals, ask yourself what challenges you’ll need to overcome in order to reach them. What needs to happen before your business grows to the level you want to see? Do you or someone on your staff have the knowledge, skills, and time to do the branding, awareness building, or other types of marketing activities your business needs? If these obstacles seem daunting, then it may be time to get some professional help on your side.

How could a marketing agency help you overcome your obstacles?

Marketers are professional problem solvers, trained to help businesses overcome the challenges that could prevent or slow their success. Partnering with a full-service marketing agency gives you access to a team of such problem solvers, who will apply their expertise to the myriad aspects of marketing your business.

• Account strategists can work with you to design an overall strategy to meet the business goals you have identified.
• Website designers can create a beautiful and intuitive website that provides a seamless user experience and is easily recognized by search engines.
• Graphic designers can develop logos and design attractive layouts for your website, online content, and print materials.
• Professional writers can work with you to develop content that communicates effectively with your target audience, answering their essential questions about your business and encouraging further engagement.
• Print professionals can help you devise attractive materials for a variety of uses, including direct mail, trade show signage, flyers, brochures, booklets, and business cards.
• Account strategists will analyze the success of all the efforts the agency employs, provide you with reports that illustrate the return on your marketing investment, and make ongoing recommendations for strengthening the strategy to better meet (or exceed) your goals.

Partnering with a marketing agency gives you someone to hold accountable for the success or failure of these efforts—without the cost of adding an internal position. If an agency is unwilling to work in this kind of ongoing partnership with yours, providing regular ROI reporting and sustained efforts to continually improve results, then keep looking. An agency that provides real value to its clients will be more than happy to show it through periodic reporting as well as sharing stories about how it has helped other clients succeed.

Blue Frog Marketing provides a complete range of online and print marketing services, from website design and SEO to content creation and print fulfillment projects. To talk to us about how we can help your business meet its goals, click below to schedule a free consultation.

Blue Frog Marketing is based in Des Moines, Iowa, and provides comprehensive, cutting-edge online marketing as well as print and graphic design services for clients across the U.S. and beyond.