B2B marketing is changing fast, and the rapid adoption of marketing technology is driving this change.
In order to keep up-to-date, and to maintain a competitive edge, manufacturing executives need to make an important decision: hire an in-house marketing team, utilize various consultants for single specialist marketing functions (such as graphic design, events, PR, collateral development, or specialized content creation), or outsource all marketing activities to a full-service agency that specializes in marketing for manufacturing businesses.
While each choice has its own pros and cons, and the decision can be difficult to make, our experience as a B2B marketing agency has been that the in-house route is often the least efficient, highest cost, and often the team is too junior and inexperienced to properly leverage new marketing techniques, making them unable to grasp the many marketing technology advancements that are happening in the industry.
That's why many manufacturers are discovering that hiring an outside specialist agency to handle their marketing just makes sense – from a financial, technological and efficiency standpoint.
Let’s go deeper into why using an B2B marketing agency, may be the right fit for your B2B manufacturing business.
Be confident in using an experienced B2B marketing agency
It seems to make sense to work with people who already know the best way to achieve manufacturing business growth results is the way forward.When you outsource your marketing to an experienced agency (one that’s demonstrated they’ve successfully helped other players in the manufacturing industry), you immediately gain access to a talent pool of marketers who have the expertise to research, create and implement proven marketing strategies that yield the outcomes you’re looking for.
A specialist B2B marketing agency team have a deep knowledge of various marketing methodologies (inbound, outbound, account-based, etc.), and can provide your business with fresh, innovative ideas and strategic solutions tailored to your prospects and customers.
Enjoy higher standards and a higher ROI
Agencies are typically held to higher quality standards than individual freelancers, agencies can deal with bigger issues such as privacy, GDPR and trust better, and they are accountable for ensuring a positive integrated ROI. Always mindful of delivering positive results, agencies will review marketing plans, analytics, monitor and track initiatives, and tweak campaigns to deliver optimal outcomes for their clients - on a continual basis.New marketing technology
To be able to measure results and effectively market and sell to prospects and customers, it’s critical to have access to the latest marketing technology. However, many in-house marketing departments are at the bottom of IT’s priority list and thereby technologically challenged. With over 5,000 marketing tools from which to choose, who has the time and bandwidth to do the research on which platforms make the most sense for your business?An outsourced agency partner will also have experience with the most up-to-date, and useful digital marketing technologies and analytical tools – HubSpot, PandaDocs, Salesforce, Google Analytics, AdWords, BuzzSumo, to name a few. Plus, they can do all the technology implementation work for you, providing guidance, implementation services and support to keep you ahead of the technology curve and your competitors.
Reduce costs
Particularly when you take into account employee training and benefits, most marketing agency retainers are a fraction of the cost of hiring a complete in-house marketing team – and they require minimal or no long-term commitment. When you partner with an agency, you have access to a deep bench of marketing specialists, including senior strategists, writers, graphic designers, SEO experts and social media gurus. For most manufacturing businesses, having in-house access to all these experts would be cost prohibitive.Make your marketing scalable and flexible
With an B2B marketing agency, you can easily scale your marketing depending on your specific needs, perhaps cutting back during the slower weeks and ramping up when launching a new product or gearing up for a big trade show. While your agency will likely have a minimum retainer for you to meet, outsourcing generally allows you the flexibility to have access to the amount of man hours you require during certain months.
If you're interested in learning more about how our agency could benefit your manufacturing business? Contact us today to request a complimentary marketing and website assessment.
