Inbound yourself or hire an agency? Comparison

Inbound yourself or hire an agency? Comparison

Reading time: 4 minutes

The inbound methodology is here to stay and it's no surprise: unlike traditional marketing, inbound strategies not only manage to attract more potential customers, but the bond you generate with them is much stronger. In other words, your loyal customers will continue to come to you instead of going to your competition.

In addition, it can represent significant savings: leads obtained by an inbound strategy are 61% less expensive than those obtained by traditional campaigns. According to Invespcro, 82% of businesses using content marketing have a positive return on investment (ROI).

At this point we already know that inbound is beneficial to optimize the investment in your business and to build customer loyalty. Now the important question is: should you do this work yourself or hire an agency?

>>How to build an inbound sales process for your team, a guide for Sales Managers and Sales Directors

What does it take to make an effective inbound strategy?

Inbound marketing uses content to attract visitors to your website who are interested in some aspect of your business. The goal is to turn these visitors into potential customers, and these potential customers into satisfied and happy customers.

It relies on data and the behavior of your audience to create the action plan, and relies on resources such as blogging, Calls To Action, landing pages, forms, premium offers, videos, email marketing, social networks, ads, among others.

However, what is really needed for an inbound campaign to be effective is:

Understanding. Inbound professionals must have a deep understanding of their target audience and their behavior, to know exactly which audience to speak to, in what way, what resource to offer and what steps to take to achieve conversion.

Processes. A comprehensive inbound strategy requires many interlocking processes, such as content writing, optimization, promotion, digital public relations, among others. It is important that each of these aspects be monitored and analyzed.

Tools. A campaign like this requires a complete set of tools to ensure that the work you are doing is effective and on track. For example, keyword selection, social media performance, email marketing planning, web traffic analysis, among many others.

Consistency. This methodology doesn't work if you start and then stop. The most successful cases maintain a consistency for years to obtain the desired reputation among the digital community.

Quality. This is one of the most challenging and important factors. Quality content is the reason why your visitors will return to your website, download your resources, share your publications and refer to your blogs.

Experience. Here we emphasize. It is important to have experience designing and executing every part of the process of an inbound campaign. For example, your blog may not reach as many people as you expect if the audience segmentation in your Facebook ads was not right.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing inbound yourself or hiring an agency?

Your team may know all these requirements mentioned, and you know that an agency will also know how to address them. However, there are pros and cons to each of these options.

Steps to choose an Inbound agency and why you should

Doing inbound yourself

Advantages

-You'll have control over the entire process, including voice, tone, style and graphics.

-You have a complete picture of all the steps of the process as they occur

-You will delegate functions to your team as you see fit.

-Decisions are made faster because the communication flow is shorter.

-It is possible to change tactics quickly if you see that some component of the campaign is not working.

Disadvantages

-It takes a long time to understand and master all aspects of an inbound marketing campaign. The learning curve can be lengthy and even have periods of trial and error.

-You will be limited by your own knowledge and experience in inbound marketing.

-Some areas of your business will have to be put aside for all the time and investment required to address them.

-The expected results may take longer to achieve.

-You will have to invest a significant amount in technological tools that complement and measure your efforts and yet you don't know how to get the most out of them.

Hire an agency

Advantages

-You have a team of experts in various areas working for you.

-You don't have to invest in education and training in the same way to get your team to do the job.

-Your campaigns will be ready in less time, because there will be more people working full time to get the results you want.

-When the agency already has experience in your industry, the plan will be much more accurate and fast.

-You can focus your efforts on other important functions of your business.

-You will delegate instead of execute.

Disadvantages

-Represents a monthly investment, however you can see the ROI.

-You're putting the voice of your brand in outside hands, so you should make a good agency choice.

-You won't have to see all the little details that go on behind the scenes, but you can get involved.

-There's a risk that the relationship with your agency won't work.

-You could hire people who don't specialize in inbound or your industry.

If after reading all this you still have doubts about who should take care of your campaign, answer these questions and you will have clarity

-How much time per week do you plan to spend on inbound marketing?

How much should you invest in education and training?

Who will manage the strategy full-time?

Who will write the content?

Who will design and format your content?

What tools are needed? Can you afford them all?

Do you have a large, trained in-house team?

Do you know how to react in case something doesn't go as expected? Can you manage a digital crisis?

>>How having a blog helps me increase sales

If you answered no to some of these questions, hiring an agency may be the best option. However, your instinct will surely guide you to choose the option that best suits your company's needs. You are the one who knows what your business objectives are, how qualified your collaborators are and how you want your company to reflect itself in the digital environment.

When hiring an inbound agency, make sure they are more than just content generators. You should partner with allies who have experience in your industry, who are truly committed to growing your business, delivering monthly results and who will not hesitate to explain to you how they plan to do so.

At Innova Marketing Solutions we are ready to talk to you and show you how to increase your sales with the inbound method. Schedule a free consultation with our experts today and start building the best version of your business.