8 Tips That Will Help You Find the Best Inbound Marketing Agencies

A recent survey showed that 42% of marketers are starting to use content marketing to increase brand awareness, website traffic, and leads.

Content is what drives traffic to your business, which is why the marketing industry refers to it as inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing agencies take the load off of your shoulders and align the sales and marketing teams. In the end, you have a mature lead generation system.

Hiring an inbound marketing agency is like hiring a new employee or bringing on a new business partner. It’s essential to make the right decision.

You’re in the right place to learn how to hire an inbound marketing agency. Read this guide to learn what you need to know when outsourcing inbound marketing.

1. Build a Business Case for Outsourcing

Before you go outside your company to find an inbound marketing agency, you have to go inward.

Make sure your business is ready for inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a long-term solution. If your business is desperate for leads now, this isn’t the right investment for you.

Do you have the funds to invest in outsourcing inbound marketing? You should expect to spend at least $2500 a month on inbound marketing. Some businesses spend as much as $15,000 a month.

You could work with an agency for less, but they won’t be able to deliver the results.

Consider your team and existing resources. Ask yourself how your team’s industry expertise compliments an inbound marketing agency’s work.

2. Agency’s Discovery Methods

The best inbound marketing agencies seek to learn about your business and industry. They have a discovery method where they interview sales, marketing, and product managers.

They base their inbound marketing strategy on these conversations and their own research.

Ask what happens once you hire them. They should have a clear strategy for the first 90 days of working with your company.

They may have an onboarding process that includes software training. Know what the process looks like and who needs to be available.

3. Scope of Work

Find out exactly what they’ll do for your company. Some inbound marketing agencies only write blog posts for SEO.

An inbound marketing agency has to have the capabilities to provide a full range of solutions, such as web development.

You’re about to spend a lot of money to drive traffic to your website. An underperforming site will undermine those efforts. They should have web development services to ensure your site is ready for the traffic increase.

They should have a video production team since video content is necessary to connect with audiences.

4. Case Studies

An agency is only as good as its most recent successes. The best inbound marketing agencies have a number of case studies and success stories.

These case studies document the client’s problem, how the agency approached the problem, and the end result.

Get the names and contact information of recent clients. Call them and ask about their experience working with the agency.

5. Agency Retention Rate

Content marketing is a big commitment. You want to work with an inbound marketing agency for the long-term, not a campaign.

The agency retention rate tells you if clients stay for the long term. If clients leave after a short period of time, it’s a sign that they’re not satisfied.

They might say that the average client stays for about 12 months. That might seem impressive until you realize the agency puts clients on a 12-month contract.

In that case, everyone bolts when the contract expires.

Look for agencies that retain their clients for years, not months. It provides consistency in your marketing efforts.

6. Employee Retention Rate

The employee retention rate is just as important as the client retention rate. A company that burns through employees constantly is a bad sign.

Employees aren’t happy there and they’re not going to produce their best work for your business.

You’ll have to spend more time training new hires on your account and it’s going to be difficult to have a consistent brand voice.

Find out if they outsource any of their work. You want to know who is working on your account.

7. Inbound Marketing Tools

The whole point of inbound marketing is to create leads for your marketing team to nurture and your sales team to close.

The marketing and sales teams have to work closely together. That’s something that doesn’t usually happen in most companies.

Inbound marketing agencies rely on inbound marketing programs. They may ask you to invest in a CRM platform that integrates with their tools.

Reporting is largely dependent on the inbound marketing software used by the provider. Keep this in mind because back-end reporting is how you know your investment works or not.

8. Transparent Pricing

You learned that inbound marketing is a significant investment. You have every right to know how that investment gets allocated.

The best inbound marketing agencies have transparent pricing. They will tell you how much gets allocated to content production, and how much goes towards advertising.

They’ll tell you if you need to buy software and if there are additional fees for onboarding.

Finding the Best Inbound Marketing Agencies

Inbound marketing has the power to make a big impact on your business. It takes time and resources to develop inbound marketing content.

Hiring the right inbound agency can make all the difference to your business. This guide showed you how to vet inbound marketing agencies to get the best one for your business.

If you enjoyed this guide, you’ll get a lot out of the other business and technology articles on the blog. Check them out today!