Managing the marketing function in the digital age is like flying a fighter jet. To take the controls, you have to sit in the cockpit where the various instruments for action, measurement and links with the ground (the harsh reality on the ground) are located. To accomplish his mission, the fighter pilot can do nothing without them. It is the same for the agency manager who, via a marketing automation tool, strengthens the quality of his teams’ services and demonstrates to his clients the effectiveness of their investments. The agency’s marketing performance and client satisfaction depend on it !
There is no need to repeat it, clients are scarce, sometimes difficult to win over, and the competition is pulling out all the stops. This is true for you, agencies, as well as for your client companies, whose expectations are clearly identified. According to a global study* from July 2016 the main priorities of marketing decision-makers are :
- 74% : convert leads into customers
- 57% : grow website traffic
- 46% : increase revenue via existing customers
- 42% : prove the ROI of existing marketing actions
- 32% : increase sales activities
- 27% : reduce lead and customer acquisition costs
As a matter of fact, the efforts that the marketing agency manager devotes to satisfying clients must be linked to pragmatism, efficiency and time savings. Everything must be under control. This is what a marketing automation tool makes possible, in addition to enabling the use of the marketing techniques that work today : Inbound Marketing. Here are, by way of example, 5 signs showing that it is high time for your agency to switch to marketing automation !
1st sign : you have visitors, but no leads
Good website traffic is a necessary but… not sufficient condition. Window shopping has never brought anything to retailers, so why should it be any different for websites ? The agency must make it possible to generate contacts and therefore equip websites with means that enable conversion (via the concept of “permission marketing” invented by Seth Godin). Creating landing pages backed by a foundation of downloadable content offers a way to transform visitors (or suspects, to use Inbound terminology) into leads. With a marketing automation tool, it is quickly possible to create these landing pages and position call-to-actions in strategic places on a website to collect leads (that is to say, suspects transformed into prospects) and move them to the customer stage.
2nd sign : the quality of the leads leaves something to be desired
Are the leads not qualified and/or of poor quality according to the sales reps? No need to panic. Marketing is above all a practice based on “test and learn” (testing and learning) in the service of sales teams. A lead needs to be nurtured before it can be converted. In other words, to achieve the set objective (winning customers), prospects must be developed and offered the elements that will allow them to move from an expression of interest in the proposed offers to the stage of potential buyer (hot leads). The act of buying is complex today: from identifying the need to identifying the providers capable of meeting it, not to mention the time needed to form one’s own opinion, the potential buyer takes their time. Time that can be put to good use via a marketing automation tool by creating relational scenarios based on a scoring logic to help the prospect in their thinking and only offer them a visit from a sales rep when they are ready to buy… that is, when the lead is mature and of good quality !
3rd sign : you are wasting time managing indicators
Another strong point of a marketing automation tool for a marketing agency: the simplicity and quality of monitoring. All too often, as part of a digital marketing strategy, it is necessary to dive into numerous indicators (analytics, database, etc.). Elements that are scattered across many tools. In short, it is time-consuming and impractical, all the more so for an agency handling many projects. A marketing automation tool makes it possible to avoid this pitfall by bringing together, within the same platform, the monitoring indicators essential to achieving the objectives set. This saves time in project management and thus makes it possible to focus on listening to clients in order to be a driving force for proposals.
4th sign : you are identifying the loss of effectiveness of traditional marketing actions
The marketing techniques of yesterday have clearly lost much of their effectiveness… Outbound marketing based on advertising (adwords…) certainly still has some relevance, but is no longer the only condition for attracting new customers. Likewise, cold calling and other mass emailing strategies are no longer models of efficiency, because consumers are no longer fooled. Besides, doesn’t your agency ever face requests from its clients for Inbound Marketing and strong ratios (investment / return) ? This shows that it is becoming more than necessary to switch to Inbound marketing via a marketing automation tool… This involves shifting part of the budgets traditionally devoted to advertising toward Inbound marketing approaches (creating a body of content, setting up call-to-actions, landing pages, relational scenarios, scoring at each stage of the sales process…) and implementing a marketing automation tool that will make it possible to quickly manage all of these parameters and improve efficiency.
5th sign : you are unable to calculate the ROI of your actions
Lastly, the quality of the agency is judged by its results. Those famous KPIs that will make it possible to retain your client companies or… make them want to look elsewhere. Without these key indicators, your client companies are very likely to question your agency’s professionalism. A marketing automation tool is managed through its indicators to enable you, over time, to adapt the marketing actions carried out for your clients and thus regularly provide them, in the form of dashboards, with performance indicators. Enough to reassure them about the quality of the investments you recommend within the strategy you have designed for them… especially if those improve over time.
In conclusion, a marketing automation tool is a real fighter jet cockpit that makes it possible to maintain the flight plan, act and react according to conditions (customer behavior, changes in relational scenarios), carry out various push actions via a single platform (emails, SMS, social networks), ensure the success of the mission through the setting and achievement of KPIs while delivering the right leads at the right time to the sales reps responsible for turning them into customers. It now remains to be seen whether your agency is flying a First World War biplane or a latest-generation fighter jet !
*Source Hubspot “The state of Inbound 2016” – July 2016 | report to download : http://www.stateofinbound.com/)
