When you're looking for a B2B marketing agency, you don't want to settle for just anyone. Choosing your marketing agency will mean a good deal of research.
You'll want a firm that understands your business model and can clearly identify the right audience for your brand. You'll want a B2B marketing agency that can deliver a clear marketing strategy and you'll want to make sure they have a proven track record for the work at hand.
What's Your Need?
You may not know exactly what kind of marketing activity it'll take to get the results you want, but as long as you can articulate your business goals, an agency can help. Especially if you have concrete numbers or targets you’re trying to hit.
An agency can then help you discover which marketing activities you need help with. And maybe you need someone who can help your business’ strategic direction day-to-day like a consultant. An agency can help there, too.
Characteristics to Look for in a Great B2B Marketing Agency
Just like hiring an employee, you'll want to make sure that the agency and your contact there works well with your company. While there’ll be some variables, depending on the type of company you have and the type of marketing specialties you need, a great B2B marketing agency will meet the following criteria:
Ability to Market to a B2B Customer
It can be argued that a B2B customer is no different from a B2C customer – they’re both people looking for a product or service that will solve their problem. But the difference is in the way they shop and the way they’re motivated. Finding an agency that understands this and can cater to the B2B customer that does research, wants references, and does not make impulse purchases based on emotion is the difference-maker.
A Clear Process of Generating Leads
Your agency should be able to show you that they have a clear process for generating leads. Whether this is SEO, content creation or drip campaigns, they should have case studies of past clients that they were able to deliver results for through a clear strategy and timeline. Evaluating these types of case studies will help you decide if their process will work for you, too.
Data Driven:
A great agency will always have numbers and benchmarks to back up their work. Measuring progress along the way is one of the main ways you’ll be able to evaluate the success of an agency’s efforts.
Choose an agency that values data and puts it at the forefront of its marketing activities.
Marketing through channels:
Most B2B companies will want to sell through partners. Your B2B marketing agency should have experience in marketing through channels and creating campaigns that work specifically to attract channel partners.
Channel sales will provide your company with an additional source of revenue with minimal impact to internal resources, in exchange for compensation based on the volume of business the particular channel partner generates.
The right marketing agency will make a positive impact to your business, not only in generating revenue, but also in relieving internal resources, growing your customer base and evangelist, and taking your business to the next level.
