As marketers, we value the importance of going ‘digital’. But more than that, we’re ambassadors – we speak openly and passionately about it’s benefits and how it can transform the customer journey of your business.
However, we’re often guilty of looking at digital through ‘rose-tinted’ glasses. It’s a regular occurrence that decision makers and board members don’t share this passion. This, ultimately, makes it tough to ensure buy-in and secure investment to working with a Marketing Agency.
With businesses looking to streamline their spending within the last 12 months, the marketing department is often the first department to see cuts. According to the Q2 2020 Bellwether Report, nearly 64% of respondents stated they had recorded a decrease in marketing budgets in 2020 as part of their survey.
With companies currently reluctant to spend, how can you put forward a business case to your boss that will convince them to invest in working with a Marketing Agency?
1. Match company’s goals and deduce KPI’s
Generally, Business Owners view Marketing as a ‘good to have’ rather than a ‘must’. This sentiment isn’t reflected with the sales department as they’re often seen as the ‘money-makers’ and, therefore, spending is prioritised there.
As marketers, achieving internal buy-in is one of the toughest tasks for any marketing strategy. However, by understanding the overall goals of your business, you can begin to cultivate the idea that marketing is driving revenue. This can be done by aligning the company goals alongside your KPI’s.
Do your goals match the revenue targets of the business? Are your proposed activities aligned with the sales team? Do your targets actually MEAN anything?
If you’re looking for a marketing agency to boost your, so called, ‘vanity metrics’, you may be facing a tougher task to convince the Management team to invest.
Want to see how you could optimise your current digital activity? Request a FREE Digital Audit Report from our Specialists to see how you can generate better results through your marketing.
2. Set Expectations
Marketing is not a quick fix. Often, you may need to wait six to twelve months before you start to see meaningful results that demonstrate a clear ROI.
Cultivating and executing a marketing strategy takes time, planning and persistence. Ensuring that your Senior Leadership Team understands this and buys into your vision is key to brining on a marketing agency.
Set the expectation that you’re going to, not only see benefit through using a Marketing Agency for a prolonged period, but also generate an ROI.
3. Ensure you know & understand the activity taking place
Agencies are guilty of promising businesses the stars and often lacking the resource or organisation to back this up. Although you may prefer to have a more ‘hands-off’ approach, ensuring the planned activity is taking place is paramount in being able to report about the marketing success.
By booking regular meetings to discuss reporting with your chosen agency, you can understand where the investment is being spent and how this will affect your marketing KPI’s. This will also keep your agency accountable, ensuring no ‘client-bias’ and making sure your campaign is on-track.
After all, you need to understand what your agency is doing to report back to your Management team. Taking a deep dive into the ‘what’s’, ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ of the activities taking place can help with the attribution of key metrics and enables you to request optimisations going forward.
With every campaign we work on here at NLMA, we organise regular calls with our clients to be completely transparent with what activity we’re carrying out. Create your campaign with us today and take your marketing to the next level.
4. Review Agencies
Different agencies have different strengths and expertise in varying areas. Research and review the pro’s and con’s of the agencies you’re approaching to present to your leadership team.
By providing different quotes and proposals from various agencies, you create more comfort and security for decision-makers due to the breadth of options. In fact, nearly half of decision-makers want more product comparisons from business in order to be able to find the right product according to a study conducted by BigCommerce.
Ordinarily, the leadership team will have a personal connection to the business. Handing over some of the reigns is not a decision they will take lightly so ensuring they can make the right decision is important.
Closing thoughts
Building a Business Case for a Marketing Agency is something that takes extensive research and reassurance that you will generate a clear ROI. Once you’ve got a clear idea of the expectations and activity that will be taking place, you’ll be in a much better position to present your ideas to your Management Team.
Ready to start this process? At Next Level Marketing Agency, we specialise in creating bespoke Marketing Campaigns for our clients that produce real, tangible returns on investment.
Interested in creating your very own campaign with us? Explore how we can work together and support your marketing efforts today.
