This is an open letter to all marketing managers for small to medium businesses.
A common misconception of what digital marketing agencies are out to accomplish is that we want to steal your business. And not your business in the sense of taking your clients for our own, but that we want to steal the value that you provide your employer.
Personally, I don’t blame you for being defensive! You get it from both sides: internally, your company is always looking for you to provide solutions in the exponentially ever-changing world of digital marketing; and externally, digital marketing agencies are always trying to tell you what it is you are doing wrong and how they can fix it.
In most cases, it’s very easy to be wowed by something that is complicated to understand but is a new and vital tool for marketers to utilize.
You might have even mentioned the same idea to the “powers-that-be” countless amounts of times, but your voice was never heard. Then, they have one conversation with a convincing conman and suddenly your boss can’t stop talking about what you tried to get him to believe in 6 months earlier.
Then 6 months after your company was sold a silver-bullet solution, the digital marketing agency somehow sidesteps your raging bull boss, like an arrogantly flamboyant matador, and sends them hurtling towards you with the sole responsibility of the underwhelming campaign results.
When the ROI is beneficial, you find yourself being pushed out of the picture as your mesmerized employer is swooned by the worm tongued, albeit skillful, slick salesman.
The truth is there is no Silver Bullet.
There is no “one pill to cure it all”.
The route you take to accomplish your goals depends on your product, your audience, and your ability to find and engage with them.
We have been lucky to work with some amazing clients who do amazing things.
We love to come up with and produce amazing pieces of work because our amazing clients help us capture those amazing things!
But without following up this amazing work with a distribution plan that includes digital marketing, you run the risk of being lost in the worldwide abyss of content and no one will get to see that amazing work!
So what exactly should a digital marketing agency, or any marketing agency, do for you, the marketing manager?
Your digital marketing agency should be a symbiotic relationship.
I’ll use Agency as an example; we work at an all-in-one marketing agency.
We like to keep everything under one roof because it allows us to prevent creative things from being siloed, or placing responsibility on one person’s shoulders.
We want to be fluid for you so we can adapt to what we learn about our audiences and fully utilize the modern ability of digital marketing.
We want to help you accomplish the most difficult tasks that would have taken you too long to complete and so they have had to be shelved.
No one’s role should be to dictate.
Our relationship should be very clear. We learn what you want, we agree on our goal, and we find the best way to reach it, together.
Without a marketing manager at a business, it can become much more difficult to get across the benefits that a well-executed digital marketing campaign can accomplish.
We don’t expect you, dear marketing manager, to be an expert in everything. We know that’s a tough, probably impossible thing to be. That’s what we love putting a plan together that allows everyone to use the best abilities that they can offer.
I promise you, we don’t want your job!
We want to help you accomplish the goals and dreams that you have for your business; just like we want to accomplish ours.
And if we work together, our symbiotic relationship will allow us to take from our dreams and build something tangible.