A digital marketing agency should fuel growth for startup companies, but what does “growth” mean, how do you achieve it, and what are the benefits of agency services versus the alternatives?
By the end of this article, you’ll understand exactly how a digital marketing agency should drive growth for startups, if such an agency is best for you, and how agencies often get it wrong.
How a Digital Marketing Agency Measures Startup Growth
A good digital marketing agency won't just execute marketing tactics like social media, blogging or website design without a plan. They'll pinpoint the right activities and align them with a strategy for profitable customer acquisition and revenue growth.
Ideally, quarterly revenue growth.
Before each quarter, they will analyze data from the previous quarter and develop a focused plan to deliver the most positive impact on revenue over the next 3 months. Specific goals may target increased traffic, lead generation and/or sales activity across the customer acquisition pipeline.
The last thing startups need is to waste time and money on low-priority marketing efforts that won’t move the needle. With quarterly strategies, businesses are able to leverage audience data from the most recent (and relevant) engagement activity, and respond accordingly.
How Do Startup Companies Obtain Quarterly Revenue Growth?
In order to grow, your startup business needs more than leads and sales. It needs a plan to add new customers profitably, predictably and repeatedly – and a way to scale that plan.
For businesses with a history of lackluster marketing results, this might sound impossible. But a good agency will eliminate the guesswork with a straightforward, systematic approach to planning, executing, testing, measuring and improving results.
Quarter over quarter, this process will allow an agency to analyze and respond to data trends – building an increasing flow of website traffic, lead generation, sales opportunities, referrals and new customers.
A good agency will also focus on the entire customer acquisition pipeline, or funnel – not just traffic and lead generation.
Full-funnel growth marketing provides a holistic view of the entire process, from generating awareness and interest, to getting your audience to meaningfully consider your brand, evaluate its benefits, and, ultimately, buy your product or service.
Think of customer acquisition as a “marketing system” for startups to win new business.
The HR department has a hiring system; the accounting department has a billing system; the inventory department has a tracking system; doesn’t it make sense to have a marketing system?
Customer acquisition is the core concept in digital marketing, but whether you’re doing it yourself or partnering with an agency, the last thing you want is the same digital marketing approach as everyone else, which is where most traditional digital marketing agencies can get it wrong, especially for startups.
What Most Digital Marketing Agencies Get Wrong for Startups.
Traditional digital marketing agencies often dive right into website design and marketing activities – without taking the time to develop a solid customer acquisition strategy.
How will they generate new leads? How will they nurture those leads? How will they measure performance? A structured system for growth won't skip over these critical details.
The hard truth: when digital marketing begins with a website redesign, it often fails.
Successful marketing begins with the right foundation and a defined plan for what to do after creating and launching a website.
This includes how to:
- Create a flow of new organic traffic through interesting content.
- Convert website visitors to leads, nurture those leads and win new customers.
- Generate more sales leads from existing customers through upsells, resells and referrals
- Leverage website analytics to continuously improve its performance.
- Focus quarterly campaigns on areas that will create the greatest impact.
The best digital marketing agency will scale your business by providing a much-needed system for growth. How much growth? It will depend on the agency’s capabilities and other factors, but the best will more than pay for themselves with quarterly revenue growth through predictable, repeatable, profitable customer acquisition.
When businesses and agencies don’t follow a systematic approach to growth, results are hard to come by – and even harder to replicate. If you’re in the market for a digital agency, be sure to prioritize those with a proven plan to scale profitable customer acquisition.
With a plan to perform the right activities, in the right order, at the right time, using the right metrics — the guesswork is removed from growth.
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