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How To Choose A Marketing Agency For Your Building Products Business

How To Choose A Marketing Agency For Your Building Products Business

Construction Marketing Investment has shifted away from traditional outlets like exhibitions, trade advertising, PR and cold calling. But the skill sets of internal teams lag behind. For some, the time and resources needed to train internal people on how to master digital marketing must-haves like SEO and email marketing don't exist. As a result business like your look to outsource the responsibility.

However, it is not one-size-fits-all. Agencies come in all shapes and sizes, with different specialities and talents. But there are core values and skill sets that make some better than others. Here are the top 3 considerations if you’re looking to outsource your building product business’ marketing.

1. Selecting an Agency Starts at Home

It’s true: before selecting an agency, you must have your own ‘house’ in check. This will involve a definitive list of requirements. They could be:

The list goes on…

Establishing these goals in the initial phase of an agency search will ensure that you are better positioned to find agencies that excel in those particular fields.

With 98% of specifiers now turning to Google first to carry out their product research, having a strong online presence is critical.

To put this into context: If you’re looking to improve your rankings on Google, an agency that specialises in web design won’t be for you. Instead, you should seek an agency that is focused on SEO. SEO specialists will ensure that your current website is optimised for search, increasing your chances of being found above your sea of competitors.

Similarly, if you are interested in a re-brand, SEO perhaps won’t be your short-term focus. Instead, seek an agency that specialises in website design.

 

Make Sure Your Agency Has A Niche

How-To-Choose-A-Marketing-Agency-For-Your-Building-Products-Business

Does the prospective agency you are talking with have a niche? If yes, is that niche service or tactic-specific?

For example, maybe they’ve done SEO for years and gotten phenomenal results. Or is their niche industry-specific? Meaning they have crushed numerous client engagements in your industry (or a close relative to your industry) before. If they do have one of these sweet spots, look to see if they align with your challenges and goals. They should.

Be aware of agencies that do not have a clearly defined niche, construction is an incredibly complex industry and costly mistakes can be made with general agencies, so opting for a construction marketing specialist agency may be the way to go.

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2. Consider the Size of Your Marketing Agency

A large agency may be better equipped at delivering large-scale campaigns, whilst smaller agencies may provide a more qualitative level of skill. This is, of course, a sweeping generalisation and will depend on the individual agency as to what they can achieve.

However, depending on your specific need, it is good to compare these factors before deciding which size you will need. Both types have their positives and negatives, but a couple of determining factors can be both the type & size of your company, too.

With the size of a construction marketing agency comes their tried and tested formula.

Building on the goals and challenges identified in the sales process, your potential partner agency should be able to outline their approach in terms of the four core services mentioned below and explain all the tactics they plan to employ in their execution. Expect a timeline for each chunk and a description of the resources they’re likely to need along the way.

Make sure each component of the strategy they are proposing to you, as well as what comes before and after each piece, make logical sense.

 

3. A Genuine Understanding

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When an agency is pitching to you, take note of how well they engage with your brand, services and offering. Do they get it?

Better still, do they have experience with construction inbound marketing??

Construction inbound marketing is the strategic process of developing educational, informative and useful content, via your website, blogs and social media, to attract specifiers, contractors and other construction decision-makers to your website and business. It's relatively new to construction but with a proven track record of success, it's changing the way you get specified.

An agency that asserts itself as an inbound agency must offer Four Core services.

The first core service of inbound marketing is an agencys' ability to generate traffic to a website through SEO, blogging and social media sharing.

Second, agencies should be able to tell their clients they can develop the premium content needed to capitalise on that traffic by building landing pages and managing online lead generation efforts.

Third, agencies need to be able to construct targeted lead-nurturing campaigns aimed at converting those leads into customers.

Fourth, in order to iterate and improve, analysis and measurement need to be present at every step in the process.

Being able to dig into the results of your online efforts is critical. Doing so on a regular basis will allow agencies to tune underachieving campaigns to get better results. 

 

Other Things to Consider When Outsourcing Your Marketing Agency

Culture

Take the time to meet with your agency and gain an understanding as to whether they fit with your organisational culture. Talk about their priorities, approach and standards, and see how they align with yours.

Testimonials

Client lists and case studies can be a true reflection of the agency’s worth, so be sure to ask for a testimonial, and better still, ask to talk to a current client in person!

Retainer Fees

The last thing you want is to get tied into a year-long contract. Opt for an agency that allows you to cancel your retainer at any time, once a three-month induction period is over. That way, if you discover that the agency really isn’t the right fit for you, you haven’t lost too much investment.

 

Conclusion

Of course, there are many more factors to consider when choosing a digital marketing agency for your building products brand, but always consider:

  • Your business aims and objectives
  • Your expectations
  • The value you place on growth

If you’d like a no-obligation chat with one of the construction experts here at Insynth, don’t hesitate to get in touch today.

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About Insynth

At Insynth we deliver a predictable flow of leads, customers, and specifications for building product brands through our inbound marketing approach, proven to reach a technically demanding audience.

We use the latest marketing techniques such as construction inbound marketing, to equip building product companies to grow sustainability in this era of digital transformation.

As the only HubSpot certified agency to major in construction marketing. We have a proven formula of bringing a variety of functionalities together including CRM Implementation, Web Design, Sales Automation, SEO, and Email Marketing to achieve your ultimate aim: Growing your business and gaining new specifiers and customers.

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