How to Know When Your Marketing Team Needs an Agency

There are several compelling reasons why a company should hire a marketing agency. With an agency, you get access to a team of professionals with diverse talents and skills. They bring experience and expertise that would be impossible to duplicate on an in-house marketing team cost-effectively. Access to these teams means freeing up internal resources to focus on the marketing department’s core mission. Efficiency and productivity is often further enhanced when the agency is able to bring specialized tools and resources to the table that the marketing team simply doesn’t have access to.

Few would argue that it doesn’t make sense to leverage a third-party marketing agency for a growing B2B enterprise. But how do you know when it’s the right time? Below are a few signs to look for.    

27 Signs You Need an Agency for a Growing B2B Enterprise 

1. The blog hasn’t been updated in over a month.

2. You spent more time this week building sales proposals and sales presentation decks than designing your next marketing campaign.

3. Your cubical is big enough to conduct your next marketing team meeting.

4. Hiring the talent/skills you require would mean quadrupling your marketing budget.

5. Your CEO asked for an update on  inbound marketing metrics (i.e., website traffic, leads, social media engagement, etc.) and it takes two hours to identify the KPIs and two more to build a report.

6. You know your performance KPIs by heart because they haven’t changed in 6 months.

7. You can count on one hand the number of leads generated by your website in the last few months.

8. Your sales team is begging for more leads.

9. You don’t have any keywords ranking on page 1 of Google.

10. Your website or social media doesn’t have any video content.

11. The only people following your company's LinkedIn page are people looking for a job and your competitors.

12. The thought leadership and subject matter expertise you share on social media is mostly from 3rd party sources.

13. Your sales team is asking for help buying a list for email campaigns.

14. You have no idea how the sales team is positioning your brand in their one-to-one prospecting emails.

15. You published a new whitepaper a few months ago, but the only people who have downloaded it are employees and competitors.

16. Your salespeople listen to your competitor's podcasts to stay current on industry insights.

17. Your most recent case study is from a client who no longer works with your company.

18. Your Google ad budget keeps increasing, but your sales pipeline keeps decreasing.

19. Next year’s marketing budget request was denied because you were unable to justify it to the CFO.

20. A discussion about your ideal customer profile leads to a 3-hour argument with your sales team.

21. The only call-to-action (CTA) on your website is “Contact Us” or “Get a Quote.”

22. Your sales collateral library is the broom closet on the 3rd floor.

23. Your CRM and your marketing automation aren’t integrated.

24. Your sales team doesn’t use the CRM because they say it doesn’t help them sell.

25. Nurturing long-term leads is considered the salesperson’s job, but salespeople give you a blank stare when you ask them about it.

26. It takes 3 – 6 months to get content written, designed, and approved.

27. You've gone through 5 freelance writers in the last year, and you still don’t have one you trust.

Some of these signs are suggested with the tongue firmly placed on the cheek. But many are from real conversations we’ve had with potential clients. If even a few of these are hitting close to home, then it may be time to at least explore how a marketing agency can provide your company with specialized expertise, cost savings, time efficiency, fresh ideas, and most importantly – measurable results.