Choosing an Inbound Marketing Agency

Many small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) in Dorset and Hampshire are looking at the advantages that an Inbound Marketing strategy will bring to their organisation.

We know that buyer behaviour is changing and that most of the buyer’s journey is complete before they ever contact a sales representative. So, savvy marketers are turning to local Inbound Marketing firms to help them build a strategy and deliver the work.

The term Inbound Marketing is most closely associated with HubSpot. But a search for an Inbound Marketing Agency should start with a “platform agnostic” mind-set. Find an agency that can help you decide which platform to use.

You can build an inbound strategy using a number of different software tools. Typically Inbound Marketing agencies will use a couple of software platforms in-house and can advise you on the best fit for your requirements.

Why Outsource your Inbound Marketing?

Many of the firms that we talk to in Dorset and Hampshire have a marketing team of one or two people at best. That team is often busy doing all the things that the business expects of them.

They may be running several big events across the year and managing all of the other normal marketing activities. Trying to add the management of Inbound Marketing onto that can be the last straw.

When we deliver an Inbound Marketing contract for our customers, this is the kind of team that we pull together. All Inbound Marketing contracts get brain-stormed internally where we will always pull in the best strategic brains: our MD Paul Tansey and Marketing Director Mike Finn, too. 

Our Inbound Marketing team consists of at least half a dozen different specialists. So, it only makes sense that a marketing team of two, who have busy day jobs already, will gain a real advantage by outsourcing the Inbound Marketing to a group of qualified specialists.

Take a Look at the Training

When Intergage became a HubSpot partner, we all embarked on the Inbound Marketing certification. We were deeply impressed by the quality (and quantity) of the training on offer. Here is where we are at the beginning of 2017:

With over 20 staff inbound certified and over 100 exams taken between the Intergage team. Each month we focus on another course.

It is worth bearing in mind that if you want to manage your Inbound Marketing yourself, then you’ll need to train yourself up in each of the disciplines shown here. Which is another reason why many marketers are looking for agencies to manage their Inbound efforts for them.

Which Agencies can help?

There is a growing demand for Inbound Marketing Agencies in Dorset & Hampshire, and more are getting themselves qualified. But if you are looking for an agency partner I suggest your list of questions to them should be:

1. What is the size of your agency team – do you have all the team members that we need?
2. What Inbound Marketing certifications can you show me that your individual team members have passed?
3. Are you based near me in Dorset/Hampshire – will it be easy to arrange meetings?
4. Who else have you helped with Inbound Marketing?
5. Do you promote just one Inbound Marketing Platform or will you advise me on the best fit for my business?

Good luck with it. You might try googling “Inbound Marketing Agencies in Dorset” (or you could just pop in for a coffee and a chat).

Intergage is an Inbound Marketing Agency based in Poole, Dorset, and we’ve been doing this stuff for years.