If you want to grow your business, you need marketing. That’s something we can all agree on. Otherwise, how will anyone know who you are or what you do? With so many competitors out there, effective marketing isn’t easy. It’s a time-consuming, complex and evolving area of business, which is why a lot of business owners hand things over to a professional marketing agency. You’re not the only business who’s made that leap, choosing to hire a team of experts to take over.
Once you’ve hired a marketing agency, you can then sit back and relax, knowing that growth, traction, visibility and results are around the corner, right? Not always. Despite the agency sending regular reports, running various campaigns and your website seeing a small increase in traffic, none of it seems to be translating into actual business growth. This is something that a lot of business leaders face when working with a marketing agency, so what’s next?
Marketing Agency Not Working? Expectations vs. Reality
You can’t simply plod along and hope things change on their own, as that’s unlikely to happen. If you want significant business growth, you need a strong marketing strategy, one that’s aligned and integrated in everything you do. Marketing agencies promise growth. They offer specialised knowledge, access to tools, a team of experts and a clear approach to driving visibility and leads. But, that doesn’t always lead to the leads, growth and opportunities your business needs.
You might find that your marketing agency launches campaigns without a true understanding of your business model, meaning the results aren’t as good as they could be. You might find their reports are full of vanity metrics – such as clicks, impressions and likes – but very little information that shows what’s really happening with your business. They might be putting the work in on paper, but that’s useless if you’re not sure how to connect what they’re doing with business outcomes like revenue, profit or customer lifetime value.
Why Marketing Agencies Miss the Mark
- They Have Tactics, But No Strategy – It’s not uncommon for marketing agencies to have a number of tactics, but those tactics aren’t part of a wider strategy. They might be experts in running social media ads or managing SEO but, without context, there’s no guarantee these tactics are pushing the business in the right direction. Without a clear strategic roadmap, tactics become isolated efforts that don’t make a difference.
- Vanity Metrics vs. Business Metrics – It’s easy to be impressed, even distracted, by dashboards showing thousands of impressions, increased followers and growing engagement. It’s what any business leader likes to see. But, these are only meaningful if they align with actual business outcomes. If your marketing agency isn’t tying their work directly to KPIs like revenue, conversions or customer acquisition cost, they’re not doing their job.
- They Have a Lack of Business Understanding – A marketing agency that doesn’t understand how your business makes money can’t market it effectively. They need to understand your margins, pricing strategy, customer journey, sales process and customer pain points, all of which are essential to creating messages and campaigns that really resonate with the right people and convert leads into sales.
- There’s No Integration with Your Internal Teams – Marketing doesn’t work alone, even if you are throwing a lot of your budget at it. It needs to integrate with your sales team, customer service, product development and leadership. If your marketing agency is used to operating alone and doesn’t fully connect with your team, they’re likely duplicating effort, missing key insights and losing opportunities they should have captured.
- It’s a Passive Partnership – Many agencies fail to form a proactive business partnership. They wait for you to provide direction, rather than taking the lead themselves. You need a strong collaborator, a marketing partner who brings ideas to the table, challenges assumptions and is invested in your success.
Marketing is not just about promoting your products or services, it’s a core part of business strategy. It determines how you position yourself, attract customers, communicate value and grow sustainably. That’s why simply outsourcing marketing and hoping for miracles isn’t likely to cut it. If your marketing isn’t working, it’s often because the strategy isn’t aligned with other aspects of your business.
How Do You Make Marketing Actually Work?
When you’re investing money into marketing, you need to make sure it actually works. You don’t want to be paying an agency, only to realise it’s barely making a difference. To truly drive your business forward, you need marketing that pays off.
- Start with Business Strategy, Not Marketing Tactics – Before a marketing campaign is created, understanding everything about the business is vital. This includes the business model, sales process, customer profile, profit drivers, market position and competitive advantage. With this information, it’s possible to create a campaign that has clear direction and purpose, rather than poorly focused tactics.
- Work With a Team That Integrates Into Your Business – The best marketing partnerships don’t feel external. They feel like an extension of your team, an integrated part of the day-to-day running of things. Integration leads to better messaging, more effective targeting and better results. Though you might be outsourcing your marketing, it shouldn’t feel that way.
- Define Success Based on Business Outcomes – Don’t let success be defined by activity. Spending hours marketing isn’t a sign that your business is successful. Define success by looking at cost per qualified lead, customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, customer lifetime value and ROI. Reporting needs to be focused on these outcomes, not on how many people stumble upon your website.
- Make Strategic Collaboration Non-Negotiable – When you’re working with a marketing agency, you need to ensure they have a strong strategy before launching campaigns. That strategy should align with your business goals, define clear objectives and KPIs, outline customer personas and messaging, and address the full sales funnel, from initial awareness to long-term customer retention.
- Stay Involved as a Business Owner – You might have enlisted the help of a marketing team, but that doesn’t mean you have to step back completely. You don’t have to micromanage and oversee everything, but being completely hands-off doesn’t always work. Your involvement in marketing provides the business insight and customer understanding an agency can’t get on its own. Make time to share updates, give feedback and align your priorities, ensuring everyone stays on the same page.
Strategy Needs to Evolve Alongside Your Business
Strategy isn’t something you create once and forget about. It needs to evolve alongside your business, changing as things within your business changes. Your marketing team should revisit strategy regularly as your business grows, you enter new markets, customer needs shift and competitors change. If your agency is still running the same strategy from months ago, it’s time to ask why.
Our Marketing Experts Do Things Differently
Working with a standard marketing agency doesn’t always deliver the results businesses hope for, as most agencies focus on surface-level tactics without truly understanding what’s driving your business. They focus on ticking boxes and reporting on vanity metrics, staying on the periphery, leaving you wondering why growth still feels out of reach. Profici does things differently.
We approach marketing with a growth mindset, integrating into your team, aligning with your goals and treating your business like our own. We don’t just run campaigns; we help to shape the wider strategy. We ask the hard questions, immerse ourselves in your customer journey and stay just as invested in your success as you are.
Is Your Marketing Agency Not Working?
If your marketing agency isn’t working and you’re not seeing the results you’d hoped for, it’s time for a change. At Profici, we’re not just a marketing agency. We’re a team of business growth experts, with the knowledge and insight needed to drive your business forward in a competitive market. We’re not a third-party, we become an integrated part of your team, ready to drive your business forward in a bespoke, strategic way.
Book a 30-minute session to review your current marketing investment.
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