Notes

The Right Startup Marketing Agency Can Help Launch Your Company
Estimating a startup marketing budget is never an easy job. Depending upon the stage of your startup, there might be several different demands and priorities from your marketing team. Are you planning pre-product, post-products, pre-sales, funded (series A, B, C), or are you primarily pre-funded (seed, series D)? In any case, it is essential that you have a clear sense of what the startup marketing expense budget will be.

From a market perspective, what services are you offering? What types of SEO strategies are in place? What types of social media tactics are you leveraging? Where are you at in terms of business development? Answering these questions will help you assess what the startup marketing agency is paying for, and how much work is required in order to execute on the marketing tactics.

A critical factor in determining if an agency's marketing strategy fits your organization is its ability to successfully execute your sales strategy. A startup marketing agency can execute the sales function much more effectively than you can. If you currently execute your sales strategy brilliantly, a well-trained agency will be able to leverage your success for your company by capitalizing on your strengths.

Once you've established what your core functions and customer base are, your relationship with your startup marketing agency becomes one of collaboration. You want to feel like you are collaborating with a partner rather than working against one another. You don't want to throw away time learning and implementing their inbound marketing tactics because you don't have a buyer's cell phone number or email address. Agencies that work together effectively build long-term customer relationships and trust.

Another way to ensure your agency's work is incorporated seamlessly into your own marketing strategy is to integrate their expertise. An inbound agency can perform market research that allows you to see what your target customers are buying or find most useful. In addition, a marketing agency will likely be able to integrate your social media strategy, including social media monitoring and engagement, with theirs. A successful marketing collaboration will include inbound and outbound calls, sharing articles, links, and posts. This integration allows you to reach your target audience immediately, providing the opportunity to drive sales and gain leads in a manner similar to your own social media efforts.

Finally, the most successful inbound marketing partnerships happen when the agencies have clearly defined expectations. Agencies need to communicate with each other in a clear and concise manner. They must commit to a plan of action and agree on timelines for accomplishing the plan. Agencies should also share with each other goals and objectives, allowing both to work together towards a common goal. It is better to have startup marketing in-house than it is to try to achieve success through in-house operations. Both startup and in-house marketing should benefit from the experience of one another and grow together organically, taking advantage of each others strengths.

When creating a startup marketing agency, make sure you choose someone who has the experience you need and the tools, data, and analytical abilities to create a data-driven strategy. Your SEO partner needs to understand how to collect data, how to analyze it, how to forecast your results based on trends, and how to measure those results. The SEO expert should not only be a good communicator but should also be well-organized and detail-oriented.

Marketing marketing agencies may balk at the idea of in-house marketing strategies. The best agencies realize that a quality product and effective service go hand-in-hand. SEO and social media go hand-in-hand as well. In addition to having the right set of skills and tools, the best agencies have a strong interest and commitment to helping new startups succeed. When looking for an agency, look for those who have experience working with startups and are committed to building their portfolios of late-stage companies.
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