As a business owner, you're relentlessly trying to make your mark. To grow. But so is every other company in your industry.
I'm willing to bet you spent a fair amount of time and money asking sales and marketing to “turbocharge that growth” to help your brand stand out. However, trying to align and manage both teams becomes increasingly difficult as they are usually from different backgrounds, have completely different mindsets, and they operate in different systems to accomplish their work.
Let’s face it. Marketers talk broadly to “the market” while sales talk to individuals and focus on solving their most pressing issue. Are they even using the same language?
To bridge that gap, limit internal staff and management needs, and hit the turbo button, we see a lot of companies look to agencies to support their marketing needs. Yes, agencies like 1 Bold Step.
But before you consider outsourcing aspects of your marketing, it’s important to understand two things:
- What exactly do you need help with?
- What do you hope this new partner can do for you?
Here's why: My friend Kim has a marketing agency, and we don’t compete. My friend Heather has a marketing agency, and we don’t compete. They both offer different services than 1 Bold Step and focus on different niche targets. Marketing has many unique practice areas, oftentimes requiring completely different skill sets. Yet they are all still “marketing” by definition.
My point is, that unless you can clearly answer both of those questions, it's hard to make the right choice. If you cannot answer those two questions, but absolutely know that you want to grow:
Enter “(business) growth marketing.”
There’s a shift happening in the market. Many CEOs don’t care about the tactics, they care about the results. And results aren't typically a one-and-done solution. Results come from multi-faceted, multi-team, ongoing processes. Agencies are picking up on that. Growth agencies in particular are focused on boosting the entire business. It’s a big leap in making marketing work harder for, and holding them accountable to, business (revenue) goals.
So, what is growth marketing? I believe, “growth marketing” is actually the future of marketing.
Unpacking the Diversity of Marketing Agencies
Marketing agencies have traditionally been categorized by their core focus areas:
- PR (Public Relations) Agencies: Specializing in media relations, crisis management, and communications strategies to shape public perception.
- Advertising Agencies: Focusing on creating and distributing promotional content across various media channels.
- Branding Agencies: Aiming to develop or revitalize a brand's identity and market positioning.
- Digital Agencies: Concentrating on digital platforms, leveraging online marketing tactics to drive engagement.
- Design Agencies: Providing visual design services, including logo creation, marketing materials, and website design.
- Event Management Agencies: Planning and executing corporate events, product launches, and experiential marketing campaigns.
- Market Research Firms: Offering insights into market trends, consumer behavior, and competitive analysis.
- Media Buying Agencies: Specializing in purchasing advertising space in the most effective channels to reach their client's target audience.
- SEO Agencies: Optimizing web content to rank higher in search engine results and improve organic reach.
- Performance Marketing Agencies: Focusing on driving specific actions, such as clicks, conversions, leads, and sales.
Every agency has its own special sauce, or mixture of the above components. This is important to remember when trying to match what your business needs with what agencies are great at to get the best results. But, as more businesses are looking not only for someone to do the work, but also to give them smart advice for long-term growth, marketing agency partnerships are starting to change.
The Evolution Toward Revenue Operations
Remember when marketing felt like it was on its own planet, totally separate from the rest of the business, and somewhat immune to proving ROI? I recall a friend saying that if revenue was up, they considered marketing was working. Of course, the opposite was also considered to be the case.
Well, those days are long gone.
With the shift toward digital communications and mobile advertising, even billboards can track conversion from a drive-by to a store visit. As scary as that may seem, marketers should be paying attention to what is working in terms of impact on revenue. They should be ready to prove ROI if they want to keep their budget, because they’re often the first to get cut.
Insert Revenue Operations.
Marketing agencies that are transforming into growth-focused partners need to understand the end-to-end revenue cycle. It's all about moving away from working in silos to getting into everything — marketing, sales, customer success — you name it. It’s all geared up together to drive revenue.
Case in point: If marketing generates a lead but no one in sales picks it up, does it really matter? (my answer is “no”).
The opposite also applies: If sales closes 10 deals, but no one knows where the contact came from, could you say your marketing had any impact on revenue? (Also no).
If you want your business to really grow, you need to look at the big picture. That includes marketing, sales, and customer success.
The Rise of the Business Growth Agency
Clients often approach marketing agencies seeking a specific service, be it a standout advertising campaign or a comprehensive marketing plan. However, those who are starting to position themselves as growth agencies retain clients through a broader value proposition: the creation and execution of strategic growth plans.
This approach, practiced by agencies like 1 Bold Step, goes beyond traditional agency offerings to focus on, and be held accountable to, business growth through a combination of:
- Strategic Alignment: Understanding the overall business strategy and all of the focus areas that are taking up resources and attention, so that marketing is aligned with and supporting the whole organization.
- Data-Driven Insights: Measure to manage; leveraging analytics to make informed decisions and tailor strategies to real-world performance.
- Full-Service Capabilities: Combining expertise in branding, digital marketing, sales operations, pipeline acceleration & analysis, systems, and customer experience, all under one roof to provide seamless, integrated solutions.
- Long-Term Relationship: Working closely and long-term with clients to understand their unique challenges and ambitions, acting as an extension of their team, ongoing.
- Focus on ROI: Prioritizing initiatives that drive measurable business outcomes, ensuring marketing efforts contribute directly to growth (and being able to prove it).
- Systems: Knowing how to implement and use the best-in-class sales, marketing, and support software to make growth plans as efficient as possible.
Is Growth Marketing really the Future of Marketing?
You already know what I think (YES!). In my opinion, shifting to a growth agency is like the marketing agency world growing up and owning a seat at the executive table. They cannot just be the cool and creative kids who don’t have a say in the strategy, nor a stake in the overall success of the company. It's about getting real with the complexities of doing business and fully understanding that marketing needs to be aligned with every other aspect of the business if they want to be taken seriously and if they want to be successful long term.
Companies that desire strong growth aren't just looking for bits and pieces anymore; they want the full deal — executable strategies that bring in sustainable growth. Ones that make sense to the top line and the bottom line.
For any business trying to make sense of the crowded marketing services space, it's crucial to get this shift. It's not just about picking any agency. It's about finding a partner who's all in on pushing your business forward toward your goal (not theirs). And for marketing agencies, becoming a growth agency isn't just about adding new services. It's a total game-changer in how they fit into the business world.
When You Might Not Need a Growth Agency
I have to call this out because you might have the right team in place already to transition your internal marketing department into a revenue-focused machine. If your company has a solid marketing strategy and a marketing executive that is on the leadership team, you may want to carve out the executable marketing tactics for a specialty marketing agency.
The key to succeeding with this model is to practice leadership and management of the agency as if they were an internal team. Their goals and key performance indicators must roll up to the things that the marketing executive is being held accountable for. Otherwise, they can run off on a tangent and generate the wrong type of traffic, interest, leads, etc.
The Final Take: Traditional B2B Marketing is Broken
Ouch. Yes; I said that. ⬆
Marketing is tasked with market research, brand positioning, demand generation, lead generation, and more. But it’s judged for its ability to create pipelines.
That’s why I’ve really come to believe that in order to allow marketing to have a bigger impact on growth, it has to adopt a more holistic mindset. It needs to get more involved with both sales and customer success — from the start. Enter the growth agency.
A growth agency combines the expertise of the marketing agency and the sales consultancy to optimize your end-to-end revenue cycle. It does not mean that creative and traditional marketing is obsolete, it just means that it should not be the focus of your marketing team should you have strong growth goals.
By adopting a holistic approach and partnering with a growth agency that aligns with their vision and goals, businesses can ensure that their marketing initiatives contribute significantly to their long-term success.
Interested in learning more? Want to debate with me? I’d welcome the opportunity to talk this one out! Just click here and we can connect.
And for more blogs about Revenue Operations and Growth strategies, I recommend taking a look at these:
- Is Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) the Most Important KPI?
- 5 Demand Generation Best Practices to Get Your Company Back on Track
- Demand Generation and Lead Generation — The Dynamic Duo
- Increase Your Marketing Reach with Fractional Marketing Services
- What does "done" look like to an effective marketing team?
