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Are you in search of a new inbound and marketing automation agency that can help you and your department achieve your goal of generating more warm B2B leads? It can quickly become a bit of a jungle to figure out which agency best matches your needs while also being a good partner.

To simplify the process, I’ve compiled a list of questions you should ask the agencies you’re considering partnering with. This will help you articulate your expectations and clarify how the agency will approach the task and collaboration.

#1 What is your approach to inbound and marketing automation?

There are many different approaches to inbound marketing among Danish agencies. Therefore, it’s not insignificant to ask about a potential partner’s approach to inbound marketing.

It’s also important to consider which tactics the agency recommends you work with and how they will practically handle the task.

Working with inbound marketing requires a well-thought-out plan that sets the direction for the long haul.

Before you say yes, you should be aware of whether the agency can advise you on and possibly help with the following:

• Your content production: Does your existing content have the right quality and volume, or what content do you need to produce to handle the task? If you can’t produce the content yourself, who will do it?

• Development of one or more personas and customer journeys: You need to know who you are talking to and be able to put yourself in the recipient’s place. The content should be as targeted and relevant as possible across your channels.

• A marketing automation system: Inbound marketing cannot be handled manually. It needs to be automated and requires a marketing automation system and the right tech stack to help you manage tasks.

If you don’t already have your persona and customer journey in place, you can download two templates that guide you in organizing them.

#2 How quickly can we expect to see results?

It’s completely natural that you (and your company’s management) want to see results as soon as possible once you’ve hired a marketing agency to help with your inbound marketing efforts.

If an agency promises quick results within 3-6 months, alarm bells should ring. Working with inbound marketing in a B2B context requires a lot of patience. It typically takes 6-18 months to create the first results and often even longer.

This, of course, also depends on how large a budget you have. The lower your budget for content production, advertising, and distribution, the longer it will take to achieve results.

#3 Who in the agency will we collaborate with?

Building a good partnership requires both time and effort from both parties. Therefore, it’s important to ask who from the agency will help you with the various tasks.

Don’t assume that the impressive senior profile you initially spoke with will be the person you work with daily. It’s a good idea to get the team in place so you can take that into account in your considerations.

If you’re assigned a fixed contact person, let them know how you prefer to be communicated with. For example, are you easiest to reach via email, phone, or do you prefer face-to-face meetings? Stating this from the start will give you a better start to the collaboration.

#4 To what extent will my marketing team be involved?

A marketing agency can help you produce content, manage social media advertising, and handle your marketing automation system. However, they cannot do it without your help.

You need to ask what the agency expects from your team and how much time you should allocate to inbound marketing activities each week or month.

You should also know what the agency needs from you to get started with the collaboration. This may require 2-3 workshops with several employees participating and being prepared. When the first analyses and results are presented, it will also require your participation.

#5 Which marketing automation system do we need?

Marketing automation is one of the cornerstones of inbound marketing. This means that if you want to go the inbound marketing route, you need to invest in a marketing automation system. But which one should you choose?

If you start too big, it can be difficult to understand and manage daily. If you start too small, you may need to switch too quickly, risking data loss and spending time rebuilding what you already had.

Read also: Which Marketing Automation System Should You Choose?

Questions to ask a marketing automation agency include:

• Is the marketing automation system scalable?

• When will we fully benefit from our investment?

• What internal competencies do we need to operate the system daily?

You should also consider questions such as who your target audience is and what the customer journey looks like. Additionally, you should create a business case to help you get internal approval for your plans to invest in a new system.

#6 What will everyday operations look like?

This question about everyday operations is super important. Maybe you’ve already had partnerships with agencies where you had to extract status reports from them, or where weeks went by without hearing from them, and thus tasks weren’t followed up on. This can be very frustrating.

The daily operation and continuous content production challenge many marketing managers in a busy workday. Therefore, you need to ask how often you can expect to be in contact.

When you know how and when you can expect to hear from or meet with your marketing automation agency, you won’t need to chase them for updates on agreed tasks and status reports.

If you are offered a retainer, a fixed monthly fee at a fixed price, you need to know what it includes and what it doesn’t. You need to know what the agency handles and what you and your department need to manage daily.

This expectation setting makes it easier for you to assess whether the services offered in the retainer will help you in daily life and make it easier to reach the set goals in the plan.

#7 How will the agency analyze, track, and report?

You probably have an opinion on what success looks like in your marketing department and what goals your marketing plan should include. If not, this is something you should get help from the agency early in the process.

This is also where you can align expectations about the results you can expect from your efforts. Once the goals are set, you need to know how often and how you will receive reports. It will also be helpful to know what they will specifically include.

The reports should give you insight into how your inbound marketing efforts are progressing. They will also make it easier to compare results from month to month and share them with others in the organization, such as at status meetings.

If you find that the reports are very data-heavy or the numbers are hard to decipher, don’t hesitate to ask your contact person for help. No questions are too dumb, and your marketing automation agency should be experts in explaining it in a way that you understand.

Are you curious about how we can help you with inbound and marketing automation?

You can book us for a session where you can ask all your good questions.

It could be fun for us to take our own medicine.

Are you also tired of long to-do lists filled with manual marketing tasks that consume too much focus and time? Or do you feel that the many marketing campaigns aren’t yielding the expected results?

Managing numerous daily operational tasks that don’t produce results can be stressful and dampen workplace satisfaction. You’re ready for a change.

After some research, you’ve discovered that marketing automation could be a potential solution to the problem. You can envision using technology to manage and optimize aspects of your marketing efforts. At the same time, you like the idea of reaching the right people, at the right time, with the right content.

So the question is,

How do you get buy-in for marketing automation from your boss, so you can streamline a wide range of marketing activities and processes?

Here are 5 compelling arguments to help you convince your boss that marketing automation can benefit your B2B company.

#1 Say Goodbye to Manual Tasks and Processes

By streamlining and automating more of your marketing activities, you’ll eliminate the need for manual operational tasks and processes. This means you and your colleagues will have more time to tackle creative and strategic tasks that will advance the business.

Automated email series or social media posts will ensure that your potential leads frequently hear from the company. This means that while you’re busy with other tasks, you’re still building a relationship with your audience.

Moreover, based on their behavior, you can send more targeted and relevant emails. This makes them more prepared to engage in a dialogue with the sales team. Ultimately, this will streamline the sales team’s work, as they won’t have to spend as much effort on cold calls.

#2 Get Ahead of Competitors with Marketing Automation

Have your competitors not yet embraced the marketing automation trend? Now is your chance to gain a significant advantage. Or avoid falling further behind.

Many B2B companies have yet to realize that attracting and retaining new leads requires more than just a website, some social media posts, and occasional campaigns.

With the right data collection and visualization, you and your entire organization gain new insights. These insights can support the choices and exclusions of marketing activities you inevitably need to make to work more purposefully.

#3 Gain Insight into Your Customers

A major benefit of working with data-driven marketing is that you have to consider the customer journey. Thus, it’s almost impossible not to create a better customer experience as you gain insight into their needs, challenges, and purchasing patterns.

With a marketing automation system, you can track and analyze your leads’ preferences and interests. This gives you a wealth of new data on how your contacts respond to your automated marketing efforts. Consequently, you can continually work to improve them.

#4 Foster Closer Collaboration Between Marketing and Sales

You can use your marketing automation system to automate communication and workflows in multiple departments beyond marketing. The sales department is a great place to start.

The optimal scenario is to have a CRM system that both sales and marketing are linked to. This enables the maintenance of lead and customer information. When the CRM system is also connected to the website and can track behavior, there are many benefits to be gained.

For example, it’s obvious to send follow-up sales emails completely automatically to the right places in the customer journey. It’s also obvious to send an automatic message to the sales team. For example, when a contact has reached a high enough lead score, indicating it’s a hot lead. Here it becomes really interesting, and it will be one of your trump cards for gaining buy-in for marketing automation.

With a lead score in hand, it becomes easier for salespeople to prioritize leads that have shown interest. The lead score shows that a lead has achieved a certain value by meeting criteria you’ve set. For example, by having the right customer profile. And because the person has looked at important product pages, the pricing page, or otherwise engaged with the company’s digital channels.

In the marketing department, you’ll also find that lead scoring can help you streamline your work and produce results. You can differentiate and refine your marketing messages to suit selected segments in different stages of the buying journey.

#5 Getting Started Is Easy

Getting started with marketing automation doesn’t have to be as difficult as you or your boss may think.

First and foremost, it requires a technical setup and some technical skills. It doesn’t have to be excessively expensive, as there are marketing automation systems available at different price points.

Additionally, it requires a strategy, development of personas, mapping of the customer journey, a content plan, and a lot of content.

Do you think it seems a bit daunting? There is help available, of course.

For example, at a marketing automation agency like Autobahn. We specialize in helping small and medium-sized B2B companies with a subscription-based marketing automation solution. This way, you don’t have to deal with the technical aspects yourself.

Do you already have a marketing automation system like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, or Marketo? We can also help you get it under control so you can focus on other things.

Let’s have a chat if you’re curious about how we can help you with your challenges.

We’re also happy to arrange a meeting with your boss. Then we can work together to create buy-in for marketing automation.