Congratulations! You’ve given all you’ve got and can confidently remove the words “new,” or “startup” from your company’s description. Or maybe you’ve reached a threshold that allows you to scale or grow a well-established business. Either way, you might be wondering if the approach that got you here is enough to get you where you want to go next. So often, we talk to thriving businesses that have built a client or consumer base with little or no marketing, and it just tells us: 

1) You have a valuable business proposition that people want, 

2) You’re used to putting in sweat equity to build the ship while sailing it, and 

3) You are probably a little skeptical of marketing firms. 

These are all good qualities. But more often than not, partnering with the right marketing firm can be the missing piece to sustaining success while achieving the growth you’re looking for.

Which variety of “marketing” are we talking about?

First, let’s define what we mean by marketing. Are you picturing TV commercials created by a real-life Don Draper? Or a low-budget billboard that tells you where to turn for a quick meal? Instead, think of marketing as all the ways your audience might be exposed to your business. Up until now, those tactics might have included Search keywords, a community sponsorship, an article in an industry magazine, a blog post, or even recruiting materials (internal marketing counts too!). Marketing is simply planning for these intersections and using each one to tell a consistent and compelling story that earns attention for your brand. When done right, marketing makes every one of your touchpoints work harder, so you can spend less time prospecting and more time making your product/service the best it can be.

What can a Marketing Firm do that I can’t do myself?

You know that feeling where you can do your job in your sleep, and know how to solve a problem in 20 different ways? That’s the kind of efficiency you want from your marketing team, and the best way to get it is to work with an expert that lives, breathes, and sleeps marketing. 

Here are the key advantages to working with an external marketing firm:

1. Objectivity: Your business is your baby, and you know more about it than anyone else. So you’re inherently going to approach most marketing problems from a business-centric standpoint. A great marketing firm will view things from a consumer-centric standpoint, and be able to identify blind spots in your strategy through research, parallel experience and an unbiased approach.
2. Long-term focus: Strategic marketing firms are always thinking about sustained success. After all, it’s in the firm’s best interest for your business to grow and be around for a long time. So while you may need to focus on the day-to-day and reaching short-term goals, you’ll have a partner that is looking at the big picture and keeping you accountable to your mission and vision.
3. Accountability: More likely than not, an experienced marketer has dealt with similar marketing goals and challenges to yours. So while marketing typically includes some trial and error, they’ll be able to better predict the outcomes of your marketing efforts, and will also have the expertise to measure and optimize performance.
4. Resourcing: A Marketing firm will know when and how to bring the right specialists to the table as needs arise. Whether your strategy calls for designers, copywriters, social managers, developers or researchers, having a single gateway to masters of these crafts can make or break the success of your marketing efforts.
5. The 3rd party effect: From company executives to boards of directors, there are typically many gatekeepers involved in approving marketing plans and budgets. Sometimes it just takes an outside party that can assume responsibility for a campaign or idea to persuade your stakeholders to try something new.
6. Innovation: Marketing channels, consumer behaviors and cultural best practices are constantly changing, and it’s nearly impossible to keep up while trying to run a successful business. A good marketing firm will make it their business to keep up on these trends and shifts, so you can do what’s best for your company and not just what’s been done before.
7. Amplification: You are clearly doing a lot right to be where you are with your business. But without a sophisticated knowledge of channel strategy, search algorithms and targeting, there’s likely a lot of waste in your current efforts. An effective marketing firm can amplify what you’re already doing to ensure your value gets communicated to the right people, with the right message in the right channels.

Coconspirator is a marketing firm that specializes in taking businesses to the next level through brand strategy and planning. Learn more about what it’s like to conspire with us at Coconspirator.co, or contact us at letsconspire@coconspirator.co.