Hi. I’m Lauren. I work at a world-class PPC agency. Nice to meet you. You say you do PPC for your company? Amazing! So what brings you to PPC Hero? Are you drawn to the incredible insights you get from Mary Hartman’s blogs (have you seen her latest?) Or you can’t get enough of Briana’s tips and tricks to make your life easier? Seriously, we pack some good stuff in here.
As you are here, I’d like to talk to you about our relationship. Yes. Our. You and Me. Maybe you are managing a whole Digital Marketing team. Maybe your focus is on SEM and that’s it. Maybe you are in demand generation. You report to your boss and are responsible for generating results from your digital channels–that’s a given. So the fact that you are here tells me two things:
- You know your stuff (Or at least you know enough to be dangerous)
- You don’t know everything. I mean, how could you? In our ever-changing, moving-faster-than-a-tesseract business, it is impossible to have the depth of knowledge in all facets of your work AND get the timesheets into accounting on time (sorry finance team).
So this myth that agencies are only for companies without their own experts or team is just that….a myth. We can have a pretty powerful relationship. So if you are thinking that there isn’t enough time or manpower to reach your goals for your company, then boy-howdy do I have a proposal for you.
Hire us. Well, not us, Hanapin (okay, maybe us). But hire an agency. I have spent the last few years working with multiple in-house teams on various projects and initiatives. They have been some of the best, most insightful partnerships. I wear those partnerships like a badge of honor.
It seems everyone is always looking ahead to what is next in their business. It may be Q1 but we are thinking about Q3. So as you are thinking about the future and how you are going to be the hero for your company, consider partnering with an agency.
Here just a few ways to work in tandem with an agency.
Audits
Can’t see the forest for the trees? Yeah. It happens to all of us. When we nurture our accounts and work with them day in and day out it is so easy to miss something. Partnering with an agency to have another set of eyes on something is invaluable. An agency has the benefit of working with multiple clients in a single vertical. There indeed may be a different way of approaching brand awareness or leveraging audiences in search. An audit puts insights and discoveries in a nice little package complete with an outline of next steps.
Retainers
New product launch on the horizon? Company acquisition or merge? You may shout to your team “all hands on deck!” but even then it isn’t enough hands. A temporary, close-ended agreement with an agency allows you to focus on what you need to focus on, and the agency team can focus on the rest.
Large builds
I have worked with clients where our only purpose is to be a lean, mean, restructuring machine. Time is money and PPC waits for no one. Using an agency to churn out huge restructures is one of the best things money can buy. One, you can continue to work on your account and delivering performance. Two, agencies have processes, templates, and an army of people to deliver squeaky clean new structure backed by data analysis.
Specialized management
They call you Gandolf because you are a search wizard. But social? Programmatic? Display? Are you breaking out in a sweat yet? At Hanapin, we have a team of teams. We have experts across the whole gamut of PPC. We can dispatch a team to help manage any aspect of your digital marketing agenda. Lean on an agency to fill the gaps in your marketing plan.
Before you reach out to an agency, you want to make sure you have the following things:
- Clear goals
- A solid project management tool (this does not have to be anything more than a 2-way communication platform: Google Drive, Box, Clarizen, Basecamp, etc.)
- Willingness to engage in new ideas (engage being the key here)
Working with the right agency can multiply your digital skills. If your PPC performance is stagnant, or if you are growing faster than you can manage, consider working with an agency. We are truly your partners in PPC.
Relationships go both ways. As much as we can help you, you help agencies. When we work with organizations both large and small we learn. We learn how internal teams work. We learn about general marketing strategies and how PPC plays into them. We learn to stay quiet and listen. We learn and we get stronger and better.
As I stated before, in-house partnerships are some of my favorite clients to work with. I get to be an extension of their team. And in turn, they get access to a full agency of experts. So next time you are cruising PPC Hero looking for some insight, think about working with an agency. And if you think about it enough, you might want to head on out to Hero Conf Philly. Make some connections. Network with agencies. Then you can go back to your boss, a Hero.