What Software Companies Don’t Teach You About Marketing Agencies

After graduating from Purdue University, I spent the first two years of my professional career working at a marketing automation software company. I had the opportunity to explore multiple departments including client success, marketing, operations, and business development. Although I eventually found a home in “biz dev,” many of the conversations that I had with current clients while a part of the CS team stuck with me.

When Element Three came calling a few months ago, I was unsure about making the move from a software company to a services company and the “agency world.” I had worked with partner agencies on client projects and did not necessarily care for the agency model, much less fully grasp the value and contributions of these organizations. With my client success experience at a software company in mind, here are my top three takeaways (so far) from my career shift.

Great Agencies Do More Than “Pretty”

During my time in partnerships and new business development, I was instructed to refer business to partner agencies whenever I heard some version of the phrase, “I need additional creative or content help to go along with the software that you just sold me.” This was the extent of my knowledge when it came to diagnosing challenges and/or opportunities for my clients and referring them to an agency to provide them with additional support. Obviously, my ignorance did not lead to very many strong referrals.

What descriptors come to mind when you hear the term “marketing agency?” For most people, words like “design, creative, graphics, or advertising” may pop into their brain. Although creative work and art are certainly emphasized, these end products are simply the “what.” Modern marketing agencies are being held to a higher level of accountability than just “pretty.” They are being held to the “why.” Why did we produce that brochure? Why did we redesign the website? Why did we perform that exhaustive market research to create our buyer personas? Great agencies can answer these questions with return on investment statistics such as cost per lead, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and campaign breakdowns by channel.

Whether you are a client of a marketing technology or a marketing services firm, be more like this little boy in a great Charles Schwab commercial. If you ask “why?” enough, you will get to the root cause of the challenges in your current marketing practices because “pretty” is no longer going to cut it.

Marketing Automation is Not a Silver Bullet

In fact, it is quite the opposite. Most people who understand marketing technology and modern marketing would agree that marketing automation is a necessary tool for the vast majority of marketing teams. That being said, marketing automation software does a great job of exposing marketing teams. Exposing?

That’s right, marketing automation software can either push your marketing team’s performance to new heights and great levels of success, or it can lower your team’s productivity beyond what was previously thought possible and turn into a completely wasted investment (one which will likely result in people losing their jobs). I saw clients purchase tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of marketing automation software only to let it sit unused without a dedicated owner or strategy.

Let me use an analogy here: if a marketing automation software is like a brand new Ferrari, then sound content strategy, SEO, social media, paid advertising, traditional marketing, etc. are like the fuel or gasoline. Your beautiful sports car cannot run or do anything without being constantly fueled and refueled with great content (gas). In my experience, too many marketing teams realized this cold, hard fact far too late and as a result, wasted their investment in their shiny, new automation software.

Marketing is Moving Fast.

Now that marketing is just a bit more than TV and radio advertisements (RIP to the companies that didn’t learn this fast enough), marketers have a lot to learn in a short amount of time. If a company has never executed an integrated, multi-channel marketing campaign, how would its internal team go about learning how and eventually executing on this mission? They may read some great Wikipedia articles, download a couple in-depth ebooks, and talk to their friends from other companies. But how much time and effort will this take while still being unsure of future success – all while still trying to keep up with their day to day tasks?

My guess is that when you add up the time, resources, and results of a potentially half-baked effort, the cost will be uncomfortably high.

The Executive Summary

• I thought agencies were a bunch of artists that lacked the capability and drive to measure results. I am here to say that I was wrong. Very wrong.
• Marketing technology will expose your internal team for what it truly is, good or bad. Be careful and realistic with your expectations.
• Modern marketing takes a while to learn, and it is constantly evolving. If your company is just now discovering how to integrate your systems and place your bold story in front of your customer at every stage of their journey, you need to move fast.

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