How do you select the right B2B tech marketing agency? You’re looking to market something relatively niche, so it needs to find the right audience for maximum impact. You have a finite number of potential customers and a finite amount of opportunities to win them over.
You’ll need to hire a marketing agency geared toward your specific market. B2C and B2B marketing are different spaces – you can’t plug one’s strategies into the other and expect the same result.
Experience has shown us that finding the right marketing agency has an enormous impact on your ability to grow your business. With that in mind, In this article I’ll share five key things to consider when hiring a B2B tech marketing agency.
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Make Sure Your Agency Knows the B2B Tech Space
B2B tech products are convoluted and not always intuitive to understand. That’s in part what makes good marketing a necessity for these businesses. But B2B sales cycles are slow – on average when evaluating your product, there will be six to ten people involved in the decision-making process.
In the B2B tech space, more than a quarter of the buyer’s journey is spent independently researching the options available to them, and most B2B buyers are already 57% of their way through the buyer’s journey before talking with any sales team member.
Long Sales Cycles and Complex Products Mean:
- Companies with compelling, value-rich content will stand out favorably from others – hence the importance of content marketing in the B2B tech space.
- If your marketing reflects a lack of knowledge or only a superficial understanding of the tech space, this will also stand out.
- The best marketing targets the top of funnel problems that drive demand.
Top-of-funnel content marketing is very different from conventional SEO agency marketing. It’s not about looking for the keywords buyers use when they try to decide between a few products. Instead it’s about long form educational content for buyers who are trying to educate themselves on a problem. In short, the best B2B tech marketing actually builds demand by educating potential buyers.
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Some agencies depend heavily on interns for their content, in part because this helps them manage fluctuating demand. But this business model means they won’t be investing in their team’s improvement, and the quality of their work will likely also fluctuate.
It’s in your best interest to find a marketing agency that values and upskills the people it hires – you’ll get much better continuity in your marketing that way. You should be looking for a trustworthy partner, passionate about providing your business with the optimal strategy to suit it. An agency with a strong people-first culture will be able to show more foresight and over time, a deeper investment in your success.
Judge Agencies By the Tools their Use
If an agency wants to market tech, they should have the best possible tech stack. Look for SEMrush and Hubspot certifications. SEMrush is an invaluable tool for keyword research and online ranking data, including metrics such as search volume and cost per click.
HubSpot is a marketing, sales, and service platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads and retain customers. Both offer certification courses, which are a good sign to see on your prospective B2B tech marketing agency’s website.
When it comes to different marketing tactics, such as content marketing vs PPC – be wary of agencies that talk about a one-size-fits-all approach – inbound, outbound, video, and paid ads are all incredibly useful forms of marketing when used strategically. It’s fine if an agency specializes, but be wary of them trying to sway you into disregarding other methods.
Look For a B2B Tech SEO Agency
Imagine you’re in a bookstore. No matter how amazing the title is and the story sounds, would you pick up a book with a completely plain brown cover? Probably not. It’s unlikely you’d notice it in the first place. Similarly, good SEO underpins all successful content on the internet.
It doesn’t matter how compelling your content writers’ blogs are if no one is finding and reading them. The top page listed on a Google search results page has on average a click-through rate of 32%. Meanwhile, let’s say your website doesn’t appear until the second page of the results? A whopping 75% of the people searching will never even see it. These figures illustrate how a good SEO strategy can make or break your marketing plan, regardless of how good your content is.
Make Sure They Have a Track Record in B2B Tech
Your chosen B2B tech marketing agency should ideally be able to show testimonials from clients, demonstrating their abilities. It’s well worth also researching those clients to understand if they have needs relevant to your own. A good B2B tech marketing agency will be happy to help you understand it’s portfolio and should be able to demonstrate how it could make a difference in your business. Furthermore, the best example of their skill-set will be their own marketing, as they aren’t likely to offer their clients better results than they can do for themselves. So look at their social media, landing pages and blogs as if it’s part of their portfolio as well – is it eye catching and cohesive? Do you feel drawn in?
Let Nituno Help With Your B2B Marketing
When it comes to hiring a B2B Tech Marketing Agency, it’s worth taking the time to find a passionate and knowledgeable partner you can trust. At Nituno, we come from the B2B tech business ourselves, so know from experience the importance of this relationship.
Now, we partner with tech companies to ensure they can fulfill their potential. We use a variety of marketing methods to turbocharge our clients’ growth. Get in touch today and let us create a marketing strategy that suits your business.
