A Call to Action for the Marketing Services Industry (Part I).
February 16, 2010 by Pete Caputa www.hubspot.com
The marketing services industry is broken.
There are of thousands of marketing firms trying to position their firm as unique and better, but the results they produce for clients are rarely better or unique.
Companies are lost trying to figure out whether to start with a Web designer, SEO company, PR firm or branding expert. These different flavors of firms are competing for the same shrinking budget dollars, instead of cooperating to ensure client success.
During a time when the Internet and software have made it easier and easier for marketing to impact sales and revenue growth, agencies are failing to predict and deliver a measurable ROI.
Even now as the traditional ways of marketing and advertising are dying a rapid death, marketing and ad agencies are still trying to adapt the old methods, terminology and approaches to a much more promising and more natural inbound marketing world; a world where buyers naturally find sellers and sellers simply make it easier for buyers to find them and buy from them.
It’s time for a rebirth of this industry. There will be firms that lead us in this renaissance. There will be agencies who lead us in this revolution. We believe that these will be the truths they hold self-evident:
Digital natives are empowered.
An agency can learn the “digital world,” but chances are they’ve just adapted their old offerings to the web. If your agency hasn’t hired smart, young people and paired them with open minded senior “people” people, you’re not going to really transform your agency as fast as the market is. They should be digital natives. Even most of my friends who are in their mid-thirties are not really young enough to be called digital natives. Don’t try to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
New approaches are practiced before preached.
If your agency suffers from the cobbler’s children’s shoes scenario (where your website hasn’t been updated in 3 years, you don’t have an active blog and your Twitter account has 3 updates), drop everything. You should take the cash flow hit, work on your own business for awhile, and upgrade your experience and skills. You should be ashamed of yourself for experimenting primarily on your clients’ dimes. Prove that this stuff works or partner with someone who knows how to make it work and follow their advice. Then, get back to selling and servicing. [...]