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How to Find Specialized Marketing Agencies

You’re experiencing slight pain in your chest.

So you visit a general care physician who performs a series of quick tests.

Based on the results, they offer you general advice, but in the end, they refer you to a cardiologist to look into the issue in more detail.

This is a fairly common practice in medicine.

You start seeing a general practitioner, and when things go beyond their expertise, you go to a specialist who has the knowledge as well as equipment to handle your situation better.

Business is no different. More so, marketing.

While you’ll find several end-to-end marketing agencies, it’s nearly impossible to get results without specialized knowledge – something that specialized or “niche“ marketing agencies offer.

Not only are they able to identify and address your unique pain points, but they can also make your business operations more effective.

In this guide, our team at Neil Patel Digital has outlined some vital tips to identify and hire specialized marketing agencies, as well as help you understand how these agencies fare when compared to an end-to-end agency.

 

How Specialized Marketing Agencies Guarantee Success?

Specialized agencies, with their high skill set in a specific niche, can identify opportunities for success and analyze problems with great precision and detail within any given marketing campaign.

They bring specialized depth and focus into the service offering, which allows them to see potential issues that can be missed by others, as well as provide creative ways to implement solutions.

An important thing to note here is that specialized marketing agencies go beyond their deliverables. You can enhance your marketing efforts by correctly leveraging the strategic insights, experiences, and partnerships offered by them.

Due to the greater level of detail and expertise, there is a higher possibility for you to maximize your company’s marketing ROI.

Precisely why you need to think of ways to strategically align your agency partnership that brings your company maximum value.

 

How to Identify and Hire the Best Specialized Marketing Agency for Your Company?

Before signing up for an agency, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is your company generating sufficient marketing leads?
• Are all your marketing plan elements being carried out efficiently?
• Is it possible for you to employ new staff to improve your marketing activities?
• Does your current budget allow it?

If even one of these questions raises concerns, you should go ahead and consider working with a specialist marketing agency.

But… hiring the right agency isn’t going to be easy.

It needs patience, along with practice and some good ol’ trial and error.

 

How to Find Specialized Marketing Agencies

Here are a few tips to help you find your next marketing mastermind:

 

Determine Your Business Objectives and Desired Outcomes

Specialized agencies cater to the specific needs of businesses.

These agencies generally specialize in one or two areas. Hence, the first step in choosing the right specialized marketing agency is to know your business goals and what you want to achieve by working with the agency.

Let’s consider an example to help you understand this better: creating a series of marketing videos.

You want to improve your social media presence and boost engagement on your website. You decide to create a series of marketing videos to achieve this, but you aren’t sure where to start.

In this case:

• Goal: Greater social media presence and increased website engagement.
• Deliverable: Make engaging videos and similar visual assets that communicate your new offer in a creative and fun way to capture your audience’s attention.
• Result: A set of finished videos, along with supplying you with the knowledge to walk you through the process.

You can enlist the services of a marketing agency that specializes in video marketing or maybe graphic designing to achieve this goal.

Similarly, you can choose your agency based on the other types of services you want. Here are a few other examples:

 

Market Research

These agencies help you make better-informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes by carrying out primary market research, such as surveys, interviews, experiments, and secondary market research.

 

Marketing Strategy

These agencies understand the art of creating strategies backed by research, experience, knowledge, and wisdom. They can help you formulate a well-aligned marketing strategy that supports your unique business goals and objectives.

 

Content Writing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Content writing agencies can create excellent content that is optimized according to SEO principles to boost engagement and conversion. This can include posts on social media networks, company blogs, or creating gated assets like PDFs and whitepapers.

You’ll also find agencies that specialize in optimization, which offer well-written and formatted content to drive traffic through a search engine results page or SERP.

 

Email Marketing

Email marketing agencies can help you move your prospects down your sales funnel. They send emails that motivate people to buy products and services while keeping your past and potential customers in the loop.

 

Advertising

Advertising agencies can enhance your audience targeting efforts and amplify your reach by creating attention-grabbing advertisements that force the customer to take action, such as visiting your website, viewing your products and services, etc.

Ultimately, you should choose a specialized agency based on your requirements and end goals.

 

Skills and Experience

It’s no secret that specialists should have technical skills and experience that actually make them experts at a specific niche.

To help you find the right agency, we have two lists below: Must-haves and Nice-to-haves.

These are the skill sets that are a must for your agency:

Specialized Knowledge

What’s the point of calling themselves an expert if the agency doesn’t possess the necessary business growth and inbound marketing knowledge for a specific niche?

The agency should be able to demonstrate its ability to apply marketing techniques and up-to-date inbound marketing tactics and strategies that can promote business growth.

 

Tech Savvy-Ness

Agencies should have the expertise to navigate and use a variety of modern tech tools and platforms. After all, it’s the only way that your brand can have a competitive edge over its competitors.

 

Job Functional Skills

Job functional skills have a broader concept as it goes deeper into the actual role for which the agency is being hired.

For instance, if you want to hire a digital marketing agency, you should take a look at past digital campaigns created by the agency. Ask them to explain the campaigns and how they will apply their knowledge to help you achieve your business goals.

 

Effective Communication Skills

The agency should comprise members that have excellent written and verbal skills to drive meaningful conversations.

 

 

Nice-to-Have Skills

These skills aren’t deal-breakers if a prospective agency doesn’t have them, but if they do, you should give them brownie points.

The following are a few nice-to-have skills:

• Certifications that prove their expertise and ability to implement effective marketing tactics and strategies.
• Previous experience working with clients that operate in your niche.
• Their passion for your target mission.

 

Partnership Capabilities

Specialized agencies should have strategic partnerships as a means to expand their offerings – one that goes beyond complementary deliverables.

You see, buying marketing services goes beyond à la carte for clients, which is why specialized agencies have to take the time to foster strong relationships with their partners to create value and efficiencies from the client’s viewpoint.

If you hire an agency that boasts of this synergy, it can be very beneficial for you.

You might have to add another vendor to your list, yes. But the fact that you get excellent content, along with the SEO, rather than subpar work, does seem like the better option, no?

 

Take a Look at the Pricing

There’s a reason why Versace costs 20 times more than Fashion Nova, and in most cases, you get exactly what you pay for.

It’s really that simple.

If your prospective agency is charging unrealistically low rates, it’s probably because they are inexperienced, or they just… suck.

And yes, before you ask, many specialized agencies claim to have “expert knowledge” but don’t.

You‘ll also find agencies that charge you an arm, a leg, and a kidney to work with them, which isn’t right too.

While many can justify their pricing, hundreds can’t.

 

Treat the Agency Just Like You Would a Potential Employee

When hiring a specialized marketing agency, conduct the interview in the same way you would when hiring a potential employee.

So, in addition to going through their merits, make sure they are a solid cultural fit for your company.

The agency partnership won’t be a success if you don’t share similar values or have completely opposite mindsets.

 

Why Choosing a Specialized Agency is better than an End-to-End Agency?

According to a 2016 Statista study, 24% of US-based companies had hired roughly three marketing/advertising agencies, while 23% were working with two agencies.

That said, the following are the main reasons why you should go with a specialized agency over an end-to-end agency:

 

Lots of Flexibility

Niche agencies don’t provide a one-size-fits-all focus. Instead, they believe in creating a more personalized and unique marketing plan that can help you stand out from your rivals.

Additionally, they have the resources and methodologies that equip them with expert knowledge about the specific niche, allowing them to be more in tune with your pain points. This, in turn, enables them to deliver a much more effective strategy as well.

It’s this flexibility that helps them adapt to your needs and requirements constantly and offer dynamic solutions through their relationship with you.

 

More Personal Attention

As mentioned before, working with a specialized agency will make your experience more personal.

You’ll be in direct contact with specialists who are fully dedicated to your brand. Moreover, you‘ll have direct oversight interactions with people who are working on your marketing campaign, irrespective of their position.

Such agencies work on various campaigns, which makes them proficient in offering a completely different perspective to yours. You can also expect new insights and opportunities that can generate fresh ideas.

In addition to this, the overall flow of information and communication is also much better. With the questions delegated more efficiently, you get your answers faster too.

 

Greater Suitability for SMBs

Specialized marketing agencies and small- to medium-sized businesses can have an excellent working relationship built upon commonality.

Both the agency and company are trying to grow and expand, which makes them more invested in each other. Having overlapping roles is another motivating factor that ensures successful outcomes for both parties.

Most of the time, these agencies monitor their growth based on your success since they aren’t only in it for money. They genuinely want to build meaningful relationships for a sustainable business.

 

Unlikely to Outsource Tasks

Multiple end-to-end marketing agencies outsource their work.

We don’t claim it – Hubshout stats do. For instance:

48% of full-service agencies outsourced PPC services28% of full-services agencies outsourced content marketing services.68% of full-service agencies outsourced SEO to a white label SEO provider

These agencies focus on a few single areas of marketing expertise and then outsource the work from white label partners. In short, there is no guarantee that the agency will actually be doing the work for you.

Specialists, on the other hand, do not outsource.

Why? Because you don’t have to.

They have all the specialists they need right there in the organization. When you work with a specialist marketing agency, you get access to a specific set of services that are usually absent from general marketing and communication teams.

Consequently, you know exactly what you‘re getting into and who will be working on your project.

You can focus on your areas of expertise, while the agency can focus on those specialized services to help you achieve your business goals.

 

More Creative and Innovative Ideas

This is honestly the best part of working with a specialized agency.

End-to-end agencies use the same strategies and methods for each of their clients.

Time is naturally very crucial for them, which is why if they see one marketing test working well, they tend to use it for every customer they take on.

Contrarily, specialized agencies don’t take advantage of time trials. They build a customized strategy that is adjusted according to your suggestions and demands – all aimed at establishing your brand reputation.

 

Still, End-to-End Marketing Agencies Aren’t a Bad Choice Either

An end-to-end agency or a fully integrated marketing and advertising company that can provide you with a complete list of services, including:

• SEO
• Systematic planning
• Social media
• Digital marketing
• Paid advertising
• Interactive marketing services

They are larger in size and can easily handle all your advertising and marketing requirements, helping you make the most out of marketing.

Here are a few reasons that your company may want to pursue an end-to-end agency instead:

 

Knowledge of the Latest Trends, Systems, and Software

End-to-end agencies, also known as full-service agencies, are well accustomed to the latest trends and technology.

They know how to target the right offers, use analytical reports and data correctly, and the right tools that can help you target your audience at the right time.

 

Cost-Effectiveness

Agencies are hands down way more cost-effective, and sometimes the only way that companies with smaller budgets can afford professional services.

Usually, specialists charge a higher amount for their expertise and knowledge, which can be way out of budget for most brands.

 

Scalability on Demand

You can scale your marketing activities up and down according to new products, seasonalities, and so on.

When you have an in-house team, you have to hire and train to scale up or lay off staff to scale down; with an end-to-end agency, you simply pick the phone.

 

Expertise and Experience

Working with full-service marketing agencies lets you work with a pool of talent who have experience working with various clients, technologies, and industries. They have broader skills that can help build and launch a comprehensive marketing campaign to drive results.

Think of the agency as a deep pool of specialists.

There is also no secret that today’s marketing involves content, branding, social media, paid ads, and SEO. Handling this requires bandwidth and the right know-how – something that end-to-marketing agencies can offer.

 

Time-Saving

Irrespective of your business size, you do need an effective marketing strategy.

This needs a strong team, and when you choose to work with a full-service agency, you have a team that can focus 100% of their knowledge and expertise in developing your campaign as efficiently as possible.

Indeed, end-to-end marketing agencies may not provide you with the same level of expertise as specialist marketing agencies. But if you opt for a major marketing company that offers full service, you do get the best of both worlds.

At Neil Patel Digital, we have the expertise and experience to provide comprehensive marketing and advertising strategies tailor-made according to your needs. We offer:

• SEO
• Paid search marketing
• Social media marketing
• Content marketing
• Data, analytics, and insights
• Programmatic advertising

 

Whatever You Do, Don’t Forget to Ask Questions

Regardless of the marketing agency you choose – whether generalists or specialists – make sure you ask the right questions.

Who is working on your account? What are the specialties? How will you clear your doubts? What results can you expect? What are the KPIs? – ask everything.

If you really want to take your business to the next level and are ready to think big, contact us here and let us help you disrupt your industry.

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How to Choose The Right Content Marketing Agency

 

Content marketers who blog regularly receive 55 percent more website visitors and 67 percent more leads than those who don’t. Organizations that prioritize content marketing receive 13X more ROI than those that don’t.

It’s no secret that content marketing works.

What’s difficult is showing up day after day, with fresh content your readers find educational and valuable.

After a while, the content marketing arms race can become a grind.

If you have the right content marketing agency, growth is easier.

It’s simple to create content that’s focused, helpful, and profitable.

Know your content marketing goals and desired outcomes

Research from the Content Marketing Institute shows 80 percent of B2B marketers use metrics to measure their content performance, 65 percent have set KPIs, and 43 percent measure their content marketing ROI.

Do you?

If you’re not sure about your goals and desired outcomes, content marketing can become an expensive black hole.

Successful content marketing starts with setting goals and objectives.

The metrics and KPIs you use depends on a few different factors — the size and location of your business, your industry, and your circumstances.

Here’s a list of the top six metrics marketers have used to measure their content marketing performance in the last 12 months.

1. Email engagement (e.g., opens, clicks, downloads)
2. Website traffic (e.g., page views, unique visitors, backlinks, conversions)
3. Social media metrics (e.g., shares, follows, views, likes)
4. Conversions (e.g., traffic to leads, traffic to subscribers, leads to sales)
5. Subscriber counts (e.g., # of follows, growth, unsubscribe)
6. Search rankings

 

What should your goals and desired outcomes be?

When it comes to content marketing, there really isn’t a shortage of metrics.

If you wanted to, you could track 50+ metrics around your business.

That’s not helpful if you’re focused on vanity metrics that don’t help you grow.

You’ll probably want to focus your attention on the metrics that are directly tied to your revenue.

This is why goals and outcomes are so important.

If you’re aware of the goals and outcomes you want, you have a better sense of the metrics you need to track.

These metrics show you whether you’re getting close to your goal or not.

Here’s an example.

If you’re running a SaaS business, you’d be focused on improving the five must-have metrics.

1. Increasing monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
2. Decreasing user churn rates
3. Decreasing cost per acquisition
4. Increase average revenue per customer
5. Increase the Customer lifetime value

If you’re focused on these goals, your content marketing metrics would be directly tied to these as well.

If you’re a SaaS business, you’d prioritize content marketing metrics like traffic, subscriber counts, and conversions.

These would have the biggest impact on your SaaS business.

• What specifically do I need to stay in business? (e.g., $75K per mo., 300 basic customers, churn rate of 4.7% or less)
• Which areas of my business cost me money? (e.g., low return on ad spend, high acquisition costs, high churn rates)
• Where are my most/least profitable customers coming from?
• Which content produces the most revenue?

Start with the core metrics in your business. Ask yourself these four questions to get a better idea of your core metrics.

You can always add more metrics if you need more data.

 

9 Characteristics That Make a Great Content Marketing Agency

Clutch.co lists more than 13,873 content marketing agencies on its website.

New agencies are added every day.

How do you know that the agency you choose is a good fit?

What kind of characteristics make a great content marketing agency?

You need to know what you’re looking for in an agency.

Here’s a list of the qualities and characteristics you need to find the right agency for your business.

A good reputation:

Good reviews and testimonials are a good start. If you’re looking for an agency, they should have a portfolio of well-written content as well as online reviews, case studies, or references they can provide.

You’ll want to go deeper; the agency you choose should have a portfolio of relevant content you can review.

They should also have a good reputation with journalists, publishers, and influencers.

If you run into any red flags here, they’ll need to explain why.

No ethical grey areas:

Your agency should have a hard-line stance against obvious issues like plagiarism, inaccurate or misleading content, or material that’s socially inappropriate.

But they should also have a clear stance against ethically murky issues like pay-for-play, paid links, or undisclosed conflicts of interest.

When exposed, these unethical moves do permanent damage to your business, even if your agency did this with another client.

Project management skills:

Content marketing depends on deadlines.

If you’re working with journalists, partners, or influencers, you’ll need an agency that can provide you with on-time and in-budget content delivery.

An editorial calendar can be difficult to manage; your agency should be able to handle these details for you.

Ask them to show you their project management process.

Clear goal setting:

Your agency should be comfortable working with your goals and objectives.

They should understand your business well enough to be able to track and manage the key metrics and KPIs you need to grow.

The right agency should be able to show you how each metric fits with your goals and outcomes.

Consistent ROI:

Experienced agencies create content that meets your goals consistently.

Their content development keeps you, the client, ahead of your competitors.

It’s pretty easy to verify ROI; ask for case studies in the references that go along with them.

Subject matter expertise:

Your agency should have experience creating content in the same industry or space.

They should have in-depth knowledge and experience with your industry, business, product, or service.

If they don’t have the expertise you need, they should be able to demonstrate that they have experience with a similar topic or niche.

A stable team of content creators:

Good content marketing agencies have a list of reliable writers on their team, stable writers are skilled at writing, grammar, logical consistency, and storytelling.

These writers should be specialists who have the subject matter expertise or experience you need.

Match your voice, tone, and style:

Experienced agencies shouldn’t have a problem matching their client’s brand voices.

It should be easy for them to create content that sounds like something their clients would say, using the tone and style their client already uses.

Write for people and search engines:

Agency content pieces should be created to attract the right visitor at the right time, whether you’re speaking to a cold audience, subscribers, customers, followers, fans, or a combination.

This is a lot for clients to handle on their own.

That’s why 84 percent of marketers outsource their content creation activities.

 

How to work with a content marketing agency

You’ll want to make sure that you give your content marketing agency the tools they need to work hard for you.

Usernames and passwords.

You can use tools like LastPass to handle credentials management for your agency.

Work-related content.

The content your agency needs to work.

This includes items like marketing materials, brand and style guides, photos, and media.

Legal content.

The list of do’s and don’ts your content needs to follow — terms of use, privacy policy, return/exchange policies, warranty and guarantee information, and intellectual property details.

Case studies and accolades.

Your case studies, awards, recognition, PR (positive or negative), testimonials, praise, review profiles — any recognition you’ve received in your business.

Good feedback.

In the beginning, your agency will need lots of input from you.

A good agency will ask lots of questions about your business.

They’ll need consistent feedback from you to create the kind of content you need.

 

Tips You Can Use to Keep Your Relationship with Your Agency

Here are some tips you can use to keep your relationship with your agency healthy and successful.

Give your agency a point-of-contact

Make sure they assign a dedicated account manager or point-of-contact to your account.

Verify that your agency has access to a point-of-contact in your business and decision-makers when necessary.

Make sure you both know when and how to reach each other.

Set your expectations upfront

Your agency needs to know how to work with you.

Do you want your agency to be hands-on, or would you prefer that they focus on the work?

Make sure your agency knows what your expectations are—ask them to verify that your expectations are realistic and achievable.

Outline your approval process

Are you an influencer or decision-maker?

If you don’t have the power to make important decisions on behalf of your company, you want to let your agency know that ahead of time.

They’ll probably need access to a decision-maker at some point.

If you’re not a decision-maker, give your agency the chance to earn buy-in from them.

This will keep the agency/client relationship stable.

Ask your agency for feedback

Sometimes agencies are nervous about offending their clients.

Ask your agency for feedback on your feedback.

Find out ahead of time whether your thoughts were helpful or clear.

Ask your agency about how you can provide better feedback during your next meeting.

 

How to Find the Right Content Marketing Agency For You

If you’d prefer to do your research from scratch, you can use ratings and review websites like Clutch.co, G2, or TopSEOs to create a list of content marketing agencies.

Use the criteria I mentioned above to create a list of agencies you can interview.

To make things easier for you, we’ve created a list of the best content marketing agencies of 2020.

 

8 Top Content Marketing Agencies

1. NP Digital – Best for Immediate and Consistent Revenue Growth

NP Digital is my content marketing agency.

I focus our agency on revenue and the metrics that increase revenue.

Our focus with content marketing is helping clients build a business that produces traffic, leads, and revenue.

Most agencies separate services like technical SEO, link building, or conversion optimization.

We keep SEO and content marketing as a package deal.

2. Seer Interactive – Best for Big Data Search and Content

Seer Interactive doesn’t trust their gut; they use their data warehouse and tools to look across millions of keywords instantly.

Using big data, they look for new, hidden, and unexpected customer trends in competitive industries.

They’re one of the few agencies with a big query environment of 202 million SERP records.

3. Brainlabs – Best for Technical SEO

As an agency, Brainlabs builds its content marketing campaigns around technical SEO.

All of the services they offer are oriented around search.

Brainlabs created an Optimization Delivery Network (ODN) that allows clients to make changes to their site and run SEO split tests.

4. Fractl – Best for In-Depth, Research-Heavy Content

 

Fractl is a research-heavy, data-driven content marketing agency.

They focus on rapid organic growth via a combination of content marketing, data journalism, digital PR, and SEO.

They have deep knowledge in specific industries, and they publish original research in journals and well-known publications.

5. Column Five – Best for Data and Content Visualization

As a content marketing agency, Column Five is focused on the creative side of content development — storytelling, design, data visualization, interactive motion graphics, and exhibition design.

Creativity is the priority; their agency uses a mix of organic and paid distribution to promote client content.

6. Single Grain – Best for Conversion-Driven Content Marketing

Single Grain uses its content marketing and conversion optimization services to boost client conversions.

They’re focused on rapid and consistent growth for each of their clients.

7. The Content Bureau – Best for B2B Content Marketing

These B2B content marketing specialists are woman-owned, 90 percent female, and fully remote.

They’re focused almost exclusively on clients in the tech, VC, and financial sectors, focusing their attention on global corporations that need consistent, year-over-year growth.

8. Web Profits – Best for SaaS Content Marketing

Webprofits focuses exclusively on SaaS content marketing and advertising.

These SaaS specialists use their experience as SaaS business owners to build other SaaS clients.

They work with large and small clients, including Rackspace and Shopify.

 

Conclusion

It can be tough to show up day after day with fresh content for your customers.

The right content marketing agency makes content development simple and straightforward.

Choosing the right content marketing agency isn’t rocket science; you just have to ask the right questions.

It starts with your goals and outcomes.

If you’re aware of the goals and outcomes you want, you’ll know which metrics you need to track to reach those goals.

With the right goals and metrics, you’ll be able to find, vet, and choose the right content marketing agency — you’ll have the team you need to generate more revenue for your business.

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