How an Agency Can Save You Money with HubSpot

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Milk and cookies. Peanut butter and jelly. HubSpot and marketing.

Some things just go together, and for today’s businesses, that last pairing is especially important. Many companies are unaware of the benefits of partnering with an agency to utilize HubSpot, so instead, they buy it alone and hope for the best.

While there are plenty of free online resources to learn about Hubspot, there are many intricate steps along the way to executing an inbound marketing campaign with the full capabilities of the software.

Between email workflows, blogging, social media posting, keyword research, etc. it’s easy to get overwhelmed and waste time. And let’s face it, with business, the age-old saying is still true – time is money.

Outbound Versus Inbound

Marketing is expensive. If you’ve ever been to an industry conference or bought a print ad you know better than anybody. Outbound tactics like buying lists and billboards are pricey, and your return on investment can be lackluster. According to data from HubSpot, only 16% of marketers say outbound practices provide the highest quality leads for sales. Yikes.

HubSpot was founded on the inbound methodology, which tends to be cheaper and more effective than outbound tactics when executed correctly. Instead of interrupting leads, your business can meet them at a time that makes the most sense during their search process online.

HubSpot helps you leverage the buying journey of your customers who are researching solutions online. Many inbound strategies like sharing press releases, blogging, email marketing, and creating a social media presence are free, and it’s hard to beat free. These strategies are improved through the use of HubSpot to provide measurable ROI.

Free Up Your Time

Partnering with an inbound agency can help save you time, so you can do what you do best. Many businesses who attempt inbound marketing in-house get overwhelmed, and when push comes to shove, marketing is the first thing to fall by the wayside on a busy day. If you’re not a marketing junkie, HubSpot and inbound can be hard to leverage.

When you’re focused on your day-to-day, it’s challenging to also become an inbound expert. Marketers in agencies spend hours learning how to maximize their HubSpot knowledge before becoming certified in all areas of the platform. If you don’t have time to watch hours and hours of certification training videos, don’t worry you’re not the only one! By hiring an inbound marketing agency, you are able to focus on your core competencies and let the experts do what they do best.

You’ll Get Expert Guidance

It’s easy to waste money on digital marketing without even knowing it. For example, if you’re designing a campaign around certain keywords without proper analysis, you could be wasting your efforts on searches that aren’t even driving profit.

Social media is another avenue where companies fall short. If you’re unaware what networks your prospects use when they kill free time online and what grabs their attention then paid social campaigns will yield poor results.

You’re probably thinking, how does an agency know these elements for my business? Agencies have the benefit of working with various industries to gain insights across many verticals. They have seen some of the best and the worst marketing examples while working with a wide range of clients.

When you’re deciding which agency would be a good partnership for your business, consider the types of companies they’ve had success with in the past. If they’re familiar with your industry, you’ll benefit because they’ve already done the heavy lifting and figured out the most effective and efficient ways to grow traffic. If they know your target personas, they can then fill your pipeline with more leads, without falling prey to common industry pitfalls.

Agencies are Cheaper Than Hiring a New Employee

If you’re writing a help-wanted ad for a marketing coordinator, stop! Trust me, you will want to read this first.

In many cases, working with an agency is cheaper than hiring one full-time marketing employee. That might be a surprise but consider the amount you shell out in onboarding costs, benefits, healthcare, 401K, etc. for each new employee. Most agencies have a fixed monthly cost for their services, that predictability can help you scale and plan your marketing budget.

Hiring an agency that does your work in-house with experts in every field from web design, development, to email marketing helps ensure you’re getting everything on your new-hire wish list. Your business doesn’t have to compromise with an employee that lacks those skills. That’s not to say you can’t find that “perfect person”, but be ready to pay for the very valuable skill set they have to offer.

Going at it Alone?

If you already have a marketing department and HubSpot experts in-house, an agency can still save you money on your software implementation costs. When you buy HubSpot you’ll notice a “professional onboarding fee” that covers a range of services Hubspot offers for implementation.

That looks something like this:

That Onboarding Fee Includes:

• A HubSpot specialist to help technical setup of the HubSpot tool plus 90 days of technical support.
• Advice for CRM and other software or tools you need to be implemented.
• Advice for developing your first inbound marketing campaign.
• HubSpot support, training programs and access to the customer success team.

If you decide to purchase HubSpot with an agency, you could get all of those things for free. The reason is, agencies already have access to all of those services and they want you to buy HubSpot through them in order to help their HubSpot partner standing.

The best part is you don’t have to pay that $3,000 fee. Agencies have to sell a certain amout of HubSpot subscriptions to make their way through Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond standing in HubSpot’s Partner Program.

If you’re sick of muddling through marketing yourself, partnering with a HubSpot agency is the best way to do inbound marketing. Agencies have the certifications, the training, and industry knowledge to stretch your budget. In the end, inbound is the modern, more effective way to do marketing and HubSpot adds the necessary gasoline to the fire.