The Marketing Agency Blueprint E-Book

Paul Roetzer

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 351

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Build a disruptive marketing agency for the modern age The marketing services industry is on the cusp of a truly transformational period. The old guard, rooted in tradition and resistant to change, will fall and new leaders will emerge. Hybrid marketing agencies that are more nimble, tech savvy, and collaborative will redefine the industry. Digital services will be engrained into the DNA and blended with traditional methods for integrated campaigns. The depth, versatility, and drive of their talent will be the cornerstones of organizations that pursue a higher purpose. The Marketing Agency Blueprint is a practical and candid guide that presents ten rules for building such a hybrid agency. The new marketing agency model will create and nurture diverse recurring revenue streams through a mix of services, consulting, training, education, publishing, and software sales. It will use efficiency and productivity, not billable hours, as the essential drivers of profitability. Its value and success will be measured by outcomes, not outputs. Its strength and stability will depend on a willingness to be in a perpetual state of change, and an ability to execute and adapt faster than competitors. The Marketing Agency Blueprint demonstrates how to: * Generate more qualified leads, win clients with set pricing and service packages, and secure more long-term retainers * Develop highly efficient management systems and more effective account teams * Deliver greater results and value to clients This is the future of the marketing services industry. A future defined and led by underdogs and innovators. You have the opportunity to be at the forefront of the transformation.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for The Marketing Agency Blueprint

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Origin

The Opportunity to Emerge

Causes for Change

Accelerating Transformation

The Value Imperative

Chapter 1: Eliminate Billable Hours

Disrupt or Be Disrupted

A Broken System

The Power of Transparency

The Move to Standardized Services and Set Pricing

Value-Based Pricing

Focus on Recurring Revenue

Chapter 2: Transform into a Hybrid

Every Firm Is A Tech Firm

Meet the Demand for Digital Services

Understand Your Role in the Ecosystem

The Art of Outsourcing and Collaboration

Diversify Your Revenue Streams

Chapter 3: Think Talent and Team

Great Teams Finish First

A Players, the Draft, and Free Agency

Hire, Retain, and Advance Hybrid Professionals

Talent Evaluation and Professional Reviews

Leaders Must Lead: The LeBron James Parable

Chapter 4: Build a Scalable Infrastructure

Make Decisions That Fit Your Growth Goals

The Realities of Costs, Funding, and Cash Flow

Agility, Mobility, and the Cloud

Chapter 5: Devise an Inbound Marketing GamePlan

The Shift to Inbound Marketing

Origins of the Inbound Marketing GamePlan

The Foundation: Brand and Website

Audiences: Segment and Prioritize

Objectives: Set Your Success Factors

Strategies and Tactics: Take an Integrated Approach

Does Inbound Marketing Really Work for Agencies?

Chapter 6: Control the Sales Funnel

Agency Sales System Essentials

People, Tools, and Processes

Understanding the Buying Cycle

Lead Generation

Prospects and Lead Nurturing

Conversions and Transitions

Chapter 7: Commit to Clients

Build Relationships and Loyalty

The Significance of Systems

Prioritizing and Evaluating Accounts

The Marketing Consultant Laws

Chapter 8: Deliver Results

Become Measurement Geeks

Use Analytics to Adapt

Activate Builders and Drivers

Unplug to Excel

Chapter 9: Embrace Failure

If Your Model Is Broke, Fix It

The Disruptor Advantage

The Traditionalist Opportunity

Spend Less Time Planning, More Time Doing

Chapter 10: Pursue Purpose

Stand for Something

The Purpose Pyramid: A New Planning Paradigm

Fate, Destiny, and the Business of Life

Conclusion

The Transformation

Core Concepts

Resources

Visit MarketingAgencyInsider.com

Notes

About the Author

Index

Praise for The Marketing Agency Blueprint

“When I was a Marketing VP, I paid a PR agency, an ad agency, and a digital agency. Each one focused on building long-term campaigns that targeted my company's prospects and interrupted them to pay attention to a message. I would not hire those agencies today. In the always-on 24/7 world of the web, buyers use search engines and social media to look for products themselves and at their convenience. At the same time, the lines between PR and marketing have blurred to be unrecognizable. It's time for a new type of agency, one built to take advantage of the communications revolution, one that helps companies get in front of buyers when they are ready and eager to engage. In his engaging Marketing Agency Blueprint, Paul Roetzer shows you how to transform your firm to thrive in the real-time world we live in today.”

–David Meerman Scott,Bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR

“It's about time. There have been countless websites, books, and events for marketers to adapt to the current marketing revolution, but never one for agencies and service providers. Well, this is it. The Marketing Agency Blueprint is a must-read for any group or individual providing marketing services to clients.”

–Joe Pulizzi,Founder, Content Marketing Institute

“Paul Roetzer's The Marketing Agency Blueprint paints a clear picture for the inevitable transformation of twenty-first century marketers, and then lays out a succinct roadmap for others to follow. If your goal is not just to survive, but to thrive and gain a competitive advantage in the midst of new media realities, this may just become your new marketing bible.”

–Dustin S. Klein,Publisher and executive editor,Smart Business Magazines & Events;Coauthor/contributing editor,The Benevolent Dictator

“I've worked with Paul for more than 10 years, and am continually impressed with his vision and drive. My faith in him and his agency led me to take a risk and evolve my marketing efforts. I am an old-school numbers guy, and the proof is in the results. What Roetzer presents in The Marketing Agency Blueprint is the future of the marketing services industry.”

–Kenneth Paine,CEO, Industrial Heat Sources and Hy-Tech Products

“Marketing has gone through a massive transformation. This creates a significant opportunity for agencies. Millions of organizations need help in navigating these new, fast-moving waters. The Marketing Agency Blueprint is a practical, insider's guide that should be required reading for anyone building the next-generation marketing services firm.”

–Dharmesh Shah,Cofounder and CTO, HubSpot

“Inbound marketing ranks among the most powerful, quiet trends of the last decade. Paul's experienced this change firsthand and writes eloquently and actionably on how marketers and businesses of all stripes can earn amazing returns by investing in the channels of search, social, and content.”

–Rand Fishkin,CEO, SEOmoz

“Paul Roetzer is a young lion of marketing who realized early on how technology and new media make the traditional agency model as dated as an episode from Mad Men. Roetzer champions marketing as an evolving discipline where value creation is the basis of success. He sees modern marketing as a marriage of talent and analytics. The result is cost-effective delivery of great marketing that can level the playing field between large and small competitors. His ideas are proven through practical application in the marketing agency he founded. Roetzer's book is a seminal view of how marketing services can and will be delivered in the future. It is a must-read for the next generation of marketing professionals–and the customers they serve.”

–Gary Christy,Brand Leader, Westfield Insurance

Copyright©2012 by Paul Roetzer. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any othercommercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in ebooks or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Roetzer, Paul, 1978-

The marketing agency blueprint: the handbook for building hybrid PR, SEO, content,

advertising, and web firms / Paul Roetzer.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-118-13136-7 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-118-17688-7 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-17689-4 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-17690-0 (ebk)

1. Marketing. I. Title.

HF5415.R5665 2011

658.8–dc23

2011032163

In memory of Mike and George.And to my wife, Cheryl,whose patience and unwaveringsupport have made it possiblefor me to follow my dreams.

Foreword

When I started HubSpot in June 2006 with my business partner, Dharmesh Shah, our experiences with marketing agencies led us to almost entirely avoid working with them. In fact, we designed our original business model around selling our marketing software directly to end customers, and developed an internal marketing team that would not be dependent on agency assistance. Our decision to circumvent marketing agencies did not result from questioning their skills or capabilities, but rather from their failure to acknowledge the impending shifts in consumer behavior.

I felt as though many marketing agencies were, and still are, trying to cling onto the Mad Men marketing methodology. They want to sit in rich mahogany corner offices with 21-year-old scotch on ice, and brood over their grandiose and flowery advertisement campaigns. They rely too heavily on traditional outbound marketing techniques, such as television advertisements and cold calling, which allow them to safely distance themselves from the nitty-gritty operations side of marketing and direct contact with the end consumer. However, the detached Don Drapers of the marketing world cannot simply rely on creating deep and lofty brand awareness campaigns any longer.

Consumers have now assumed control over their purchasing processes. With the help of devices like DVRs, satellite radio, and caller ID, consumers no longer tolerate irritating outbound marketing efforts designed to interrupt their daily lives. Instead, they know what they want to purchase, and strongly object to businesses that try to force-feed them messages. With millions of Internet pages at their fingertips, consumers actively research their own product information online. They contribute to forums, follow industry thought leaders on Twitter, and even write their own blogs about products and services. By filtering the excessive marketing clutter produced by outbound techniques, the Internet has changed consumers’ buying behaviors in ways we never thought possible.

Because of this dramatic shift, we believed that it was time for marketing agencies to concentrate on providing inbound marketing strategies to their clients. As Dharmesh and I explained in our book, Inbound Marketing, this involves creating an integrated online process that uses original content to provide educational and salient advice to consumers, helping them with their purchasing decisions.

These “hybrid” agencies—as Paul coins them—could help clients develop original content (blog posts, whitepapers, etc.) that would attract interested and engaged prospects, who would begin to associate and rely on those businesses as active thought leaders in their respective industries. This would significantly bolster the client's online reputation through indexed pages and inbound links, leading to an increased level of website traffic. With systems in place to track the progress of their inbound marketing campaigns, these agencies would be able to adapt strategy based on solid metrics to ensure improvements over time.

Agencies like PR 20/20 are the breaths of fresh air for which the marketing world has been gasping. Although he started his agency to specialize in traditional PR and marketing services, Paul possessed the foresight to see the inevitable shifts of the business world. He was brave enough to make the switch to an inbound-oriented strategy early, and executed it perfectly.

Unlike the mad men of today, Paul became the marketing Renaissance man; he understood that marketing consultants could not succeed as one-trick (or in this case, service) ponies, and that collaborations with companies like ours would lead to excellence. When he joined the HubSpot movement in October 2007, he voraciously consumed all things HubSpot. By 2008, Paul became one of our most adept product users, and PR 20/20 became the first agency to join our Value Added Reseller (VAR) program.

All of this work, driven by a hunger for knowledge and drive to innovate, added up to incredibly significant gains for PR 20/20. Starting as a one-man shop in late 2005, Paul now employs 10 dedicated employees. What is even more impressive is that, through testing its methodologies on itself, PR 20/20 grew revenue by nearly 500 percent in just four years; increased its average website visits from less than 1,000 per month to more than 8,000; boosted blog subscriptions by 1,400 percent; and has totaled 12,000 inbound links and more than 900 indexed pages.

In addition to these successes, the agency has also perfected its inbound marketing service offerings for clients. In 2010, PR 20/20 launched the industry's first service packages that bundled website development, brand marketing, search marketing, social media, content marketing, and public relations for a set monthly fee.

To truly drive change in the industry, Paul understood that it was necessary to educate and improve the marketing-services world at large. He became one of HubSpot's leading inbound marketing evangelists, and began speaking nationwide on topics including blogging, content marketing, social media, and inbound marketing strategy. With the help and support from agency partners like PR 20/20, the HubSpot VAR program now accounts for 20 percent of our sales revenue. Based on demand, we are forecasting that our revenue from agencies will be 40 percent by the second quarter of 2012.

We now take tremendous pride in working with savvy marketing agencies that not only purchase HubSpot for their clients, but also frequently for themselves. With more than 170,000 marketing agency contacts in the HubSpot database, we have high hopes that many more agencies will fully embrace the inbound marketing methodology, and believe that these agencies will be the next generation of Madison Avenue marketing all-stars. As Paul explains, these hybrid agencies will master a new kind of business model, where a sales team, software tools, refined business infrastructure, and new marketing processes all work in unison to support the marketing agency's core consulting services.

In a time when others were unwilling to accept the apparent shifts in the marketing services industry, Paul's commitment to changing the course of his agency, and the agency world at large, is incredibly commendable and truly impressive. This book is particularly special because you will read about Paul's personal experiences as a business owner and marketer, rather than try to decipher the ideological musings from some business scholar or analyst. No matter the maturity of your agency, Paul comprehensibly dissects his success so that you can replicate it.

All professionals in the marketing-services field should read this book because it clarifies the confusion around the roles and responsibilities of marketing agencies in an inbound marketing world. The marketing-services industry is at a turning point where an agency must choose whether to, as Paul states, “disrupt or be disrupted.” So the question now is, which side will you choose?

—Brian HalliganCEO and cofounder, HubSpot

Acknowledgments

In 2005, at the age of 27, I became an entrepreneur in pursuit of a better way. My business partner, Larry Ondercin, believed in me enough to fund the startup phase, and four months later we hired our first employee, Christina Capadona Schmitz (@christinacs), who took a chance and bought into a vision when I was still working out of coffee shops.

We assembled an amazing team of highly motivated professionals, and created a culture that refused to accept traditional wisdom and conventional solutions.

The Marketing Agency Blueprint would not be possible without the entire PR 20/20 team—Christina, Keith Moehring (@keithmoehring), Laurel Miltner (@laurelmackenzie), Tracy DiMarino (@TracyDiMarino), Dia Dalsky (@DiaDalsky), Christy Hajoway (@ChristyBarks), Jessica Donlon (@JessicaDonlon) and Laura Pinter (@lipinter). Their work, commitment, sacrifice, and friendship mean the world to me.

The book also has been inspired by countless people, some of whom I know personally, and others whose work, writings, and teachings I have admired through the years. It would be impossible to recognize them all, but here are some of the entrepreneurs, professionals, authors, and teachers who have influenced my life, business, and writing.

Chris BroganClayton M. ChristensenMatt CuttsRand FishkinJason FriedMalcolm GladwellSeth GodinPeter N. GolderRobert GreeneBrian HalliganDavid Heinemeier HanssonMel HelitzerTony HsiehSteve JobsDavid H. MaisterTim O'ReillyDaniel H. PinkCassandra Reese, PhDHoward SchultzDavid Meerman ScottDharmesh ShahBradford Smart, PhDJim SweeneyGerard J. TellisFred WilsonSergio Zyman

Introduction

We are on the cusp of a truly transformational period in the marketing- services industry. The old guard, rooted in tradition and resistant to change, will fall and new leaders will emerge.

The industry will be redefined by marketing agencies that are more nimble, tech savvy, open, and collaborative. Digital services will be ingrained into the DNA of every agency, and blended with traditional methods to execute integrated campaigns. Agencies will create and nurture diverse recurring revenue streams through a mix of services, consulting, training, education, publishing, and software sales. They will use efficiency and productivity, not billable hours, as the essential drivers of profitability. Their value and success will be measured by outcomes, not outputs. Their strength and stability will depend on their willingness to be in a perpetual state of change, and an ability to execute and adapt faster than competitors. The depth, versatility, and drive of their talent will be the cornerstones of organizations that pursue a higher purpose.

This is the future of the marketing-services industry. A future defined and led by underdogs and innovators. You have the opportunity to be at the forefront of the transformation.

The Origin

In February 2004, I came to a life-changing realization—the marketing- agency model was broken and had been for years. Although I was only four years into my career at that time, a number of contributing factors had become obvious to me:

Billable hours were inefficient at best. Professionals were more worried about meeting hour quotas than delivering the level of service and quality needed to produce measurable results for clients.There was little differentiation between firms, and a lack of innovation within the industry.Training and education were stagnant. Firms and universities were teaching the same systems, principles, and services that had been applied for decades.Request for proposals (RFPs) were a waste of time and energy, for both clients and agencies.Standard measurement systems, such as press clippings, impressions, reach, ad equivalency, and PR value were meaningless, and they had no real connection to bottom-line results.

The industry was ripe for disruption.

The Opportunity to Emerge

Fast-forward to today, and many of the same challenges exist. Traditional firms—public relations (PR), advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and web—are fighting to remain relevant by grasping for new services, such as social, mobile, and content, rather than focusing on what really matters, including pricing, technology, staffing, infrastructure, processes, and purpose.

As a result, there are unparalleled opportunities for emerging agencies and consultants to transform, disrupt, and thrive within the developing marketing services ecosystem.

The agencies and professionals with the will and vision to adapt and evolve will rise, and many traditional and digital-only firms will become obsolete.

Causes for Change

The forces that are fueling transformation can be narrowed down to three primary catalysts—change velocity, selective consumption, and success factors—which we will explore throughout the book:

Change Velocity

The rate of change, continually accelerated by technology innovations, has created growing demand for tech-savvy, forward-thinking firms. Specifically, trends and shifts in consumer behavior, business processes, software, data analysis, communications, and marketing philosophies have affected the need for evolved services and consulting.

Consider the impact and meteoric rise of cloud computing, virtualization, social networking, mobility, and group buying as examples. We live in a real-time world, which demands real-time agencies.

Although change velocity presents challenges, it also provides significant advancement opportunities. Technology has made it possible to create remarkably efficient agency management and client services systems that lower operating costs, while increasing productivity and profitability.

Agencies have access to a wealth of reliable software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms in the areas of time tracking, project management, customer-relationship management (CRM), lead nurturing, website content-management systems (CMS), sales, accounting, data storage, campaign management, monitoring, analytics, enterprise social networks, virtual meetings, and communications. Not only does this reduce the barrier to entry, but it makes it possible for emerging firms to more quickly compete with, and usurp, slower traditional firms.

Selective Consumption

Selective consumption is the basic principle behind inbound marketing, the philosophy made popular by HubSpot, a fast-rising Internet marketing software company. In essence, consumers are tuning out traditional, interruption-based marketing methods, and choosing when and where to interact with brands.

They are conducting billions of Internet searches each month, downloading case studies and ebooks, opting into e-mail newsletters, watching online videos, listening to podcasts, following brands and professionals on social networks, joining online communities, posting product reviews, and reading blogs, and they are increasingly doing it all from their mobile devices.

As a result, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations in every industry are shifting budgets away from print advertising, trade shows, cold calling, and direct mail toward more measurable and effective inbound marketing strategies that cater to consumer needs.

Savvy firms are capitalizing on the shift by expanding and integrating their service offerings in the areas of search, mobile, social, content, analytics, web, PR, digital advertising, and e-mail marketing. They also are diversifying revenue streams and driving new business through affiliate relationships and value-added reseller (VAR) partnerships with marketing software companies.

Success Factors

Marketing campaigns are not about winning awards for creative, building the flashiest websites, gaming Google for higher rankings, generating mounds of media coverage, or negotiating the lowest cost per thousand (CPM) in order to interrupt the largest audience. The job of a marketing agency is to produce results that impact the bottom line. It's that simple.

Although traditional marketing firms rely on impressions, reach, advertising equivalency, PR value, and other arbitrary measurements of success, marketing firms now have the ability to consistently produce more meaningful outcomes—inbound links, search engine rankings, click-through rates, website traffic, landing page conversions, content downloads, blog subscribers, and leads—that can be tracked in real time and directly correlated to sales.

These success factors are how firms should and will be judged.

Accelerating Transformation

I have spent more than seven years building a new agency model at PR 20/20 because I passionately believe there is a better way.

We have worked closely with technology companies such as HubSpot to develop more results-driven services and more efficient processes, drawn on the teachings of industry luminaries such as David Meerman Scott (@dmscott), and been influenced by the business models of innovative organizations such as Apple, Google, Salesforce, and 37Signals.

We are far from perfect, and we certainly do not have all the answers, but it is time we share what we have learned in order to accelerate change.

This is not a book about who we are, but rather what I believe we, as marketing agencies, have the potential to be. The Marketing Agency Blueprint presents 10 rules for building tech-savvy, hybrid agencies that are more efficient, influential, and profitable than traditional firms, and, most importantly, are capable of delivering greater results and value to clients.

The book explores lessons learned building PR 20/20, and draws on my own experiences working in a traditional marketing firm. It also integrates knowledge and resources from the leaders and innovators who are transforming the marketing-services industry.

The Value Imperative

The Marketing Agency Blueprint, with its supporting resources at www.MarketingAgencyInsider.com, is designed to help entrepreneurs build their agencies and futures, and stimulate a more open and collaborative agency ecosystem.

One of my favorite quotes, which has come to encapsulate my philosophy on business and life, is from Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly), founder of O'Reilly Media, “Create more value than you capture.”1 That is exactly what I hope to accomplish with this book.

I encourage you to connect with me on Twitter (@paulroetzer), and join the Marketing Agency Insider community on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Together, we can transform an industry.

Website: www.MarketingAgencyInsider.com.Twitter: @AgencyIn.Book Hashtag: #AgencyBlueprint.LinkedIn Group: Search “Marketing Agency Insider.”Facebook Page: www.Facebook.com/MarketingAgencyInsider.

Chapter 1

Eliminate Billable Hours

Inefficiency is the enemy of success.

Disrupt or Be Disrupted

Disruptive innovation can hurt, if you are not the one doing the disrupting. This term, coined by Harvard professor and bestselling author Clayton Christensen (@claychristensen), and commonly talked about in technology circles, is a very real issue for marketing agencies.