For B2B companies, ROI is everything.
Every dollar invested in outside resources must lead to a positive business outcome—ideally profit—to make it worthwhile. The decision to buy HubSpot and work with a HubSpot Partner Agency is no different.
Working with an agency is already a step in the right direction to getting ROI from HubSpot, as a partner agency knows the ins and outs of everything it has to offer. Agencies also know that demonstrating return on marketing investment (ROI) is of the utmost importance, and will do whatever it takes to provide your company with solid benefits that directly contribute to revenue.
One thing to remember: ROMI is calculated differently than traditional ROI because marketing expenses are viewed as a “risk” rather than capital that a company invests in and expenses overtime based upon depreciation. Basically, ROMI determines if marketing is worthwhile by comparing the amount invested to the increased profits that marketing has generated. With the technicalities out of the way, here’s how to get maximum ROMI from your HubSpot agency partner.
Getting Started on the Right Foot
It’s sometimes hard to put a price tag on the benefits a company experiences from a marketing agency because it can be difficult to know where increases in sales actually come from. Your company may experience a major uptick in brand awareness, referrals and positive word-of-mouth, but the sources of those positive associations are not always easy to track and measure.
To combat this, an experienced HubSpot agency will know to take an initial benchmark measurement of your company’s relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) for later comparison. Success of your company’s marketing content will be demonstrated in how those KPIs change over time. The following steps will help your company get the most from HubSpot and from your HubSpot agency partner.
Step 1: Be Transparent with Your Numbers
It’s important for B2B companies to be transparent with their HubSpot agencies about any factors relevant to KPIs, including sales and revenue figures. An agency needs to be able to measure the performance of its marketing campaigns, relative to the efforts that came before, to truly optimize on the tactics that are working. The more information your company shares with your agency, the better.
In addition to website traffic metrics, email open-rates, and so forth, agencies need to know:
- Monthly or weekly number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
- Channels and sources of those marketing qualified leads
- Monthly or weekly number of sales qualified leads (SQLs)
- Number of sales pitches and the length of your sales cycle
- Close ratio and information on those customer profiles
Step 2: Be Diligent About the “Delight” Stage
HubSpot agencies are all about being helpful and human. Inbound marketing creates a positive experience for prospects in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey and helps pass leads to the sales team. Ultimately however, sales and service are responsible for making sure that a positive experience for the client continues. If these teams fail to do that, the ROI that your company could’ve gained from a long-term partnership with a client, could be cut in half, or less for that matter.
To get the most ROI from each client that your HubSpot agency attracts, try:
- Holding regularly scheduled check-ins
- Sending helpful articles and blogs their way
- Proactively recommending tweaks to their service or products
- Staying abreast of changes and news in their industry
- Regularly soliciting their satisfaction feedback
- Implementing changes in your organization that put the client at the center of everything
Whatever your company’s interpretation of being helpful and human is, this approach needs to be prioritized across all interactions with clients to garner the most ROI.
Step 3: Be on Top of Reviews and Referrals
Once your HubSpot agency’s inbound (or inbound + outbound strategy) is in full swing, the leads who become clients and enter into the “delight” stage of the inbound methodology, are now a powerful addition to your sales force. Yup, that’s right – it’s time to talk reviews and referrals.
Work with your agency to create Review or Testimonial pages on your website, and to later include the best reviews in a prominent place on your homepage. You can also claim your company’s page on Yelp or other review sites, and then, through email marketing, encourage clients to leave a review.
71% of B2B clients look at reviews during the consideration stage, and 67% rank peer reviews as very important when making a purchase decision.1 That’s why it’s so important to garner positive reviews as you go along.
As for referrals, a discount to loyal clients who refer other businesses can be an effective incentive that helps turn “delight” into revenue, and subsequently into more ROMI.
In Conclusion: It’s a Partnership
Just as marketing agencies partner with HubSpot to give their clients marketing advantages, companies partner with marketing agencies to gain advantages in attracting, engaging, closing and delighting prospects and clients. Working with a HubSpot agency will take a great deal of marketing responsibility off your plate, while also helping you get the most from your overall HubSpot investment.
To get started with a HubSpot agency, and to help you find one that has all the expertise, tools and resources needed to maximize your ROMI, download the just-released: Your Guide to Finding the Right HubSpot Agency Partner.
Sources
50+ Statistics Proving the Power of Customer Reviews, Kristen McCabe
