Strategic vs. A La Carte B2B Marketing
If you realize that marketing your business powerfully can create a competitive advantage for you that generates higher levels of revenue and profitability than sales can do its own, then we congratulate you. You’re about to take a big step, especially if you understand that you can’t go it alone anymore.
To select a marketing company that is best suited for you, there are two primary options: an à la carte vendor or a strategic marketing partner.
À La Carte B2B Marketing
Some businesses prefer to purchase marketing services just as they would purchase office supplies. Maybe it’s a website, a brochure or a series of blog posts. They want a specialist: a web designer, graphic designer, writer, SEO guy, or maybe an agency that offers some combination of these services. These marketing companies can only offer services based on what they know how to do, so a web designer will only give you a website. Thus, the customer will need to pull everything together (and provide the content about 90% of the time), which often requires managing multiple parties and freelancers, maybe even crowdsourcing options. To get started, these customers will ask for multiple bids from multiple local vendors, maybe someone with expertise in their industry, and will generally go with a step up from the lowest bidder.
- Pros: many options, low cost, possibly quick
- Cons: time-consuming to manage, quality of work can be lacking, depth of impact on lead generation and sales can be questionable
Strategic & Holistic B2B Marketing
Other businesses view marketing as an investment that requires a more strategic and holistic approach. They believe that a plan is needed to determine the right mix of inbound and outbound marketing. They want the marketing effort to work in harmony with their overall business plan, sales team and operations. They also expect marketing efforts to generate new business and produce a healthy return on investment.
- Pros: less time is needed to manage, highest quality of work, highest ROI, can lead to a strong partnership over time
- Cons: higher cost initially (prior to the ROI being realized), higher possibility of failure if the partner isn’t really strategic or holistic after all
Which Approach Is Best for You?
As you would guess, we are the strategic and holistic B2B marketing option. We stopped offering à la carte marketing services because piecemeal
marketing yields piecemeal results. In the past, we gave our clients exactly what they asked for instead of what we thought was best. As a result, we didn’t have our greatest impact and they were disappointed.
Strategic and holistic B2B marketing pays for itself, often within 6-9 months and for less than it would cost to hire a receptionist. This is because we create a strategy that identifies the right mix of inbound and outbound marketing to achieve your goals for lead generation, revenue, profitability, web, SEO, etc.
The Greatest Impact & Abundance Mentality
We have the greatest impact when we work with our clients as a partner, not as a vendor, and when our client has an abundance mentality vs. one of scarcity. From Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:
“Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the
Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though
there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big
piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.
“Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone.”
Take the Next Step
Think “abundance” and don’t get left behind. If you’re ready to invest in a powerful
form of marketing that generates results, let’s talk. There is no limit to what we can achieve together.
