When you’re running a business, you want as many people to see your brand as possible. With that said, you don’t want just any eyes on your brand; you want to attract qualified leads who convert into customers. On paper, this sounds easy enough, but if it was that easy, everybody would be the top business in their industry. The truth is, marketing is both an art and a science, and it takes time to figure out the right strategies that’ll work for your unique company.
This brings us to the idea of marketing in general. Should you hire a local internet marketing agency to fulfill your campaign needs, or would it be better to adopt a local internet marketing software so you can control your own destiny? Like most things in life, there are pros and cons to each. Let’s explore a little more.
A Few Definitions
Before we dive into the pluses and minuses of local internet marketing agency versus local marketing software, we should define a few things.
- Local marketing agencies are those which are located within your general region. For example, if you live in Denver, your local agencies would be those within the greater Denver metro area.
- Outsourced providers are typically overseas companies or individuals, often coming from India or the Philippines.
- In-house marketing is comprised of an internal team of employees whose sole job is to maintain your brand as it’s seen by the outside world.
- Remote consultants are firms or people who work in the same country as you, but aren’t necessarily in your metro area. Someone in San Francisco can provide remote consulting services to a person in Denver, working as a remote consultant.
Benefits of Hiring a Local Internet Marketing Agency
A lot of companies these days prefer to go local whenever possible. This is great because it keeps the money within the local economy and helps support the region in which the hiring company does business. Are there other benefits? Sure there are!
1. In-Person Meetings are Easier
When you work with a local marketing agency that’s within your region, you can more easily meet for face-to-face meetings at the office or a local coffee shop. Of course, this comes with a caveat, since many face-to-face meetings have been canceled in lieu of Zoom and other online resources these days. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that virtual meetings are completely possible anytime, anywhere. While you might desire in-person meetings, don’t discredit the fact that a great internet marketing agency can come to you on your terms and turf.
2. You’ll Have Access to Local Knowledge and Connections
Local-based marketing agencies have knowledge of the community and connections that can help your brand get more attention. This is particularly helpful if your business is focused on local attention as well (such as a restaurant or hairstylist).
3. Marketing Agencies Bring a Breadth of Expertise to the Table
Great marketing firms utilize their past experiences and current capabilities to produce campaigns that speak to the audience you’re trying to target. They employ a variety of capabilities, software options, and tools that they have at their disposal. They typically offer diverse specialties and are scalable.
4. Brand Familiarity is Just a Phone Call Away
One reason companies hire in-house marketers is because they want to stay true to brand familiarity throughout the campaign-building processes. Fortunately, great remote agencies can do this work for you, too. When you find a firm that knows how to leverage technology and the people it employs, you’ll find that they treat you like you’re part of their own family. (Spoiler alert: that’s what we do here at Surefire Local!)
5. You Have a Human Who You Can Call On When You Have Questions
It’s easy to feel like your interactions are more personal when you have a go-to person with whom you can regularly interact with at your agency. These people get to know you as a person and your company as a brand. It makes it simpler to ask questions or have conundrums when you know you have people on the other side of the screen or phone who can readily assess your business’s needs and tackle the tasks at hand.
Benefits of Using a Local Internet Marketing Software
Now that you know why you might opt for an agency, let’s talk a little bit about what’s great about local marketing software. If you’re trying to save money and stay away from in-house marketing, you don’t have to resign yourself to outsourced providers; the right software can save you money and bring you tons of benefits. Here are a few:
1. Your Information is Easily Accessible
Accessibility is a key feature of local marketing software. It enables you to set and measure key metrics, view your campaigns’ progress, and pivot your strategies when needed.
2. You Have Complete Focus on Your Brand’s Needs
With a local marketing software tool, you’ll be able to completely focus on your brand’s needs. In other words, you won’t be competing with other clients of an agency because the software will know you—and only you—as its sole customer.
3. Local Marketing Software Offers You Complete Control
When you outsource your marketing efforts, you have to share the responsibilities of your strategies. If you want complete control, this can be difficult (if not impossible) when you team with an agency. Software, on the other hand, puts the power of the decisions in your hands, enabling you to dive deep into data and make changes without consulting another team of marketing folks.
What if You Could Have It Both Ways?
Rest assured, you don’t have to give up the personalization and consulting nature that comes with agencies in lieu of software (or vice versa). At Surefire Local, we’ve done a great job of combining our clients’ needs so they can have the best of both worlds. We give you the software that allows you to manage all areas of your business and marketing, combined with a dedicated account manager who will guide you along the way.
When you work with an internet marketing agency that understands how to do things locally, you’ll enjoy:
Complete Control Over Your Campaigns
Our software will transform your team into marketing superheroes by giving them access to the industry’s most powerful platform. You’ll know where your customers are coming from, how they find you, and why they’re there.
Our Agency Antidote
We’ll offer you our been-there-done-that strategies so you can learn what’s worked and what hasn’t in the past. Our local digital marketing strategists will become a crucial part of your team, offering personalized guidance and an unwavering need to see you succeed. We’ll provide hands-on training so you can master our platform that’s backed by real data that can improve your future processes.
Locally-Focused Assistance
Our platform was built for local marketers, offering custom-designed spaces with real-life input from local-focused leaders. With our platform, you can put your email marketing and online advertising campaigns to the test while ensuring you’ve optimized your content and befriended the search engines during the process.
Cost-Effective Scalability
Hiring an entire team of marketers, whether in-house, outsourced, or remote, can be expensive (and time-consuming). With Surefire Local, you can grow your business with a cost-effective, scalable, all-in-one solution that solves your biggest conundrums and removes the digital roadblocks that could hinder your brand’s growth.
An Outstanding Arsenal of Marketing Tools
With our platform, you’ll have access to experts who can help you with:
- Online listings and reviews so you can monitor and grow your online reputation while managing the ways in which your business information is found online;
- Marketing where you can create campaigns across multiple channels, control your digital assets, and engage customers and prospects in one unified place;
- Lead generation so you can attract the best leads to your brand and improve your company’s marketing ROI on every approach you intend to take on;
- Competitive analysis, which will allow you to measure your success against competitors and gain insights into their actions using today’s top A.I. technologies.
Now You’re Ready for Surefire Local
If you’re ready to have the best of both worlds—local business marketing with a dedicated account manager who can help guide you through the software that’ll take your business to the next level—you’ve come to the right place. Our team at Surefire Local is ready to help you bolster your business in brand new ways. Let’s talk!