Hey, Doug. Long answer here, but I've made a lot of mistakes when it comes to marketing and I'd love it if you could avoid some of the pain I've dealt with. I own a small business that's an industrial manufacturer serving the energy industry. I expect we share some of the same challenges.
AGENCIES
I've worked with a few over the years. I would honestly be a lot better off today if I'd piled up all the money I've paid to them and set it on fire. I dealt with one in particular that were especially bad, but the bigger problem was a misunderstanding of what they could do for me.
Where I think an agency CAN help you is if you have a strategy and a plan that is kinda working and you're looking to optimize and improve it.
Let's say you've got it to the point that you could say "This is my marketing plan, and it's currently generating 25 qualified leads a month. I would like your help getting it to 50 leads a month." If this is your situation, I think an agency could help you.
A big limitation you will be up against: every agency that you talk to will tell you that they can learn your business. In your case, this will be a lie. I don't know a ton about what y'all make, but it will be beyond the realm of their understanding. And even if you do get a person at the agency who is smart and enthusiastic and DOES learn your product, once you're up and running you'll get switched over to a more junior person or your original person will leave and go elsewhere (lots of turnover in digital marketing agencies).
I looked over the Cain & Co website, and they would definitely be a better option than some random digital marketing agency. HOWEVER, I stand by my thinking that these guys taking your marketing efforts from 0 to 1 would be painful and expensive. They might be the right solution to take what you're doing and make it better.
MY EXPERIENCE: THE PROBLEM WAS ME
I've had a lot of bad experience with agencies, but I still think the problem was me. Like I've said a couple times, any agency or consultant you bring in will suck at telling you what you should do. I HIGHLY recommend getting something up and working on your own, then maybe bringing in some outside help to take it to the next level. This is the way I would think about it based on your post.
1. Make a decision about who you want to chase. I know you're trying to diversify and you've got some options. I think clearly defining this target is your best bet. Industry is not the only way to slice this, by the way. Gut feeling is that for your situation it might not be the best choice, actually. Here's how I'd define a target market for this effort:
- GEOGRAPHIC. Where can you provide customers with great service? Should you stick to East Texas? Do you have the chops to deliver great service regionally? Nationally? I highly recommend picking the SMALLEST geographic area you can. You can always expand, but your marketing efforts will be more effective by staying narrow (especially as you're just starting out).
- DEMOGRAPHIC. For now think about company demographics, not people (that'll come later). What type of company can you provide great service to? If you're doing defense work, maybe your niche is working with really big companies. Maybe you hate working with those companies and you'd do better with smaller companies. This is also where you can think about what types of capabilities these guys have. You looking to take on work for people who have these capabilities but need capacity relief, or are you looking for folks who can't do what you can and need the advanced expertise and machinery? Go as narrow as you can here for starting out. An example here would be companies doing $100MM-$500MM in revenue, running multiple shifts, 100+ employees, that use 5-axis milling machines and CNC lathes.
- PSYCHOGRAPHIC. What is their philosophy, what are their problems, what are their priorities? Are you looking to work with companies that do high-volume runs of parts at low margins (or will those people drive you crazy)? Do you want to work with companies who have long lead times and forecasted production schedules or people bailing people out of emergencies? Do you want people who do contract works or order-by-order?
Once you answer these questions, you'll probably be able to come up with a generic list of who you want to chase. Resist the temptation to go wide. Stay narrow and focused. Your objective here is to get started.
2. Define a buyer persona for your target market. Once you've got an idea of the companies you're going to target, decide what the PERSON looks like at the company that can actually pull the trigger on your product. Is it the owner? ops manager? buyer?
Now paint the picture. Man or woman? How old? Level of education? What is their family like? What do they do on the weekends? What kind of car do they drive? You can go as deep on this as you want, but it's always an illuminating exercise. And it's important for the next step. Whether you're trying to reach a person who drinks expensive wine and listens to NPR podcasts or a person who drinks Coors yellow bellies and listens to Rogan will affect your messaging.
3. Do an inventory of your marketing activity. What current capabilities do you have for generating business? You've got a good looking website. What else? Trade shows? Advertising? Social media? Flyers on cars? Networking activities? Right now just get all of these top of mind before we go to the next step.
4. Determine a messaging plan for your buyer persona. Lots of ways to slice this, I like to think of it simply and look at it in three phases:
- AWARENESS. Your buyer has to know you exist.
- BUILD TRUST. Once your buyer knows you exist they'll seek out additional information on their own before you get a chance to talk to them.
- CLOSE THE DEAL. Once you're actually talking to them, you'll some sales enablement material to overcome hesitations and get them to say yes.
So on a whiteboard or a piece of paper, make three columns and label them A/B/C.
- What are you going to do to build awareness? What you mentioned in your post is stuff for this phase. SEO, ads, social media boosting, etc.
- How can you build trust? What are your awareness activities pushing them to do? Probably visit your website. Once they arrive there, what are they seeing that is going to make them trust that you can be the solution. This phase is also usually where email marketing can be effective.
- Once you're talking to them, what will cause them to hesitate and what are you going to do to overcome it? Case studies? Testimonials? Details on your credentials and certifications?
Decisions about each of these phases will be a lot better now that you're thinking about a specific person you defined in your buyer persona.
This is important: the reason you did step 3 is because for now, I HIGHLY encourage you to build a messaging plan around your current capabilities. Maybe a YouTube channel or a podcast or a Super Bowl ad would be great, but you can probably GET STARTED doing things you already know how to do.
5. Execute. At this point you've got a solid plan, and now you need to go do it. Almost certainly you'll have some holes in your messaging plan. You might need some tweaks to your website, maybe you need to go find a good email marketing platform or do some social media ads, etc.
This is the time where I think it's okay to go get some help if you need it. If your messaging plan has a gaping hole that requires a capability you don't have, now you can go find an agency or freelancer and have them help you with something specific and clear.
6. Iterate. Once you're up and running, you'll figure out what you're doing wrong and where you need to make tweaks. Especially looking at new markets, you're going to be stuck making some guesses and some will be wrong. It takes some patience. You have to give things time to get some data so you can see trends. Eventually you can get it to the point that things are at least kinda working, and that might be the point where you can go get some help to level it up.
Like I said, long response but I've burned a lot of calories on marketing. We've learned a lot of hard lessons and are still in the very early stages of finally doing it properly.
What I just described is pretty basic, but for where you are I really think that's all you need. It can be knocked out in a couple hours.
