Why it might be time to consolidate marketing agencies

The marketing agency landscape is fragmented, and the promise of seamless, impactful campaigns often falls short when agencies with different focus areas fail to connect the dots. In this article, we’ll help you identify why and when to consolidate agencies.

Imagine you're a marketing director, it's Monday morning and you're trying to work out where to spend your time this week between planning, building campaigns, and team coordination. 

During the morning, you step into your first meeting of the day and you're greeted by the enthusiastic faces of your creative agency. 

They share a campaign concept, complete with engaging visuals and digital experience. 

But when you ask how this will be tracked in your marketing automation system, you're met with puzzled looks. "Auto...what?" they murmur, scratching their heads.

In your second meeting, your technical agency is ready with sophisticated workflows, but they falter when you mention creative messaging and broader strategy. 

"That's not really our area..." they admit, avoiding eye contact.

By the time you're heading into your third meeting with agency 3, a sense of déjà vu sets in. 

They present a comprehensive campaign strategy and outline the tactics needed to reach your marketing goals. But when you inquire about help with the execution there's a moment of hesitation. "Implement? Oh, we just strategise," they admit, clearly uncomfortable with the notion of hands-on execution.

And let's not forget the scenario where you opted for a single agency, hoping for a streamlined experience. 

Sadly, they’re a generalist agency that might promise to handle everything but lacks specialised expertise in key areas. While they offer convenience, their broad but shallow approach can lead to missed opportunities and underwhelming results. 

For example, they might execute a campaign efficiently, but without deep knowledge of creative design or technicalities, the campaign fails to resonate deeply or leverage the full potential of marketing automation to engage and convert leads effectively.

This juggling act is more than an inconvenience; it's a symptom of a deeper issue faced by many marketing leaders today. 

The challenges faced by marketing leaders

Marketing today is no small feat. With the ever-increasing complexity of digital, customer expectations, and the need to prove ROI, marketing leaders are under immense pressure to do more with less. 

Adding another layer of complexity, marketing leaders must make tough decisions about who to hire, what agencies to hire, how to split the team, and what resources to put where. 

Ultimately, they have to be able to create a marketing engine that works efficiently, and their job is to find the right recipe of in-house, freelancers, external resources, and agencies, all within budget.

It's a balancing act that requires strategic insight and empathetic leadership.

Managing multiple budgets

The financial overheads of working with multiple agencies can be staggering. 

Imagine managing three sets of contracts, engaging with three different teams, processing three sets of invoices, and trying to get these agencies to grasp the nuances of your business. 

It's not just about the money; it's about the time and effort spent in coordination. 

This fragmented approach reduces operational efficiency and shifts your focus away from the essential goals. Instead, you find yourself swallowed by administrative tasks and struggling to ensure consistency across different agency outputs. 

Consolidating your marketing efforts under one agency can streamline these processes, allowing you to devote your resources and attention to what truly matters—growing your business and enhancing its impact in the market.

Slow speed of innovation

Innovation and scaling are critical for any business looking to succeed in competitive markets. 

However, when your marketing efforts are scattered across multiple agencies, each missing a piece of the puzzle—be it strategy, tech, or creative—your campaigns can end up being less than the sum of their parts. 

Imagine launching a campaign where the strategy is solid, but the technology is lacking. For example,  imagine launching a campaign with engaging creative content aimed at drawing potential customers to a new product launch. 

The advertisements, social media posts, and emails generate excitement and direct traffic to a specially designed landing page.

But the landing page has a major issue: the lead capture form is poorly designed, lacking key fields that could capture essential information about the visitors' preferences and needs. 

Even worse, the form isn’t properly integrated with your marketing automation system, leading to a breakdown in the process of automatically feeding these leads into your marketing funnel for follow-up and nurturing.

This means that despite the initial interest generated by the creative campaign, potential leads slip through the cracks because the technical setup was not properly planned or executed, undermining the entire effort and investment put into the creative aspects of the campaign.

The result? A well-thought-out strategy that fails to convert due to technical shortcomings. 

Ask yourself: Have you ever run a campaign that felt disjointed or failed to achieve its potential due to missing one of these critical components? 

The solution lies in consolidating your marketing efforts, ensuring that strategy, technology, and creative work hand in hand to drive your business forward.

Concerts over quality and security

These days, quality and security are non-negotiable. Yet, when working with multiple agencies, especially those lacking in-depth HubSpot expertise, campaigns can falter. 

Consider a scenario where a creative campaign is brilliantly conceptualised, with engaging content ready to capture the audience's imagination. However, the agency handling this creative brilliance lacks the compliance knowledge to execute the campaign effectively. 

For instance, they might struggle to build GDPR-compliant email lists, crucial for reaching European customers without violating privacy regulations. The result is a creative masterpiece that remains unseen by its intended audience, losing potential impact and ROI.

Similarly, when data security knowledge is missing, the implications can be far-reaching. A campaign designed to leverage customer data for personalised experiences must adhere to strict data security and privacy standards. 

Without the right technical know-how, particularly in a tool as key as HubSpot, there's a risk of breaches that could lead to legal issues and a tarnished brand reputation.

Difficulties in tracking return on marketing spend

Finally, the fragmented approach makes it challenging to gauge the overall effectiveness of your marketing spend.

When agencies are siloed, with one focusing on strategy, another on creative output, and yet another on technical execution, the ability to see a comprehensive picture of marketing effectiveness diminishes. 

For example, consider a scenario where you have multiple agencies handling various aspects of your marketing efforts. 

One agency's exceptional creative work generates substantial buzz and engagement, capturing the audience's attention and creating a positive brand image. Another agency manages the strategic campaign deployment across various channels, while a third handles the technical execution.

In this fragmented setup, while each agency may contribute to individual successes, it becomes challenging to determine the overall impact on your business goals. 

The buzz and engagement are evident, but without a unified approach, pinpointing the exact contribution of each agency to the final outcomes—such as increased sales, customer retention, or market penetration—remains elusive. This complexity makes it difficult to attribute success accurately and optimise your marketing spend effectively.

The solution lies in consolidating these efforts under one roof, where strategy, creative, and technical expertise are integrated. 

This unified approach ensures that every Rand spent is traceable to clear outcomes, empowering you to make informed decisions and strategically steer your marketing investments for maximum impact.

So what does agency consolidation look like?

Imagine a future where your marketing is no longer a jigsaw puzzle of separate pieces but seamlessly integrated. Agency consolidation means bringing all your marketing needs—strategy, creative, and technical execution—under one roof. 

Instead of coordinating with multiple agencies to ensure each understands your brand and goals, you partner with a single agency that has a holistic view of your business. 

This unified team works together to align long-term marketing success with your overarching objectives, ensuring that strategy informs creativity, and both are supported by robust technical execution.

The result? A streamlined process where communication is clear, efforts are synchronised, and measuring the impact on your business goals becomes straightforward. 

You'll see a direct line from your marketing activities to your growth and success, with all the moving parts working together to amplify your brand.

And instead of fragmented meetings with various agencies, you start your day with a single, focused session where strategy, creative, and technical expertise are all in sync. 

With Huble, this is not just a possibility but a reality. Here’s what this unified journey looks like:

• Strategic consultation: Your journey begins with our marketing consultants who dive deep into your business objectives, market dynamics, and customer insights. Together, you develop a robust strategy that serves as the backbone of all your marketing efforts. This ensures that every campaign is not just a random shot in the dark but a calculated step towards your business goals.
  
  
• HubSpot system optimisation: Parallel to strategy development, our HubSpot experts get to work on documenting and optimising your systems. They ensure that your Hubspot setup is aligned with the strategy, from automating lead nurturing processes to setting up GDPR-compliant email lists. This seamless integration means that your campaigns are ready to launch with precision and compliance.
  
  
• Creative collaboration: As the strategy takes shape and the systems are optimised, our creative team steps in. They work closely with both the strategy and HubSpot teams to ensure that every piece of content, every visual, and every user interaction is both appealing and strategically aligned. This collaboration results in campaigns that resonate with your audience on an emotional level while being technically sound and strategically targeted.

Through this consolidation, you eliminate the inefficiencies of multiple agencies and replace them with a cohesive, streamlined operation. 

You’re not just saving time and money; you’re also building a marketing powerhouse that is more than the sum of its parts.

How Huble can help you streamline your marketing efforts

Agency consolidation offers a way to transform the challenges of the current marketing landscape into a cohesive, powerful marketing strategy that drives growth and engagement. 

By integrating strategy, creative, and HubSpot technical expertise under one roof, you amplify the impact of your marketing efforts.

Embrace the change, consolidate with Huble, and watch as your marketing evolves from fragmented to focused.

Speak with our team to learn more about how we can help you streamline your marketing efforts.