#hubspot Insights about Online Marketing Agencies

I mentioned this Hubspot report about Online Marketing Services Industry in my earlier post but I feel it deserves a separate post as it is really worth going through by online marketing entrepreneurs and professionals! There are many valuable insights to be gleaned,

1. 71% of the agencies are small sized with less than 5 employees! (this slide is available in their downloadable report and not in this presentation)

2. A retainership model with longer and larger retainers is the best value proposition to make the agency sustainable. (In my last post I looked at the Strategy + training model which is better for the client)

3. In-house v/s contracted services data: web dev, design, blogging are the largest chunks of work to be contracted outside! This points towards a few small & focussed companies coming together for a project even though only one maybe the actual point of contact!

4. Most revenue comes from B2B clients! This is very surprising what could be the reasons? Maybe most B2C companies soonm opt for in-house teams as these activities play a much crucial role? Its hard to understand because B2B companies need a lot more in-house generated content…. (again this slide is there in the downloadable report not in this presentation)

5. The companies that charge the larger and longer retainers are more process driven, they have much strongers ROI measurements and sales channels

Points I would have liked a little more detail,

1. Who are the respondents – are they of any specific country or region?

2. Quality of work : This is important because a lot of companies use automated content publishing tools and other such means to keep social media accounts going. They think that using keywords/hashtags and a few links are enough to gain traction on social media. Surprisingly even clients don’t see through such activities even though no clicks are generated nor any leads.

3. Technology used by companies : Its important to understand what role does technology play? Is the work largely automated or is technology just a tool in the process. For eg: If the RSS feed is being tweeted using automated tools, its a high level of tech usage while is the account manager is using a tool like Hootsuite to tweet then it is a smaller level of tech usage. This would give a clearer idea of the quality of work too.

4. Client interactions: how involved is client in the work?