What’s the difference between INBODA and a Digital Marketing Agency?

Most SME’s use or have used a Digital Marketing Agency to assist them in the digital marketing of their SME business.

But many SME’s may have never even heard of an Inbound Digital Architect. There’s a number of reasons why.

Firstly, digital marketing agencies have been around for almost as long as Google has  - over 20 years now.They come in all shapes and sizes and for those SME’s who have experienced a number of digital marketing agencies the quality and competency can vary considerably.

A Digital Marketing Agency utilises the internet and online based technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote their client’s products and services.

Many digital marketing agencies focus on offering both content creation and digital marketing services like:

• Web design and development
• SEO - Search Engine Optimisation
• SEM - Search Engine Marketing including pay-per-click Google Adwords
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing

The Inbound Digital Architect role is a more recent development, and this has come about as the internet continue to evolve in its level of complexity.

So, what does an Inbound Digital Architect actually do?

An Inbound Digital Architect designs business processes to improve customer experience, increase profitability and improve the competitive position of a business or brand. Their whole focus is to improve the customer experience before, during and after they become customers of their Client’s business.

The Inbound Digital Architect can use all the tools of the Digital Marketing Agency but they need a whole other set of tools to help their SME clients optimise their state of Digital Readiness so they can maximize growth and return on the digital marketing investment.

Inbound Digital Architect take a more holistic look at the Client’s situation internally and externally within the key competitor set as part of their process in designing a vastly superior all-round experience for new, existing and past customers of the SME business.

Inbound Digital Architects need to provide a much broader range of services than digital marketing agencies to maximise the overall customer experience.

These services include the following:

Digital Readiness Assessment

They show the Client how to use technology to optimise their processes in a way that enables better decision-making, game-changing efficiencies and a better, more personalised customer experience.

Software Integration

They assist with software integration to ensure that all their Client’s systems and processes are optimised so they can automate their key business processes, align their sales and marketing, and improve the quality and accessibility of their data to deliver a better ROI.

CRM Onboarding

This can involve aligning the Sales and Marketing teams with a HubSpot CRM system or another CRM system – which is customised to suit the SME’s unique business needs.

Inbound Marketing

This involves formulating and customising an Inbound Marketing strategy to optimise a Client’s digital presence and continually deliver an increasing number of qualified leads. This is done by:

• Determining the SME Client’s buyer personas
• Help the Client to better understand their customer’s journey
• Create strategies and campaigns to meet Client’s sales and marketing goals
• Continually assess and improve performance

Digital Marketing

The services providing in this area would be the same or similar to the standard digital marketing agency services as outlined above.

Transition Planning

As no SME business can hit the pause button while the Inbound Digital architect helps them to transform their business and optimise their sales, marketing and customer experience,  transition planning is a key part of the process. This helps ensure that lead generation and sales do not miss a beat as the SME implements various steps in their transformation and optimisation process.

If you’re not getting good results from your digital marketing, you may consider another approach and search for an Inbound Digital Architect who works with SME’s.

Search for Inbound Digital architects and see if you qualify for a free Digital Readiness Assessment.