With Vendor and Strategy Alignment, Optimizing Your Digital Marketing Success Metrics Is a Snap
With Vendor and Strategy Alignment, Optimizing Your Digital Marketing Success Metrics Is a Snap
Greg Walthour, Co-CEO • Intero Digital • March 15, 2023
It’s simple: Aligning your vendors and strategies is essential for your business’ success. After all, the more people you spread your strategy across, the more chance of your message and goals getting muddled.
We get it; you don’t want to limit yourself or your business. And it can be challenging to settle on one vendor partnership or strategy when trends and preferences are constantly evolving. However, constant change means that you must think in the long term. Research is necessary to determine your product-market fit, target audience, and expected demographics. Creating a definitive strategy is what creates that focus, establishes your message, and confirms your forward-moving direction.
Improving your bottom line through vendor partnerships is crucial, and careful selection is key. To achieve digital marketing success, it’s important to establish a strategy that aligns with both your business objectives and your vendors’ capabilities. By choosing vendors that complement each other, you can amplify results and boost your digital marketing success metrics. So, choose wisely and start building a strong vendor network to take your business to new heights.
The Importance of Finding Vendors That Boost Your Digital Marketing Success Metrics
No matter the industry, more vendors work independently from one another and utilize processes that align with their own knowledge, goals, pace, and skills. This makes finding vendors that align with each other difficult, and creates internal strain when your team is unsure of external progress. This is especially apparent when you need your vendors to align with your marketing goals and strategy for specific projects.
For example, if you work with an SEO vendor and a different PR vendor, you can often face miscommunication between the two, confusing processes that may overlap, and unnecessary strains on time, money, and resources — not to mention the extra time you are spending to make sure info is delivered to both vendors. The importance of alignment in business is impossible to understate, and it’s essential that your vendors are all on the same page. Doing so allows you to accomplish the full scope of your marketing strategies.
Qualities of a good vendor include the ability to meet deadlines, responsive and timely communication, curiosity, expertise, and the ability to meet your business’s digital marketing success metrics. Consider the following before partnering with a vendor:
Reputation: When considering a vendor, it’s important to evaluate their reputation. While negative reviews can be impactful, it’s also essential to examine how the vendor responds to negative feedback and prioritizes customer experience. When going through the process of vendor vetting, look for one that values their clients and is committed to delivering excellent service.
Results: To ensure that the vendor can deliver results that matter to your company’s bottom line, review multiple case studies. Look for case studies that show a focus on driving meaningful results rather than vanity metrics. Consider a vendor partnership that is transparent about their approach to achieving outcomes that align with your business objectives.
Expertise: It’s essential to choose a vendor partnership that has experience working with businesses like yours. However, if the vendor doesn’t have prior experience, it’s an opportunity to discuss their approach to learning about your business and its needs. Choose a vendor that is willing to invest the time and effort to understand your business thoroughly.
Stability: Since you’ll be investing your marketing budget, it’s crucial to choose a vendor that is likely to be around for the duration of your desired partnership. While it’s important to be open to working with startups, evaluate their likelihood of long-term success carefully. Choose a company that is financially stable and committed to building a lasting vendor partnership with you.
How Can Marketing Teams Align Vendors?
As a marketer, you are always searching for ways to achieve shared goals and values while streamlining communication and efforts across your business, clients, and industry. Now, it’s time to take that same methodology and apply it to finding and aligning vendors that meet your specific needs. Here are just a few steps you can follow to help align your vendor partnerships and establish a more effective marketing strategy:
1. Introduce your vendors.
When you begin working with vendors, the first step is to provide introductions and expectations. This includes taking the time to explain your goals and digital marketing success metrics so each vendor knows the role, responsibilities, and KPIs you are expecting from them. Setting up these introductions early allows you to track performance later on and pivot when necessary.
2. Utilize a project management system.
When you have multiple projects with one vendor and several other projects with another, the back and forth can create a vacuum in which work and information can get lost easily. Instead, determine one central project management system (such as Monday.com) where all messages and assignments can go through to ensure they all remain easily accessible.
3. Document everything.
Now that you have a system in place, make sure you are also using it to document all of your vendor’s work and actions. Use metrics to gauge success and write down goals and accomplishments. This documentation can also show your vendor partnerships the value of their network and production.
4. Establish a point of contact.
When vendors don’t have a main point of contact, it can be easy to get lost. Identify and maintain one person on your team as the point of contact for your vendor partnerships. This person will help ensure communication doesn’t get lost from team to team or across businesses.
It’s important to note that vendor and marketing solutions are not a one-size-fits-all situation. Determining which digital marketing solutions work best for your business through metrics and different vendors will help you more effectively establish your marketing strategy and find success in your chosen area.
Ready to Find and Align Vendors That Meet Your Needs?
In a world of numerous channels and vendor options, aligning with vendors can be a complex and confusing process. With Intero Digital, it doesn’t have to be. Our experts act as an extension to your existing team to help you align with vendors you already work with or fulfill the role of your all-in-one digital marketing vendors. Whatever your vendor needs are, we can help you meet them.
If you’d like to learn more about how Intero Digital can help with your marketing strategy optimization needs, contact us today. A member of our team would be happy to discuss your options and find a solution that’s right for you.
