They Ask, You Answer, 2nd Edition

65 “Can I Just Hire an Agency to Do This for Me?”

I’ve been asked many, many times by audience members and readers whether they can simply hire an agency to do all of this content and digital “stuff” suggested in They Ask, You Answer. Truthfully, I could take the easy route and tell you, “Yes, of course, an agency could do this for you just as well as you could do it yourself.” Heck, I own an agency. We do this stuff for clients.

But the fact is that if I said that, I’d be lying.

The world of inbound and content marketing has proven this time and time again. Case in point, my agency, IMPACT, provided traditional inbound marketing services to clients like every other agency in the space for years.

And the results? Incredibly average.

Sure, we were able to build nice websites, help clients rank for some new keywords, and build better marketing campaigns. But it wasn’t until we decided to offer a consulting model — where we taught other companies the “how” of inbound, content, and They Ask, You Answer — that we started to see world-class case studies and to empower our clients to shoot to the top of their industries.

In all fairness, having an agency do this for you is way easier than learning to do this yourself in-house.

You don’t have to learn a new culture.

You don’t have to involve your sales team.

You don’t have to embrace a radically transparent way of doing business.

You don’t have to hire people in-house to “own” the work for you.

All you have to do is pay your retainer ...