Pitch a Digital Marketing Agency to Your Boss

Pitching a digital marketing agency to your boss can feel daunting.

“What if my manager loves the idea but other decision-makers aren’t sure?”

“What if we can’t make the budget work?”

“What if they don’t like the agency?”

“What if they think it’s because I’m not good at my job?”

Well, we’re here to help.

In this guide you’ll learn how to pitch a digital marketing agency to your boss in five steps:

Understanding Your Boss
Planning Your Pitch
Communicating Why You Want to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency
Handling and Predicting Objections
How You Know the Agency is Right for You

Understanding Your Boss

Let’s start with the foundation of your pitch:

Your manager’s needs and wants.

And the needs and wants of their manager, other stakeholders and potentially even investors.

There are a few different situations your manager may be in:

They may have no experience with digital marketing but want to make the transition or start to add more digital marketing into the business. They may be under the impression that this can be done by adding an additional member to the marketing team and they need convincing that working with an agency would be more efficient.
They might have experience with digital marketing but may have joined a company who do not currently do any digital marketing and are looking for your help to expand.
They could be looking for guidance on pitching a digital marketing agency to their manager and stakeholders and need your help.

Don’t assume that your manager isn’t open to the idea of hiring an outside agency. They might be so busy that the thought hasn’t crossed their mind. If you present them with a fully formed pitch that handles all the research, and the expected results and answers their questions, then you could save them time on a job they haven’t had time to do themselves.

Understanding how your manager feels about digital marketing, the results they want to get and how digital fits into the wider business will guide your entire pitch, so make sure you’re clear on that before moving on to the next step.

If you’re unsure where to start, why not set up a meeting with your manager to chat about digital marketing? It can be a relaxed chat where you discuss what competitors are getting up to and some successful digital campaigns you’ve seen.

You don’t need to bring up working with an external digital marketing agency at this stage, but it allows you to gauge where your manager is at with digital marketing and what their challenges are before planning your pitch.

Learn more about understanding your manager in our downloadable guide:

Struggling to pitch an agency to your boss?

Download a free copy of How To Perfectly Pitch a Digital Marketing Agency to Your Boss and learn how to get buy-in from your manager.

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Front cover of Thinkplus's "How To Perfectly Pitch a Digital Marketing Agency to Your Boss".

Planning Your Pitch

Everything starts with a plan.

Whether your manager has marketing knowledge or not, you need to keep things simple.

If you go in with all the specifics, you’ll invite questions irrelevant to your goal.

You’re trying to get your manager to hire a digital marketing agency, not leaving them to wonder why your business needs a TikTok account.

You might think, “Ok, I know my manager well, and I know that they like as much detail as possible.” That’s great! It might be worth including a “cheat sheet” that your manager can use to convince stakeholders that a marketing agency is a right option for the company.

When we put together plans for our clients at Thinkplus, we include a narrowed-down version of the original detailed plan that can be taken to other stakeholders, decision-makers and board members in the business. This is ideal for people in the business who have limited time but need to review your proposal.

Questions to Consider

Before you write out your pitch, there are a few things you need to consider.

Hashing these questions out now will make pitching a digital marketing agency to your boss go more smoothly than if you just jump into it and hope for the best.

You might find you can answer some of these questions already.

What does your manager want from your marketing? Brand recognition, more sales or something else?
What’s the problem or opportunity here?
Examples include:
- You don’t have enough capacity to take your digital marketing to its full potential, and you have an opportunity to see some real success with a digital marketing agency.
- Alternatively, the problem could be that you don’t have a dedicated digital marketing team, but competitors with a digital marketing team are seeing huge success.

How is the problem or opportunity currently being addressed?
How does a digital marketing agency fit into this? Will they save you time, money, or both?
What motivations and objections may your manager have?
Motivations and objectives often include:
- Security — Perhaps your manager is new to their position. They want to “prove” themselves to stakeholders or superiors as worthy of the role. Hiring a digital marketing agency is a higher risk to them than it would be to a manager with years of experience in the role.
- Recognition — Maybe your marketing department hasn’t had a lot of luck recently. It could be the thorn in your manager’s side. Their main priority at the moment is recognition. They want their work to go noticed, to be respected and admired (don’t we all).
- Financial success — Perhaps your manager is only concerned with numbers and growth. Their primary interest is achieving a high return on investment.
- Control and Transparency — It’s possible your manager always wants a clear picture of what’s going on. They might be under some pressure from stakeholders, or perhaps they want to feel in control.
Which other stakeholders might be involved?
- Understanding that your manager isn’t the final decision-maker will help you think about your pitch on a wider scale.
- If you know your manager will need approval from others in the company, make it clear that you will help them get that approval.
- Your manager might be all for working with a digital marketing agency, but their manager may be more hesitant.

Focus On Your Goals

It’s crucial that your manager understands what their return on investment (ROI) will be if they choose to go with an external digital marketing agency. They need to know exactly what the steps are to get there.

Go into your pitch with a great plan and be crystal clear on how a digital marketing agency will help your company and get the results you intend to achieve. Let your manager know where an agency could fit in with your current set-up — they can help you or work alongside your in-house marketing team.

If you’re unsure where to start with your pitch, why not try out one of our favourite tools — the cost-benefit analysis.

We use this internally within Thinkplus to propose a team or department expense to our leadership team. It helps you check that you’re 100% sure about your decision and that you’ve checked all your options.

Download the cost-benefit analysis template here.

Communicating Why You Want to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

One of the objections that’s likely to come up while pitching a digital marketing agency from your manager or other stakeholders is this: “Why do we need a marketing agency?”

If you go into a meeting with the line: “I want to hire an agency because I’m overworked” — it will go down like a tonne of bricks.

If you are instead armed with the benefits of working with an external agency, then you’ll feel more confident in your answers and be able to communicate why this is the best option for the company.

It comes down to two main things — experience, knowledge and costs.

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Experience and knowledge

One of the best sources of knowledge is experience.

Your manager must understand the exceptional value of having a team of specialists, not generalists, to manage each marketing channel.

The best digital marketing agencies will have a wide range of experience in different industries and a team of trained specialists. Each specialist will have an in-depth understanding of their area of expertise, whether it’s email marketing or PPC. A specialist’s experience is invaluable. They’ve overcome many challenges and learned from their mistakes.

A single in-house marketer or a small team could not possibly do the role of 9-10 specialists from a digital marketing agency.

After a decade in digital marketing recruitment, we are yet to find a single person who can excel in more than two marketing channels.

The rapid pace of change in each marketing channel makes it impossible for any one person to keep their knowledge truly up-to-date across these two areas, let alone the 10-plus areas of marketing that businesses need to be up to speed on. Here at Thinkplus, our specialist Ninjas have 15% training time each month to keep their knowledge fresh and ensure their focus is on delivering the best ROI for a channel.

Cutting Costs

Hiring a digital marketing agency can be a significant investment, we get it.

And that money needs to come from somewhere.

If your manager or stakeholders think hiring an in-house marketing team or marketer will be cheaper, remind them that this isn’t always the case.

Why?

Pensions, salaries and benefits are expensive for new hires and certainly more costly than hiring an agency.
Recruitment costs (if your manager wants to use a recruitment agency) are expensive, and the hiring process itself can be long and complicated.
Training costs can be high depending on the new hire’s experience.

In six months, you could have tested whether an agency delivers ROI for you while someone may not even be past probation and still learning about your business.

Your manager isn’t just paying for the work an agency can do, they’re also paying for the experience and knowledge of all the specialists at the agency.

You might be facing a smaller budget due to a looming recession, which could leave you feeling like asking for a marketing agency is out of the question.

We beg to differ (and not just because we’re an agency).

It’s been proven during recessions in recent memory that those who spend smartly on marketing during recessions do better in the long term than those who pull back.

Long-standing marketing agencies have experience working through economic fluctuations — they already know the changes that should be made during these times and the likely outcomes.

Handling and Predicting Objections

There are likely to be two burning questions that come up during or after your pitch:

How much does it cost?
How long does it take to generate results?

You need to be prepared to answer these. They might not come up in your initial meeting or even come from your manager — once the idea is shared with other decision-makers, the questions will come rushing through. It’s best to be prepared even if your manager already understands the benefits of working with a digital marketing agency.

1. Expense

Objection: “Hiring an agency is more expensive than in-house”

Answer: You won’t have to pay the in-house marketers salaries, pensions and benefits, cover recruitment or training costs or spend on expensive tools and software.

Objection: “Will we have a clear return on investment?”

Answer: Working with a digital marketing agency means that you get the insight of an entire team who live and breathe marketing – they’ll be able to give you a clear and honest view of your expected ROI based on their experiences with existing and past clients.

2. Risk

Objection: “How do we know they’ll deliver?”

Answer: Any good digital marketing agency will have a track record of successful campaigns they’ve run for clients through case studies, testimonials and reviews. We won’t choose an agency that doesn’t share these things freely with us.

Objection: “What if they’re all talk but can’t get us the ROI they promised?”

Answer: We could do a trial run and see how it goes. It doesn’t have to be forever. We could test it for six months and see if they get us a good return on investment.

3. Extra Admin

Objection: “How will you find time to communicate with the agency?”

Answer: This will be worth it for the extra growth. As some of my workload will be with the agency, I will be able to use that time to communicate with the agency to ensure all the work is to our standard, and be able to focus on more high value-work.”

4. Trust

Objection: “The last agency we worked with was a disaster.”

Answer: On reflection, the agency we worked with previously was not upfront with case studies and testimonials. They promised unreasonable results and then did not deliver. While looking for an agency that suits us, I will ensure they do not have the same red flags. I’ll also be in continual contact with the agency and critiquing all their work so that it matches our expectations and our business’ needs.

Get more objection examples in our downloadable guide:

Struggling to pitch an agency to your boss?

Download a free copy of How To Perfectly Pitch a Digital Marketing Agency to Your Boss and learn how to get buy-in from your manager.

Download my free copy

How You Know the Agency is Right for You

The digital marketing world is full of agencies with promises to help grow your business.

Many agencies have sleek websites and convey shiny promises, so you’ll need to get down to the nitty gritty to work out if they’re all talk and no substance.

If you’re choosing the perfect digital marketing agency for your business, it’s important that:

They have a process — Your ideal digital marketing agency should be transparent about their pricing and methodology.
They have wide experience in multiple industries — An experienced digital marketing agency will understand a range of industries and be able to implement new ideas from successful campaigns — without using the same tired template!
They have expertise in multiple channels — They’re specialists in organic search, paid social, paid search (Google Ads, etc.), content marketing, email marketing and more.
They’re good, and everyone says they are — Can you see proof of their work? E.g. high-converting websites, or positive testimonials and reviews.
They’re not cheap — I know what you’re thinking. Surely not. But yes! Digital marketing is an investment for the future which can generate revenue for years to come. In a fluid industry where technology constantly sets new trends and parameters — an expert, high-quality digital marketing agency is an invaluable ally.

As you can see, quite a few factors should go into your decision-making.

That’s if you want the best possible digital marketing agency by your side, of course.

Why Thinkplus Fits the Bill

Of course, we haven’t been shy about the fact that we’re a digital marketing agency. So we’d like to have a swing at putting ourselves at the top of the list of the digital marketing agencies you take to your manager.

There’s a couple of (okay, make that several) reasons why we think that Thinkplus is the best high-performance digital marketing agency for you:

You get a full, specialised digital marketing team for the price of a single hire.
Our Ninjas have different skill sets, many connections and a range of personalities.
Rapid changes of pace in marketing channels mean one person can’t keep their knowledge up-to-date across even two specific channels. The Thinkplus team can work across nine+ areas (without breaking a sweat)
We have detailed experience with hundreds of marketing campaigns. The Thinkplus “knowledge base” is greater than any one single person would know or have access to.
We don’t let campaigns get side-tracked by other tasks that don’t contribute to revenue growth’s most important targets.
The Thinkplus team has access to any marketing or tracking tool they need as we invest tens of thousands yearly on software. Internal marketing people don’t have this level of technical and data support.
Ninjas are surrounded by a network of others to consult and others who have been through this problem area or situation before. If it’s a new problem, the issue can be escalated to the top of the company, and a solution will be brainstormed within a week.
No worries about managing holidays, KPIs and performance, onboarding or replacing members of our team. We are set up and ready to go — we already know what we’re doing.

Be Confident

Using the word “pitch” makes the situation scarier than it is.

Really, you’re just having a conversation with your manager, something you’ve done many times before (hopefully).

Take time to consider the conversation that will serve your ideas and company the best. You’ve already made a great start by reading this guide, and you’ll be well-prepared to handle the conversation head-on.

Gain insight and gain support. That’s all you need to do to be truly NINJA at perfectly pitching to your boss.