Let’s explore the differences between standard digital marketing services and growth services, to ensure you understand the options you have when considering a business partner. We’ll discuss the different channels, strategies and methodologies that fall under one or both of those headings throughout. The further in you get, the more 'Growth Agency'
Growth Services vs Digital Marketing Services
The beauty of the word growth in this context, is that unlike ‘performance’ or ‘marketing’, growth is very general - referring to business growth as opposed to improving the performance of something specific like clicks or cost-per-lead on an ads campaign. As strategists, we love working on growth strategies because when a company embraces this methodology, we think very broadly and open-mindedly about how to achieve business goals.
A growth strategy might include competitive pricing research, or an initiative focused around incentivising user reviews on a well-regarded forum site - whereas performance marketing will most often just talk about metrics like CPC and CPL. Heck, most marketing agencies don't even consider webinars and experiential marketing as part of the proposed mix!
Of course we’re definitely not saying that a growth strategy can’t/shouldn’t include performance marketing, because most commonly, standard digital marketing services are included. We’re just saying that typically a growth agency like Pathway takes a more considered, open-minded approach.
Lead Generation (Growth & Digital Marketing Services)
Lead generation is probably the most multi-faceted aspect of digital marketing because there are so many channels and approaches. In the next section we talk about how to generate leads organically using content and SEO, so let’s focus on Ads and other ways of generating leads here…
Google Ads
This is, generally speaking, and across all industries, the most reliable ad channel. Why? Because for the most part, Google is intent-based. Meaning, someone is actively searching for something in line with your value proposition (we’re talking about Google search).
Sure, there are other ways to use Google such as the Display network or YouTube Ads, which show content based on people’s demographics and searched keywords. But these ‘channels’ are more ‘awareness’ orientated compared to the ‘exact match’ style search ads. Nevertheless, GDN Ads can still work very well depending on your market and value proposition. General rule of thumb is, if your value proposition is something everyone, or every company needs, GDN is more suitable, but if your value proposition is more niche, then Search is the way to go.
So, getting back to the Google Search topic, it’s the planning and content creation process of a campaign which generally separates the experts from the wanna-be's. Experts have clever ways of finding the highest-value keywords and the most trendy topics to campaign on. For a more detailed look, Download 5 Bleeding-Edge Growth Strategies.
LinkedIn Ads
Here are several compelling reasons to consider advertising on LinkedIn:
- Targeted Audience: LinkedIn boasts over 690 million members, with 4 out of 5 users making business decisions. You can reach professionals in specific roles, industries, and decision-making positions.
- B2B Focus: LinkedIn is built for B2B interactions. It allows you to build long-term relationships with a professional audience and drive results through sophisticated targeting.
- Thought Leadership: LinkedIn allows you to position yourself or your company as an industry thought leader. Share valuable ad content, participate in discussions, and showcase expertise to build credibility.
- Event Promotion: If you’re hosting webinars, conferences, or other events, LinkedIn ads can help you reach a relevant audience and boost attendance.
LinkedIn Outreach - “Pathway LinkedIn 500”
Something we’ve noticed, which has always worked reliably, but is now working better and better, is a more direct, non-automated sales approach to lead generation. We’re all so good at identifying and ignoring online ads these days, and have increasingly less time for them in general, which is where “LinkedIn 500” comes in. But what is it?
As our newest addition to our suite of services (but something we’ve been doing with select clients for quite some time), LinkedIn 500 involves us taking over the LinkedIn profile of one of your salespeople. From there we create a highly targeted list of prospects using leading third-party technology (which allows more granularity), and send out personalised messaging sequences with the goal of getting 2-3 meetings booked per week! We send out 500 connection requests per month and then take care of all follow-ups and conversation management.
So far we really have seen exceptional performance and have only had positive feedback.
It's safe to say that this is more "Growth Agency" than 'Marketing Agency". Please reach out using the LinkedIn 500 section of our website here if you’re interested.
Other ad channels (Facebook, Instagram etc.)
We’re going to come out and say right off the bat that these are not tools we typically recommend, because clients tend to be more B2B focused and keen on lead quality over lead quantity.
That being said, we’ve still got a ton of experience using these platforms and recommend using them in select cases. For B2C, e-commerce, local businesses and creative niches - Facebook and Instagram can work a charm.
Feel free to reach out for more information about our experience in this regard.
Content & SEO Services (Growth & Digital Marketing Services)
In a nutshell, this is about focusing on effectively scaling your organic lead generation into the long-term. It’s about using search data as a weapon to get more traffic to your site, and then ensure the content converts.
To achieve this, you’ll need to do the most critical piece of work within the planning process - a keyword, content and competitive analysis. We bundle content strategy and competitive analysis into our bespoke SEO Audit - a pathway to success with content that gets found and converts.
"This is the most critical step, because as you know, producing good content takes time, and if that content isn’t put together strategically - Google’s algorithms are going to keep skipping over your blogs like a child skipping rope in a playground."
All that precious time producing insightful content will have gone to waste if you don’t have a clear pathway. Think Hop-scotch, hit after hit.
A good keyword analysis balances 3 things very carefully: Relevance, traffic, and keyword difficulty (severity or easy in terms of organic competition). Then once you understand your main opportunities, you need expert SEO content creators to embed the keyword in all the right places on your website, from the URL of website pages, to the subheadings of your blogs and everything in-between.
There’s so much more to this in terms of content structures Google loves to see, so for a more in-depth understanding, Download 5 Bleeding-Edge Growth Strategies.
P.S. Once your content strategy is in place, creating exceptional creative work, whether an eBook or a sizzle video is critical. See more information on our creative services and ask us about our latest work.
Website Services (Growth & Digital Marketing Services)
"You’ve heard the cliche about your website being the face to your business, but nowadays with everyone operating in the digital environment - it’s actually the home of your business too. And you wouldn’t want to invite people over to a messy, outdated looking home with no facilities or security would you?"
For new prospects who find your site, your products and value offerings are only as good as people think they are - which is why it’s incredibly important for your website to communicate the fact that you ‘walk the walk’ and do so better than your competition. This type of effective website communication comes in many forms. From modern UI and UX design communicating ‘innovation’ and ‘expertise’ to the content itself being structured correctly and rich in helpful, emotive insights - your website should be the driver of new leads.
As much as building or optimising a great website is a standard digital marketing service, applying broader growth thinking to the website has certain advantages:
- A growth agency is generally better at building the site in relation to the target personas of a particular industry due to commercial research and expertise.
- A growth agency is generally better at advising on business strategy along the way, such as whether the pricing for the value proposition is seen as favourable in the market, and how that pricing should be presented on the site.
- A growth agency knows how best to integrate the site into other aspects/departments of the business for full-stream ROI tracking.
- Growth agencies such as ourselves often advise clients to build sites on a leading, user-friendly platform like HubSpot, because not only do you get better analytics that link page views to actual contacts, but you can build sales and service pipelines in HubSpot too. That way, everything is connected in one place for the best business intelligence. Powerful stuff…
HubSpot and Digital Evolution (Growth Agency Service)
Now we’re in deep ‘growth agency’ territory! Let’s talk about CRM, sales enablement and centralised management of business processes…
The key question here is: "Do you have a single view of how your sales, marketing and service teams are performing in real time?" And if your answer is no - then this is for you.
HubSpot is essentially the digital ‘home-base’ for your sales, marketing and service teams and the difference is - it does it all without your teams working in different platforms, and without looking at siloed data that doesn’t connect on unified dashboards.
From digitising your bespoke sales process inside HubSpot and taking advantage of top automation and organisation tools, to your marketing team leveraging cutting-edge AI features to generate and remix content and campaigns - there’s a reason why HubSpot boasts 216,840 customers across 135+ countries.
There really is a lot to this, and if we’ve piqued your curiosity, we highly recommend downloading HubSpot insight in our latest, most revealing piece yet: 5 Bleeding-Edge Growth Strategies.
Final words
Now that you have an overview of various growth and digital marketing services - we’re curious about whether you’d like a quick consult on how we can help you achieve your ambitions?
Apr 1, 2025 9:55:07 AM
