EdTech Up-and-Comers Shift 2022 Marketing Approach To Lower Spend, Raise Efficacy
Worldwide, the collective decision is in – EdTech is helpful and necessary to support learning and education delivery. But what is more effective and efficient for a startup EdTech company; employing an in-house marketing team, or hiring a full-service digital marketing agency?
It’s been a record half-year in EdTech funding with 568 rounds raising $10B of investment globally.
With such a surge in funding and support, EdTech startups are cropping up right and left, and mid-sized companies are looking to expand their recognition and user base in a new landscape.
One such startup, Huddle Up Learning, was recently born of necessity. Founder Derek Luebbe was teaching in Shanghai when COVID-19 broke out, leading him to create a comprehensive educational online platform that moved beyond the passive learning model of videos and quizzes to create purposeful, interactive experiences for learners to interact and learn from one another along with moderator guidance.
“[Huddle Up Learning} wasn’t made for the COVID world, but it is a perfect fit,” Luebbe says. “ I just see schools getting isolated and alienated from online work. Online used to supplement face-to-face but that’s no longer the case.”
So what are startups like Huddle Up Learning doing to set themselves apart without breaking the bank? If your mind jumped to “marketing strategy,” you may already be aware of the difference good marketing can make from the start. In fact, last year alone digital advertising spending was estimated at $378 billion worldwide and is forecast to continuously increase in the coming years, reaching a total of $646 billion worldwide by 2024.
“What is more business savvy, hiring a marketing person, or hiring a marketing agency?” is a question that we often address in our chats with established companies and startups in the industry. While there is no one definitive answer (and sometimes, the answer is actually BOTH!), here are a few factors that help you decide what is best, based on your company’s needs.
The Reasons Marketing Agencies Rock for EdTech Companies (Especially Startups)
EdTech startups often find success working with marketing agencies, but it is important to find the right fit for you.
Time and money make and break many a marketing campaign. For startups especially, hiring rounds for marketing unicorns who are able to juggle many hats can be expensive and time-consuming– not the best investment in the first 3-5 years of a company. In this crucial time period, it is usually necessary for all your full-time employees to focus on rapid growth and the internal changes at the company, rather than diving deep into digital trends and strategy. This is why startups, and many other small and mid-sized EdTech companies, find digital marketing agencies to be an important piece of the puzzle needed for success.
Digital Marketing Agencies Offer A Varied Skill Set And Are Your Finger On The Pulse
If your EdTech company is looking to stand out from the competitors in 2022, it will need to be agile with its marketing techniques. This means that as you find a niche in the market, you have to be ready to try multiple marketing strategies and change the strategy at the drop of a dime.
According to a recent survey of business-to-education (B2E) marketers, “Variety is the spice of life. You can’t just do one thing over and over again if you want to be noticed.”
When you choose to work with an agency, it means you will have a larger pool of individuals with varied skill sets at your disposal. This ensures that your strategy can grow and change as desired, without having to scramble - even when everything is moving at 1,000 miles per hour in your startup.
Agencies’ resources also tend to outnumber those of in-house marketers, as marketing firms are typically up to date with and have access to the latest in design and marketing software programs. They allow you to make necessary delegation and trust in the marketing experts for your niches, such as influencer and social media management (you will even receive platform-specific expertise).
If you want to recreate the full capabilities of a marketing agency within your company, you should think about hiring at least a few experienced marketing professionals.
Hiring A Marketing Agency Takes Some Burden Off Your Shoulders
Last year, the four biggest barriers to marketing success for EdTech companies were ranked to be:
1. Inadequate budget
2. Lack of automated processes
3. Lack of brand awareness
4. Poor lead quality
While any professionally executed marketing will help to address the lack of brand awareness, a huge issue for the EdTech world is a lack of automated processes, meaning constant human input and management: especially when working between tech teams, c-suite, and marketing teams, from coding to end-user communications. If that work falls to you, you likely have little time to closely monitor and oversee your marketing team, as well as train, hire and manage those team members.
Ways To Leverage An Agency Relationship
Working with an agency allows you to take a less active role than with an in-house marketing team. Once you iron out the mission, goals, content, and influencer strategy, the agency will take over the implementation and execution. While you will still have control over the goals and plans, the agency specialists can move ahead and keep you apprised of the statistics so that you can offer input as desired, and turn the rest of your time back to the company.
With an agency like Kielo, you can normally expect a weekly or biweekly short meeting to review new information and strategy with the agency. You can receive emails as often as you wish that reflect the paid and organic marking statistics so that you are never out of the loop but don’t have to dedicate more time than you wish. Beyond that, you can view and comment on the work being done by the various marketing specialists via a work management service like Asana, where you approve paid advertising, monthly content calendars of planned posts with visuals and videos, copy, video, and any other agreed-to services (EdTech startups often request blog writing, newsletter writing, and general educational content).
Finally, the agency will look for weaknesses from outside of the company, and work to fix them with your team, because your strengths and successes become those of the agency.
Agencies Tend To Be WAY More Cost-Effective Than Hiring In-House
A recent survey showed that 34% of EdTech marketing budgets surveyed increased by at least 10% this year.
One of the most popular reasons that EdTech companies work well with marketing agencies is that they are more cost-effective. Consider all of the costs you have to assume just to hire ONE in-house marketer; the salary, benefits, overhead, and administrative costs can really add up– prepare for a median pay of $136,850 for every Marketing Manager. And that cost doesn’t consider other costs, such as matching the 401K. Add to those the hiring, training, and turnover associated with every new employee, then compare it with the much lower time and financial cost of a humming marketing agency.
At an agency like Kielo, a $100K marketing budget could purchase:
A team of 3-4 people working hands-on, on a monthly basis
$60K to cover daily community and social management, monthly content creation, ongoing strategy and reporting, etc. for a full year!
$40K left over to use for influencer spend (often used for Back-to-School campaigns), inclusive of influencer strategy and management
The Reasons Marketing Agencies Aren’t Right For Every Company
Marketing agencies allow you to be more hands-off than an in-house marketer, so if you are thinking of hiring an agency, you should be prepared to delegate.
There are also a couple of reasons that marketing agencies aren’t right for every EdTech company.
Marketing Agencies Hold You to Your Planned Schedule
If you hire in-house, that person normally can change deadlines easily to match your changing views. When you bring on an agency, after setting a timeline for your project, you can expect that the agency will want to stick to the timeline for deadlines. It has other clients that need attention in order for the agency to profit, so planning of time is of the utmost importance. Agencies can give you full attention during meeting hours and in a Slack channel, but it wouldn’t normally be appreciated to call them up for regular chats just to shoot the breeze.
You Must Be Prepared To Educate
A marketing agency will take the time to research everything about your industry, however, to become an expert on your company requires education from the experts in your company. Most of the time, this education can be done through a presentation, and back and forth emails, but the more information you can provide from the start, the better.
It is also a good idea to assign a member of staff to work as the liaison in answering a lot of questions at the start of onboarding. The agency will be able to make sure they are staying on target much better with an ample knowledge base. With that said, you should consider hiring an agency that staffs educators and has experience working in EdTech marketing for greater expertise.
The Reasons Your EdTech Company Might Benefit From Hiring BOTH an In-House Marketer And a Marketing Agency
EdTech companies often face the unique challenge of needing an increased marketing staff for campaigns based around school holidays and vacations. This is one of the examples where a hybrid marketing approach can be valuable.
As the EdTech world usually also revolves around the school year, there are specific times of the year when your company wants to run campaigns that would require your in-house marketing team to double, or triple. Picture summer break: 150 influencers making content for you, giveaways, Twitter chats, tripled content in the Content Calendar, weekly webinars, etc.
In cyclical circumstances like this, even though you already have an in-house marketer or marketing team, you benefit by bringing in an agency to help you pull off those important campaigns for a huge push. Your in-house marketers work in conjunction with the agency under these circumstances. Once the campaign is over, your contract may end with the agency, and the understanding you plan to work with them in the same way the following year.
Samantha Hall, Director of Marketing Strategy and Operations for ClassTag, a free messaging, media-sharing, and classroom organization tool for teachers and their students' families, has found this two-pronged marketing approach helpful in executing ambitious ClassTag campaigns.
“Some EdTech companies aren’t familiar with the agency landscape,” Hall says. “I do think it would be helpful for them to learn more about what is out there. Get your product and content marketing teams to work together. Product marketing can get bogged down in features and forget the human element in the quagmire of upgrade paths, promotions, launches, and pricing…Good content marketing can increase conversions, usage, and retention. It can bring the story to the tech, or get the prospect to the product. Most of all, content marketing leads with providing the reader value.”
The Final Word
Looking for the right EdTech marketing plan for you? Don’t be afraid to consult with us for an option tailored to your needs.
Your budget and the scope of your needs are most often determining factors for whether to go with an agency or an in-house marketing agency.
Bringing on an agency may have a steeper learning curve at the start.
There are different reasons to consider choosing a marketing agency or in-house marketers, and sometimes, working with both is the best option for your EdTech needs.
If you want to know if working with our agency can help your EdTech company to achieve its goals, get in touch today with our experts for a chat.