Good question. The short answer is yes. Outsourced marketing fits just about any business of any size and in any industry. Like sales and taxes, marketing is an essential business function. Your marketing spend ideally should keep pace with sales. More marketing, more sales—they grow together.
The exception to the rule is a business that is not yet generating enough sales revenue to support a large enough outsourced marketing budget. Take small startups for example—the kind without gazillions in venture capital backing them. These types of business are run by people wearing multiple hats at once. They’re establishing sales channels, taking out the garbage, cleaning the place, troubleshooting IT issues and handling accounting in addition to “running” the business. Their marketing strategy usually is self-taught. Doing all this additional work on top of their main role is time consuming and exhausting. Eventually, their hard work pays off, and they begin to delegate those extra roles to new hires or outsource those functions. God speed, startups. You can do it.
Do any of the following apply to your business?
- You’re considering hiring a marketing manager
- You have an in-house marketing department
- Your current marketing manager or marketing department needs support
- Your marketing strategy needs big (or bigger) picture thinking
- Your marketing tactics aren’t producing the results they once did
- The tactics in your marketing strategy require expertise to execute
If so, then outsourcing marketing is a good fit. Let’s break down each reason and describe how.
If You’re Considering Hiring a Marketing Manager…
Backburner that idea for a hot second. As mentioned above, your marketing budget, and in this case the salary you’d pay for a marketing manager, should increase with your sales revenue. Hiring an experienced marketing manager will run $60,000 to $75,000 minimum, not including the costs of hiring marketing experts in web and graphic design, content writing, search engine optimization and digital advertising. Why can’t your new marketing person do all that? Unicorns don’t exist.
Outsourcing marketing saves you the salary you’d pay for a marketing person and gives you the benefit of having an entire marketing team made up of individuals who are experts in their fields. Not to mention, a chief marketing officer who creates and guides a well-rounded, effective marketing strategy.
And, let’s not forget how valuable time is. Many hours, days and weeks can be spent posting a marketing position, reviewing resumes, conducting interviews, hiring and onboarding with your culture and products or services. Outsourcing marketing bypasses all that. The outsourced marketing agency’s team members are vetted already. And, chances are that they have already worked with businesses in the same industry, minimizing the time it takes to get up to speed.
If You Have an In-House Marketing Department or Your Team or Current Manager Needs Support…
Advertising and marketing effectively require a lot of time, resources, SMEs and analysis. Recently, everyone learned the value of being able to pivot a marketing strategy.
By using an outsourced marketing department, your in-house marketing manager or department has a proven, reliable team in place to step in with brainstorming, strategy and all-hands-on-deck execution at the tactical level—for whatever reason and on whatever timeframe. Some scenarios where having marketing support comes in handy:
- A pandemic turns your marketing strategy upside down
- A marketing channel, like digital, isn’t your in-house expertise
- You’re ready to take marketing to the next level and need expert guidance
- Your internal person/people are overloaded
- You’re launching a new product or service
- Your brand needs a refresh
If Your Marketing Strategy or Tactics Require Big Picture Thinking or Don’t Produce the Results They Once Did…
Mmmmm, smell that? It’s the smell of fresh marketing insights. Google’s constant moving target of algorithms, new marketing channels, consumers’ shrinking attention spans, stale design elements, and changing consumer preferences and demand collide to create the perfect storm of lagging ideas and sales.
Outsourcing marketing brings fresh ideas based on the proven and latest marketing trends. Whether you have a gut feeling your overall marketing strategy needs improvement or your creative feels outdated, an outsourced marketing agency can give them both a new perspective from the outside.
If Your Marketing Tactics Need an Expert to Execute Them…
Take social media. All the marketing trend articles indicate social media marketing is going to continue to be hot for 2021. You’ve got your company page set up on all the major platforms. You post comments and photos. Annnnnddddd, crickets; unless you count a few friends and family members liking them.
Even a marketing tactic seemingly as easy as social media requires knowledge and expertise to be effective in generating brand awareness and sales. Outsourcing marketing ups your social media game through video, paid promotion, audience targeting and engagement. Social media marketing is a prime example of blending analytics and creativity to get the results you want. Hiring a marketing manager can get your business’s foot in the social media door, but does that one person have the all the knowledge and skill needed to execute a plan? An outsourced marketing team does.
READ MORE: How Much Should I Pay Someone to Manage My Social Media Marketing?
Outsourced Marketing for Your Business
By developing and following a cohesive marketing plan and working as a team or an extension of your team, an outsourced marketing department makes better use of budget and time by filling in gaps and executing tactics. You gain personal access to a team of seasoned experts who are up to date on the latest trends and have experience in your industry.