Look at your marketing plan. (You have one, right? If not, you can outsource developing one. We’ll get to that later.) What do you see? A mix of content marketing, digital marketing, social media, outreach and link building, and perhaps a calendar of what to focus your marketing on and when. It’s also likely that you see a lot of individual marketing tasks that must be completed to move the whole marketing plan forward and increase sales and brand recognition.
Will you accomplish every single one of those marketing tasks? That’s often unlikely because business owners only have so many hours in the day. Even with a manager on staff, a comprehensive marketing strategy involves specific skills, like graphic design, video editing and digital ad management to name a few. Finding one person with expertise in all marketing fields would be like hiring a unicorn marketing professional.
Getting Started
The marketing to-do list that goes along with your marketing plan is probably a bugger. Even a task as innocuous as a social media post turns into:
- How should we word it?
- Should we “boost” it?
- Should it have an image? Who’s taking the photo?
- Who’s managing the comments?
- Where should we link the post?
Suddenly, a simple social media post is a big, fat hassle. The beauty of outsourcing your marketing tasks is that you can make a call or send an email and that social media post is done—like magic.
Getting started is usually the hardest step for business owners. Again, the questions with what to outsource snowball and feel overwhelming. Look at your marketing task list. Pick one. Pick a few. Pick anything, just get your feet wet.
Which Marketing Tasks Make Sense to Outsource
EAG Advertising & Marketing acts as some of our clients’ full outsourced marketing department, handling every task outlined in their marketing strategy. Also, we act as their marketing manager’s (or team’s) internal support. Either way, our team of marketing experts brings expertise to any task or strategy.
Copywriting/Content Marketing
Content marketing is a lucrative part of any marketing strategy. It relies on creating a constant and well-honed stream of content, which requires writing it.
Do you have an employee who excels at writing? No one knows your company and customers better than your team. We can help you decide where that content best fits in your content strategy, as well as edit for the medium.
Or, you can outsource writing 100 percent of your content. Our copywriters:
- Brainstorm content ideas, do research, conduct interviews and develop them into original, quality copy ranging in length from few words to thousands.
- Collaborate with creative and digital teams to align content with the overall content marketing strategy and brand voice.
- Use proven tools to develop a content strategy and content calendar reflective of your goals.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There is no one way to achieve SEO results. But, there are many best practices, and they change often. SEO involves writing keyword-rich content, distributing that content in the right channels, backlinks (quality and number that lead back to your website), anchor text, quality of your website and meta data, and more.
EAG’s SEO experts start the SEO analysis process with a thorough website review. We can suggest recommendations for your team to handle, and we can make those modifications if your team doesn’t have the time or knowledge. Either way, SEO is essential to getting organic leads from content marketing, smart link acquisition and strong search engine placement. Outsourced or in-house, make SEO a top marketing priority.
Social Media
Facebook fans and hashtags do not equate to sales without careful planning and management. Outsourcing your social media could be as little as handling the logistics of posting to as much as developing a holistic plan from strategy to etiquette.
Consumers search for your company online before doing business with you. Yet, most small business owners are too busy to keep up on the “social” scene. Outsourcing your social media marketing tasks let your business be seen, while protecting your brand reputation.
Graphic Design & Videos
Unless you happen to have an in-house employee skilled in graphic design and video, these marketing tasks are taking up way too much of your staff’s time or your materials and videos could use a professional touch. Graphic designers and videographers are expensive to hire on staff. Outsource this work to professionals. It’s more affordable and the results are better.
Digital Advertising and All Reporting That Goes with It
For brand awareness and sales, Google Ads, paid social media ads and retargeting ads are winner, winner chicken dinners. They involve creating a digital marketing strategy, design, content, placement, pulling and interpreting results, and tweaking ads, if needed. All this takes time. Outsource the parts in which your team lacks expertise or time to maximize your digital advertising budget.
Creating or Fine-Tuning Your Marketing Plan and Processes
Sometimes a small business owner simply needs another marketing perspective before making key decisions. Strategic planning and marketing consulting are part of all EAG client relationships, whether we’re doing task work or acting as your full-service outsourced marketing department.
If our graphic designers and copywriters are creating a print or digital ad, expect us to ask questions and suggest ideas that might improve ad performance. The fact that we do more than just pretty graphic design and words is what separates us from other agencies.
Just Thinking About Outsourcing Marketing Tasks is a Sign of Success
Every hire you make is a sign that your business is growing. Outsourcing marketing tasks is another example of hiring others to perform essential work for your small business. You don’t hire to save money. You hire and delegate specific tasks to experts who do high-quality work.
Ready to start outsourcing? Contact us today!