How Does Outsourcing Marketing Benefit Your Business?
Running your own business is hard work; it takes courage,
commitment, and clear vision whether you're just starting out, or you're a
well-established company. Whatever stage you're at, though, having marketing professionals shaping your brand, managing product messaging, and developing effective digital marketing strategies is critical to your success.
So, how do you achieve this in the early stages of your growth?
Resourcing Marketing on a Limited Budget
Building a team is always going to be a challenge for new
businesses. It may be that your budget only allows for the hire of a couple of
key roles, and if this is the case, marketing is unlikely to be one of them.
Many businesses that are unable to hire a marketing specialist, decide to
designate marketing tasks across the core team “ but this may not be a viable
solution.
Marketing can be successfully managed on a modest budget,
but in order to do so, a significant investment of time and energy is required.
Blogs need to be written, websites designed, PPC campaigns managed, and copy
search engine optimised. Product expertise is hugely valuable, but it needs to
be complemented by digital marketing skills.
Outsourcing Marketing Expertise
Rather than entangling your core team in tasks that are
often repetitive and may be outside their skillset, the alternative is to outsource
marketing expertise. An outsourcing agency will have a team of freelancers who are tried and tested
in the industry. They will normally offer comprehensive cover across all
digital marketing channels and include a variety of sector specialists.
Prioritize Your Marketing Strategy
Young businesses can sometimes be put off outsourced
marketing because they're not exactly sure what needs doing. Which is precisely
why they could do with a specialist marketing strategist who will research,
develop and propose a strategic plan that is designed to meet your business
goals.
A business marketing strategy will help you to decide where
your priorities lie and how to grow your marketing activities in stages as more
funds become available. Crucially, you will have a direction you can trust, and
you should be able to free up time to allow your core team to focus on what
they love and do best.
Funding Outsourced Marketing
In-house, non-specialist marketing activity tends not to be
goal-driven. So, there is no way that anyone can measure whether or not what
they are doing is actually working. As a result, much time is spent in
unstructured activities that could be better employed elsewhere.
Outsourced marketing strategies are goal-driven. They are
created in alignment with business goals, and each target set is measurable
using data analytics. There are two advantages to this for businesses. First,
they are able to see whether marketing activity is actually achieving what it
sets out to achieve. Second, analysis of the data will show where the best
return on investment lies for your business.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Successful Outsourced Marketing
Many businesses start out using outsourced marketing in
order to stretch limited marketing budgets in their early days. They then
continue to use them even when their business is established. Outsourcing
offers instant access to marketing expertise (no need to train up a team),
comprehensive coverage of skills, and you only pay them when you need their
services.
Wondering how to outsource your marketing? Here's a
step-by-step guide:
Step One “ Start With Marketing Strategy. Invest in a
detailed marketing strategy covering, for example, your first 1 or 2 years of
business. Your strategist will carry out detailed research and provide a staged
implementation, with goals set for every activity, each one of which feeds into
your business goals.
Step Two “ Look at the Budgeting. A marketing strategy will
do two things. First it will tell you what expertise you need, and when.
Second, it will demonstrate how the marketing activities will cover costs, and
provide a profit for the business, over a specific timeframe.
Step Three “ Put Marketing Management in Place. Once your
marketing strategy and planning is in place, an outsourcing agency will be able
to project manage implementation. This offers a seamless process from one stage
of the planning to the next, with the option to pause, or halt marketing
activities at any time.
Step Four “ Regular Reporting. There's nothing subjective
about outsourced marketing success. Regular reporting will demonstrate, using detailed
data analytics, which activities are generating the most revenue. As more data
becomes available, your strategist may recommend adjusting activities to
increase their effectiveness.
Conclusion
Whatever the size of your marketing budget, outsourcing
offers businesses the opportunity to create maximum ROI, as a result of
accessing marketing experts with experience across a range of sectors. An
outsourced team offers far more than task completion; they are well placed to
develop a goal-driven strategy, implement it efficiently, and invest profits in
future campaigns.
Short Bio
Amanda Price - Digital Content Executive and Researcher
for Imagefix | Amanda joined the Imagefix team in 2019, she brought
to the business an expertise in social media, SEO, copywriting, and blogging.
