These days almost everything can be outsourced, making running a business look easy. Whilst it is not as simple as it might seem, outsourcing, indeed, can make your marketing operation much smoother and more effective. Yet, many people aim to avoid outsourced marketing services or are doing it wrong. Whether you are a small business owner, CEO of a promising start-up or a VP of marketing at a global corporation, you will definitely find at least one reason to consider outsourcing your marketing.
Cheaper Marketing Opportunities
Spoiler Alert. We will not talk or recommend using cheap marketing services or hire freelancers that promise to quadruple your revenue in a month for $25 per hour. This section is dedicated to the fact that time is money and knowledge is power.
Budget is a pain point of many businesses, and especially challenging for startups and small businesses. Marketing often becomes the most controversial aspect of running a business that doesn’t generate as much profit as desired from a top-level view.
Although many agencies and individual consultants can have relatively high rates per hour, in many cases it will be significantly cheaper than hiring someone in-house, and way more efficient than experimenting on your own. A decent digital marketing professional would ask for at least $3,000 per month for an in-house position, however, you will also have to consider taxes, pensions, insurance, and other costs related to the employment of an employee. Additionally, professional consultants and agencies have paid tools that you will have to purchase yourself. To top it off, third party service providers can have many connections that took years to establish that you simply don’t have. All in all, the same $3,000 using an outsourced agency will be significantly cheaper in the long run. Depending on your needs, the retainer can be half if not less than that while the quality of the work produced will remain the same.
Professional marketing solutions
Following up on the cost benefits of an agency vs in-house employees as outlined above, agencies, whether it is PPC, PR, SEO, Social marketing, or offline advertising, have an additional level of in-house quality control that helps to ensure the efficiency of your marketing campaign.
Although you are most likely be working with a single dedicated account manager, regardless of his or her professional experience, they will have a whole team behind them, including experienced marketers that would be very pricey to afford as direct employees. Multiply this by the number of projects and issues the agency has experienced over the years, and you will get an array of exceptional knowledge that will improve your marketing efforts while reducing various risks and issues that can be missed by a single, less experienced worker.
Timely flexibility and budget planning
Not all agencies and independent consultants are the same when it comes to flexibility and transparency. However, as a client you will ultimately still have control over your project. This means that with prior notice you can stop or pause the campaign whenever you think is necessary and resume it whenever you are ready to get going again. This is definitely not something you can do with an employee.
You can also increase or reduce the amount of hours (and therefore budget you spend) over-time, creating a marketing solution that is tailored to your specific needs. When working with agencies, in many cases, you can even request to change the account manager and getting the new person up to speed will be the responsibility of the agency.
Ultimate quality control and out-of-the-box ideas
Whether you are just starting your journey, already running marketing on you own, or even have a team working for you in-house, bringing in a fresh pair(s) of eyes can significantly increase your chances for success.
In fact, the majority of our clients do have in-house marketing managers that are simply too busy to take care of everything from A to Z, and while they are overseeing the whole marketing operation and general direction, they work with multiple agencies each specializing in their own industry.
On a higher level, if you are a business owner or a senior level manager, you might consider third party consultation for in-house quality assurance which can be also used to assess your in-house marketing performance. Some companies offer one time consultations, technical audits, monthly/quarterly/yearly progress reviews that can help streamline and fine-tune your own marketing efforts.
You get precisely what you need
Before starting to work with any third party provider, you should conduct your own research and decide on the range of services and opportunities you are interested in. However, when you have a clear vision, you can hire specifically what you need. For example, you might have a brilliant technical SEO in-house and yet he or she isn’t the strongest when it comes to creating an editorial plan. When outsourcing, you can find very specific services to complete your ultimate marketing strategy.
Outsourced marketing services can bring stability
We mentioned that outsourcing is flexible, yet it is very stable as well. Third party service providers are businesses, meaning they have their own hierarchy and professional growth. Your account manager can be promoted or get a raise with no affect on your campaign or budget. Even if a person managing your campaign leaves the agency, they will retain all data, details and knowledge to pass onto the next person.
There are also very few cases when service providers leave their clients. In general, aside from obvious contractual issues such as regular payment delays, a provider can fire a client in the following cases:
- Client behaves inappropriately – A quality agency cares about their employees and will not tolerate any sort of inappropriate behaviour towards their employees.
- A competitor offers more money – A respectful agency or individual consultant will not allow a conflict of interests. Therefore in case your competitor approaches them, they most likely will come to you explaining the situation and offer a solution. Generally, service providers value relationships with their long-standing clients, and very rarely move on to work with competitors. However, a business is still a business, and if someone else offers a deal that you are unwilling to match, you might lose your partner.
- They stopped providing services or went bankrupt – This is an extreme circumstance, but anything can happen.
Many agencies work with their clients for many years and develop strong partnerships driving results forward.
Save time with outsourcing
Although outsourced marketing services will require some time from your end to approve deliverables and set KPIs, this is undoubtedly an efficient way to have less on your plate. Less tasks and bureaucracy means more time to grow other areas and keep up with new incoming business.
Although, there are some benefits of keeping all resources within the company, outsourcing marketing services can be an excellent way to strengthen your strategy, bring new ideas, and grow your business while minimizing the amount of effort and challenges you can encounter along the way.
