Here are a few indicators that it’s time to consider outsourcing some or all of your marketing:
While marketing is just one element of business growth, it is a key driver. If your marketing is not delivering then a root and branch review may be required to ensure your talking to the right people in the right way. Your marketing efforts should make it easy for customers and prospects to do business with you – only then will you see an uplift in lead generation, sales and profit margins.
Great marketing requires time and thought, two things you probably don’t have time for. Like any project, an established process leads to a better chance of success – initial brainstorming, market research, selection of strategy, detailed planning, scheduling, costing, and well delivered execution. Of more concern, an ‘on the fly’ approach to campaigns can lead to significantly wasted budget and missed opportunities, handing precious advantage over to your competitors. A marketing agency will give you the vital breathing space to think, plan and generally, get back in control.
Your approach is restricted to the methods you know best, for example, print ads in trade magazines, website banners, etc. Yet, you know there’s a world of digital and social media marketing out there and that it could be good for your business, but where to start? It is the business of marketing agencies to stay ahead of the most effective and efficient methodologies today. Your marketing partner will introduce new ideas, new channels, new ways of doing things that may just bring in a whole new wave of leads and potentially, at a much lower cost.
Even with the best planning in the world, there are periods of high workloads when anything not directly related to the sales process gets reprioritised. If marketing projects tend to drop off the list, with constant pressure on deadlines, then you probably need to look for outside help sooner rather than later. If you don’t, you’ll end up wasting valuable money, time & effort.
Unlike hard and fast sales, marketing can be more difficult to pin down in terms of results. Key is to set goals and understand how to measure activity and performance against these goals. The objective is to develop an effective sales environment through for example, building brand awareness, generating leads to your website, increasing email subscriptions or conversions on your e-commerce platform. Marketing agency’s can help you develop realistic, achievable goals, devise a workable plan with creative ideas and excellent execution, with straightforward KPI (key performance indicator) measurement. This allows you the comfort of knowing how your marketing efforts and euro’s are contributing to your business growth.
If you recognise any of these signs, then it’s probably time to get help with your marketing. Going the outsource route means you can hit the ground running with an experienced team. It’ll take a couple of months for an agency to fully understand your business but the rewards are significant. Even if outsourcing is not your long-term plan, it’s a great way to get your marketing strategy established and high-quality marketing activity up and running. And you don’t have to do everything at once – you can outsource small portions of your marketing efforts to an agency and build it up over time
Ultimately, outsourcing your marketing will give your business a swift injection of expertise and creativity and give you back the breathing space to drive your business forward.