Are you stretched beyond capacity, struggling to undertake the range of marketing-related activities essential for your business growth?
Maybe you are project managing the build of a company website, or refreshing an existing one? Sourcing copywriters for website and/or brochure content with no clear idea of how to evaluate them? Perhaps you are even writing copy yourself?!
Trying to stay on top of your social media plan activity? Struggling to find time to undertake LinkedIn networking activity?
Working long hours to put together an industry seminar or event?
When it comes to driving business growth, two common challenges faced by medium sized businesses are:
– Lack of in-house marketing expertise or
– Lack of time to allocate to marketing objectives
Marketing is not a one off event. It involves a cycle of undertaking research, formulating strategy, creating a marketing plan, and then implementing that plan to successful fruition.
To achieve your milestones, work towards longer term marketing goals, and ultimately drive business growth, it pays not to neglect your marketing activities. Weighing up the benefits of utilising an outsourced marketing team is a difficult task, so we’ve put together a few points to consider…
Cost Efficiencies
There is a common misconception that outsourced marketing is expensive. With the right partner on board, utilising an outsourced team is often more cost-effective that hiring in-house staff. The seniority and experience your business requires to formulate an effective marketing plan can involve a large financial outlay for an experienced manager or director-level marketing specialist. Add to that the cost involved in project managing the activation of that plan, and you quickly begin to see costs mount to a level that is unrealistic for a medium-sized business. With an outsourced marketing team, you get the expertise you need, in the areas you need it, for the time period that you require. You are not committed to a full-time, expensive overhead salary.
Strategic Approach
With medium-sized businesses, the easy fix is often to hire a lower-level marketing person to fulfil the ‘marketing function’ within the business. While this may work for some activities, utilising a highly experienced marketing specialist has obvious benefits when it comes to the calibre of the marketing plan produced. In short, you pay for what you get. The high-level thinking strategy behind the tactics, and the ability to make the tough decisions when it counts, will ensure that the plan you are following will give the best return.
Time
The reality is that many businesses are already flat out just managing their day-to-day activities and requirements and they don’t always have time to stop, think and plan the road ahead. An outsourced marketing team can use their expertise to research your industry and your competitors and to highlight your strengths and weaknesses. They can use this information to feed into relevant strategies and tactics to achieve a marketing plan that is personalised to your situation. They will also have the marketing resource to activate/project manage those plans to successful fruition, allowing you to focus on your own core strengths…but then to reap the benefits of a planned marketing approach.
Fresh Perspective
You understand your own business – you may even have built it up from scratch. But there is nothing as invigorating or challenging as a fresh set of eyes to look at your business from a different perspective. Draw on the experience the outsourced marketer has gained across multiple businesses and/or a diverse range of industries, and open your mind to a fresh approach. It’s also important to spend time ensuring that the person/team that you engage is the right fit for your organisation – so that you can gel with them on a more personal level and be more open to taking on board their feedback, advice and plans.
Marketing is hard…and it’s even harder without a comprehensive plan to follow. It’s often a difficult decision to ‘let go’ just a little, but if used correctly outsourced marketing gives you the expertise and experience to strategise and execute a well-thought-out marketing plan across multiple channels. The best thing is you can engage high-level marketers for as long as you need them while working within a manageable budget.
If you are short on time, or marketing is not your forte, our team of expert Energis-ers can help you accelerate your business growth.
