Outsourced marketing is exactly as it sounds – outsourcing your business marketing activity to a third party. An outsourced marketing team can be used in addition to an in-house team, or it could replace the need for in-house staff entirely. In this blog post we cover the following:
- What is involved in outsourced marketing?
- Why outsource your marketing?
- What marketing activity can be outsourced?
- How much does it cost?
What is involved in outsourced marketing?
A good marketing agency will come up with a strategy before they start any activity on your behalf. Generally you would expect the process to be similar to the below.
- Understanding your business goals and auditing your current activity
- Create a strategy for achieving your goals using marketing
- Create a marketing plan detailing the marketing channels they’ll use for you to sign off
- Implement the planned activity
- Measure and report the results, adjust the strategy as necessary and plan the next phase
Why outsource your marketing?
There’s numerous reasons to outsource your marketing, but for most businesses it comes down to cost and effectiveness. Using an outsourced team can cost less and deliver better return on investment (ROI), as outsourcing generally gives you access to a wider pool of expertise.
Growing your business through marketing will require investment – this could be your time, the time of your staff or budget to outsource your marketing activity. The option that is right for your business depends on the expertise of you and your team, and your ambitions for growth. Outsourcing your digital marketing could be a huge benefit to your business – it could supercharge growth, save you time and money and help achieve a better return on your marketing investment.
Outsourcing isn’t right for every business, but it could be beneficial for you if:
You are planning for growth
Planning for business growth? Outsourcing your marketing can help you get where you want to be quicker, with less overheads than employing full time staff to cover all marketing specialisms. Outsourcing is particularly useful for businesses looking to grow as it provides more scalability and flexibility than an internal marketing team.
You want measurable ROI from your outsourced marketing investment
Outsourcing makes it easier to manage costs and the return on your investment. Because it’s easier to separate out your marketing costs, it will be much easier to see if the marketing activity is delivering a healthy return on investment. It’s also more likely to be strategic, rather than ad-hoc, which can sometimes become an issue when marketing is only done when someone has spare time.
You don’t want to commit to a long-term contract
One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your marketing is that there’s no long term commitment. Most firms operate on short or rolling contracts, so you can try out marketing activity without committing long term, allowing you to test it and see what works for your business. We would recommend trialling any marketing activity for at least six months, this allows us to get a proper understanding of your business, prepare a marketing plan and start seeing early results.
You’re not ready to employ a full-time marketer
If you’re new to marketing, outsourcing gives you an opportunity to test its effectiveness without the long-term commitment of employing a staff member. Outsourcing often costs much less than employing a full-time member of staff, yet you get the benefit of a cross section of marketing and design expertise from your outsourced team.
Outsourcing your digital marketing is a lesser commitment compared to taking on a new member of staff. If in-house staff are not required, there’s significant savings to be made on recruitment, training, office, software and equipment costs. Another key benefit of outsourced marketing is the flexibility. Expanding, or worse, decreasing the size of an in-house team is a slow and often painful process. When outsourcing, you have the ability to very quickly ramp up or down your marketing activity and spend.
You don’t have marketing expertise in-house
If your business doesn’t have the internal staff with time or expertise to manage marketing, outsourcing is a cost-effective alternative to recruitment. One of the biggest benefits of outsourced marketing is having access to an entire marketing team and the cost of that team can work out less than hiring an individual team member, who may only have one specialism. You’ll have access to specialists in marketing, design, development, SEO and PPC, all of whom have a wealth of experience getting the best results for businesses just like yours. Whether you have an internal team or not, think about what marketing skills you’re keen to bring on board.
Look for agencies that match your missing skillset, but keep an open mind: your outsourced digital marketing team may be able to bring additional expertise to your marketing that you may not have considered. Good outsourced marketing should give you access to a range of talent that you couldn’t normally afford to employ on a full time basis. With this level of expertise and experience working on your account, you can expect significant results and value for money in the early stages.
You want to run integrated campaigns
If you want to run multiple campaigns across online and offline channels, an outsourced team will deliver both at a much reduced cost. Using a team with a broad range of skills means you to launch integrated campaigns with confidence, something that is tricky to do with a smaller in-house team. If your social media isn’t working with your website, or your brochures look entirely different to your email newsletters, outsourcing it to us will mean it all works in joined up harmony.
You need extra help with certain elements of marketing
Outsourcing doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If you have some internal resource but there are elements, such as design or content creation, that it would be more effective to outsource, then our expertise would be an excellent addition to your in-house team.
You’re not doing any marketing activity
If you’re not doing any marketing activity at all, you’ll be surprised by the difference outsourcing will make to your bottom line. Outsourcing is the simplest way to give marketing a try: fixed costs, short term (six month) commitment, access to multiple skills & honest advice.
You’re not seeing any results from your current marketing activity
If your marketing isn’t working out as planned, outsourcing will give you a fresh perspective. With a clear strategy and accurate measurement of results, you’ll be able to see a true indication of your return on investment.
You’re getting no leads or sales through your website
If your website isn’t working hard enough and you’re missing out on increased online sales or leads, then outsourcing your digital marketing can help identify and convert new revenue streams.
No time to take on marketing yourself
Maybe you’ve got the know-how but time is the problem? Outsourcing is the answer to your problem. You can input into the marketing strategy then relax, knowing that the hard work is being done for you.
Your website is outdated and lacks content
Is your website showing signs of age? Maybe the design is outdated, it’s not responsive or it simply doesn’t reflect the power of your business. Outsourcing your marketing and your website to us gives power to your online presence. Poor website content makes it harder for customers to find you when they need you and it will also negatively affect search engine ranking. You’ll also be limited to what you can share on social media or in email newsletters. Worse still, there’s no way for visitors to get to know and trust you.
What marketing activity can be outsourced?
Depending on the capabilities of the agency, you can choose to outsource all or just some of your marketing activity. If you choose Cognique, you can outsource all of these marketing activities…
- Marketing Strategy
- Content Marketing
- Social Media marketing
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Email marketing
- Google Adwords & Pay Per Click
- Online and offline advertising
- Website Design and Development
How much does it cost?
The cost of outsourced marketing varies depending on how much you want to outsource and the first step is to decide your budget. Outsourcing is often very cost effective and certainly costs much less than employing marketing experts. Cognique will tailor a marketing package to fit almost any budget and advice combined with a friendly chat is always free of charge.
