Shameless self-promotion is a necessary evil; it increases brand awareness, fosters brand identity, brings in more customers, and ultimately drives sales. With ever-increasing competition across so many business categories, it is more important than ever that marketing strategies be on target. But without a partner marketing company, how do you survive?
Many business owners set up tiny internal marketing departments, hoping to save time and resources. They throw every initiative at one overburdened person or a small support staff. As a result, their team becomes overwhelmed – putting a strain on resources and morale.
As the owner of a marketing company, I think back on the years of experience working within agencies and in-house teams that got me here, and the lessons learned. Using these insights, I will go through concrete reasons why it makes sense to outsource your marketing efforts to a company like ours. Then, you be the judge!
#1 Stagnating Skill Sets
Unless your budget permits, hiring an experienced team of multi-disciplinary digital marketers full-time isn’t possible. This is why many small to mid sized companies (even large ones) cut their internal teams down to a skeleton crew, or only one person. They hire an individual with the skills needed solve a momentary dilemma, and then proceed to keep that person in the same role for years.
But when the company wants to evolve and grow, it becomes apparent that the many specializations of online marketing are too complex to be fully mastered by one person. Even with a support staff, the in-house team stays locked within the channels and content they’re most comfortable with. Or, they can’t practically accomplish everything being asked of them. This impedes growth, letting competitors take the lead.
#2 Tunnel Vision
It is true that having intimate insider knowledge of your business and industry is a perk of in-house marketing teams. But, only working with one brand – your brand – results in tunnel vision, restricting creativity. This lack of outside stimulus and perspective leads to falling behind in trends, innovation, and a competitive edge. This stagnation is what motivated me to move beyond working within one brand only.
Outsourcing makes available entire teams of specialized cross-domain marketers. This could consist of paid search gurus, content champions, lead funnel fanatics and everything in between. Each expert actively works on multiple brands simultaneously, gaining diverse exposure to trends and ideas. The best part? They adapt their evolving insights to tackle new priorities and situations.
#3 Hidden Costs of Internal Teams
When an internal team hits the breaking point, many companies free up budget to hire another team member. But the real missed opportunity is in bringing on a marketing company at relatively the same cost.
In fact, dollar for dollar, the retainer cost of marketing companies may even be less than hiring a single full-tile employee. This is because there are long-term and up-front costs and resources involved in hiring added full-time employees. You need to factor in recruitment, training, benefits, and attrition costs into your direct-hire budget.
Still not convinced? Well, the average annual salary of an early to early-mid career online marketing manager comes to around $62,560. At some point, this person will need a team to manage – and hiring support staff takes time and money. This doesn’t factor in the relevant tool packages, programs, and technologies they will request to do their work efficiently.
Having run internal marketing departments myself, I know this scenario all too well. In my experience, I’ve found that external marketing companies will cost you less in the long-term, no matter the perceived upfront cost.
#4 Marketing Company Scalability
One other benefit of a marketing company is that services are scalable. Does your business need the dedicated full-time services of experts in AdWords, paid search, developing, fractional CMO, and pay-per-click all at the same time? If so, does your business have the funds to support everything at once? If not, then there’s no advantage to hire internally for these roles.
Don’t get me wrong; you will definitely need these kinds of services for a comprehensive marketing program – just not simultaneously 24/7. However, it will be hard to find an expert that is willing to work a couple hours a week. Enter marketing companies. With our extensive industry connections, we have the ability to tap into valuable experts for hours at a time, even those with full time employment.
For example, a leading expert who may be off the market may offer us an insight over coffee, or be willing to provide guidance under a narrow scope. Even if they don’t work with clients directly, they may be amenable to working with us. The result? Brands that use marketing companies get the services of expert specialists without having to hire them full-time!
#5 Platform Perks
If you are managing your own ad spend, or ordering your own CRM subscription, you could be missing out. This is because platforms often provide features or benefits to marketing companies like ours that are not available to the general public. Simply by managing portals on behalf of our clients, we have access to unreleased beta versions, reps with insider knowledge to ensure success, leverage in negotiation, advanced dashboards, and much faster customer support! These are advantages we are able to pass down to our valued clients, as an added bonus of working together. It is a win-win.
Now that you’ve seen the evidence, reach out to us! Let’s talk and discover whether partnering with our marketing company makes sense for your organization at this moment in time.
