24 Oct How outsourcing your marketing can save you money long-term
Marketing is a vital part of any small business, and most small business owners understand they need to invest in marketing if they haven’t already. While small business owners know they need marketing, many admit to being unsure how to make the right investment for their dollars. Let’s face it: Not all small businesses have the cash flow or business needs for a full time marketing employee. The good news is, in this day and age you don’t need to be able to justify a full time hire. Instead, consider outsourcing.
Outsourcing your marketing needs can save you money in the long-term for many reasons and it’s a great investment that will pay you back over time. For many small businesses with fluctuating sales goals, business objectives, and cash flow, outsourcing is a great option to get some marketing support. Here’s why:
1. Outsourcing is quicker
Hiring an agency or freelance worker takes a matter of hours, rather than weeks or days to hire an employee. Instead of going through the fuss of finding budget, putting together a job description, hiring, and then training a new employee you can outsource and hire a freelance marketer or an agency right away. All you need is to set your business goals and needs clearly and do a bit of research to find the right fit. Then, all it takes is a kickoff phone call and the agency or freelancer gets right to work. This saves you money spent on resources and lets you get to work faster to make money.
2. Outsourcing is cheaper
Having a full-time or part-time employee will cost your business more money than outsourcing long-term due to overhead needs. With an employee, you pay them salary whether or not they have a full bucket of work for them to do, and you also have to pay out vacation and health benefits. With a contractor, freelancer, or agency, none of those costs apply.
When you outsource, you can hire for project based work rather than having someone on 24/7 costing your company money. This is ideal for small businesses since the needs of a small business are often constantly changing. During slow season, you can dial down your marketing efforts and when things ramp up, you can get your agency or contractor back on to launch your next campaign or goal.
3. Outsourcing allows you to find the right expert
Outsourcing means you can hire someone based on a specific project or need, rather than hiring someone who may not have all the skills required for what you wish to accomplish. For example, if you want to get into the social media space, you can hire an agency or contractor to get everything set up and make a plan for you before passing it off to yourself or an employee to upkeep. If you need social media posting, you can even just outsource the one task to someone who knows what they’re doing and can take it off your plate worry-free.
If you want to do some ads in the paper, there’s an expert for that. SEO? Webpage development? Blog writing? There’s someone who is an expert at whatever you need available when you need them. This is ideal for small business, as you can pick up projects a la carte and optimize your spending rather than having someone on payroll who may not even be able to service all your marketing needs.
4. Outsourcing is a network
The great thing about outsourcing is that most contractors, freelancers, or agencies have networks of other professionals they can refer you to or manage for you in order to get your projects complete. This will save you money long-term as you don’t have to shop around, and many of your outsourcing contacts will likely be able to direct you to the best value option.
Think of it as having a team of people you can pull from when you need them, rather than doing everything in-house and starting cold when you have to get a project off the ground. Networking will always save you money long-term rather than hiring a stranger.
5. Outsourcing is results-focused
Since whomever you outsource to isn’t an employee of the company, they’re goal is to gain your business and ensure that you see the ROI they can give you. This means they’re extremely motivated and want to push you to consider the best options for your business. They’ll work with you on your budgets and recommend out of the box ideas, rather than getting stuck in the “this is how things are done here” mentality a lot of in-house teams can fall accustomed to.
Outsourced employees are unbiased and are more likely to speak up, suggest a new idea, and push you to try new things. This will make your business more money in the long run, and give you measurable results you can analyze in order to better spend next time.
How to start?
First, write down all of the gaps in your marketing that you would like filled. Check out some agencies, freelance networks, or ask other small businesses who they use. A few good referrals, initial calls, and a kickoff meeting later and you’ll be on your way. Start small and as you feel good about outsourcing, you will gain momentum.
Do you have any questions? Please feel to reach out!
Written by Brad Dalli
Founder and CEO of Dalli Digital
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