get more for less with marketing

Why pay more for less? Especially when less involves more work for you, more training, more paperwork and more stress. To grow your business you might desire all the specialist marketing skills, but have the budget for only one Marketing Executive. With outsourcing, you can have a complete suite of marketing skills at your disposal. It’s the smarter way to do marketing. By James Nicholson.

If you are a B2B SME, how do you get the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to marketing? There is a point with every business that is looking to scale up, where marketing is not a want-to-have but a must-have. You know you can hire freelancers but that means managing them, so you start to look at recruiting a Marketing Executive for your team.

one skill or many?

It’s pretty much the standard approach to hire a marketing professional to join your internal team. But is this the smartest investment for marketing? If you choose to outsource your marketing you might not want to juggle freelancers, but then what if you could hire a fully managed team of specialists? It means a wealth of experience at your disposal, and a managed process – less hassle and lots of skills!. It goes without saying that we’re biased here, but for good reason!

A good marketing team is composed of multiple experts who are capable of advising you on the best marketing strategies for each business scenario and with different platforms and channels. A typical bespoke service package would include strategy, account management, social media, blogging, website development, PR and eMarketing, performed on a monthly basis. Contrast that with a single marketing hire. Whilst they are likely to have marketing credentials and training, they are just one person, perhaps with one specialism or a jack of all trades but a master of none. When outsourcing to an agency like Find Marketing, you often get up to Director level skills as standard per person.

a matter of perspective

Additionally, an outside agency with a team will add fresh, unbiased perspectives, and will reduce tunnel vision that can occur in-house. Having a fresh pair of eyes, along with a whole new set of people, a senior team, with diverse skills, will help with the revitalising kick you’ve likely been hoping for. As a contractor, results really matter, there’s no ‘feet under the table’ comfort or hiding in plain sight. Agencies can not afford to do a poor job – every client will count toward reputation. There’s no water cooler chit-chat and long breaks, it’s all business and ensuring strategies work. With an agency, you’ll have a clear, productive schedule, managed by the agency. Cross-pollination of good ideas is also something agencies do well at, they live and breathe client successes, and take lessons learned to new clients.

more time to focus on what you do best

Hiring an external agency can reduce the stresses you may have over-seeing this specialism. You can let the contracted team lift the marketing hassle off your shoulders, so you regain the time back that you need to focus on other important business processes.

For a permanent hire, you’ll need to go through a rigorous recruitment process, have a contract of employment with all the legal requirements, pension considerations, holidays and the physical space and equipment to accommodate the hire. There’s also training, sick pay, career progression and always extensive paperwork. Beyond a standard contract, if you outsource, you won’t have to worry about these requirements. You won’t find that your marketing team disappears for weeks off in the middle of a busy period for your company and you won’t need an HR department to manage the new hire for internal issues or conflicts that could cost the company dearly if there is a dispute.

adding up the difference

In the end, outsourcing is ultimately a benefit for your bottom line. Let’s take a look at how much exactly you can save from outsourcing your marketing. Let’s say your budget for a Marketing Executive is £3000 per month. Consider that £3000 a month for a single employee could instead be used for a whole marketing agency team, say, for example, five specialist skillsets. If you hired these individuals in-house – it might well elevate your wage bills for Marketing to £15k a month. Just think about that!

There is also the issue of staff turnover. If your employee decides to leave, or is asked to,  within the first five months for example, perhaps due to being a bad fit for the role, or jumping ship for a more lucrative opportunity, you would have potentially squandered up to five months salary. For the sake of argument, let’s say that amounts to £15k, plus a recruitment company’s hiring fee, which can be up to 20% of the first year’s salary – so an additional £6k – leaving you down £21k and still in need of marketing! Whilst these are all hypotheticals, you can bet this kind of scenario has played out in many companies.

the smart money on marketing 

If you outsource, you only have the standard contract of engagement, so you risk less, save time, reduce your stress and you’ll know your brand is in the hands of professionals. Outsourcing is a smart way to create your regular marketing. With reduced costs, saved time and a weight off your shoulders, it is clear why so many business owners are making the switch to an external team. Hopefully, we’ve made it clear why you should join them!

Contact us for more information or a friendly chat about how we can support your business. Or, if you want a FREE 30 minute call with Helen, Find Marketing’s Strategy Director, to discuss your marketing challenges, book time into her calendar direct here.