“Do what you do best, and outsource the rest,”
When it comes to driving marketing results, should you outsource select marketing tasks to an external agency?
The answer of course depends on multiple factors and the reasons for or against outsourcing will vary depending on your size and needs.
We routinely say ‘no’ to potential work if we think a client won’t benefit from outsourcing their marketing requirements to us. Experience has shown it’s not a fix-all to generate a positive marketing ROI and you need to consider a number of factors to know if it’s going to work for everyone involved.
Which parts of your marketing function should you outsource?
You can outsource nearly every marketing channel nowadays… SEO, email marketing, paid social, design and more.
For many time-poor marketers, having specialists work on implementing their marketing strategy can make their job easier.
However, working with an agency doesn’t necessarily mean handing over your entire department and it’s fate to external people.
Here’s a guide to help you discover which parts of your marketing you should outsource, as opposed to keeping in-house.
1. You don’t have the skills to drive campaigns in-house.
SEO, paid search and paid social channels are highly technical, constantly changing and incredibly time-consuming.
These channels requires advanced knowledge and experience. It’s very rare that to find a single in-house marketing resource who would be able to master all these channels and execute campaigns efficiently.
Working with a digital marketing agency means that you will get in-depth expertise in every discipline.
The biggest benefit of using agencies however, is that we typically have 10, 15 or more similar campaigns to yours running at any one time and get incredible learnings from these, which we can then apply to your campaigns.
As specialists, we are always up-do-date on industry knowledge and trends, and already have close relationships with representatives from Google to social channels.
2. You don’t have the internal resources to meet demands.
While a multi-channel approach to marketing is considered the best to generate results, it’s not easy to juggle paid search, paid social, email marketing, display advertising and offline opportunities at once.
Time, money and energy can be better-spent outsourcing to an agency, by getting the external team to do the heavy lifting.
There are many scenarios where you need to ramp up your marketing efforts, but don’t have enough capacity to get it done:
You’re about to launch a new product or service.
Your current assets and ads are exhausted, and it’s time for a branding update / refresh.
You’re falling behind your competitors and need to compete effectively in the market.
3. You need another pair of eyes or another opinion.
You may well be standing too close to your offering to see its unique selling points and where it stands in the wider market.
Marketing at its core is about the market, not the company being marketed. Having an outsider’s perspective, together with a detailed knowledge of your offering, allows an agency to enable marketing decisions in your best interest with clarity.
Oftentimes, it helps to get a second opinion on the constant updates and changes to apps, channels and platforms.
Five signs that outsourcing your marketing is the right decision for your business.
Your marketing staff are overworked and scaling your team is a distraction or proving harder than you thought.
You have inexperienced (from a marketing perspective) staff performing your key marketing functions.
Your paid advertising is not making a dent in your bottom line.
Your current marketing creative/messaging does not resonate with your target audience.
You don’t have the time or budget to hire a full-blown in-house marketing team with all the experts you need.
