 I know what you’re thinking, “Why is a girl who makes her living off businesses who outsource their marketing to her company telling us how to avoid outsourcing to people like her?” The truth is, not every company is set up to outsource their marketing efforts to an outside consultant. Some businesses are better run when certain tasks are outsourced, while others perform better when marketing is handled internally.
I’ve come up with a list of questions every business should ask themselves before they outsource their marketing efforts. 1. Is the reason you intend on outsourcing your marketing because you don’t know how to do it yourself or you don’t want to? 2. Do you have the knowledge to do it yourself? 3. Do you have the time to do it yourself? 4. Do your budgets allow for hiring someone internally or is outsourcing the marketing projects financially the most logical option? 5. Do you have enough work to hire someone internally or rather too much to do yourself? If you don’t want to do your own marketing that is completely understandable and your passions could probably be used elsewhere in the company such as in sales, management or training. However, if you actually want to play a part in your marketing, but simply don’t know how to do so effectively, perhaps hiring a consultant to train you is the best option. My company, Strazanac Solutions offers a service where I can come in and train you and a limited number of staff on how to effectively run certain aspects of your marketing including social media and content marketing. This gives you the tools and knowledge to do it yourself without hiring someone to fully manage your accounts. I even offer jump start services where I jump start your marketing to get it going in the right direction then train you on how to keep it heading where its supposed to go. These boost or jump start services are ideal for brands that don’t have the budget to hire a full time marketing person or the ability to outsource their marketing every month, but they do have the time to do it themselves and need a little push and guidance. Budget will always be a large factor when hiring out. Most of the time it is more cost effective to hire an outsourced marketing director to run your marketing projects than it would be for you to hire a new employee. The process of hiring employees can be expensive, time consuming, tedious and not to mention it doesn’t include the cost for training them, for background checks, company benefits and the other fees, taxes and costs associated with having employees. If budget is tight, outsourcing is often your best option. If you do have the budget to hire someone or the knowledge to do it yourself, you have to think about the amount of work and projects that are at hand. If you do have the budget to hire someone within the company, but don’t have enough work, you’ll find yourself with an employee who is costing you money even though they are not performing any work. On the other side of the fence, if you have the knowledge to do it yourself but too much work on your plate, you will find something will get neglected; either your other tasks or the marketing is going to be put to the back burner to accomplish the other. Time, in comparison to workload, is a very important factor to consider when you’re looking at hiring a consulting company or consultant. So if you have the time, knowledge and passion to do the marketing yourself then it makes complete sense to manage it yourself internally but if you don’t have one of those factors, it would make sense to bring in a consulting firm. In the case of workload, if there is not enough work for a full time employee but enough for a few hours of work a week, a consultant would also make sense for your needs. Every situation is different and a good business and marketing consultant can advise you on the best options for your business structure. Strazanac Solutions offers a variety of services from full marketing management to marketing training where you can learn to handle it yourself to everything in between. I find myself meeting with companies of all structures where some make sense for some services and other makes sense for other services. No two companies are the same, hence why no two marketing strategies and service plans are the same. My company was created to work with small and medium size businesses that don’t have the budget or workload to hire a full time marketing person, as well as the businesses that want to do it themselves but just need a push in the right direction. If you fall into any of those areas, please fill out this marketing needs survey and lets chat and see how my services can help you overcome your marketing struggles to reach your specific business goals. Comments are closed.
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