When it comes to managing your business, it’s fair to say you have a lot of work to do. And that’s just considering the products or services that you are trying to provide to your customers.
The reality in 2019 is that you are going to need to commit to just as much work with promoting your products and services online as you will in the physical world. And that means that you should consider outsourcing digital marketing to get to grips with this new market.
Within the past decade, we have witnessed online sales increase as a proportion of overall sales from 5.1% to 13% (comparing 2007 and 2017). All indicators suggest that the rise in online sales, as well as the decline in brick and mortar sales, is only going to increase in speed as time goes on.
The reality is that online sales are not going to decline. Perhaps bricks and mortar sales will level off, but online sales are here to stay.
So you should take full advantage of the high-quality digital marketing companies available. With appropriate assistance, you can grow your online revenue by a huge amount in a relatively short time.
If you are interested in using experts to expand your business online, please read on for ten reasons why it is a better idea than going at it alone.
What is Digital Marketing?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of explaining the advantages of digital marketing, we should go into a bit of detail about what exactly constitutes the phrase.
Digital marketing is an all-encompassing term that describes all professions that specialize in promoting goods and services online.
The thing is, you won’t find many companies and freelancers out there who just say that they do ‘digital marketing’. That’s because the field is so broad that virtually all digital marketers will specialize in some areas.
They could be experts at search engine optimization (SEO). Or perhaps pay-per-click (PPC) is their forte. Social media. Content creation. Lead generation. These are all just different varieties of digital marketing.
The good news is that there are many different techniques out there. This means that you can gain great success if you pick the right strategy for your business.
Knowing which one to pick is the difficult part. And that’s where outsourcing comes into the equation.
Outsourcing simply means hiring an external party to do a service on your behalf. This could be a digital marketing agency or a selection of trusted freelancers.
1. Outsourcing Digital Marketing Gives You Access to Expertise
If you hire an agency or freelancer to work on your SEO, you are gaining access to years of experience and expertise in the field.
There is simply no chance that your own efforts in-house are going to match up to the work that outsourced digital marketers are going to be able to do for you.
This has a number of implications.
Firstly, it means that they will be able to hunt down any major problems that you are having with your digital marketing campaigns. A skilled freelancer could fix an issue with your SEO keywords in hours, whilst it may take your in-house team days if they are unfamiliar with SEO.
2. Saves Internal Resources
On the face of it, diverting internal resources to focus on digital marketing is a savvy business decision. You have that intern who has all those followers on Twitter and Geoff in Accounts said that he used to do SEO in another life.
There are some problems with this approach, however.
Firstly, for each internal resource that you are assigning to assist with digital marketing, you are losing an expert in the field that you have hired them for. What would be the point in taking Geoff away from his work in Accounts, only to serve as an inefficient digital marketer?
The reality is that hiring a professional freelancer or marketing agency means that your workforce can continue concentrating on what it does best: producing your goods and services.
As long as you establish a good working relationship with your digital marketers, and they truly understand your product offering, they will do a fantastic job promoting your business.
This means that you will be able to operate your business without sacrificing resources for use in an area where the workforce may be lacking.
Even if you hire a full-time marketer for the business, there are problems too. You could arrive at a situation where the marketing professional is line-managed by someone who is not familiar with digital marketing. Not ideal.
3. All-Year-Round Marketing
Picture this. It’s the run-up to Christmas, the biggest sales period for your business. You have plenty of stock ready to make crucial revenue in the final sales quarter of the financial year.
Your in-house digital marketing professional has come up with a comprehensive marketing strategy, which you have a few questions about. When you go into the office to discuss the plan, you realize that he has gone on annual leave and won’t be back until the new year.
Unfortunately, this scenario plays out all too often when you rely on in-house marketing. And this is where outsourcing your digital marketing spend holds a key advantage.
There is no chance of being left in the lurch. Your plan will be completed and in place long ahead of any major business activity.
4. A Second Opinion on Your Company
When you are on the shop floor, it is almost impossible to take an impartial view of your business. Over the years, you will have developed strong beliefs in what is working, or needs improving.
These will all impact the perceived needs of your business when it comes to digital marketing.
However, outsourcing your digital marketing experts provides you with a unique opportunity to get a second opinion on the performance of your company.
Digital marketing agencies work with a whole host of clients of all sizes. This means that they have insight into the best practices of businesses, as well as the communications challenges that they face.
When you meet with a potential digital marketing supplier, go into the details of your business with them. Allow them to help you see things that you may not have noticed.
Having a neutral perspective of your company provides an opportunity to evaluate your entire approach. Not just to adapt your marketing tactics.
5. Ongoing Optimization and Best Practices
Digital marketing is a field that is always evolving. New technologies and methods for capturing consumer data mean that strategies and tactics are continuously improving.
This can be of great benefit to you when you outsource your digital marketing spend. You will have continuous access to the best practices of the industry.
It is much more difficult to stay up to date if your digital marketing provisions are in-house. This is because your marketers are not experiencing a multitude of cases and scenarios.
You could provide them with expensive training courses, but this too is problematic. Training is nothing like earning real experience on the job.
When you outsource your digital marketing from a high-quality agency, you are effectively paying for their built-in knowledge and experience, as well as the activities they conduct for you.
6. Cost Savings Compared to In-House
On the face of it, hiring an in-house digital marketing professional may represent a cost-saving. But this hides a simple truth about the nature of digital marketing which may cost you money further down the line.
As we mentioned earlier in the article, there are numerous specialties within the field of digital marketing. This means that even if you hire a dedicated professional, there is no guarantee that you won’t need to pay more for additional services at a later date.
Although a generalist may have good knowledge of most marketing disciplines, they may be lacking in a crucial area such as SEO or paid search. If you going to be forced to pay for a specialist in these areas, why hire an in-house marketer in the first place?
The point of this example is that in-house positions do not necessarily save you money. The larger your digital marketing requirements and budget, the more likely it is that you will need outside help.
Marketing agencies are packed full of talent from across the digital marketing landscape. They have all of the tools necessary to help run effective campaigns for your business.
Even if you only have limited marketing needs in the short-term, these are bound to increase over time.
Before you make any decision on your marketing requirements, weigh up these long-term needs closely. It should make the decision about in-house or outsourcing digital marketing a lot easier.
7. Guaranteed Return on Investment
When you work with a digital marketing agency, they will sign a contract with you that includes a number of key performance indicators (KPIs).
These are simple metrics which means that you are virtually assured of getting value for your media spend. Once the terms are agreed, a digital marketing agency will work ferociously hard to make sure they meet the targets.
Depending on the needs of your business, you could decide that ad clicks which lead to online purchases are the best KPI to focus on. Or it could be a certain number of new social media follows on your various channels.
The point is that you will be assured of results for your business. This isn’t necessarily the case with an in-house worker. Especially if they are not a specialist in the field.
On the other hand, digital marketing agencies are eager to give clients the best value possible. This is because there is so much competition in the field for agencies.
So you can rest assured that if you commit your hard-earned revenue to a digital marketing agency, you will see your investment returned to you in sales throughout the duration of the contract.
Communication is key. Talk them through your business model, and they will suggest the best KPIs to suit the needs of your business.
8. No Responsibility For Hiring Marketers
If your company has no history of working with marketers, hiring can be a serious problem. You are relying on someone to deliver expertise which you do not fully understand.
This can be a major problem for a business. You must trust an unknown person who could take advantage of the knowledge gap to land themselves a permanent contract.
And once a decision has been made and money is committed, it is hard to go back.
For this reason, outsourcing to a digital marketing agency protects you from the risks of making a sub-optimal hiring decision.
9. No Dependence On Key Staff Members
If you have one or two in-house marketing positions, these employees naturally become extremely important to your business. They know the job roles inside out and they are also closely integrated into your business.
By with importance comes dependence. And with time this can become a risk to your business.
What would happen if one of these key members of staff suddenly handed in their notice? Heaven forbid, what would happen if they both resigned weeks apart from each other?
Your digital marketing strategy would quickly fall to pieces. Your marketing expertise would instantly disappear.
Worst of all you would be forced to recruit new members of the team without the insight and knowledge of marketing that the outgoing employees would have provided.
This could be hugely problematic for your business. The reality is that this could not happen if you outsourced your marketing.
This is just another safety net that an agency can provide.
10. Access to Industry Reports
Many large marketing agencies pay vast sums to conduct research. This could be about consumer habits or best practices for marketing campaigns.
When you sign up to be a client at one of these agencies, you will gain access to these reports as part of your contract.
They can provide extremely helpful insights, which may transform your business strategies, target audience groups and other parts of your operation. This is a wonderful secret benefit of outsourcing to a quality marketing agency.
Enjoy Peace of Mind
As we have explained in this article, outsourcing digital marketing can save you time, money and effort compared to all other approaches to the field.
There is so much potential to open significant new revenue streams waiting for your business online. As long as you make the right decisions, your business could benefit from new customers and opportunities.
That said, you must make use of the right experts if your company is going to reach its potential. This is why you should contact us for a consultation on how we can take your business to the next level.
