DO I NEED MARKETING HELP?
Is It Time To Hire A Marketing Agency?
Outsourcing your marketing is a big decision. Whether you’re in the early stages of building your business or decades in, running your company is time-consuming. One of the biggest challenges of small business owners and leadership teams is getting a break from the day long enough to focus on growth, much less marketing tasks. Studies have shown that almost half of American business owners do their own marketing after hours.
If you too are spending your evenings and weekends trying to catch up on marketing for your business, maybe it’s time to outsource? You'll gain the expertise of professional marketers and free up space in your mind and day. Allowing you to spend more time doing what you do best - running your business!
The most valuable things a marketing agency can offer, aside from reclaiming some of your bandwidth, are strategy and processes. Marketing shows us two things - what works and what doesn’t. If you’re not growing, if customers aren’t pleased, or if you (and your team) are succeeding but are on the verge of burnout - a small business marketing agency can help you find the inefficiencies and build upon the successes.
The reality is, yes - you need help with your marketing. The real questions are: How much help and which agency?
How Much Help Do I Need?
The amount of help needed depends on your team, goals, and budget. Before you hire anyone to manage your marketing, it’s crucial to have an idea of where your business is headed. What are your goals? More leads - brand awareness - increase revenue - have a social following to brag about? Once you’ve defined your marketing goals, you’ll have a better idea of how to achieve them and who can help you succeed. Meeting with an agency to consult about your goals is also an option. Sometimes we have so many things rolling around in our heads, that it’s hard to articulate our goals. That’s an area we help small businesses with fairly often. Bringing a professional in during the early planning stage can help the process flow more smoothly.
Once you know your goals, you’ll want to look at your budget. Your marketing budget can often make the decision for you. Depending on your needs, you can hire an agency on retainer for about the cost of a single employee.
If your current budget is on the smaller side, a full-service marketing plan may not be feasible - but don’t give up on the project entirely. We recommend meeting with firms anyway. Be upfront about your needs and budget. A good agency will help you prioritize your goals and provide options for spacing out the projects.
And of course, if your team has the expertise (and bandwidth) required, they can absolutely work with an agency to implement strategies on digital and traditional channels. Sharing the workload can take pressure off of you and your pocketbook.
However, if your budget is more robust, full-service agreements with an agency are a great option. The agency can work with you to create effective strategies and tackle the day-to-day marketing tasks - content, social media management, ad campaigns, and everything in between. With their support, you’ll have the time to focus on other crucial aspects of your business.
Who Should I Hire?
In the end, you need a marketing solution that brings success to the business. You’ll be working with the agency day in and day out, so you want to ensure you like them. And you want to be confident that they genuinely understand your business, goals, and place in the market. Trust your instincts. You know your business better than anyone else.
When you work with a marketing agency that aligns with you, they will strengthen your business by helping you to create and update your marketing strategies and processes. They can help you develop effective ways for your business to generate and implement ideas, put plans in place to keep all the moving parts of marketing running efficiently, and build strategies for growth.