At Strategic Marketing Services, we dedicate a lot of time to educating our clients about all aspects of small business marketing, from blogging to email marketing to videos and why it’s important to have a solid mix of marketing efforts in your overall strategy. Even with all this useful information at your fingertips, sometimes it simply makes more sense to leave the marketing to the pros. If you’re considering this big step for your small business, here are some of the benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing.

What is digital marketing and why do small businesses need it?

what is digital marketingIn the broadest definition, digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies on the Internet, through mobile phone apps, display advertising, and any other digital mediums. Digital marketing involves all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses use digital channels such as search engines, social media, email and other websites to connect with their audience. A wider variety of digital channels, however, exists outside of websites, such as mobile apps, digital television, radio, text messaging, podcasts, and even electronic billboards. Since most of your customers begin their buying process online and continue it across these digital channels, you need to identify your audience and meet them where and how they prefer. Digital marketing is a crucial component for small business marketing. The key to effective marketing is to engage with potential clients and existing clients to create meaningful interactions. This should be done across numerous marketing channels since your prospects and clients may reside and consume information in different ways on different platforms.

Digital marketing is a common strategy for today’s most successful small businesses, but few truly understand the complexities of digital marketing and how key components work together for the best results. Combine this with the fact that small business owners simply don’t have the time to commit to learning all there is to know about digital marketing, and it’s easy to see why so many don’t see great success in their efforts. At that point, it’s time to seriously consider outsourcing your digital marketing.

Why outsourcing digital marketing makes sense

When you first started your business, chances are you did it all:  sales, marketing, accounting, operations, etc. As your business grew, you likely engaged a bookkeeper to help with financials, a CPA to help with taxes, and perhaps a salesperson to help you grow the business. Why?  Because time and resources are stretched thin as businesses grow and the key to scaling is to focus on what you do well and surround yourself with people who can fill in the gaps you need help with. When it comes to marketing, that might mean hiring someone in-house to do your marketing, but that may not be the best choice. When you try to handle marketing services in-house, sometimes one marketing person is pulled in too many directions. Can one person handle social media, email marketing, content marketing, video marketing, etc. effectively and do so in a timely fashion?  That’s a lot for one person to handle!

The capacity to provide measurable results

SEOWhen you outsource digital marketing, you have access to a resource with the capacity and expertise to handle all aspects of digital marketing. Instead of incurring payroll costs, you are paying for results, which is often more affordable than paying for additional personnel. Marketing professionals are results-driven. They focus on making sure you get the results for which you pay. It is a relationship that saves you time and energy, giving you the ability to focus on running your business.

Ongoing marketing training

Most in house marketers do not have time to keep up to date on latest trends in digital and mobile marketing, let alone Google’s constant updates, changing rules for email marketing, etc. Digital marketing experts stay on top of current industry trends and strategies. A great digital marketing professional makes it their business to always be on top of trends and strategies in the industry. Part of their job is to know the latest tactics, platforms, and tools, and use that expertise to bring you the best results.  An outsourced marketing professional must improve on its ROI to provide values. When you outsource your marketing, you have less risk of your strategies stagnating or growing stale.

Giving you time to focus on your business

When you outsource your digital marketing, it gives you the time to focus on your core competency and run your business. When you do not have to focus on how to market your small business and or how to best execute an email marketing campaign, you can generate innovative ways to grow your business. Leaving the marketing strategies to the expert allows you to focus on your strategic goals and growth strategies.

 One resource for all your marketing needs

digital marketing expertiseTo launch a successful digital marketing effort in-house, you’d need to hire a marketing expert, graphic designer, copywriter, PPC campaign expert, social media expert, etc. Outsourcing your marketing needs gives you access to experts who can create and execute strategies for a monthly retainer instead of the entire overhead required to meet the payroll needs of multiple “experts”.

Access to marketing technology

Marketing technology is constantly evolving. When you outsource your digital marketing to a professional, you will have the latest update of marketing technology to run your campaigns. If you decide to invest in in-house marketing technology, a marketing expert can help train you, customized to your small business’s needs.

Outsourcing your digital marketing saves time and money, yields better results and provides you the ability to focus on growing your small business. The benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing are numerous. 2020 may be the year to take that next step to grow your business through outsourcing!

Patty Hughes
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