Picture this – business is booming; ROI is up tenfold since last quarter. You’ve got more leads than you can shake a pie chart at and you’ve barely had to lift a finger in the process. The secret? Outsourcing.
Outsourcing, to many, is a term that conjures up images of far-flung office workers to whom you relinquish control in order to accomplish an array of menial tasks – all while paying a pretty penny for the privilege. I’m here to tell you; that’s dead wrong.
Outsourcing applies to a diverse spectrum of services, marketing agencies included, and – as I will detail in this article – are just too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Having worked in marketing since I was old enough to recite my “CPAs” (albeit only six years ago), I’ve seen, firsthand, the benefits a solid marketing regimen can have for a business.
While my day-to-day usually involves delivering a steady stream of quality leads, from a variety of online mediums, for our clients to monetise, I got to thinking: “would I ever consider employing a marketing agency myself?” – the answer, truthfully, is it depends.
Do You Have The Time And Skillset?
As a want-to-be-entrepreneur, I like to think I get well and truly stuck in wherever I can. I’ve dabbled in nearly every area of service that PAB offers. From graphic design to data analysis; copy-writing to strategic planning (the list goes on) – and I like to think that I’m quickly becoming a well-rounded marketing mastermind, but that doesn’t mean that I would necessarily have the time to fulfill all those duties while managing a successful business.
Often people are reluctant to hand off work that they know they are perfectly qualified to complete if only they had the time. I can assure you – leveraging an ad agency means you’re smart, not incapable.
My advice? Let the specialists specialize – yourself included – and your customers will thank you for it.
Do You Have The Tools For The Job?
By working with multiple clients at any one time, marketing agencies retain the benefit of buying in bulk and are therefore able to invest in tools that otherwise may not be accessible to a smaller business.
From email systems to graphic design software, agencies have spent years selecting the very best tools to excel in their field, and that’s not to mention the cost of hiring, training and managing a well-diversified portfolio of staff.
In comparison, where a business, with a less demanding marketing schedule, may fork out large sums of cash for a resource, only to use it to a fraction of its full potential. All the tools are already at your fingertips when you choose to “go agency”, and usually with a not-so-insignificant discount in tow.
This allows agency-users alike, to pick and choose the services they require as and when they are needed, without having to worry about the few thousand pounds they spent on that all-singing all-dancing IT System they bought from “a bloke down the pub” back in 2000.
Do You Need A Fresh Perspective?
We’ve all been there. No one knows the subject matter better; you speak the lingo – you know all the jargon, but how does that compare to being able to communicate, with those not-so-clued-up customers, all the reasons they should choose your product or service?
Even the best communicators find themselves in foreign territory when talking about something they know inside and out.
Being able to speak a language that resonates with potential customers regardless of subject matter or target audience is a pivotal skill possessed by any marketing agency worth their salt.
As luck would have it, PAB happens to have that exact skill and it plays a major role in our success. Who better to give you an outsider’s perspective than a real-life outsider?
Can You Handle Seasonal Demand?
Every business has it’s busy periods as well as it’s not-so-busy periods. When these happen (and they will happen) it makes sense to react by scaling your marketing efforts accordingly. The beauty of using a marketing agency is that it grows (or shrinks) with you.
Compare that to a scenario where you’ve already hired a marketing team, invested in bespoke tools and systems and now you’re considering reigning in your budget due to a seasonal lull – what happens to all that investment? It goes to waste.
Inversely, you’re seeing the increase in revenue that a strong marketing plan will inevitably create, and you’re ready to grow your efforts to further boost the success of your business.
But wait… now you no longer have sufficient people power to be able to expand your efforts, you need to buy new tools and you’re at least a couple of weeks away from being able to act because Joyce – the only marketing director you decided to hire – is on holiday, sunning herself in Bora Bora and won’t be back until the end of the month. By that time, you might well have missed the all-important wave of consumer interest that influenced you to take a new approach in the first place.
Agencies are always on – always scalable. Working with clients big and small, at PAB all the tools are equally available and allow you to use as much (or as little) as you need to suit your budget.
Can You Afford It?
Employing an in-house marketing equipage won’t be cheap.
Firstly, you’ll need to make the decision as to how many people you should employ. A marketing programme works best when it has the attention of multiple professionals each specialised in their field and should never be a side project; burdened onto a staff member with other full-time duties.
What this staff photo looks like will differ from business to business, but we would recommend, at a minimum, hiring a copywriter, graphic designer and strategist so dust off your recruiter and get the word out there.
You might be hoping to hold out and find a wiz-kid superbrain whom already possesses all the mastery to be able to take on the project alone – in this regard PAB wishes you the best of luck and asks that you give us a call if you find them!
So far even we haven’t been able to find such a person, and if we did, we’re certain they would have a price tag to match all their wonderful skills and experience.
So… You’ve assembled your team and you’ve gathered your tools – that didn’t take long did it?
Now you have salaries to pay, holidays to honour, pensions to contribute towards, sick days to account for, mentoring, appraisals and remuneration in lieu of their hard work – You get where I’m going with this – and that doesn’t include the time it took getting your new staff members introduced to company culture and showing them the in’s and out’s that even the best professionals need when starting a new job.
Consider all those labours “somebody else’s problem” when you employ an agency.
Do You Prefer Simplicity?
Imagine, if you will, you were one of these aforementioned “do-it-yourselfers”, or at least as far as that you have hired an internal team to manage your efforts. Yes, you have the benefit of instantaneous communication (if you’re all in the same building) as well as people to hold directly accountable, but what’s a quick phone call or email between friends?
Say for example, as a business owner, you need to knock a few heads together. A deadline has been missed, your marketing programme isn’t up to scratch, or you just want to try something new. With a marketing agency, you’ll likely have a single account manager who can take your requests and do the running for you. Let’s be honest, no one like repeating themselves.
So I ask you;
Do You Need A Marketing Agency?
Ultimately, the need to recruit an agency boils down to time and resources. Unless you’re already monopolising your industry and have saturated the market, advertising is a must – that much we can all agree. Choosing to do it in-house or through outsourcing the difference between staying stationary and taking your business to the next level (We know which we’d pick.)
At PAB, we offer services ranging from traditional print, TV, and radio all the way through to emerging digital markets and more beyond. Our priority is you, and we do the work so you don’t have to.
We’d love for PAB Studios to be your marketing agency of choice and invite you to get in touch for an initial consultation free of charge and discuss your options further.
