So you have figured out your niche and your business has become self-sustaining. You offer a great solution for your clients and now you want to grow your client base through powerful digital marketing strategies. You may be panicking thinking, “What in the world is digital marketing? How much time, energy and money will go into this? Where do I start?”
Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Digital marketing is an ever-changing field that is becoming more and more time consuming for small businesses. In essence, you have two options to get started. As a business owner, you can choose to create your own in-house marketing department or you can hire a digital marketing firm. If you choose the in-house route, you will be able to have more control, transparency, and accountability. However, those of you on a tighter schedule, who are ready for an exciting new venture, might do well with an outside hire.
Here are some of the advantages of outsourcing your digital marketing:
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Affordability
When you outsource digital marketing, the average cost will range anywhere between $1500 – $6000 per month, depending on the services provided. You generally will have an entire marketing team at your advantage. Choosing to do marketing in-house will be more expensive as you take on enough employees to create your team.
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More Tasks Completed
With a hired firm, you will have a large team devoted to your campaigns. Yes, they will also be doing work for other companies but they have streamlined their process in such a way that they are able to get many more tasks completed. The firm will be able to complete more on a monthly basis than is possible for one or more employees to do in-house. Although many digital marketing firms would have you believe that online marketing is a complicated strategy, it really isn’t. It does, however, take a lot of time to perform effectively and is loaded with simple, but time-consuming tasks. This is a huge advantage for digital marketing firms because they have the processes in place to complete tasks quickly.
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Time
Time is money. You understand this better than most. By allowing a digital marketing firm to complete these tasks for you, it opens up your time so that you can focus on other important needs for your business.
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Latest Best Practices
Although Online Marketing is simple but time-consuming, it is important to understand that Google is updating their algorithms on a regular basis. What does this mean for your marketing strategy? Well, simply put, the latest best practices have changed and will continue to change on a regular basis. It is crucial that you keep your marketing up to date with these best practices. An advantage of working with a quality digital marketing firm is that they keep up to date and shift their strategies accordingly.
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No Long-Term Commitment
Most marketing firms don’t require a long-term commitment. However, it is important to remember that online marketing tasks often take time to come to fruition. Think of marketing efforts like a bamboo tree. The tree takes time to build a solid foundation but shoots up quickly after the foundation is built. Avoid companies that require long-term contracts at the beginning. They may not be confident in their ability to deliver qualified leads.
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Larger Return On Investment
As we talked about above, the affordability of working with a quality digital marketing firm is one of the reasons you will see a larger return on your investment. Gone are the days of digital marketing firms not being able to provide proof of the return they are providing you. Your digital marketing firm should be focused on one thing and one thing alone… Increasing your return on investment. Your firm’s actions should be determined based on that one metric. All of the tasks mentioned earlier are simply a means to the end goal of providing a return.
So as you can see, there are many advantages to working with a quality digital marketing firm. Anyone can do online marketing. It isn’t complicated but it does take a lot of time and resources. That is why more and more small businesses are moving toward outsourcing their marketing through a firm.