Here’s Why Every Small Business Needs A Strong Marketing Team

If you have a small business you probably know that you need to market yourself well but do you know the reasons why you need a strong marketing team? Keep reading to find out.

Why Every Small Business Needs A Strong Marketing Team

Marketing is critical to overcoming the challenge of attracting new customers to your business. The question is whether you are better off doing it yourself or hiring a marketer or marketing agency. Here are a few things hiring a strong marketing team will do for your small business.

• Modernize Your Strategy - Internet search and social media networks have changed how you reach target prospects and communicate how you can help them solve their problems. Outbound marketing methods (yellow page advertisements, commercials, print ads, etc.) once brought customers to a business, but modern consumers use computers and mobile devices and expect real-time access to information to make immediate buying decisions. This means that you need an inbound marketing process that includes well-executed messaging and a website that’s easy to find and converts visitors into leads. Some tasks involved in the inbound process include:
  • Website development and redesign
  • Graphic design work
  • SEO/keyword research
  • Market research
  • Mobile marketing integration
  • Brochure development and production
  • Content development 
  • Targeted email creation
  • E-newsletters
  • Social media marketing
  • Paid advertising
  • Metrics and data analysis
  • Print marketing
  • Public relations work
  • Special events
  • Sponsorship
• Free Up Time - If you have a “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) mentality, you could try to do these tasks without the help of paid specialists. You could find and gain the knowledge to implement a modern marketing strategy, but the time and effort it would take you to successfully carry it out would impact your business. The learning curve to creating a complete and effective marketing strategy is large. If you devoted the time necessary to master all of the marketing elements, you wouldn’t have the time or energy to run your business.
• Keep Payroll Down - Do you hire employees because that’s what you have always done, or think that an outside agency is far more expensive than hiring in-house staff? The problem is that you’re probably not making an accurate comparison. If you’re using a base salary versus an hourly rate for a marketing agency and then concluding that since the hourly rate is higher, it must be the more expensive option, you’re making a mistake. You need to take into account the true costs of hiring and retaining an employee. You have to account for base salary plus expenses such as payroll taxes, health insurance contributions, retirement plan matches, vacation, and sick days. The true cost of hiring an employee can be as much as 1.25 to 1.4 times the base salary. Add in other expenses (such as the cost of recruiting and training) and the total escalates quickly.

In addition to the costs of hiring the right employee, the effective execution of many marketing tasks today requires extensive software, which means investment in the upfront purchases and annual subscriptions of graphics programs, pay-per-click management apps, business metrics software, etc. 

It would also be difficult to find one person that has all of the skills required to execute your strategy. This means that you’d still need to outsource some of these tasks to outside sources or hire more people.

• Produce Long-Term Results - Hiring a marketing agency provides substantial value when you’re focused on inbound marketing techniques. Many agencies now work have clear-out pricing structures and lower-fee marketing retainer agreements. Even though the going rate in most markets for an experienced inbound agency may seem high, compared to the opportunity cost of DIY, or the cost of hiring internal staff, it’s not. Some of the benefits of working with an experienced marketing team include:
  • Expertise with your market niche
  • Experience in executing marketing plans
  • Money savings by hiring to your specific needs
  • No employee training required
  • Immediate execution of your marketing plan (no waiting for an employee to “ramp up”)
  • No HR issues
  • No additional overhead
  • Tax deductions instead of tax liability
  • Efficiency for short-term and urgent projects
  • Freedom to focus on running operations and increasing revenue instead of getting bogged down in social media and digital marketing

Instead of asking if you can afford an experienced marketing team, ask how much you’re losing in time, money, and lost opportunity by trying to do your marketing in-house. 

If you want to know more about marketing, read our article, “Five Signs Your Small Business May Need A Growth Advisor”, or contact us.

Tags: small business, marketing team