Should You Hire or Rent Your Marketing?
Marketing is the lifeblood of small businesses. No matter what the business is, marketing is an never-ending cycle of attracting new attention while retaining what you already have. So what is the best way to handle marketing? Is it better to have someone in-house or is it better to hire a consultant?
Why Marketing is So Important (and Why Small Businesses Tend to Overlook It)
Many small businesses do not see marketing as a priority. After all, marketing may not their business. Selling products or providing a different type of service is what they know best.
When a business matures, growth naturally becomes stagnant, and sales slowly begin to decrease. Most business owners are so busy at this point, marketing just becomes overwhelming.
Some have been burned by a bad marketing company. Unfortunately this happens quite often with very large companies where they get lost in the shuffle or inexperienced ones not understanding the whole marketing strategy.
In the wrong hands, a marketing budget can quickly get out of hand and small businesses simply can’t afford it. This is unfortunate in so many ways.. While it does take a little time for marketing to bring in results, done correctly, you should see results fairly soon with the right person. And it shouldn’t break the bank.
Hiring In House
When you create an internal marketing position for your business, you have a dedicated person to handle all the routine chores like posting on your social media accounts, writing blogs, working on referral programs, getting reviews, working on public relations and events and so on.
Pros:
You have a dedicated person working only on your marketing.
Your employee sees first-hand how it is performing and, if they have the right experience, can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Cons:
Budget is a top concern for most companies. A full time employee requires benefits and either a salary or hourly pay.
Since business owners are not usually marketers themselves, they will not know how to hire the right person for the job or how to get them up to speed successfully..
Because your marketing employee is only working with one company (yours), they are probably not up on all the latest marketing techniques and possibilities.
Hiring a Consultant
When you hire a marketing consultant, you are looking for a strategic partner that help with your overall marketing strategy based on experience with helping multiple small businesses succeed. They are experts at defining a brand that is eye-catching and memorable, creating taglines or other memorable content to set you apart, defining your ideal lead, and optimizing your website and blogs to capture the most attention.
Pros:
A professional marketing consultant brings you the experience from successfully working with several businesses.
They are constantly learning state-of-the-art techniques to ensure your marketing is meeting the latest social media algorithms.
They are experts at visualization and creativity.
Budgeting is better because you only pay for the services you truly need and there are no employee overhead costs.
Cons
Marketers are also great at marketing themselves so choosing the wrong company can be a large waste of money.
Consultants are not employees so they only know what you tell them about your company or what they can research themselves
It may not be worth the consultant fee for someone to post your social media ads or write content.
So What’s The Solution?
Consultants can’t be your entire marketing department because they do not know all of the intricacies of your business as well as someone internally would. And your own employee may not have a good grip on the overall strategy or the experience to pull it off. The best fit for most small businesses is a combination.
At Charlotte’s Web Designs, LLC we can review your business and provide an overall marketing strategy based on your specific company’s needs and budget. Here is what is included:
Free initial consultation
Run a full website and SEO audit to see how your company is currently performing. Then research and run audits on your competition and see how they compare and find out the exact SEO and keywords they are using so that you can compete, and then excel.
Review your existing marketing strategy and performance. Make recommendations for all aspects of marketing including:
Inbound marketing (digital marketing, SEO, social media, backlinks)
Outbound marketing (press releases, print ads, radio or TV, email blasts)
Content marketing (including blog writing)
Specialized marketing (video marketing, influencer marketing)
Help you decide what can be done in-house and provide training as needed.
Give guidance on selecting a new internal marketing employee if one is to be hired.
Provide remaining services based on your needs and budget (ie. website redesign, SEO, digital advertising, blog writing, etc).
5-star Google-rated Charlotte’s Web Design, LLC is a sole proprietor web design and digital marketing firm specializing in custom, professional websites, SEO, branding, logo design, digital marketing, content writing, and graphic design with over 35 years of technology experience currently working with over a hundred small businesses. Please contact me for a free consultation.