Chances are that if you’re reading this then you already understand the importance of marketing to your business.
And you might expect us to say emphatically ‘yes’ that you should, of course, outsource all your marketing to Ultimate Clarity!
But that would not be an objective answer and does not begin to consider that every business has different requirements.
So in attempting to give you a more balanced view, let’s start at the beginning.
Your marketing strategy – ‘doing the right things’
While this can be developed with external assistance if the skills don’t exist in-house, we are firm believers that a marketing strategy should remain under the ownership of the business owner or senior management team. It can of course be reviewed regularly with the assistance of external support, but your marketing strategy is far too important to be the responsibility of someone outside the business.
Outsourcing assistance to develop your marketing strategy is a valuable exercise, as any company offering such services should be able to guide you through the process while offering an objective viewpoint.
We use a series of strategy workshops that are constantly updated to reflect current best practice, including Chartered Institute of Marketing guidance, and we’ll always challenge you to ensure an objective viewpoint. Your view of marketing may even be changed once you’ve engaged with us!
Then there are many activities that may need market research to develop a fully informed strategy. Examples include a review of your competitors, identification of the needs and pain points of your target audience plus sector dynamics and opportunities.
And this is one area where outsourcing can be valuable as someone operating outside your business will have no preconceived ideas and the feedback will be more objective and valuable.
Ongoing marketing activities – ‘doing things right’
Many businesses struggle to give marketing their proactive attention as in some cases they have inherited the responsibility as the company has grown and it’s simply not their core focus. Or they simply lack the necessary time to do a good job.
Examples of where marketing activities can be outsourced include website development and maintenance, e-marketing, search engine optimisation, social media strategy and content writing to name just a few.
This is potentially where you will reap some of the greatest benefits by outsourcing, as your activities should be proactively driven by your support partner. They should ensure that things get done on time, to budget and then actively report results and suggest improvements. Because the core aim is to achieve ongoing improvement to drive down the cost of business acquisition.
But no matter what you decide, a core consideration is can your marketing support partner be integrated into your team so that you can work together to get the best marketing results?
“They are always proactive and drive our marketing activities as though they were their own. We are currently experiencing significant growth in the business and our marketing efforts have played an important part in this.”
Steph Mansell, Business Support Director, Mansell Finishes