The fact that almost half of businesses have outsourced marketing services says enough about their importance.
But what about outsourced strategic marketing services specifically?
An up-to-date marketing strategy is fundamental for achieving business goals, but it’s often the missing piece in a business’ marketing function. Here are 5 of the pay-offs of investing in outsourced strategic marketing support as cited by some of my clients.
1. A structured workplan
In-house junior and mid-level marketers are an incredible asset. If you’ve got some on board, you probably have a very active marketing schedule. What can be lacking is a structured marketing plan that provides the necessary direction on priorities, content production and key success measures. Usually, that will mean that the senior team will lack access to the insights they need to inform financial decisions as well.
Bringing in an outsourced or fractional marketing consultant to put that structured plan in place and coach the team in implementing it can make all the difference, as this client explains:
‘Since our marketing assistant has had the focused schedule, we’ve really gained traction. The number of web visitors has consistently increased and our online sales since the start of the year also increased significantly.’
2. A stock check of progress
Defining your marketing strategy is just the start; you need internal buy-in to make sure it’s implemented effectively. That’s where internal workshops with specific product/ service teams can help. Firstly, by taking stock of how far things have progressed as well as what’s still to do or needs to change. And secondly, by improving staff morale and team cohesion. This was a lovely bit of feedback from one of my recent workshop attendees:
‘Really useful…we can see what’s planned and how we can work together as a wider team…Feels like we are really making progress.’
After a different workshop, a participant expressed to me how pleased they were that their idea – which they’d been pushing for some time – had finally been acknowledged and worked into the action plan. Often it takes someone outside the organisation to build the case for change before it can happen.
3. Focus and clarity
Efficient marketing is as much about knowing what not to do as it is about knowing what to do. Since workloads are often stretched to the limit, bringing in someone who can concentrate your activity and concisely present the actions needed to achieve your business goals, can really pay off. As one director said:
‘the excellent grasp of our business model quickly led to a focused assessment of our needs and ultimately a plan of action that was easy to visualise and work with’.
Another client cited the value of someone else quickly being able to gain:
‘a good understanding of the business, what it was doing well and where it needed to improve.’
4. Insights to inform expansion or change
Externally led insights projects can be especially valuable for businesses when they’re looking to grow or transform their offering.
Following a persona workshop, a professional services firm I worked with said that the insightful recommendations they received:
‘helped through a period of rapid growth…to understand our ideal clients.’
A CEO of an ambitious fast-growing company also praised the output of a data gathering project as:
‘an extremely useful tool to help us inform our plans.’
5. Guidance and reassurance
Sometimes the value can be as simple as sanity checking your approach and decisions with someone impartial.
‘It’s been good to have an external perspective on the business and guidance that we’re doing things right.’
An external marketing consultant can be a flexible confidante and sounding board, challenging you to reflect and signposting you to additional activities and resources.
If you’ve already invested in outsourced marketing consultancy, some of these may resonate with you. If so, I’d love to hear your experience. If not and you’d welcome a chat to see whether your business could benefit from a strategy workshop or plan, feel free to book a free half hour consultation with me below.