A professional marketing strategy represents the make-or-break point for many businesses.
However, it would be naΓ―ve to ignore the enormous amount of time, energy, and money required to build in-house specialized departments. Or even to only gain the necessary skills.
Understanding how to outsource marketing online and relying on a trustworthy platform are a lifeline for increasing revenues and dealing with ever-changing economic scenarios.
Marketing Outsourcing: Types and Platforms
As of today, it is surprising how difficult it is to give a clear definition of marketing.
Potentially, marketing can involve every aspect related to the market. Thus, outsourcing marketing can include every business activity, from outreach to sales conversion.
Regardless of the specific service subcontracted, we can identify two types of outsourcing:
1. Complete: you delegate the whole marketing campaign. From planning to implementation, from lead generation to KPI analysis. It is not uncommon to refer to this type of outsourcing as white-label services. Due to its complexity and amount of required work, professional agencies or teams usually take on this type of projects.
2. Partial: you delegate one-off projects or single parts of a campaign, and it allows for maintaining a higher grade of control over the marketing activities. Depending on the workload required, it may be subcontracted to individuals.
Who can resort to online outsourcing?
You might think that only those who lack the required skills in a particular marketing field may find outsourcing beneficial. Instead, even marketing agencies themselves might find it profitable.
In the first case, outsourcing allows for obviating gaining skills. An activity that might turn out to be quite time-consuming and money-draining. In the other case, it provides specialized agencies that need more workforce with a flexible, cost-effective solution to deal with temporary workflow peaks.
How Online Platforms Can Facilitate the Process
Not only does the internet provide great business opportunities, but it can also turn traditionally expensive and complicated activities, like finding the right person or team to outsource to, into simple tasks. This is when online platforms and marketplaces get in the game.
A high-quality platform can ease the search for vetted professionals with the right set of skills, expertise, and rates. But it can also reduce the risks of dealing online by providing a reliable, demonstrable social proof.
The Legiit B2B ecosystem
Moreover, platforms like Legiit provide freelancers and agencies with even more: a whole B2B ecosystem. Like an ecosystem provides for those living in it, Legiit accompanies you all throughout the partial or complete outsourcing process. A B2B environment that comprises a diversified set of tools and resources, such as:
β’ Thriving communities like the official Facebook group or the agency-owners group.
Now, letβs see how you can break down the online outsourcing process into more digestible steps.
How to Outsource Marketing: The Whole Process
We can virtually divide the subcontracting procedure into six stages, grouped in pairs:
β’ The two initial stages are the planning steps. It is here that you decide whether to subcontract and what tasks to outsource;
β’ The two central stages are the operational steps. Here you search for the right fit and manage the partnership with the chosen professionals;
β’ The two final stages are about the assessment of the delivered service and how to gain experience and skills from the process.
Letβs dive deeper into these six steps.
Considering Outsourcing: Time, Costs, and Efficiency
Marketing is probably one of the most fast-changing industries. Keeping up with every single update of this segment can be quite challenging if you are not a marketing professional.
All-encompassing, initial considerations should take into account these four factors and related questions:
β’ Time: how long does it take to develop the skills necessary to carry out the marketing task?
β’ Additional time: by the time you gain the required skills, will the market conditions, tools, and standards change even further?
β’ Costs: how much does it cost to master the necessary competencies and tools?
β’ Efficiency: assuming you can acquire the skills, what about the expertise necessary to efficiently carry out the marketing task?
Online outsourcing provides an inexpensive, time-saving, and effective response to all these questions. It is an immediate acquisition of strategies, tools, and expertise.
To better understand the potential of online subcontracting, please note how you can outsource all these initial considerations too. The Legiit ecosystem can help those who still do not have a clear idea. A one-on-one consultation may help you better understand whether you can benefit from online outsourcing.
Figuring Out What Tasks to Outsource
Once outsourcing is considered profitable, it will be time to determine what type of projects and tasks you should subcontract.
One of its biggest pros is its complete flexibility and adaptability to the specific needs of every business owner. But first, you need to understand what you are looking for.
Associating measurable deliverbales to your needs
With marketing being hard to define, identifying what tasks to outsource can be challenging. Sometimes, as a business owner, you have a need, and all you know is that you want to satisfy it.
When outsourcing, one of the most crucial steps is turning a need into a specific service or deliverable. Letβs consider some of the most common challenges every business sooner or later faces:
β’ Social media presence: you can turn this business need into a social-media management service or a social-media content creation
β’ Local presence: this is usually a job for the GMB experts
β’ Website building: this translates into WordPress management
β’ Website organic growth: there are countless efficient SEO services, from guest posting serviceg to internal linking optimization
β’ Content marketing: depending on the type of content you are looking for, you can find plenty of logo and visual designers, content writers, or video makers and editors available
β’ Brand exposure is usually taken care of by press release writing and distribution services
β’ Sales increase might deal with lead generation, persuasive product descriptions, or highly convertitive sales copy
Identifying measurable, achievable deliverable has a significant impact later in the process when you will need to evaluate the quality of the service provided.
Partial or complete outsourcing
Once you have identified the service to outsource, it is time to decide what type of subcontracting is worth implementing.
The choice between partial or complete outsourcing draws upon two considerations.
Firstly, the skills, tools, and expertise you already own. Sometimes, the competencies already acquired allow for outsourcing only a part of the marketing campaign.
Secondly, you must consider the overall complexity of the marketing service. A service like a whole email marketing campaign (which comprises content writing, visuals, delivery system, and metric analysis) is more likely to be outsourced than others.
Allocating a budget
Establishing a budget is the most distant thing from a cookie-cutter approach there could be.
Multiple factors affect its size, like your financial means or the goal you want to achieve. Or, again, the rates of the professional to whom you subcontract.
But there are some overall considerations every business owner has to make, like:
1. Do I need a one-off project or a recurring service?
2. Does the outsourced marketing service directly generate revenues?
3. Might an increase in the budget allocation provide a decisive advantage over my direct competitors?
Fortunately, there might be some good news. The first is that, for recurring services, after the initial investment, marketing costs tend to remain constant over time. The second is that Legiit helps you find the best promos among the services offered with a discount-dedicated section.
However, sometimes you need rough esteem, especially when complex services are involved. In these cases, you can resort again to one-on-one consultations, or reach out to the communities of professionals to get a quote.
The Search for the Right Professional
It is time to embark on a journey to find the right fit for the task. Usually, online marketplaces abound with countless profiles, both individuals and teams alike.
Figuring out the right person can be overwhelming. But Legiitβs user interface is optimized to highlight the relevant factors you should look at when trying to choose your partner. Here is what to take into account:
β’ Reputation. You can easily verify this type of social proof by looking at the reviews a professional or a team has earned
β’ Deliverables. A portfolio can give a quick yet comprehensive glimpse of the professionalβs abilities and skillset
β’ Reliability. If you are on a tight schedule, the record of projects delivered on time can be a fundamental metric to take into account
β’ Specialization. With plenty of professionals with the same skillset and rates, those who already have a record in the niche you want to operate in are probably one step ahead of the others
β’ Online presence. The possibility to visit the professionalsβ social profiles is helpful for better grasping the quality of their deliverables and their attitude at work.
However, there are considerations you will be able to assess only once you reach out to the professional. Establishing communication is vital in deciding to whom you should outsource your marketing. Soft skills like the ability to resonate with the scope of your project represent an invisible yet decisive factor to consider.
Finding the right professional: three alternatives
Finding the right fit can be time-consuming. If it is true that time is money, one might want to flip the script. On Legiit, there are three viable alternative ways to let the professionals adapt their deliverables and turnarounds to your needs:
1. Reaching out to the freelancers in the marketplace and asking for a custom offer
2. Using the job-listing section of the platform. Once you set your budget and schedule, you can wait for the professionals to offer their services
3. Reaching out to the Facebook communities and asking for opinions on the best fit to whom to outsource
Managing the Partnership
Managing the partnership with the selected professional is a stage that actually begins at the very first connection.
Clearly state your expectations, the deliverables you want, and your schedule upfront. It is one of the most salient parts of the whole outsourcing process.
However, this is part of a broader issue: the peak importance of communication in online relationships. There are no sets of skills and no level of professionality that enable a freelancer to read your mind.
Keeping communication active throughout the entire partnership can make a difference. Especially for long, complex projects, it is advisable to agree on periodical updates and reports of the outsourced service.
But it is equally crucial to respect mutual boundaries: avoid micromanaging, as it may delay the job and create friction with the professionals.
Evaluating the Results
Assessing the delivery can be more complicated than you may think.
Sometimes the deliverable is a clearly defined object, such as a visual or an article. In these cases, evaluating its qualities and compliance with the businessβs needs is easy.
But sometimes, the deliverable is a service, and you must analyze the proper metrics to assess it. Most services, like SEO, automatically provide metric reports that help measure and quantify the goodness of the service delivered.
However, when the outsourced marketing service involves sales, you might want to do your own calculations.
Assessing outsourced marketing and sales: the ROI indicator
The Return On Investment indicator is a well-known parameter in marketing. It expresses the revenues obtained as a function of the investment sustained.
It is easy to calculate, as it deals with only two elements that every business owner is aware of:
(Revenues of the outsourced service β Costs of the outsourced service) / Costs of the outsourced service
With the costs corresponding to the budget previously allocated, all you need to know is the monetary amount of the sales generated. However, if you struggle with math, you can resort to a virtual assistant to have your ROIs calculated.
Expressed as a percentage, it gives a good approximation of the profitability of the outsourced services. Every marketing segment has its own ROI. Thus, the parameter also highlights if the outsourced service needs some optimization.
For example, according to Hubspot, email marketing has an impressive 3,600% ROI. It means that an optimized email-marketing campaign has the potential to generate 36$ for every dollar invested in the outsourced service.
Of course, this statistic represents an average; it can vary from niche to niche. However, an outsourced email-marketing campaign that falls behind its niche ROI might need some optimization. Or different professionals involved.
For PPC campaigns, Google and Facebook are the platforms with the highest ROIs. In this case, the ROI indicator can guide you toward the most profitable channels. Consequently, it helps you to direct your outsourcing investments.
Gaining Skills from the Process
Outsourcing marketing does not mean that you cannot eventually gain the skills.
Sometimes, being in touch with vetted professionals can bring the competencies to pass along. Especially if someone already has a bare minimum knowledge of the outsourced services.
Additionally, the same platform where the outsourcing takes place can also provide online courses. With the opportunity to build the necessary competence, they can help you start gaining the skill set of a marketing professional.
Or, again, platforms like LegiitLeads may offer online training along with the outsourced lead generation service.
Understanding that online marketing outsourcing is not a static process can change how you look at your business. Online platforms create dynamic partnerships bringing marketing knowledge and skills within everyoneβs reach.
Conclusions
The economic aftermath of the pandemic and the Great Resignation are only small parts of a broader issue. That is the constant change in the economy. And with marketing being one of the most creative and fast-changing segments, online outsourcing serves as an elixir.
With the right platform to rely on, you can Legiitmately enjoy the much-coveted flexibility of MaaS: Marketing as a Service.
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