As a marketing manager, you're no stranger to the increasing importance of digital marketing in today's business landscape. With the constant string of changes and new trends online, just keeping up is a challenge. Let alone the daunting task of staying ahead of the curve and your competition.
Outsourcing your digital marketing efforts to a specialised agency (like us!) can bring several advantages. Cost savings, access to experts, improved scalability and more, just to name a few.
I might appear biased here, but stick with me as I explore the benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing. Hopefully my insights from my time client and agency side will help you make the best decision for your organisation.
1. Access to a team of experts
One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing is gaining access to a team of specialist experts.
Digital marketing agencies employ teams of professionals specialising in various fields. Rather than trying to hire a generalist with a base understanding of many areas, you can hire an agency digital marketing team.
We employ a team with specialist skills in SEO, PPC, and all the TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). This expertise ensures that your digital marketing is being implemented by specialists who can get the most from each area.
By outsourcing, you can tap into the collective knowledge of experts who are up to date with the latest trends, strategies, and tools. This enables you to stay ahead of your competition without the need to hire and train an in-house team.
Let's be honest, those unicorns are definitely rare! So you could hire an agency, or a team of specialists, which is expensive. Which brings me to the next benefit…
2. Cost savings
Outsourcing your digital marketing can lead to significant cost savings.
Hiring an in-house team can be expensive. You have the recruitment, training, salary and leave entitlements to start with, but this is just the beginning. Often when budgeting for the position, companies forget about the tools. By the time you add in a computer, camera, software, and all the web platforms they’ll need, this is a serious investment.
When you add all this up, a digital marketing agency is often actually cheaper than hiring in house.
In contrast, outsourcing eliminates these overhead costs, allowing you to allocate your budget more effectively.
Digital marketing agencies often offer flexible pricing models, such as project-based fees or monthly retainers. They can customise an option according to your specific needs and budget. This allows you to manage your marketing expenses more efficiently and achieve a better return on investment (ROI).
When I worked client-side, too often my position was budgeted for, but there wasn’t budget for the tools needed to do the job properly. It's a reality of budgets being created by people who aren't experts in digital. I take pride in ensuring that our team at Refuel aren’t in that position.
3. Scalability and flexibility
One of the primary challenges marketing managers face is the need to scale marketing efforts in response to business growth or fluctuations in demand.
With an outsourced digital marketing agency, you can quickly scale up or down your marketing campaigns, depending on your current needs.
With a retainer arrangement, you also get budget certainty. You know how much your marketing is going to cost every month, for the whole financial year, when you sign the contract. Our non-profit clients in particular love the convenience of this total budget certainty.
Agencies have the resources and expertise to manage multiple projects simultaneously, allowing you to focus on other critical business aspects. This flexibility ensures that your digital marketing strategy evolves with your organisation's goals, enabling you to achieve long-term success.
4. Time savings and increased productivity
Outsourcing your digital marketing allows you to free up valuable time, which can be used to focus on your core business.
Managing an in-house team can be time-consuming, as it requires constant supervision, training, and coordination. By entrusting your digital marketing to a specialised agency, you eliminate the need for micromanagement and can dedicate your time to more strategic tasks.
Increased productivity is another benefit of outsourcing. Since digital marketing agencies are result-oriented, they strive to deliver high-quality work on time, ensuring that your marketing campaigns run smoothly and effectively. Being external to the business, your agency can avoid getting distracted, and stay on task with your campaigns and marketing plan.
5. Access to advanced tools and technologies
We invest in the latest tools and technologies to deliver the best results for their clients. Some of our tools aren’t always affordable for some clients, but we can spread the cost over the clients that benefit from them.
We also have great relationships with partners, giving us access to the latest technology and beta functionality that our clients can’t access on their own.
By outsourcing your digital marketing, you gain access to these advanced resources, which can help optimise your campaigns, track performance, and generate valuable insights.
Using cutting-edge tools can be expensive, and maintaining them requires technical expertise. Outsourcing eliminates these concerns, as we manage all the necessary tools and software, ensuring that your campaigns benefit from the latest innovations in digital marketing.
6. Data-driven decision-making
Data is at the core of what we do, and the decisions we make. By outsourcing, you gain access to valuable insights and data analytics, which can help you make informed decisions for your marketing strategy.
Agencies track and analyse data from various channels, such as social media, website traffic, and email marketing, to identify trends and patterns. This data can help you understand your target audience's behaviour, preferences, and pain points, enabling you to tailor your marketing efforts more effectively.
We’re also adept at interpreting the data. We can use the data to understand how to improve your campaigns, and setup a structured plan to optimise and improve your marketing.
7. Consistent branding and messaging
A consistent brand message across all digital channels is crucial for building brand awareness and trust with your target audience.
Digital marketing agencies have the expertise to develop and maintain a cohesive brand identity, ensuring that your messaging remains consistent throughout your campaigns.
By outsourcing your digital marketing, you can benefit from our expertise in creating engaging and cohesive content that will strengthen your brand's online presence.
8. Improved return on investment (ROI)
By working with an experienced digital marketing agency, you can expect a higher return on investment for your marketing efforts.
We’ve already touched on the potential cost savings of outsourcing to a digital marketing agency. But we also use proven strategies and techniques to optimise your campaigns, built over hundreds (or thousands!) of clients and campaigns. This ensures that you get the most out of your marketing budget.
Additionally, agencies provide regular reports and analytics, which can help you track the performance of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions to improve ROI further. This level of accountability and transparency ensures that your marketing budget is spent wisely and delivers the best possible results for your organisation.
A good agency is here to help make your life easier, and make you look like the rock star marketing manager that you are!
9. Ongoing support and collaboration
Another advantage of outsourcing your digital marketing is the ongoing support and collaboration you'll receive from the agency.
We will continuously monitor your campaigns, provide valuable insights, and recommend adjustments to strategies as needed to achieve your marketing goals.
This ongoing relationship ensures that your digital marketing strategy remains up-to-date and adapts to the ever-changing digital landscape. It also enables you to leverage the agency's expertise for long-term success. This provides you with a trusted partner who understands your business and is invested in your growth.
10. Getting the inside line
One overlooked advantage of working with (or in!) a digital marketing agency is the sheer amount of data you have access to.
It’s a huge competitive advantage.
It helps you shortcut the process of adapting to new platforms and campaigns. Your agency can make decisions for your benefit based not just on your data, but insights from other clients.
An internal marketer at an SME will never have access to the same amount of data an established digital marketing agency will have.
Having been a client side marketer, and now running an agency for the last 6 years, it's hard to overstate just how much the data makes you better at what you do.
Conclusion
Outsourcing your digital marketing efforts can provide numerous benefits for your organisation. Cost savings, access to experts, improved scalability, and better ROI just to name a few. As a marketing manager, it's essential to consider these advantages when deciding whether to grow your in-house or work with a specialised agency.
By outsourcing your digital marketing, you can focus on your core business, while a team of experts handles your marketing campaigns. This can lead to improved efficiency, increased productivity, and long-term success for your organisation.
So, don't hesitate to explore the advantages of outsourcing and find the perfect digital marketing agency to help your business thrive. Start with us! Learn more about our services below.
