You know, we here at Zen Media totally celebrate the entrepreneurial mindset – regardless of your company size. We understand the passion you feel for what you do. The buzz of excitement that keeps you going, even when you’re exhausted. The drive to succeed that keeps you up at night, dreaming of new ways to grow the business. We understand because we feel the same way about our own company.
But sometimes, that passionate dedication to your business can cause you to take on too much or to ask your team to take on more than they can. As an entrepreneur, you may feel that to get things done right, you need to do them yourself. Or maybe you’re just reluctant to let go of any aspect of your business or your job, loving it as much as you do.
We get it. But we also know that sometimes, outsourcing certain aspects of your business can be a smart move. Whether you’re a founder with a growing company – and a team that’s tapped out – or you’re a CMO who needs an agency to help get it all done, outsourcing your online marketing can be the way to go. So we’ve compiled a list of 25 signs that it’s time to outsource marketing. How many of them fit your current situation?
1. Your business is growing. This is a good thing, right? You must be doing something right. So why fix what ain’t broken? Precisely because you’re growing. With more customers, everyone in your company will have much more to do, so it’s only natural that your online marketing efforts would take a back seat while you’re tending to the needs of your clients. But let them sit on that backburner for too long, and you’ll soon find that your business isn’t growing quite as quickly anymore. To maintain that momentum, you’ve got to keep your online marketing efforts rolling – which is why it’s vital to have an agency on your side that can focus solely on your online marketing, getting things done no matter how swamped you are.
2. You want your business to grow more quickly. Okay, so maybe things are chugging along steadily, but you want a real infusion of growth and profit in your business. Hiring an online marketing company can help you achieve that bump in conversions. When you outsource to an agency – whose job it is to tweak every single aspect of your online presence until it gets you the results you want – you’re bound to be more successful more quickly than if you go it alone.
3. You can’t keep up the pace without losing your mind. Are you getting so busy that things are starting to fall through the cracks? Have so much on your plate that deadlines are being missed, meetings and calls are being forgotten, and you can’t even remember what it feels like to be able to make it through a day with less than ten cups of coffee? You need help. Not mental help – although that may come later if you don’t start to delegate some of the items on your to-do list. Handing your online marketing over to an expert can bring your caffeine consumption down to healthy levels again.
4. You don’t have the right skills. Dawg, we’re not sayin’ you don’t have some mad skillz! Of course you do – otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to start a successful business. But your skill set lies in the area your company specializes in, whether that’s plumbing or manufacturing toys or rescuing dogs. An online marketing agency’s skill set, on the other hand, lies in online marketing. ‘Nuff said.
5. You want to do other things with your life. Look, why did you become an entrepreneur in the first place? Was it so that you could slave away for 18 hours a day, never see your family, and end up having a heart attack before you’re 40? No! Of course not! You wanted a better life, the opportunity to captain your own ship. But if you’re bogged down taking care of everything yourself, you’ll never find the time to live the life you dreamed of.
6. You need to do other things with your time. Think back to high school economics class – remember opportunity cost? The fact that doing something can actually cost you because you could have been doing something else more profitable during that same time? Well, it’s true. If you’re spending time handling the online marketing for your company, you’re not spending that time actually providing your service to clients and making money.
7. You just need some time off. Seriously. This one may sound frivolous, but hey, think about it. When you (finally) go on vacation, who will take over your online marketing efforts for you? You can’t let them stop while you’re gone. Maybe someone else in your company can step up – but they’ve got their own work to worry about, too. Which would you rather see shortchanged? By outsourcing to a marketing company, you can rest assured that everything is still moving along swimmingly as you sip that margarita on the beach.
8. You want to focus on insights, not operations. You’re the entrepreneur! It’s your job to look at the big picture, come up with big ideas, and dream big dreams for your company. But doing that kind of thinking takes time and energy, neither of which you will have much of if you are bogged down handling day-to-day operations. Let someone else worry about actually implementing your big ideas, so you’re free to come up with even more of them.
9. You’ve begun to miss opportunities. Couldn’t attend that networking event because you had too much on your plate, eh? Had to reschedule a meeting with a potential client because of some online emergency that had to be handled immediately? Could have taken advantage of a new trend, but you were too busy to notice it until it was too late? Allowing yourself to miss business opportunities like these is not a good idea. With a marketing company handling all your website emergencies and taking note of trends before you even knew they existed, you won’t have to worry about missing opportunities anymore.
10. Your health is suffering. We’re not kidding! We know that your dedication to your company knows no bounds and that you’ll even sacrifice your health in order to see it succeed. But you don’t have to! All that stress and anxiety, insomnia, the ulcers, the headaches – it can all be soothed if you reduce the amount of work you’ve overloaded yourself with, by outsourcing to an online marketing agency.
11. You’re just starting out with social media. It can be dangerous to jump into social media for the first time without an experienced hand to guide you. This is a crucial time when strategies need to be developed and plans need to be made, and making the wrong choices can hurt your business. Getting an online marketing agency on your side can get you off to a strong start.
12. You’re disappointed with your social media marketing results. If, on the other hand, you’ve already been in the social game for a while, but aren’t seeing the results or ROI that you’d like to, a call to a marketing company is also in order. An agency can help you analyze what went wrong, and then create a strategy for success.
13. You’re shifting your company’s focus and appealing to a new market. It’s always helpful to have the voice of experience around when heading into unknown territory. You may not know yet how best to approach your new market – but an online marketing agency should have plenty of experience marketing to every demographic, and will be able to guide your strategy.
14. You don’t have time to stay up to date with all of Google’s changes. As if it wasn’t enough that you had to do your actual job, and take care of your company’s online marketing, now Google goes and changes things again?! How on earth can you possibly keep up with things if they keep changing? Well, you won’t have to worry about it at all if you’ve got an agency handling it for you. Let the company do the legwork of learning the new system, while you sit back and enjoy the results.
15. You dread writing blogs or hate putting together email newsletters. Do you get a sinking feeling when it comes time to do certain online marketing tasks? Maybe you can’t stand writing content. Or maybe you can never think of anything to say on Facebook. Why torture yourself? Outsource to an online marketing agency, and put that smile back on your face!
16. You’re always running down to the wire on deadlines. Ah, procrastination. You don’t really have time, it’s not really your forte, and you don’t really enjoy it, but it’s got to get done – so you put writing your email newsletter off until the night before it’s scheduled to go out to clients. But just as in school, procrastination leads to less than stellar work – and all-nighters are definitely not as much fun once you’re out of college! Getting an online marketing company to do the job for you will ensure much better quality work, as well as a full night’s sleep.
17. You have ideas for eBooks and white papers, but never have time to write them. You’re the idea guy or gal, remember? Of course, you have awesome ideas for useful white papers and interesting eBooks! But who has the time to stop what they’re doing, sit down for a day or so, and craft the perfect text? An online marketing company, that’s who!
18. It’s been more than a month since the last time you added a new article or blog post to your website. If you want people to find your website – which is the whole purpose of even having one, right? – then you need to be updating it continually with fresh content, ideally several times a week. If it’s been a month, that’s just too long. With an online marketing company working for you, you’re sure to have that fresh content coming in on a regular basis to maintain your Google ranking.
19. You have a few thousand dollars a month to spend on online marketing. Let’s face it. Anyone offering online marketing services for less than a couple thousand a month is basically running a scam. In order to have a team of experienced, qualified people working on your company’s online marketing, you’ll need to have a budget of at least a few thousand a month to spend on it.
20. You need the marketing expertise but don’t want to manage multiple agencies or hire multiple staff members. With an agency, you get multiple people with a varied skill set focused on driving results. The only way to do that in-house would be to hire a big team.
21. Your online marketing activities are planned and implemented only as necessary. Instead of creating a comprehensive strategy and then following through, are you just doing the bare minimum, posting only when there’s an event to let clients know about, or a sale going on? Online marketing is about developing relationships, so an approach like this won’t be nearly as successful as the holistic, strategic approach an agency will be able to take.
22. You’re simply reacting to your competitors’ marketing efforts, instead of getting ahead of the curve and setting the standard. It’s always better to be proactive than reactive. And if you set the tone for your industry online, you’ll always be seen as the leader, the best, by potential customers. Don’t let someone else steal that position just because you don’t have time to keep on top of things. Get an online marketing company to do it for you, so you can focus on actually being the leader in your industry.
23. You’ve got no time to check out your competitors. If you don’t know what your competition is doing online, you won’t be able to take advantage of their weak spots – or even point out to your customers why your online content is better or different. With an agency to take care of that for you, you’re sure to be on top of whatever the competition is doing.
24. You’re spending too much time making marketing decisions. And the worst part is that in order to make informed decisions, you’ll need to research all the options first, and then decide how each one would affect your business. A marketing agency will already be familiar with the options, cutting down on the time necessary in the decision-making process.
25. You have no unified online marketing strategy, so your company’s marketing is inconsistent. Without a strategy, your online marketing will not only be less effective, but it may also actually be harmful to your brand. Hiring an online marketing company to help you come up with the ideal strategy, and then to implement it consistently for you across the board, will solve that problem.
So, how many of these 25 signs described you? Ready to outsource marketing? If you find yourself in need of an experienced online marketing company that can help you plan and implement an online marketing strategy that’s just right for your company’s needs, give us here at Zen Media a call. We’d be happy to help you finally take that vacation and get that good night’s sleep. Heck, you’ll even be able to cut down on the coffee when we’re on the job!
