What to Look for When Outsourcing Your Digital Marketing

Digital marketing runs at the heart of the modern industry. Regardless of your business niche, having a digital footprint is essential to attract customers. However, it’s pretty interesting that many businesses don’t invest in digital marketing, even today.

Typically, small businesses are more likely not to invest in digital marketing. Shortage of budget and limited resources are the primary reasons they often lack an excellent team to take up the marketing job.

Outsourcing digital marketing is the best way forward for such businesses and others who prefer marketing via specialized teams. In addition, it allows business owners to focus on their core work area, so there are more chances of success.

But how do you outsource a digital marketing job? This post will talk about the essential traits that can help you earn more efficiency and return from outsourcing digital marketing.

What Does Outsourcing Mean?

When you outsource a digital marketing job, you hire a third-party marketing company and create the marketing content for your business. Digital marketing uses different modes, i.e., written or video-based marketing. So, a typical third-party company can offer a variety of services.

These services include:

• On-page SEO management
• Technical SEO
• Content management
• Link building
• Social Media management
• Pay-per-Click campaigns
• Graphic design

The most significant benefit of hiring these agencies is that they’re experts in the field. So, you can rest assured about the quality and efficiency of the marketing aspect of your business.

Considerations for Efficient Digital Marketing Outsourcing

Digital marketing is a sophisticated discipline. Therefore, some critical considerations can prevent any complications later.

So, consider the following things before you hire a third-party digital marketing company.

1. The Type of Marketing Team

We have seen a surge in the freelancing industry in the last decade. Therefore, many companies prefer freelancers to do their marketing jobs.

Freelancers provide benefits like reduced operation costs, timely delivery, and expertise. However, hiring a marketing agency has its perks too.

So, it’s a matter of choice whether you should opt for freelancers or marketing agencies.

When to Hire a Freelancer?

Hiring a freelancer is best when you pay on an hourly or project basis. If you are okay with flexible working hours and can communicate with the marketing expert at any time, then freelancers can be the ideal option.

Freelancers are generally experts in specific types of marketing. Therefore, hiring a freelancer will be the best option if you can have someone who knows the job.

When to Hire an Agency?

If you have a larger and longer project, go for agencies. Usually, agencies charge monthly and are available during business hours only. Moreover, agencies have a specialized team of professionals, so they usually work on multiple projects at a time. More importantly, there is a lot of depth and expertise on offer.

2. Types of Work to Outsource

Remember that you don’t need to outsource every type of content. Generally, most companies outsource content related to email marketing, marketing analytics, content marketing, social media marketing, etc.

It depends on how much workload you have within your company. For example, if you have people who can take up marketing roles, you can reduce the amount of work that needs to be outsourced.

3. Search in the Right Place

Perhaps the most difficult decision of all is where to search for a marketing agency? Here, platforms like LinkedIn can be ideal. But if you have personal contacts with well-known agencies, that will work too.

For freelancers, it’s best to search them on Fiverr, OnlineJobs and other freelancing sites.

Referrals play a significant part in hiring decisions. If you have a referral for an agency or freelancers, make sure to go through their current campaigns. It will help you understand whether they are suitable for the role or not.

4. Look for Experience in Relevant Industry

Experience is a critical element when outsourcing a marketing job. So, ask the candidates about samples of their previous work. Here, focus on the results that relate to your industry.

Remember, experts will always have the necessary skills in their rapporteur. For instance, if you’re hiring an SEO freelancer or agency, experienced professionals will utilize their skills to:

• Improve the existing content on your website
• Suggest some relevant keywords to incorporate
• Rank your website higher on different search engines

They will share their work portfolios to show how beneficial they can be for you. So, it’s ideal to ask for some of the client names too. This will ensure whether there will be a potential conflict of interest on the agency’s end.

Some of the things that show the expertise of an agency include:

• Recognition by previous clients
• Agency’s reputation in the industry
• Quick response time
• Handling versatile marketing jobs

5. Setting a Budget

The budget is a critical element of your outsourcing plan. It directly affects the type of services, type of company, and the amount of work you can outsource to a marketing expert. So, while planning a marketing budget, here are a few things to consider:

• The cost of in-house activities
• Possible duration of projects that will be outsourced
• Billing frequency, i.e., hourly, weekly, or monthly payments
• Potential savings from services after you outsource the job

6. Choose Relevant Communication and Task Management Tools 

Outsourcing can only help when you have multiple communication channels for smooth and timely communication. It becomes more significant when you outsource content creation for blogs and social networks.

For this purpose, you can utilize various tools and resources; for example, Slack, Skype, Zoom, Google Meet, etc. for one-to-one calls, chat, web-conferencing, file sharing, and more. Similarly, there are many online tools to help keep track of your projects, such as Google Spreadsheets, Trello, Monday, Asana, and the likes.

Make sure that the agency you’re outsourcing your digital marketing to is proficient with the chosen platform(s). They should be able to meet deadlines and respond to follow-ups on time. 

7. Give Clear Instructions

As a client, you would want to be as clear as possible. For instance, if you hire a freelancer for a content marketing job, it’s on you to provide accurate and clear instructions to your agency. In fact, it’s best to share a sample of work you expect in return.

Similarly, when you outsource lead generation, provide as much information as possible, for example:

• Demographics of your target audience
• The message, tone, writing style
• Product or service features and the way you want to project it

Clear and detailed instructions will reduce time and effort on content revisions and cut out misunderstandings during the project tenure. Moreover, always cooperate with your service provider when they ask for technical or other information about your business.

8. Monitoring and Reporting

When you work with a new team or freelancer, make sure to monitor their progress. Here, it’s best to avoid micromanaging. Keep an eye on their project delivery efficiency, communication and response time, quality of work, and creativity.

It’s also important not to overwhelm your agency through unnecessary work pressure and tight deadlines. Otherwise, it can affect the quality of services to a certain extent.

Conclusion

Outsourcing digital marketing services makes it convenient for businesses to propagate their message more effectively to their target audience. So, keeping the above considerations in mind will help you pick the right professionals to do the job for you.

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