Small tech companies work around a very specific set of growth challenges. One of the major obstacles is marketing. Either there isn’t enough time to do it effectively or the in-house staff doesn’t have a full complement of marketing skill sets to impact growth in any measurable way.
Small tech company leaders struggle with how to drive sustainable, scalable growth within their own constraints. They wonder about having the correct resources in place to support scalability. They can also be on the line when it comes to building a marketing entity in house or outsource marketing initiatives. And what marketing skills are necessary to see continued growth of the business?
In our experience, there are a few reasons why outsourcing marketing can be the answer for growth for small tech companies and we share them with you here.
Get access to varied marketing skill sets. Even if you have an internal marketing department, chances are you don’t have the budget to hire for all the skill sets you need for effective marketing initiatives. When you outsource, you get everything you need—from strategy to execution.
After determining high-level strategies and plans, the execution of digital marketing requires specialists such as web developers, content writers, designers, videographers and more creative types. You’ll also need specialists in social media marketing, marketing automation, search engine optimisation, email marketing and more.
You simply may not have the In-house talent necessary for all these initiatives and outsourcing will be a welcome alternative for you. The key is in determining a growth strategy and then aligning with outsourced marketing sources to stay on plan.
Lower costs when outsourcing marketing. It may seem counter to typical thinking, but outsourcing marketing can lower expenses for marketing programs. Marketing companies have all the resources and skills available and they’re set up to execute easily. You can then access some services from an outsourced source and will end up spending less than if you tried to implement in house.
There is an industry benchmark that claims that you can outsource an entire marketing team for less cost than hiring one full-time marketing employee. Outsourcing gives you access to trained professionals minus overhead, on-boarding and other expenses. Even if you plan to build a marketing organisation in-house, outsourcing is a great solution until your budget catches up with your hiring plans.
Concentrate on what you do best. Once you’re in the swing of outsourcing your marketing programs, you’ll discover that you have more time to devote to what you do best. You probably started your company because of your love for technology but find yourself moving away from what you do best and enjoy the most to manage marketing programs.
Outsourcing allows you to stay in your lane when it comes to devoting time to the business and keeping track of your growth initiatives. Your company needs your vision for growth and the time spent struggling with marketing programs takes you away from your energy and plans for growth.
Trust in a team for best practices. This is in alignment with hiring outsourced talent for the varied skills. Best practices for marketing change frequently and in-house teams simply can’t keep up. When you hire experts in an outsourced situation, you’ll be confident that you’re getting best practices when it comes to all aspects of the marketing mix.
Expanding role of marketing. It used to be that a marketing department was a “nice to have” and it was a shiny toy in an organisation. It’s where the fun jobs were. My, how times have changed. Marketing now is very much a critical component of a company’s growth strategy and it is responsible for ROI as well as program initiatives. CMOs are now part of the leadership growth team and must commit to deliverables that will help move the company toward its growth goals.
Many times this line of thinking just isn’t available in an in-house staff. Outside experts, however, in an outsourced agency are current with growth thinking and can help you with the expanding role of marketing so that it can offer substantive suggestions that will pay off handsomely.
Outsourcing is a great option for those small tech companies at every phase of their growth. Just starting out, outsourcing helps expand capabilities and available skill sets for the company. As the business grows and perhaps gets an infusion of investor funding, the company has more budget to tap into more outsourced services to help grow the organisation.
But whatever the size of the business, most wise leaders want to concentrate on what they do best to grow the company and in most cases that includes outsourcing their marketing to the experts.