What Can A Nationwide Marketing Group Do For Me?
Maybe you’re thinking about hiring a nationwide marketing group to help promote your brand but are on the fence about if it’ll truly benefit your business. I mean, no one knows your business better than you, right? Does it make more sense to hire an in-house team that will focus solely on your company?
Hiring an in-house marketing team is certainly an option. However, there can be some serious drawbacks. Your new workforce needs space to work and a creative director to manage the team. You may encounter new HR concerns, hiring issues, ramp-up costs, and overhead. Unfortuantely, you could potentially spend your entire budget on payroll to find that your new team lacks leadership, key skill sets or the know-how to push your business to the next level. Before you know it, your in-house marketing team approaches you with a proposal to hire an external team.
Yes, these are likely situations should you choose to go with an in-house approach. Doesn’t sound too fun, does it? Instead of wasting loads of money, time, and resources on hiring your own staff, look into hiring a nationwide marketing group to help your business grow.
Keep reading to learn why hiring a marketing agency is the best way to go when scaling your business.
1. Save Money
Those who run small or medium-sized businesses understand that every dollar counts.
Budgeting for an in-house marketing team can pose some challenges. First, you need to consider full-time salaries, benefits, and onboarding. Then, consider training costs, along with other possible overhead costs.
When new employees don’t work out the way you had hoped and your marketing strategy fails, there’s a lot of expense with little return on investment. According to a study conducted by Edubirdie, the average cost of replacing a midrange employee ($30,000 to $50,000/yr) is 20% of their annual salary.
Fortunately, hiring a nationwide marketing group means not worrying about gambling on your budget.
Outsourcing saves you money on salaries and overhead. With an agency, you have the option to set a fixed price per month or per project, so there are no surprises when it comes to billing.
Another benefit to selecting an agency is that they can leverage their suppliers for better deals and have market knowledge to drive new customers and exposure. Because of this, line items like printing, advertising, media buys, etc. are all negotiable subject to the relationship your agency has with those companies.
You wouldn’t believe what some agencies can do with $2,500, $5,000 or $10,000 per month. For the cost of one art director at $120k per year, you could run a national marketing campaign that would give you 10x or more the exposure one mid-level art director would give you.
2. Access to the Latest Technology
There are literally thousands of marketing technologies available today and they are always changing. Although upgrades in software and hardware should always be considered, picking the right ones for your business is practically a job in itself.
Then once you pick them, you have to learn to use them. Education is great, but for every hour your staff is learning a new technology, it’s at an hour away from their work. This loss in productivity is compounded by their salary and the cost of training.
When you hire a nationwide marketing group, you don’t have to waste time finding the right technologies for your business. You don’t have to troubleshoot and train your staff on the latest methods, which will save you time.
Top marketing groups come fully equipped and trained with the latest premium-level software, services, and analytics. They are skilled in interpreting the data these technologies provide and are up to date on the latest trends. It’s in their best interest to be well equipped and help you make smart decisions to maximize results.
3. All-Encompassing Strategy
There are a lot of ways to get the word out about your business, which can be a blessing and a curse. From building a web presence to boosting traffic and generating quality sales leads, marketing is no longer a one-man job. A watered-down approach may result in burnt leads and lost opportunity.
A quality, full-scale marketing strategy requires a holistic team of professionals who can mesh their expertise and get the job done. These groups come with a breadth and depth of knowledge to handle everything on their own. This allows your sales team to do their job in an efficient, productive manner.
Marketing professionals are equipped to create lists of leads for your sales team to convert into sales.
4. Stay Current On the Latest Trends
Digital marketing trends are constantly changing.
Do you really want to hire an in-house marketer who has to spend part of their valuable time reading up on all the latest SEO and technology information?
National marketing agencies are always up to date on the latest trends and news. A reputable agency takes their education very seriously, so you’ll never have to worry about falling behind on the best new strategies.
5. Outside Perspective
No matter how skilled or knowledgeable you are, your perspective is still one-sided.
When you hire an agency, you get a fresh, creative perspective, as well as innovative solutions.
A good agency will sit down and ask you questions. They will find out your needs and your approaches. Then, they’ll will offer solutions based on their findings. In some cases, they might even offer these findings as a free service to develop a relationship with your company. Take them up on it! It never hurts to hear a professional’s take on your business.
6. Speak the Customer’s Language
Do you believe in your product? Do you believe the world is a better place because of your business? That’s great, but it’s not enough.
Even if your business outshines the competition, you won’t get paid for its true value until you market it in a way that’s appealing to the customer.
Businesses often make the mistake of focusing on what they offer instead of what their customers need or want to buy. (Check out this Forbes article on How Toyota failed and Best Buy succeeded)
Marketing agencies help shift the focus to the customer’s needs and wants. They specialize in understanding who is most likely to purchase your product or service. They work to understand their needs, and how your product provides a solution. They find ways to communicate that solution to your customers.
Hire a marketing team today to help you make that connection.
7. Avoid Turnover
Does your business thrive on hiring and developing new talent? If so, you may be ok with turnover. If you don’t find value in turnover, then maybe it’s wise to avoid it all together.
By hiring a national marketing group, you distance yourself from the risk and headache of turnover. Marketing agencies are in a better position to recruit solid candidates and train those new hires.
How much does employee turnover really cost?
8. Look Good On Paper
One benefit that comes with a national marketing firm is their ability to present things in a professional manner. They provide you with reports and analytics that you can use for years to come. These reports and insights help you see where you are succeeding and where your business needs improvement.
Much of what a national marketing group provides can be used by your business internally or with B2B customers as you plan and grow your business.
9. Learn About Marketing
Anytime you work with professionals, you are allowed the opportunity to learn a thing or two about what they do. Take the opportunity to sit down with your national marketing team and learn the whys and hows of what they do. Learn the lingo and analytics and pretty soon you might fashion yourself something of a marketer.
Who knows, maybe you will decide to hire the agency to help build your own internal marketing firm! Or maybe you will be content to focus that energy on your own business and let the marketers focus on theirs.
10. Increase Overall Efficiency
You may be tempted to divvy up the marketing work amongst your existing employees.
While this may seem like a good way to save some money, it’s going to cost you more in the long run.
Your staff is busy enough as it is. Dumping them with a bunch of marketing tasks they aren’t skilled at will cause burnout and decrease productivity. Even if they are skilled in theses areas, consider the time it takes to switch from one task to another. Consider the time it takes to get up to speed and be proficient in that task.
Just because your running back can catch the ball doesn’t mean you should play him as a wide receiver. Just because your first baseman can throw the ball, doesn’t mean he will do well at third base.
Help your team play to their strengths by hiring an international marketing group to work at theirs.
Outsourcing your marketing efforts helps your whole team maintain momentum in their field of expertise.
11. Play With The Big Dogs
By using the services of a nationwide marketing group, your company will be better positioned to generate leads in your current market, and expand into new markets.
Your company will also expand it’s reach by accessing the marketing firm’s existing relationships. Furthermore, a national marketing group has access to companies and opportunities you may have never heard of or considered approaching.
Something else to consider is how you appear to other businesses. There is something to be said for having a national marketing firm on retainer and the professionalism and opportunities they help bring to the table.
Hiring a Nationwide Marketing Group: The Bottom Line
When it comes down to it, we are all looking for productivity and efficiency in our businesses. You want the best return on investment with the least amount of risk.
By hiring a nationwide marketing group, all the hidden costs are managed and dispersed. Leadership and HR concerns are outsourced. Office space is outsourced. IT costs and water-cooler chit-chat doesn’t exist.
By outsourcing the negatives, you are accentuating the positives of what it means to work with a national marketing agency! Instead of taking the time and energy to build you own marketing team, you are hiring a group that is already proficient in what they do.
By knowing potential costs, you are minimizing risk and increasing efficiency, with the end goal of building productivity.
Ideally, when the marketing kicks in, you will still need to increase staff, but in positions you originally built your business around. You will be able to focus on what makes your business great!
Let you do you, and let marketing professionals do what makes them great.
Hopefully, this article has given you some insight on why it’s important to hire a marketing agency.
Contact us today if you’re ready to get started.