As a business owner, you save money and make money by harnessing the power of synergy. While it makes sense to run a lean business, there are very few tools out there that do more than one thing well. Pursuing efficiency on paper – with a lower headcount and fewer partnerships – can be highly inefficient long-term.
That’s especially true for growing businesses. Too many business owners conflate “staying hungry” and going without. Business owners want to avoid adding overhead and complexity, and that’s good. But delegating key non-core functions is crucial to maximizing growth. That often calls for a mix of approaches.
Today’s savvy businesses are hiring marketing managers, consultants, and agencies.
Here’s why you should, too:
1. Marketing Consultants Are Great for Planning
Your marketing strategy goes beyond any one campaign, initiative, or tactic. To pull everything together into a cohesive whole, you need a clear and unified vision. That comes in the form of a strategic marketing plan. The strategic marketing plan clarifies your objectives, your desired future state, and how you will get there.
The strategic marketing plan requires a detailed knowledge of your business. It’s true that no one else knows as much about your company as you do. But a good marketing consultant understands how to dive into the details and use everything you share with them to the utmost. Experienced consultants are consummate planners.
What’s the alternative? Devoting all your resources to the long-term—and that simply won’t work for most enterprises. As a business owner, you know the old adage “nothing succeeds like success.” When you have momentum on your side, the last thing you want is to hinder it by losing sight of your short-term aims.
With a marketing consultant, you will never have to.
2. Internal Marketing Teams Drive Implementation
You have a plan. Now, how are you going to implement it? You might consider using freelance marketing talent, but that leads to one big sacrifice: Brand consistency. You need everyone on your team rowing the right way on your brand’s voice and message. The backbone of that effort comes from your internal marketing team.
As your boots on the ground, every day worked by an internal marketing team represents institutional wisdom that will strengthen your entire team. Any marketing plan requires hundreds of day-to-day tasks that cannot be outsourced. All of these should fall to an internal marketing team, not freelance marketers.
A fractional CMO or marketing consultant can supercharge all of your efforts by providing vision, direction, and guidance. But strategy isn’t execution and vice versa. While it may be possible your consultant has background skills in social media marketing, email marketing, and the rest, their time is valuable.
When you use your internal marketing team right, you get the most from that time.
3. Good Marketing Agencies Are Cost-Effective
There’s a limit to the utility of the internal marketing team. You find it at the top.
Ask yourself: “Why am I paying a marketing director to do things an agency can do at a fraction of the cost?”
Most marketing agencies give you access to a full portfolio of marketing services. They have highly experienced staff or vendors who specialize in each one of those areas. No matter whether they do it all in-house or have a network of vendor relationships, the deliverables you receive are always of the same excellent quality.
Making a strategic marketing plan successful has so many different requirements and moving parts, it would take a small army of internal contributors to manage a few core areas – like social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and photo or video production.
By comparison, a marketing agency accelerates it all.
By combining a marketing agency with a streamlined internal team, all under the guidance of a fractional CMO (or a marketing plan produced by one) you combine the best elements of each while leaving out all of the rest.
Are You at a Crossroads in Your Growth Journey? Now Is the Time to Professionalize Your Marketing
When you make the jump from organic growth to marketing-led growth, you only get one chance to stick the landing. Business leaders like you know how to delegate, but may have some reservations when it is time to step back as “the face of the business” and re-focus your priorities on your personal zone of genius.
The way to make that transition easier – and make this next chapter a successful one – is to start with help from a marketing consultant who can guide the development of your strategy, hiring plan, and vendor relationships.
Contact Andrew & West to find out more.
