If you run a small business with a small marketing budget, you might be surprised to learn that your money will likely go further by outsourcing your marketing needs rather than hiring an internal marketing representative. When you outsource marketing work, you save in many ways, including lower overhead and employee costs. You also have the benefit of working with experts in their fields. Read the following analysis to decide if outsourcing your marketing needs makes sense for your business.
How Outsourcing Marketing Work Saves Money
Employees are very expensive, and it isn’t just about paying their salaries and benefits. You also have costs associated with hiring and training them. This learning curve might be steep for a marketing rep if they’re familiar with their own field but not your business’s. You also must factor in the cost of vacation time and sick leave, taxes, non-productive hours, ongoing company and compliance training, and much more. You don’t have to worry about any of these when you outsource.
In addition to saving money by hiring and maintaining fewer employees, you also save on overhead. You don’t have to worry about providing an office or materials for your marketing rep. In addition, if your business requires marketing materials to achieve its goals, you might also be able to roll those expenses into your outsourcing budget.
Especially these days, very few individuals are “jacks-of-all-trades,” or people who are experts in more than one area. A lot goes into marketing, including product design, setting prices, advertising, and promotions. By choosing to outsource marketing work, you’ll have access to specialty experts in each of these areas of the field. You’ll also avoid internal issues that inevitably result from asking too much of a single staff member.
Comparing Costs: In-House Reps Versus Marketing Agency
Costs can vary widely depending on where your company headquarters is. Still, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for market research analysts and marketing specialists is just under $66,000 per year. That’s if you only hire one marketing person, and before you add any operating or equipment costs. Once again, don’t forget to add the costs of insurance, training, taxes, retirement, and so on. These additional costs usually average at least 50% of an employee’s salary, so your total is more than likely at least $100,000 per year.
It’s more complicated to provide a hard figure for hiring a marketing agency because your needs dictate costs. For example, you may decide to hire them only for SEO services for a flat fee each month. Alternatively, you might need to use them not only for online services but promotional materials and advertising as well.
Even if you add a range of a la carte services, a marketing agency probably won’t cost more than $3,000 monthly and often significantly less. That’s markedly less expensive than hiring a marketing rep of your own.
Benefits of Using a Marketing Agency
There are many benefits of outsourcing to a marketing agency rather than handling marketing internally. One of the most important is working with experts in their areas: if you hire someone, you rely on that single person to meet all your marketing needs. With an agency, teams of experts handle each need. In addition, there are the costs of hiring an internal marketing rep, which is similar to taking on any full-time employee. Don’t forget the overhead expenses as well.
That’s not to say there aren’t downsides. One of the biggest ones is that the agency you hire won’t be as familiar with your business’s workflow and culture as an internal employee. However, the pros of using an agency far outweigh any cons.
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