I feel your pain. If you are one of the thousands of sole traders and small business owners trying to wear all caps and failing to fulfil all roles to your best ability, it may be time to outsource.

Marketing is one area of your business you probably aren’t experienced in and is a good place to start. You have a qualified accountant to do your books, right? So why would you not use a professional to review your brand and promote your business to help you grow?

If you are finding it difficult to deal with all areas of your business, you are not alone. Many business owners struggle to know when to invest in outsourcing, as they see it as an unnecessary expense when in the early phases of growth. However, get it wrong and you could risk your business stagnating, or worse, failing through lack of focus and investment in the right areas.

Outsourcing gives you the flexibility to only pay for work that needs to be done. Also, you are not having foot the tax, NI and pension contributions bill you would with an employee. You are also paying for specific expertise when you outsource, whereas if you employee a single marketing executive you will also probably the require the skills of other specialists such as a graphic designer or digital skills which an exec may lack.

Any reputable agency will spend the time getting to know your business and produce content that’s unique to you and relevant to your target audience. Some will try and fob you off with templated content – beware those who promise daily social media posts for a low fee. They will almost certainly be using library content that has been used for other clients and potentially damage your reputation rather than enhance it.

Insist on regular meetings with your chosen agency to talk though your latest business developments, goals for your marketing campaigns and keep them supplied with any unique content sources relating to your products and services to help build a successful activity plan.

Firstly, you need to think about your product or service and the combination of marketing channels you need to run. Do you sell to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B)? If for example you mainly sell products online, you’ll need an agency who is capable of running a digital programme of activity to manage your website and social media channels by implementing a strategy to drive sales to lots of new customers. 

Some agencies specialise in B2B or B2C so they can better align with your audience. If you are a service based business that relies on a longer sales cycle you should also employ an agency who can look at your existing customer communication as well as generating new business. Many companies focus so much on new lead generation marketing they lose focus of the in-life communications once they’ve made the sale and then wonder why they don’t get repeat business. Remember, it’s much easier and cheaper to retain a customer than find new ones.