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Outsourcing can be a cost-effective and fast way to get your marketing operations moving without needing to go through a long hiring and training process. When looking for an outsourced marketing director, it is important to know what to look for and if it is the right fit for you.

What is outsourcing?

In simple terms, outsourcing means hiring a contractor rather than performing the work internally within your company. Almost all businesses outsource some services, including manufacturing, accounting, legal, HR, and marketing.

Outsourcing can save money, time, and help accomplish tasks that might be difficult to achieve in-house. However, choosing the wrong company could lock you into a contract for a service that doesn’t deliver the desired results. This document will go over when to outsource a marketing director, what to look for and the pros and cons of outsourcing.

When To Outsource A Marketing Director

Deciding whether to outsource or not is a big decision and is not always the right choice for you. Almost all companies outsource some type of marketing service at one point or another, but replacing a director or any fundamental marketing role requires specific criteria. Here are 3 indicators you can use to determine if you should outsource for a marketing director.

1. Scope Of Work

When outsourcing marketing services your options are endless. Outsourcing a role or a team generally means you are looking for someone who can work alongside your business and do various tasks just like an employee would (but better). If you are looking for a specific task to be done like lead generation or market research, it may be better for you to outsource that service rather than an entire role.On the other hand, if you have many, ever-changing tasks you want to be done, hiring an outsourced marketing role may still be on the table. In addition, you need to consider whether you want to have a multidisciplinary approach, a management approach or a specialized approach. We will get into the differences in the ‘what to look for’ section below.

2. Size Of Your Company

The size of your company is one of the biggest factors that determine if and how you will outsource a marketing director.

Many businesses prefer to hire an internal team rather than outsource, however, outsourcing solves a lot of problems for smaller businesses. If your budget for marketing salaries or outsourcing is over $350, 000, you may consider hiring an internal team instead. This number does not include ad spending or costs apart from salary. Although this figure is rough, the $350, 000 mark, or the ability to hire 5-7 high-quality marketing employees tends to be where the benefits of outsourcing a marketing role start to diminish.If this is the case, your company will likely outsource more specific and one-off tasks like videography or web design rather than whole roles. This changes, though, when we look at the next factor.

3. Temporarily Filling A Role Vs. Indefinitely Filling One

If you are just starting with building your marketing team and want to outsource your roles indefinitely, the approach will be very different than temporarily filling a role. If your business needs a temporary Marketing Director to replace one that has left or is on leave, you may want to consider outsourcing this position to an agency. Hiring a new employee can take a lot of time and resources, especially during a busy time. Outsourcing is a great option to get someone in quickly and efficiently.Hiring a marketing director, especially temporarily, can be challenging. Onboarding an agency can be easier than hiring a new employee, but it still requires some effort. If you plan to hire an employee after the agency’s contract is up, it may be counterproductive to hire an agency for less than 6 months. I recommend hiring an agency for at least 9 months before bringing someone new into the role. If that’s too long, you may want to consider outsourcing the recruitment process instead.If you don’t plan to replace the agency with a new hire, a minimum of 6 months is recommended for an outsourced marketing role.

What to look for when outsourcing a marketing director

Before we get into the pros and cons, we need to first know what to look for when hiring a marketing agency.

Make Sure They Provide The Services You Need

This sounds obvious, but when you are talking about outsourcing a whole role within your company. You want to make sure that the agency is capable of performing all the functions you need from them. If you need someone to be really good at strategy, that requires one set of skills whereas managing staff, branding and general marketing operations are all different skill sets.

Quality Is Key: Be Careful!

They say marketing is a saturated market, but in reality, it is only saturated with low-quality and low-performing freelancers and agencies. Marketing is one thing you do not want to be done incorrectly. Many people opt to go for the less expensive options out there, but 99% of the time they come out disappointed. It is better to spend more and get a return than spend less and get nothing back.

TIP: Know what a service is worth from an experienced agency. If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. On the other hand, some agencies will charge ridiculously steep prices. Do your research to find the most cost-effective option for you.How to assess for quality

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  Make sure the company you go with has an established portfolio of work under their belt and can show its results. Look for case studies or ask for their previous work
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  A high-quality marketing agency will generally write you a beautifully designed and written proposal for any deal above $40,000 annually. Some will do it for much less. Make sure the proposal is customized and not just reused every time. Agencies are moving away from proposals, so don’t assume no proposal means low quality. Instead, assume a great proposal means high quality.
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  Make sure they can answer all your questions confidently (and correctly). If the person you are talking to can’t answer your question directly, they should direct you to someone on their team who can help you find the answer.
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  Pricing. Look up industry pricing for the services you are ordering. If an agency’s pricing is way below market value, they probably are not very experienced at what they do. It is important to note that high prices don’t mean high quality, but if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
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  If a company promises they will get you to the top page of Google or that they will increase your revenue by a specific percent, run. Marketing is not so clear-cut.
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  Listen to your gut. If you feel something is off, you might be right.

Look For Additional Functionality and Flexibility

Something particularly important to know in the marketing industry is that there is way too much for one person to know. This leaves room for a lot of gaps in knowledge and expertise. A marketing director, for example, will likely be good at strategy and planning and might have an additional area they are good at like advertising for example.

What they likely won’t know is how to create or manage a functional website, how to effectively brand your company, how to run social media campaigns or do SEO. The list goes on.

• If you are starting with no marketing team, outsourcing is a cost-effective way to get all your marketing needs met, but you have to be careful not to outsource a specialized role. Find an agency that will give you access to experts in multiple areas and work alongside you to grow your business effectively. In this case, you may not want a marketing director, but rather to outsource your marketing department. Both services cost roughly the same, but with a director, you may not get access to solutions for all your needs.
• If you have a marketing team of fewer than 7 people (ish) you may be looking for something specific such as a specialization in strategy and planning, management or to fill in the gaps of your team. These are all important things that outsourcing can help with, but knowing the difference and finding the right fit for you is important.
• If you have a large team you may be looking to temporarily replace an employee to avoid long hiring processes in a busy time. Outsourcing is great for this and can really help speed things along, but it can also delay the inevitable and requires onboarding twice. Keep this in mind when deciding what is best for your company.

For these reasons, you will likely want a marketing agency that is equipped to handle all the options above and is flexible to work with. Your marketing needs will change over time so the agency must be willing to accommodate you without charging an extra fee. Many agency structures are quite rigid, although this is changing quite quickly in the market. Be aware and look for that flexibility you might need.

Ask About Integration and Communication

Integration is an issue most agencies have with their clients where the agency is removed from your operations. This can be fine for some tasks but becomes extremely dysfunctional for others. Role replacement is one of them. Look for a company that will have one or more of their specialists work with you on a day-to-day basis, use your messaging channels of choice, organizational tools and integrate seamlessly with your team. This allows them to understand your business and operate like a true employee rather than a third party.

Ask About Replacement

When outsourcing a marketing director or the whole team, it is likely at some point you will want to hire an internal employee to replace outsourced marketing roles. If you decide to do this it must be done effectively.Let’s put this in perspective. Let’s say you have an outsourced marketing director. That person, or people, will understand your business, understand what they do on a day to day, what the plan is and how to push the business forward. When you hire someone, there is a lot of information to learn.An agency should never see your staff as competition, even if they are being replaced. They should be willing to train new employees in the role, otherwise, it can leave your company starting from scratch on all your marketing projects.A good outsourcing company will train the new employees in their roles. A good marketing agency wants to see the day when you have outgrown its services. It means their job is done and they have been successful. Make sure the agency you hire has a strong system in place for training and helping their replacements thrive at your workplace.

Pros and Cons of outsourcing a marketing director:

Pros Of Outsourcing A Marketing Director

• A broader range of skills

When hiring an employee, you are stuck with the skills of only one individual. When outsourcing you can attain skills from multiple experts without the cost of hiring more than one employee.

• It allows for flexibility

Since some agencies will allow you access to experts in all fields of marketing if your needs change so can the specialists working with you.

• Hiring an agency is generally cheaper than hiring a marketing team.

For example, all companies need the skills of multiple individuals, but they don’t always need the hours of a whole team. Rather than hiring 5-10 individuals, you can hire an agency for 40 hours a week and get all the same skills for the price of hiring one employee.

Cons Of Hiring A Marketing Director:

• Onboarding your own team

If the company you are outsourcing with does not have a good process for training their replacement it can leave you either stuck with the agency or starting from scratch. A good agency will make sure to train your marketing employees as you need them.

• It means two onboarding processes for temporary work

Onboarding an outsourced director is faster than hiring someone, but it can mean that you need to onboard them plus their replacement when you are ready to hire. We recommend not outsourcing for a marketing role if you are planning to replace the agency with an internal employee within the next 9 months.

• It can be more expensive for larger companies

Marketing agencies cost more than the average employee when looking at an hourly basis. Generally, the range is similar to that of a high-end employee. While small businesses do not need to compound costs with an agency, a larger company may find it more costly to hire an agency. It would be like paying all employees in your marketing department the wage of a director.

If you are looking for a marketing director take a look at our outsourced marketing team services. If you want to learn more, feel free to book a meeting with us to discuss your needs in more detail.

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