Outsourcing certain business activities can have a huge positive impact on your business, but it must be done properly.
In this article, we discuss what you should consider when outsourcing, and why outsourcing marketing could be the best decision you make this year.
What is outsourcing?
This might sound obvious but let’s be clear. Outsourcing is about delegating and handing over certain activities to a third party. It isn’t about losing control of certain business operations.
When outsourcing, it’s important to work closely with the third party to manage the direction of the activities so that the work they do is in line with the overall business strategy. You remain in control of the process or situation but activities, including general guidance, are provided by an outside source that has expertise in that area.
Outsourcing can be done for a number of operations such as marketing, finance and bookkeeping, catering and cleaning services and while some activities such as cleaning are more of a routine activity, some activities including marketing require more strategic support to ensure the company is achieving results.
Why outsource?
Outsourcing frees up time for you and your team members. An even bigger reason to outsource is that it means handing over certain activities to experts in that field so that you can focus on what you do best.
Imagine a business owner or director spending endless hours reconciling the business accounts and managing the social media profiles for the brand. Surely, he or she would be more effective working on driving the business forward at a strategic level while outsourcing to a bookkeeper and a professional marketing agency?
Bookkeepers manage finances on a daily basis and they have the skills and expertise to manage financial activities better.
Similarly, a professional marketing agency (such as Kamreno) lives and breathes marketing on a daily basis, and has the skills and understanding to make marketing more effective.
Outsourcing means a business can be more effective AND can achieve greater business results.
Tips for outsourcing
Before outsourcing to a third party, you need to trust them and be confident that they can meet your expectations.
Make sure to check out their credentials and find the answers to questions such as “How many years of experience do they have in this area?” and “What customers have they had in the past or what reviews do they have?”.
Whoever you outsource to, they are going to learn and know more about your business over time, whether it’s your financials or your internal marketing strategy, so make sure you are confident that they are someone you can work with – and that you can trust to provide sensitive information to.
Be clear on what you want to achieve by outsourcing. When it comes to marketing, for example, there are many elements to consider such as web design, advertising, PR and so on.
Working with multiple agencies can make the process complicated and communication can become difficult. Working, however, with Kamreno as your partner means that you have a single point of contact for all of your needs.
Once you have taken on support, make sure to keep building the relationship. This ensures they are aligned with what you are trying to achieve, and that they take an active interest in your business.
The more the partnership flourishes, the more they will learn about your business. This helps them to be more effective as well as reducing the risks of any errors.
When outsourcing, take a long-term perspective. There might be some scenarios where you outsource operations for a short period of time but generally, outsourcing works best when you work with someone over longer periods of time.
Regular reviews should be put in place to make sure that everyone is aligned in terms of objectives. A quarterly or 6-monthly review is a great way to bring the team together.
Outsourcing marketing
Marketing has grown in importance and complexity in recent years. Twenty years ago, websites were in their infancy and social media didn’t exist. Phrases or words such as website marketing, hashtags, online engagement and retweets would have seemed strange to even the most knowledgeable of marketers.
Today, however, keeping up with the latest trends and technologies is challenging, Knowing what to focus on, and what gets the best results in marketing is becoming harder.
And – while this can be a real challenge, it’s also another great reason to outsource to a professional marketing agency.
At Kamreno, we are constantly in pursuit of understanding the trends and how marketing is evolving. You might not have time to stay up to date, let alone implement new practices, but working with a marketing agency means that you can be sure that your business is staying (as the cliche goes) ahead of the curve.
A professional marketing agency doesn’t just know what the latest trends are, they know the best practices for helping a brand to grow.
Businesses that try to do all of the marketing themselves can quickly get bogged down with an endless list of to-dos, unclear on what should be the top priority – and spending time learning what doesn’t work as much as what does work.
Can you imagine spending thousands of pounds and months of your time running a campaign, only to find out there was a better way to get results?
As terrible as that sounds, it’s exactly what many businesses do.
Are you ready to outsource marketing to a professional company?
By now, the benefits of outsourcing your marketing to a company that can work with you should be clear and, at Kamreno, we can help.
We take a holistic approach to marketing and provide support across the various aspects of marketing. When outsourcing your marketing, it’s easy to get bogged down working with different agencies – one for your website, one for social media marketing and so on.
At Kamreno, we are your go-to partner for all your marketing needs. You only need one point of contact and we ensure that all of your marketing activities run smoothly.
Get in touch today and let’s have a chat to see if we can work together. We would love to understand more about your business and to see how we can help!
